English language

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English is the first Western Germanic language spoken in early medieval England and is now global lingua franca . Named after Angles, one of the German tribes who migrated to England, it eventually came from Anglia (Angeln) peninsula in the Baltic Sea. This is closely related to Frisian language, but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, especially Norse (Northern Germanic), as well as by Latin and French.

English has grown for over 1,400 years. Early English form, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to England by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, is called Old English. Central English began in the late 11th century with Norman's conquest of England and was a period in which language was influenced by French. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of printing presses to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the beginning of the Great Vowel Shift.

Through the influence of the British Empire around the world, modern English spread throughout the world from the seventeenth to the mid-20th centuries. Through all types of print and electronic media, and driven by the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, English has become the primary language of international discourse and lingua franca in many areas and professional contexts such as science, navigation, and law.

English is the world's most widely spoken language, after Standard Chinese and Spanish. This is the second most studied language and is the official language or one of the official languages ​​in nearly 60 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. English is the most commonly used language in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and it is widely spoken in some Caribbean, African and South Asian regions. This is the co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other international and regional organizations. This is the most widely used Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of the speakers of this Indo-European branch. English has a large vocabulary, although counting how many words a language lacks is impossible. English speakers are called "Anglophones".

Modern English grammar is the result of the gradual change of distinctive Indo-European patterned tagging patterns with rich inflexional morphology and relatively free word sequences for most analytic patterns with slight inflection, fairly stable SVO sequences and complex syntax. Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and wording for complex tense expressions, aspects and moods, as well as passive, interrogative and some negation constructs. Despite the striking variations between English accents and dialects used in different countries and regions - in terms of phonetics and phonology, and sometimes also vocabulary, grammar and spelling - English speakers from all over the world can communicate with each other with relative easy.

Video English language

Classification

English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the Germanic West Germanic group. Old English comes from the Germanic language and linguistic continuity along the North Sea coast, whose language is now known as the Anglo-Frisian subgroup in Western German. Thus, modern Frisian languages ​​are the closest closest relative of Modern English. Low German/Low Saxon are also closely related, and sometimes English, Frisian, and Low German are grouped together as Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic) languages, although this grouping remains debatable. Old English evolved into Central English, which later evolved into Modern English. The special dialects of Old and Middle English also evolved into a number of other Anglican languages, including Scottish and Fingalian and Forth and Bargy (Yola) extinct dialects from Ireland.

Like Iceland and Faroe, English developments in the British Isles are isolated from continental Germanic languages ​​and influences, and have since undergone substantial evolution. English is thus not mutually understood with continental Germanic languages, differing in vocabulary, syntax, and phonology, although some, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show a strong affinity with English, especially with the initial stages.

Unlike Icelandic or Faroe, the long history of the British Isles invasion by other people and languages, especially the Old Norse and Norman French, left a deep mark on their language, so English has many vocabulary and grammatical equations with many languages ​​outside the clades linguistics, while also not be understood with one of these languages. Some scholars even argue that English can be regarded as a mixed language or creole - a theory called the Central England creole hypothesis. Although the high level of influence of this language on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely recognized, most specialists in the language contact do not consider English the correct mixed language.

English is classified as Germanic because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages ​​such as Dutch, German, and Swedish. These joint innovations show that languages ​​are derived from a common ancestor called Proto-Germanic. Some common features of Germanic languages ​​include the use of capital verbs, the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, and a change of voice affecting the Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm and Verner laws. English is classed as Anglo-Frisian because Frisian and English have other features, such as consonant palatalization which is a velar consonant in Proto-Germanic (see Ancient English Phonology history Ã,§ Palatalization).

• English s i ng , s a ng , s u ng ; Dutch z i ngen , z o ng , gez o ngen ; Germany s i ngen , s a ng , ges u ngen (strong verb)
• English laughing , laughing ed ; Dutch and German lachen , lach te (weak verb)
• English feet , Dutch voet , German FuÃÆ'Ÿ , Norwegian and Swedish fot (initial < span title = "Representation in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/f/ comes from Proto-Indo-Europe * p through Grimm's law)

(Compare Latin pes , trunk ped - ; Greek Greek Russian Language

pod ; Sanskrit ??? pÃÆ'¡d )

• English cheese , Frisian tsiis ( ch and ts of palatalization ); German KÃÆ'¤se and Dutch kaas ( k without palatalization)

Maps English language

History

Proto-Germanic to Old English

The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon (about 550-1066 CE). Old English developed from a set of North Germanic Germanic dialects originally used along the coast of Frisia, Lower Saxony, Jutland, and Southern Sweden by German tribes known as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. In the fifth century, Anglo-Saxons settled in England when the Roman economy and government collapsed. In the seventh century, Anglo-Saxon Germanic became dominant in England, replacing Roman English (43-409 CE): Common Brittonic, Celtic, and Latin, brought to England by Roman occupation. English and English (originally ÃÆ' â € nglaland and ÃÆ' â € nglisc ) are named according to Angles.

Old English is divided into four dialects: the Anglican dialect, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon, Kentish and Saxon dialects of the West. Through the educational reform of King Alfred in the ninth century and the influence of the Wessex empire, the Western Saxon dialect became the standard writing variety. Epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Hymn of CÃÆ'Â|dmon , was written in Northumbrian. Modern English was developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scottish language developed from Northumbrian. Some short inscriptions from the earliest periods of Old English were written using secret manuscripts. In the sixth century, the Latin alphabet was adopted, written in the form of a half-uncial letter. That includes the secret letters wynn ? ? ? and thorns ? ÃÆ'¾ ?, and the Latin letters modified eth ? ÃÆ' Â ° ?, and ash ? ÃÆ'Â| ?.

Old English is very different from Modern English and difficult to understand by 21st century English speakers. The grammar is similar to modern German, and its closest relative is the Old Frisian. The nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many endings and forms of inflection, and the word order is much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has the form of the pronoun ( him , he , his ) and several verb endings ( I have , he has ), but Old English has a noun ending in noun as well, and the verb has more people and an end number.

The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 CE shows the final examples of cases (nominative plural, plural accusative, single genitive) and verb endings (plural now):

Foxas habbaÃÆ' Â ° holu and heofonan fuglas nest

Fox-like habb-aÃÆ' Â ° hol-u and heofon-an fugl-as nest -?

fox- NOM.PL has- PRS.PL hole- ACC.PL and heaven- GEN.SG birds NOM.PL nest - ACC.PL

"Fox has a hole and a bird's nest of heaven"

Central English

In the period from the 8th century to the 12th century, Old English gradually changed through the contact of language into Central English. Central English was often arbitrarily defined as the beginning with the English conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1200-1450.

First, the wave of Norse colonization from the northern part of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse, the Northern Germanic language. The most powerful Norse influence in the Northwest English varieties used in the Danelaw area around York, which is the center of Norse colonization; Currently these features still exist in Scotland and Northern England. But the norsified English center appears to have been in the Midlands around Lindsey, and after 920 CE when Lindsey rejoined into the Anglo-Saxon government, the Norse feature spread from there into English variations that have not been intensely associated with Norse speakers. Some of the elements of Norse influence that survive in all the current British varieties are the pronouns that begin with their th - them, they, they ) who replace the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with < i> h - ( hie, him, hera ).

With Norman's conquest of England in 1066, Old English which had long been negotiated became the subject of contact with Old Norman, a Romantik language closely tied to Modern French. Norman's English language eventually grew into Anglo-Norman. Since Norman was spoken chiefly by the elite and nobles, while the lower classes continued to speak Anglo-Saxon, Norman's influence consisted of introducing various loan words pertaining to prestigious politics, legislation and social domains. Central English also greatly simplifies the inflection system, perhaps to reconcile the Old Norse and Old English, which are inflexially different but morphologically similar. The difference between the nominative and the accusative cases is lost except in the person pronoun, the instrumental case is dropped, and the use of the genitive case is limited to describe ownership. The inflection system regulates many forms of irregular inflection, and gradually simplifies the deal system, making the word sequence less flexible. By Wycliffe Bible of the 1380s, the passage of Matthew 8:20 is written

Foxis han dennes, and bridal heuene han nestis

Here the plural -n in the verb already is still preserved, but there is no word suffix in the noun.

In the 12th century Central English was fully developed, integrating both Norse and Norman features; it continues to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Central English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales , and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing was mushrooming, and the characteristics of dialect were even used to effect by writers such as Chaucer.

Early Modern English

The next period in English history is Early Modern English (1500-1700). Early Modern English was characterized by Great Vowel Shift (1350-1700), infective simplification, and linguistic standardization.

The Great Vowel Shift affects the long, pressing vowels of Central English. It is a chain shift, which means that each shift triggers the next shift in the vocal system. The middle and open vocals are raised, and the close vowels are broken into diphthongs. For example, the word bites originally pronounced as the word bit is today, and the second vowel in the word about is pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift describes many irregularities in spelling because English stores many spellings from Central English, and it also explains why English vowels have very different pronunciations of the same letter in other languages.

English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of Henry V. Around 1430, the Chancery Court in Westminster began to use English in its official documents, and a new standard Central English form, known as the Chancery Standard, was developed from dialect London and the East Midlands. In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing his first print books in London, extending the influence of this English form. Literature from the Early Modern period includes William Shakespeare's and Bible translations commissioned by King James I. Even after the vocal shift the language still sounds different from Modern English: for example, the consonant group /kn? n sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword is still clear. Many of the grammatical features that modern Shakespeare readers may find ancient or archaic represent different characteristics of Early Modern English.

In the King James Version of 1611, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says:

The Foxes haue holes and birds from the haue ayre hive

This exemplifies the loss of cases and their impact on sentence structure (substitution in word order of Subject-Verbs, and use of of instead of genitive non-ownership), and the introduction of French loan words ( ayre ) and word replacement ( bird originally meaning "nestling" has replaced OE fugol ).

Distribution of Modern English

By the end of the 18th century, the British Empire had facilitated the spread of English through its colonial and geopolitical dominance. Trade, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contribute to English being the first real global language. English also facilitates international communications around the world. As Britain continues to form new colonies, these, in turn, become self-sufficient and develop their own norms for how to speak and write the language. English is adopted in North America, India, parts of Africa, Australasia, and many other areas. In the post-colonial period, some newly formed nations with some native languages ​​chose to continue to use English as the official language to avoid the political difficulties inherent in promoting one native language above the other. In the twentieth century the economic and cultural growth of the United States and its status as a superpower after the Second World War, along with the BBC's worldwide broadcast of the world and other broadcasters, significantly accelerated the spread of languages ​​throughout the planet.. In the 21st century, English is used more and written than any language ever.

A key feature in the early development of Modern English is the codification of explicit norms for the use of standards, and their dissemination through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his book English Dictionary which introduced a set of standard spelling conventions and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American English Dictionary in an effort to set norms for speaking and writing American English independent of the English standard. In the UK, the feature of non-standard or lower class dialect is increasingly stigmatized, leading to the rapid deployment of prestige varieties among the middle class.

In the case of grammatical evolution, modern English has now reached the stage where the disappearance of the case is almost complete (the present case is found only in pronouns, such as he and her and he , who and who ), and where the SVO word order has been largely fixed. Some changes, such as the use of support done have become universal. (Previous English does not use the word "do" as a general helper like Modern English does, initially only used in the construction of questions where it is not mandatory Now, do support with the verb have Become more standard.) The use of a progressive form in -ing , seems to be spreading to new constructions, and forms like have been built more common. Regularization of irregular shapes also gradually continues (eg dreaming instead of dreaming ), and the analytical alternative to inflectional forms becomes more common (eg more polite instead politer ). English English is also changing under the influence of American English, fueled by the strong presence of American English in media and prestige associated with the US as a world power.

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Geographic distribution

By 2016, 400 million people speak English as their first language, and 1.1 billion speak as a secondary language. English is probably the third largest language with number of native speakers, after Mandarin and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers may depend on the estimates used, becoming the most commonly used language in the world. English is spoken by communities on every continent and in oceanic islands in all the great oceans.

The countries in which English is spoken can be grouped into different categories by how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" nations with many native speakers of English have international written standard of English and together influence the English speaking norms around the world. English does not belong to only one country, and it does not belong solely to the descendants of British settlers. English is the official language of countries inhabited by some descendants of native English speakers. It is also the most important language of international communication when people who do not have a native language meet anywhere in the world.

Three circles of English-speaking countries

Braj Kachru distinguishes countries where English is used with a three-circle model. In its model, the "inner circle" countries are countries with large native English-speaking communities, the "outer circle" of countries has small communities of native speakers of English but the widespread use of English as a second language in education or broadcasting or for local official destinations, and "circle expansion" countries are countries where many learners learn English as a foreign language. Kachru based his model on the history of how English spreads in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of use of English in every country. All three circles change membership over time.

Countries with large communities of native English speakers (inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speak English, and South Africa, where significant minorities speak English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), Britain (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million ). million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, native-born children learn English from their parents, and other locals who speak other languages ​​or new immigrants learn English to communicate in their environment and workplace. The countries in the circle provide the basis from which English spreads to other countries in the world.

Estimates of the number of English speakers who are both languages ​​and foreign language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over 1,000 million depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguis David Crystal estimates that native speakers now exceed the number of native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In the Kachru three-circle model, the "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines, Jamaica, India, Pakistan, Singapore and Nigeria with far proportions smaller than native speakers of English but many use English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and where English is routinely used for school instruction and official interaction with government.

These countries have millions of native dialects of continua dialects ranging from English-based creole to more standard English versions. They have more English speakers who acquire English in the process of growing through everyday use and listening to broadcasts, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. English varieties studied by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents can be influenced, especially in their grammar, by other languages ​​spoken by the learners. Most of these types of English include words that are little used by native English speakers in the countries in the circle, and they may have grammatical and phonological differences from the varieties in the circle as well. The standard English of the countries in the circle is often taken as the norm for the use of English in the outer ring countries.

In the three-circle model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as foreign languages ​​form a "growing circle". The difference between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language is often debated and may change in certain countries from time to time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries in Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is almost universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use places them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and the "growing circle". English is not uncommon among the world's languages ​​in how many users are not native speakers, but English speakers as a second language or a foreign language.

Many english users in widespread circles use it to communicate with others from developing circles, so interaction with native speakers of English has no role in their decision to use English. Non-native English varieties are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one of these varieties often face features of other varieties. Very often today conversations in English anywhere in the world may include no native speakers of English at all, even when including speakers from several different countries.

Pluricentric English

English is pluricentric, which means no national authority sets the standard for language use. But English is not a fragmented language, although the old joke originally associated with George Bernard Shaw that the United Kingdom and the United States are "two countries separated by the same language". Spoken English, for example English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are also set by adat rather than by rules. International broadcasters can usually be identified as coming from one country over another through their accents, but newsreader scripts are also mostly written in internationally written English. Standard written English standards are maintained purely by the consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without oversight by governments or international organizations.

American listeners are generally easy to understand most of the English broadcasts, and English listeners easily understand most of the American broadcasts. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programs, television programs, and movies from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both English standard and non-standard varieties may include formal or informal styles, differentiated by word choice and syntax and using technical and non-technical registers.

The history of settlements from English-speaking inner circle countries outside the UK helped to differentiate dialect levels and result in a form of English that is coinizing in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without an English ancestor quickly adopted the English language upon arrival. Now the majority of the population of the United States is a monolingual English speaker, although English has been given official status by only 30 of the 50 US state governments.

English as global language

English has ceased to be "English" in the sense that it belongs only to people who are ethnically English. The use of English develops from country to country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many English speakers in Africa have become part of the Afro-Saxon language community that unites Africans from various countries.

When decolonization took place throughout the British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonists often did not reject English but continued to use it as independent states governing their own language policy. For example, the English view among many Indians has shifted from associating it with colonialism to link it to economic progress, and English continues to be the official language of India. English is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the United States and Britain. But English is rarely spoken as the first language, whose numbers are only about a few hundred thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people speaking or understanding English than any other country in the world, but the number of English speakers in India is very uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more English speakers than India.

Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is also regarded as the first world language. English is the world's most widely spoken language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international agreement, the basis for required sea language that is controlled by Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as an international language of shipping and aviation. English is used to have parity with France and Germany in scientific research, but now dominates that field. This reached parity with French as the diplomatic language of the Versailles Negotiation Agreement in 1919. By the time of the founding of the United Nations at the end of World War II, English had become a pre-eminent and now the main language worldwide. diplomacy and international relations. It is one of the six official languages ​​of the United Nations. Many other international organizations in the world, including the International Olympic Committee, determine English as the working language or official language of the organization.

Many regional international organizations such as the European Free Trade Association, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have established English as the working language of their own organizations even though most of the members are not native-majority countries. English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate one of the national languages ​​as the official language of the Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organizations.

Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language. In EU countries, English is the most widely used foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (ie, countries other than England, Ireland and Malta). In an official Eurobarometer poll of 2012, 38 percent of EU respondents outside the country where English is the official language say they can speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The most common foreign language called, France (which is the most familiar foreign language in the UK and Ireland), can be used in conversations by 12 percent of respondents.

Knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 are written in English, as are 90 percent of all articles in the publication of the natural sciences in 1996 and 82 percent of articles in the publication of the humanities of 1995.

English-specific subsets appear spontaneously in the international community, for example, amongst international business people, as auxiliary language. This has led some experts to develop English language studies as an additional language. Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words with the highest use in international business English) in combination with standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English.

Improved use of English globally has influenced other languages, leading to some English words assimilated into the vocabulary of other languages. This English influence has caused concern about the death of language, and claims of linguistic imperialism, and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; but the number of speakers continues to increase as many people around the world think that English gives them a chance to get better jobs and a better life.

Although some scholars cite the possible future differences of the English dialect into an unintelligible language, most think the more likely outcome is that English will continue to function as a language of coinization in which the standard form brings together speakers from all over the world. English is used as a language for wider communication in countries around the world. So English has evolved around the world using more of the built language that is proposed as an additional international language, including Esperanto.

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Phonology

Phonetics and phonology of English differ from one dialect to another, usually without interrupting mutual communication. Phonological variations affect the phonemic inventory (ie speech distinguishing meaning), and phonetic variation is the difference in phoneme pronunciation. This picture mainly describes the English and US standard pronunciation: Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA) (See Section below on "Dialects, accents and varieties").

The phonetic symbols used below are from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Consonants

Most English dialects have the same consonant phoneme 24 fonecon . The consonant inventory shown below applies to California American English, and for RP.

* Transcribed conventionally /r/.

In the table, when obstruents (pauses, affricates, and fricatives) appear in pairs, such as /pb/, /t? d?/, and /s z/, the first is fortis (strong) and the second is lenis (weak). Fortis obstruents, such as /p t? s/ is pronounced with stronger tension and power of breath than lenis consonants, such as /b d? z/, and always voiced. The Lenis consonant is partially voiced at the beginning and end of speech, and fully voiced among the vowels. Fortis stops like /p/ has additional articulation or acoustic features in most dialects: they are aspirated [p?] when they appear alone at the beginning of the emphasized syllable, often irreplaceable in other cases, and often not released [p ? ] or pre-glottalised [? p] at the end of the syllable. In one syllable word, the vowels before stopping the castle are shortened: so that nip has a shorter vowel (phonetically, but not phonemic) than nib [n ?? p?] (see below).

• lenis stops: bin [b ??? n] , about [? 'ba? t] , nib [n ?? b?]
• fortis stop: pin ['p ?? n] , spin [sp? n] , happy ['hÃÆ'Â|pi] , nip < span title = "Representation in Phonetic Phonetic International (IPA)"> ['n? p? ] or ['n ?? p]

In RP, approximant lateral /l/, has two main allophones (pronunciation variant): clear or plain [l] , as in light , and ?] , as in full . GA has l dark in most cases.

• clearly l : RP light [la? t]
• dark l : full RP and GA [f ??] , GA light [? A? T]

All sonorants (fluid /l, r/ and nasals /m, n, ?/) devoices when following obstrikes without a sound, and they are syllables when following a consonant at the end of a word.

• silent sonorants: clay ['kl ????] and snow ['sn? o?]
• sonorants syllables: paddle [pad.l?] , and button [b? tn?]

Vocal

Vocal recitation varies greatly between dialects and is one of the most detectable aspects of a speaker's accent. The table below lists vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA), with examples of words in which they appear from lexical groups composed by linguists. Vowels are represented by symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet; provided for RP is the standard in the English dictionary and other publications.

In RP, the vowel length is phonemic; long vowels marked with triangular colon? : ? in the table above, such as the vowel need [ni: d] as opposed to bid [b? d] . GA does not have long vocals.

In RP and GA, vowels are phonetically shortened before the consonant's fortis in the same syllable, such as /tt? f/, but not before consonant lenis like /d d? v/ or in an open syllable: thus, the vowel rich [r ?? t?] , neat [ni? t] , and safe [s ??? f] is noticeably shorter than the vowel ridge [r? d) , need [ni: d] , and save [se? v] , and vowel light [l ??? t] is shorter than lie [la?] . Because lenis consonants often speak at the end of a syllable, vowel length is an important sign, whether the following consonants are lenis or fortis.

Vocal /? ?/ occurs only in unstressed syllables and is the result of vocal reduction. Some dialects do not distinguish them, so roses and commas end up in the same vowel, a feature of dialect called a weak vocal merger. GA has a sketch of r -coloured without color /?/, as in butter ['b? t?] , which in RP has the same vowel as the final vowel in comma .

Phonotactics

An English syllable includes a syllable core consisting of a vowel sound. Onset and coda syllables (start and end) are optional. A syllable can start with up to three consonant sounds, as in sprint /spr? Nt/, and ends with up to four, as in text /teksts/. This gives the following English syllable structure, (CCC) V (CCCC) where C represents the consonant and V a vowel; words strength /str ?? k? s/ is the most complex example of syllables possible in English. Consonants that may appear together in onsets or codas are limited, such as the order in which they can appear. Onsets can only have four types of consonant clusters: a stop and approximant, as in play ; a noiseless and almost identical fricative, as in flying or cunning ; s and stop silently, as in remain ; and s , stops silently, and almost, as in string . Nose and stop groups are only allowed in codas. Obstruen groups always approve invoices, and sibilant and plosive clusters with the same articulation point are prohibited. In addition, some consonants have limited distribution: /h/ can only occur in syllabic initial position, and /?/ only in the syllable end position. Stress, rhythm, and rhythm

Stress plays an important role in English. Certain syllables are emphasized, while others are not pressurized. Stress is a combination of duration, intensity, vocal quality, and sometimes tone changes. The suppressed syllables are spoken longer and louder than the unstressed syllables, and the vowels in the syllable without pressure are often reduced while the vowel in the stressed syllable is not. Some words, especially short function words but also some capital verbs like can , have a weak and strong shape depending on whether they occur in a stressful or non-stressed position in the sentence.

Stress in English is phonemic, and several pairs of words are distinguished by stress. For example, the word contract is emphasized on the first syllable ( KON -trakt ) when used as a noun, but in the last syllable ( k? n- TRAKT ) for the most part meaning (eg, "reduce size") when used as a verb. Here stress is attributed to vowel reduction: in the first syllable "contract" noun is emphasized and has an irreducible vowel /?/, but in the verb "contract" the first syllable is not pressed and the vowel is reduced to /?/. Stress is also used to distinguish between words and phrases, so the compound word receives a single stress unit, but the corresponding phrase has two: ie. for bÃÆ'ºrn ÃÆ'³ut versus a bÃÆ'ºrnout , and a hÃÆ'³tdog versus a hÃÆ'³t dÃÆ'³g .

In terms of rhythm, English is generally described as a time-stressed language, which means that the amount of time between the emphasized syllables tends to be the same. The suppressed syllable is longer, but the no-pressure syllable (syllable between pressures) is shortened. Vowels in unstressed syllables are also shortened, and vocal shortening causes a change in vocal quality: vocal reduction.

Region variation

English varieties vary widely in vowel pronunciation. The most well-known national varieties used as a standard for education in non-English speaking countries are British (BrE) and American (AmE). Countries such as Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa have their own standard varieties less used as international education standards. Some differences between different dialects are shown in the table "Standard English Variety and its features".

English has undergone many historical sound changes, some of which affect all varieties, and others affect only a few. Most of the standard varieties are affected by Great Vowel Shift, which alters the long vowel pronunciation, but some dialects have slightly different results. In North America, a number of shifting chains such as North City Vocal Shift and Canadian Shift have resulted in very different vocal landscapes in several regional accents.

Some dialects have fewer or more consonant and telephone phonemes than standard varieties. Some conservative varieties such as Scottish English have