British English

British English is the standard dialect of the

English language as spoken and written in the British English
United Kingdom.[5] Variations exist in formal, English
written English in the United Kingdom. For Native to United Kingdom
example, the adjective wee is almost
Language family Indo-European
exclusively used in parts of Scotland, North
East England, Ireland, and occasionally Germanic
Yorkshire, whereas little is predominant West
elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful Germanic
degree of uniformity in written English within
Ingvaeonic
the United Kingdom, and this could be
described by the term British English. The Anglo-
Frisian
forms of spoken English, however, vary
considerably more than in most other areas of Anglic
the world where English is spoken,[6] so a English
uniform concept of British English is more
difficult to apply to the spoken language. British
English
According to Tom McArthur in the Oxford
Guide to World English, British English shares Early forms Old English
"all the ambiguities and tensions in the word
'British' and as a result can be used and Middle
English
interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more
narrowly, within a range of blurring and Early
Modern
ambiguity".[7] English

Colloquial portmanteau words for British Standard forms Received

English include: Bringlish (recorded from Pronunciation
Standard
1967), Britglish (1973), Britlish (1976),
Scottish English
Brenglish (1993) and Brilish (2011).[8] Standard
Hiberno-English
Writing system Latin (English
Contents alphabet)
Official status
History
Official language in United Kingdom
Dialects (originally
Regional England)
Ethnicity Language codes
Features ISO 639-3 –
Glottal stop IETF en-GB[1][2]
R-dropping
Diphthongisation
In the south
In the north
 Loss of grammatical number in collective
nouns
Negative concord
Standardisation
See also
Notes
References
External links

History
English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects
brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest
Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was
generally speaking Common Brittonic—the insular variety of continental Celtic,
which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages (Welsh,
Cornish, Cumbric) cohabited alongside English into the modern period, but due to
their remoteness from the Germanic languages, influence on English was notably
limited. However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been
argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted
between English and the other West Germanic languages.[9]

Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of
the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon,
eventually came to dominate. The original Old English language was then influenced
by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the
Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the
second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately
developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman. These two invasions
caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed
language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the
cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for
basic communication).

The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-
Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains
Latin and French influences e.g. swine (like the Germanic schwein) is the animal in
the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc) is the
animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans.[10]

Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical

simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later
Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate
layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman
influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English
developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge
vocabulary.
Dialects
Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of the United Kingdom, as well
as within the countries themselves.

The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken
in England, which encompasses Southern English dialects, West Country dialects,
East and West Midlands English dialects and Northern English dialects), Ulster
English in Northern Ireland, Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh
language), and Scottish English (not to be confused with the Scots language or
Scottish Gaelic language). The various British dialects also differ in the words that
they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century,
there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to
spell the word though.[11]

Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950), the University of
Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities
Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects.[12][13]

The team are[a] sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words
and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC, in which they invited
the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout the country. The
BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British
speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information
will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where
it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the
English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant
exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio".[13] When discussing
the award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated:

that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving

their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had
come from the Black Country, or if he was a Scouser he would have been
well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might
say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink".[14]

Regional

Most people in Britain speak with a regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of
Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation[15] (also called "the
Queen's English", "Oxford English" and "BBC English"[16]), that is essentially region-
less.[17][18] It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in
London in the early modern period.[18] It is frequently used as a model for teaching
English to foreign learners.[18]

In the South East there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent
spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation
(RP). The Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult
for outsiders to understand,[19] although the extent of its use is often somewhat
exaggerated.

Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some
features of RP and some of Cockney. In London itself, the broad local accent is still
changing, partly influenced by Caribbean speech. Immigrants to the UK in recent
decades have brought many more languages to the country. Surveys started in 1979
by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 100 languages being
spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. As a result,
Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood,
class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors.

Since the mass internal immigration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and its
position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various
accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by
overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which
is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian. It is the last
southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath/grass (i.e.
barth/grarss). Conversely crass/plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in
Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of
Corby, five miles (8  km) north, one can find Corbyite, which unlike the Kettering
accent, is largely influenced by the West Scottish accent.

In addition, many British people can to some degree temporarily "swing" their accent
towards a more neutral form of English at will, to reduce difficulty where very
different accents are involved, or when speaking to foreigners.

Ethnicity

Features
Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the
pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs
specific to this dialect.

Glottal stop

In a number of forms of spoken British English, it is common for the phoneme /t/ to
be realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in a process
called T-glottalisation. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, it has become much
more widespread. It is still stigmatised when used in words like later, but becoming
very widespread at the end of words such as not (as in no[ʔ] interested).[20] Other
consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p, as in pa[ʔ]er and k as in
ba[ʔ]er.[20]

R-dropping
In most areas of Britain outside Scotland and Northern Ireland, the consonant R is
not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead.
This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity. In these same areas, a tendency exists
to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a
vowel. This is called the intrusive R. This could be understood as a merger, in that
words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated
differently.

Diphthongisation

British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern
varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects
normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could
be said to be in-between.

In the south

Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more
technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are
pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with a greater
movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ].

In the north

Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/,
as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ]
respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that
give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in the traditional accent of
Newcastle upon Tyne, 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-
West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'.

Loss of grammatical number in collective nouns

A tendency to drop the morphological grammatical number in collective nouns is

stronger in British English than in North American English.[21] This is to treat them,
once grammatically singular, as plural, that is: the perceived natural number
prevails. This applies especially to nouns of institutions and groups made of many
people.

The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment:

Police are investigating the theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at
the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn.[22]

A football team can be treated likewise:

Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against
Manchester City.[23]
This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For
example, Jane Austen, a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice,
published in 1813:

All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes.[24]

However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used.

The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence.

Negative concord

Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double
negatives. Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not,
nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence.[25] While this does not occur
in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation
follows the idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation,
and one that is used for the point or the verb.[26]

Standardisation
As with English around the world, the English language as used in the United
Kingdom is governed by convention rather than formal code: there is no body
equivalent to the Académie Française or the Real Academia Española. Dictionaries
(for example, Oxford English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary
English, Chambers Dictionary, Collins Dictionary) record usage rather than
attempting to prescribe it.[27] In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time:
words are freely borrowed from other languages and other strains of English, and
neologisms are frequent.

For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the 9th century, the form
of language spoken in London and the East Midlands became standard English
within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the
law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British
English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social
superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who
did not speak the standard English would be considered of a lesser class or social
status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence.[27] Another
contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the
printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton
enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of
England at a much faster rate.[11]

Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) was a large step in
the English-language spelling reform, where the purification of language focused on
standardising both speech and spelling.[28] By the early 20th century, British authors
had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a
few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods
and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most
notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir
Ernest Gowers.[29]

Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication is

included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper,
the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press. The Oxford
University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by
Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in
English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's
Rules, and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style. Comparable in authority
and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English, the
Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that
writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing
house.[30]

See also
American English
Australian English
British Sign Language
Canadian English
Commonwealth English
Hiberno-English
New Zealand English
American and British English spelling differences

Notes
a. In British English collective nouns may be either singular or plural, according to
context. An example provided by Partridge is: " 'The committee of public safety is
to consider the matter', but 'the committee of public safety quarrel regarding their
next chairman' ...Thus...singular when...a unit is intended; plural when the idea of
plurality is predominant". BBC television news and The Guardian (https://www.theg
uardian.com/styleguide/c) style guide follow Partridge but other sources, such as
BBC Online and The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/sp
ecials/style_guide/article986720.ece) style guides, recommend a strict noun-verb
agreement with the collective noun always governing the verb conjugated in the
singular. BBC radio news, however, insists on the plural verb. Partridge, Eric (1947)
Usage and Abusage: "Collective Nouns". Allen, John (2003) BBC News style guide
(https://web.archive.org/web/20110707214856/http://www.bbctraining.com/pdfs/ne
wsStyleGuide.pdf), page 31.

Citations

1. "English" (https://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-su
btag-registry); IANA language subtag registry; retrieved: 11 January 2019; named
as: en; publication date: 16 October 2005.
 2. "United Kingdom" (https://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/lan
guage-subtag-registry); IANA language subtag registry; retrieved: 11 January 2019;
named as: GB; publication date: 16 October 2005.
3. "British English; Hiberno-English" (https://archive.org/details/oxfordenglishdic0015u
nse). Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
1989.
4. British English (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/british-
english?q=British+English), Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary
5. The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English as "spoken or written in
the British Isles; esp[ecially] the forms of English usual in Great Britain", reserving
"Hiberno-English" for the "English language as spoken and written in Ireland".[3]
Others, such as the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, define it as the
"English language as it is spoken and written in England".[4]
6. Jeffries, Stuart (27 March 2009). "The G2 Guide to Regional English" (https://www.t
heguardian.com/uk/2009/mar/27/regional-english-dialects). The Guardian. section
G2, p. 12.
7. McArthur (2002), p. 45.
8. Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of 'lishes': The nomenclature of hybridity.
English World-wide, 39(1): 22-23. doi:10.1075/eww.38.3.04lam (https://doi.org/10.1
075%2Feww.38.3.04lam)
9. English and Welsh, 1955 J. R. R. Tolkien, also see references in Brittonicisms in
English
10. "Linguistics 201: History of English" (https://web.archive.org/web/2017101811370
4/http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/HistEngoverhead.htm).
pandora.cii.wwu.edu. Archived from the original (http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/l
ing201/test3materials/HistEngoverhead.htm) on 18 October 2017. Retrieved
29 July 2017.
11. "The History of English - Early Modern English (c. 1500 - c. 1800)" (https://web.arch
ive.org/web/20141209013306/http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_m
odern.html). www.thehistoryofenglish.com. Archived from the original (http://www.t
hehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_modern.html) on 9 December 2014.
Retrieved 28 July 2017.
12. Professor Sally Johnson (https://web.archive.org/web/20050313183453/http://www.
personal.leeds.ac.uk/~smlsaj/) biography on the Leeds University website
13. Mapping the English language—from cockney to Orkney (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20061003092355/http://reporter.leeds.ac.uk/press_releases/current/voices.htm),
Leeds University website, 25 May 2007.
14. McSmith, Andy. Dialect researchers given a "canny load of chink" to sort "pikeys"
from "chavs" in regional accents, The Independent, 1 June 2007. Page 20
15. "Received Pronunciation" (http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/rec
eived-pronunciation/). Retrieved 20 March 2017.
16. BBC English because this was originally the form of English used on radio and
television, although a wider variety of accents can be heard these days.
17. Sweet, Henry (1908). The Sounds of English (https://archive.org/details/soundsengl
ishan00sweegoog). Clarendon Press. p. 7 (https://archive.org/details/soundsenglish
an00sweegoog/page/n11).
18. Fowler, H.W. (1996). R.W. Birchfield (ed.). "Fowler's Modern English Usage". Oxford
University Press.
19. Franklyn, Julian (1975). A dictionary of rhyming slang. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul. p. 9. ISBN 0-415-04602-5.
20. Trudgill, Peter (1984). Language in the British Isles. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press. pp. 56–57. ISBN 0-521-28409-0.
21. [1] (http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/09/agreement-over-collective-nouns/),
Oxford Dictionaries website, 2 April 2017.
22. [2] (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-38547391), BBC, 8 January
2017.
23. [3] (https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/39396482), BBC, 2 April 2017.
24. "Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen" (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/1342-
h/1342-h.htm). www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
25. "Double negatives and usage - English Grammar Today - Cambridge Dictionary" (ht
tp://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/types-of-english-formal-
informal-etc/double-negatives-and-usage). dictionary.cambridge.org.
26. Tubau, Susagna (2016). "Lexical variation and Negative Concord in Traditional
Dialects of British English". The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics. 19
(2): 143–177. doi:10.1007/s10828-016-9079-4 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10828-
016-9079-4).
27. "The Standardisation of English" (https://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elltankw/histor
y/standardisation/c.htm). courses.nus.edu.sg.
28. "The History of English: Spelling and Standardization (Suzanne Kemmer)" (http://w
ww.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Histengl/spelling.html). www.ruf.rice.edu.
29. "New edition of The Complete Plain Words will delight fans of no-frills" (https://ww
w.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/new-edition-of-the-complet
e-plain-words-will-delight-fans-of-no-frills-prose-but-can-breaking-the-9219926.htm
l). 27 March 2014.
30. "Style Guide" (https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/media_wysiwyg/University%2
0of%20Oxford%20Style%20Guide.pdf) (PDF). University of Oxford. Retrieved
14 June 2019.

References
McArthur, Tom (2002). Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. ISBN 0-19-866248-3 hardback, ISBN 0-19-860771-7 paperback.
Bragg, Melvyn (2004). The Adventure of English, London: Sceptre. ISBN 0-340-
82993-1
Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
Simpson, John (ed.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

External links
Sounds Familiar? (http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html) – Examples
of regional accents and dialects across the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds
Familiar' website
Accents and dialects from the British Library Sound Archive (http://sounds.bl.uk/Bro
wseCategory.aspx?category=Accents-and-dialects)
Accents of English from Around the World (http://www.soundcomparisons.com/)
Hear and compare how the same 110 words are pronounced in 50 English accents
from around the world – instantaneous playback online
 The Septic's Companion: A British Slang Dictionary
(http://septicscompanion.com/) – an online dictionary of British slang, viewable
alphabetically or by category
British English Turkey (http://www.britishenglish.com.tr/)

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