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ENGLISH AROUND
THE
WORLD
The geographical spread of the English language
around the world is unique in history.
There are countries in six continents that use English as a first
or second language.
There are many regional varieties of
British English
(southern, northern,
Scottish, Northern Irish, etc.) and different registers (formal and informal).
Even ‘standard’ British English varies from place to place as a result of
regional accents.
American English
is particularly influential thanks to U.S. dominance
in trade, technology, popular music, cinema and television, including
the Internet. The main difference between British English and American
English is the way people speak (pronunciation and intonation).
Canadian English
has influences from both British English and American
English. There is a lot of U.S. influence in the vocabulary: Canadians use
gas and truck rather than petrol and lorry, garbage and cab rather than
rubbish and taxi.
Australian English
and
New Zealand English
are very similar. Both
have words from their local indigenous languages (Australian Aboriginal
and Maori). Some of the indigenous terms are animal and plant names
like koala, dingo, wallaby and kiwi.
South Africa
has eleven official languages: English, Afrikaans (similar to
Dutch), Zulu, Xhosa and other regional African languages. English is the
first language of only about 10 per cent of the South-African population,
but the second language of many others.
In India over 120 million people can speak English.
Indian English
is
similar to British English.
TRUE
OR
FALSE
?
1
Over 1 billion people
can understand English.
T
F
2
English is an official language
of the United Nations.
T
F
3
English is the second official
language in Italy.
T
F
4
About 80 percent of the world’s
Internet home pages are
in English.
T
F
5
Almost 400 million people have
English as their mother tongue.
T
F
6
It is the official language
in Egypt.
T
F
Countries where English is spoken
as a first or second language.
Different countries… different Englishes!
Answers:
1 T; 2 T; 3 F; 4 T; 5 T; 6 F.
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