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It is undoubtedly true that English is an international language and it is the most widespread language on earth. . It is spoken in many parts of the world, yet with various degrees of differences in grammar, pronunciation or vocabulary. How do these varieties arise? When we
take a close look at the history in the last few centuries, it is
certain that the varieties of English have a close relationship with
the colonial activity in this period.
Until the late sixteenth century English was not spoken anywhere
outside the British Isles. The spread of English beyond the British
Isles resulted from the spread of the English-speaking people through
colonial activity.
As English-speaking colonies were established, English came into
contact with indigenous languages of the pre-colonial population. Very
often speakers in these communities tend to incorporate many
linguistic features from their first language when speaking the new
one. Besides, there was diversity in the language used by the
English-speaking settlers themselves. Dialect leveling often
occurred. As a result, pidgins and creoles developed and new varieties
of English emerged.

Different patterns of colonial activity and their effects on English
According to David Graddol et al., there were three types of
English colony, each of them having different effects on the
development of English. In the first type, exemplified by America and
Australia, substantial settlement by first-language speakers of
English displaced the pre-colonial population. In the second, typified
by Nigeria, sparser colonial settlements maintained the pre-colonial
population in subjection and allowed a proportion of them access to
learning English as a second, or additional, language. The third type,
exemplified by the Caribbean islands of Barbados and Jamica. Here, a
pre-colonial population was replaced by new labor from elsewhere,
principally West Africa.

North America
In 1607 the first British colony was established in Jamestown. Others
followed, notably the “pilgrim fathers” of America settled in
Plymouth in 1620. New colonies were being added until there were
thirteen colonies in 1733. The pioneer settlers, primarily from the
eastern part of England, were English speakers. There was great
variety in the English spoken among them.
Among the pre-colonial population, there was a rich linguistic mixture
with perhaps as many as 500 different languages. However, the
influence of pre-colonial languages on American English was slight,
but not negligible.
The first linguistic task for the colonists was to find names for
concepts that did not exist in Britain. New words were needed for
places, plants, landscapes and wildlife. Hence Indian words,
particularly words from the Algonquian, were adopted and assimilated
into colonial English. About 300 American Indian loanwords are still
being used today, such as “caribou, hickory, hominy”, and
”moccasin”. However, these words had undergone radical change in the
course of adoption into American speech. Since it was difficult for
Europeans to pronounce these Indian words, some of the words were
abbreviated or clipped. For example, “hominy” from “rockahominy”,
”squash” from “asquutasquash”, “hickory” from “pawcohiccora”.
Others were changed by folk etymology in order to analyze a new word
in terms of known words. For example, the Indian word “muskwessu” or
”muscassus” became “muskrat”, a musky-smelling rodent. Asides from
this, there are also many expressions in American English which are
derived from features of Indian life, such as “on the warpath”,
”happy hunting grounds”, “war paint” and “to bury the hatchet”.

In areas on the east coast, which maintained close cultural and trade
links with England, speakers were influenced by British English and
the /r/ was not pronounced in words like “cart” and “far”. While
in more inland areas where connection with England was weak, the
pronunciation of /r/ was a common practice.
The largest single immigrant group in North America where the slaves
brought from Africa. They were the sources of labor for the
plantations in the southern areas of North America. Under the
influence of African languages, a new form of English was spoken by
the slaves there. A few words of African origin still remain today
such as “gumbo” (a stew, soup), “hoodoo” (a curse or spell) and
”okra” (a kind of vegetables).
As far as the influence of later immigrants is concerned, American
English borrowed some words from Italian such as “pizza, pasta,
spaghetti”, German such as “hamburger, delicatessen, lager,
kindergarten, seminar, semester”, Japanese such as “hara-kiri,
jujitsu”, and of Yiddish/Hebrew origin such as “kosher, kibitzer,
schnozzle”.
Other influences resulting from cultural contact were words borrowed
from the French as in “bureau, prairie, pumpkin, rapids” and the
Spanish as in “cockroach, Creole, mustang, patio, rode”. The present
New York was once the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Among words
borrowed from Dutch are “boss, dumb, Santa Claus and waffle”.
As a result, the English used in North America developed a character
of its own and gained some features which make it different from
British English.

Through colonial activity, English spread across the world in the past
few centuries. English no longer existed as a monolithic language,
rather, it evolved into new varieties with distinctive features in
vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation.

These changes were shaped by the contact with other languages and the
contact between the varieties of English used by the settlers. The way in which English arrived in a country and the demographic distribution of speakers of other languages were
the determining factors in the formation of the new variety of English
in these countries.

Mary Anne Winslow is a member of

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