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133-573: Calais ( UK : / ˈ k æ l eɪ / KAL -ay , US : / k æ ˈ l eɪ / kal- AY , traditionally / ˈ k æ l ɪ s / KAL -iss , French: [kalɛ] ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department , of which it is a subprefecture . Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras . The population of

266-603: A Zeppelin bombardment on 15 January 1915, falling through the roof. General de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux on 6 April 1921 at the cathedral. The building experienced extensive damage during World War II, and was partially rebuilt, although much of the old altar and furnishings were not replaced. The Tour du Guet (Watch Tower), situated in Calais Nord on the Places d'Armes, is one of the few surviving pre-war buildings. Dating from 1229, when Philip I, Count of Boulogne , built

399-559: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in

532-511: A deep and mellow tone, and highly ornamented by figures in relief—was built at Canterbury sometime around 1700. The pulpit and reading-desk, richly sculptured in oak, is another well-executed piece of ecclesiastical workmanship from St. Omer . The altar-piece, the Assumption, was often attributed to Anthony van Dyck , though in reality it is by Gerard Seghers ; whilst the painting over the side altar, once believed to be by Peter Paul Rubens

665-508: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating

798-429: A historic monument since 6 November 1931. The Calais Lighthouse (Le phare de Calais) was built in 1848, replacing the old watch tower as the lighthouse of the port. The 55-metre-high (180 ft) tower was electrified in 1883 and automated in 1992. The staircase has 271 steps leading up to the lantern. By day it is easily distinguishable from other coastal lighthouses by its white color and black lantern. The lighthouse

931-517: A knowledge of Classical or Old Latin by the use of rare or archaic forms and sequences. Though they had not existed together historically, it is common that an author would use grammatical ideas of the two periods Republican and archaic, placing them equally in the same sentence. Also, many undistinguished scholars had limited education in "proper" Latin, or had been influenced in their writings by Vulgar Latin. Many striking differences between classical and Medieval Latin are found in orthography . Perhaps

1064-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. 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. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of

1197-497: A living language and was instead a scholarly language of the minority of educated men (and a tiny number of women) in medieval Europe, used in official documents more than for everyday communication. This resulted in two major features of Medieval Latin compared with Classical Latin, though when it is compared to the other vernacular languages, Medieval Latin developed very few changes. There are many prose constructions written by authors of this period that can be considered "showing off"

1330-659: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside

1463-484: A range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas the adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within

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1596-553: A rebirth of Latin literature and learning after the depressed period following the final disintegration of the authority of the Western Roman Empire. Although it was simultaneously developing into the Romance languages, Latin itself remained very conservative, as it was no longer a native language and there were many ancient and medieval grammar books to give one standard form. On the other hand, strictly speaking there

1729-520: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In

1862-567: A series of belfries across the region . The building parts have also been listed as a series of historic monuments by government decree of 26 June 2003, including its roofs and belfry, main hall, glass roof, the staircase, corridor serving the first floor, the rooms on the first floor (including decoration): the wedding room, the VIP lounge, the lounge of the council and the cabinet room. The hall has stained glass windows and numerous paintings and exquisite decor. It houses police offices. Église Notre-Dame

1995-634: A short steeple. The tower was a main viewing point for the Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) which linked the Paris Observatory with the Royal Greenwich Observatory using trigonometry . Cross-channel sightings were made of signal lights at Dover Castle and Fairlight, East Sussex . The church was assigned as a historic monument by decree of 10 September 1913, only to have its stained glass smashed during

2128-595: A telegraph office in the tower in 1816 and operated for 32 years. It was this office which announced the death of Napoleon I to the French public in 1821. It also had the dual function as lighthouse with a rotating beacon fuelled by oil from 1818. The lantern was finally replaced by a new lighthouse on 15 October 1848. During the First World War, it served as a military observation post and narrowly missed destruction during World War II. This tower has been classified as

2261-508: A thriving centre for wool production, and came to be called the "brightest jewel in the English crown" because of its importance as the gateway for the tin , lead , lace and wool trades (or "staples"). Calais remained under English control until its recapture by France in 1558. During World War II , the town was virtually razed to the ground: in May 1940, it was a strategic bombing target of

2394-465: A young stable boy set fire to it, while it was temporarily being used as royal stables during a visit of King Louis XIV . It was not repaired for some 30 years. In 1770, a bell identical to the original bell of 1348 was cast. Due to its height, from the late 17th century it became an important watchout post for the city for centuries until 1905; the last keeper of the tower was forced to leave in 1926. Abraham Chappe (a brother of Ignace Chappe ) installed

2527-550: Is Venantius Fortunatus ( c.  530  – c.  600 ). This was also a period of transmission: the Roman patrician Boethius ( c.  480 –524) translated part of Aristotle 's logical corpus, thus preserving it for the Latin West , and wrote the influential literary and philosophical treatise De consolatione Philosophiae ; Cassiodorus ( c.  485  – c.  585 ) founded an important library at

2660-510: Is a great church which was originally built in the late 13th century and its tower was added in the late 14th or early 15th century. Like the town hall it is one of the city's most prominent landmarks. It was arguably the only church in the English perpendicular style in France. Much of the current 1400 capacity church dates to 1631–1635. It contains elements of Flemish, Gothic, Anglo-Norman and Tudor architecture. In 1691, an 1800 cubic metre cistern

2793-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. 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. 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

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2926-568: Is based on British English, but has more influence from American English , often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during

3059-547: Is commemorated in The Burghers of Calais ( Les Bourgeois de Calais ), one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin , erected in the city in 1895. Though sparing the lives of the delegation members, King Edward drove out most of the French inhabitants, and settled the town with English. The municipal charter of Calais, previously granted by the Countess of Artois , was reconfirmed by Edward that year (1347). In 1360

3192-436: Is in fact by Pieter Van Mol . A high and strongly built wall, partaking more of the fortress than a cathedral in its aspect, flanks the building, and protects it from the street where formerly ran the old river, in its course through Calais to the sea. The square, massive Norman tower has three-arched belfry windows on each face, surmounted by corner turrets, and a conically shaped tower of octagonal proportions, topped again by

3325-740: 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 ,

3458-464: Is located about 37 km (23 mi) to the east. Calais is located 236 km (147 mi) north of the French capital of Paris , or around 295 km (183 mi) by car. The commune of Calais is bordered by the English channel to the north, Sangatte and Coquelles to the west, Coulogne to the south and Marck to the east. The core area of the city is divided into the Old Town area within

3591-469: 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

3724-610: Is sometimes claimed that the Romans called the settlement Caletum and that it was the departure point for Julius Caesar 's invasion of Britain. However, the name Caletum does not appear in Caesar's accounts of the invasion. Caesar describes his departure point as Portus Itius , which is believed to have been near Boulogne . At that time Calais was an island in the North Sea. Calais was an English outpost for many centuries while it

3857-672: Is still used in Dutch sources wishing to emphasise former linguistic ties to the area. Though the modern French spelling of Calais gradually supplanted other variants in English, the pronunciation / ˈ k æ l ɪ s / ( KAL -iss ) persisted and survives in other towns named for the European city including Calais, Maine , and Calais, Vermont , in the United States. In " De Gustibus " (1855), Robert Browning rhymes Calais with malice . The pronunciation shift can be seen in

3990-463: Is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what

4123-690: Is to say "the stubborn" or "the tough" and derives from the Proto-Celtic stem *kaletos - ("hard, cruel, strong") Early French sources use a bewildering array of spellings from Kaleeis to Kalais to Calays together with Latin-based Calaisiacum, Calesetum and Calasium . The modern French spelling of Calais first appeared in 1331. The earliest English name for the city was the Anglo-Norman Caleis . In Middle and Early Modern English , variants including Caleys, Calais, Calays, Callis and Cales were used. In later Middle English,

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4256-547: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and

4389-485: The 10th Panzer Division . The town was flattened by artillery and precision dive bombing and only 30 of the 3800-strong defending force were evacuated before the town fell. This may have helped Operation Dynamo , the evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk, as 10th Panzer would have been involved on the Dunkirk perimeter had it not been busy at Calais. Between 26 May and 4 June 1940, some 330,000 Allied troops escaped from

4522-457: The 2024 election . For elections to the Pas-de-Calais departmental council , the commune of Calais is divided between the cantons of Calais-1 , Calais-2 , and Calais-3 , the first two of which also contain adjoining communes . The mayor of Calais has been Natacha Bouchart since 2008, first for the Union for a Popular Movement and then its successor The Republicans. From 1971 to 2008,

4655-696: The Battle of Crécy between England and France in 1346, followed by Edward's siege and capture of Calais in 1347. Angered, the English king demanded reprisals against the town's citizens for holding out for so long ("obstinate defence") and ordered that the town's population be killed en masse . He agreed, however, to spare them, on condition that six of the principal citizens would come to him, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks, and give themselves up to death. On their arrival he ordered their execution, but pardoned them when his queen, Philippa of Hainault , begged him to spare their lives. This event

4788-534: The British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within

4921-531: The Channel Tunnel has linked nearby Coquelles to Folkestone by rail. Because of its position, Calais has been a major port and an important centre for transport and trading with England since the Middle Ages . Calais came under English control after Edward III of England captured the city in 1347, followed by a treaty in 1360 that formally assigned Calais to English rule . Calais grew into

5054-541: The Channel Tunnel is situated in the vicinity of Calais, in Coquelles some 4 miles (6.4 km) to the west of the town. Calais possesses direct rail links to Paris, 148 miles (238 km) to the south. More than 10 million people visit Calais annually. From medieval times, English companies thrived in Calais. Calais was a particularly important centre in the production and trade of wool and cloth, which outweighed

5187-658: 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

5320-504: The Middle Ages . In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned as the main medium of scholarly exchange, as the liturgical language of the Church , and as the working language of science, literature, law, and administration. Medieval Latin represented a continuation of Classical Latin and Late Latin , with enhancements for new concepts as well as for

5453-659: The Pas de Calais , which marks the boundary between the English Channel and North Sea and located at the opposite end of the Channel Tunnel , 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Dover . On a clear day the White Cliffs of Dover can be viewed across the channel. Aside from being an important port and boarding point between France and England, it is at the nucleus of many major railway and highway networks and connected by road to Arras , Lens , Béthune and St. Omer . Dunkirk

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5586-640: The Port of Calais or the Eurotunnel Calais Terminal , or while waiting for their French asylum claims to be processed. The people were a mix of asylum seekers and economic migrants from Darfur , Afghanistan , Syria , Iraq , Eritrea and other underdeveloped or conflict-stricken countries in Africa and Asia. The Calais migrant crisis led to escalating tension between the UK and France in

5719-493: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over

5852-490: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. 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 . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),

5985-511: The Treaty of Brétigny assigned Guînes , Marck and Calais—collectively the " Pale of Calais "—to English rule in perpetuity, but this assignment was informally and only partially implemented. On 9 February 1363 the town was made a staple port . It remained part of the Diocese of Thérouanne from 1379, keeping an ecclesiastical tie with France. The town came to be called the "brightest jewel in

6118-573: 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. The team are 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

6251-562: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, 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 . It 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. This

6384-593: The syntax of some Medieval Latin writers, although Classical Latin continued to be held in high esteem and studied as models for literary compositions. The high point of the development of Medieval Latin as a literary language came with the Carolingian Renaissance , a rebirth of learning kindled under the patronage of Charlemagne , king of the Franks . Alcuin was Charlemagne's Latin secretary and an important writer in his own right; his influence led to

6517-472: The (written) forms of Latin used in the Middle Ages. The Romance languages spoken in the Middle Ages were often referred to as Latin , since the Romance languages were all descended from Vulgar Latin itself. Medieval Latin would be replaced by educated humanist Renaissance Latin , otherwise known as Neo-Latin . Medieval Latin had an enlarged vocabulary, which freely borrowed from other sources. It

6650-511: The 1930s, the town was known for being a politically socialist stronghold. Calais was virtually razed to the ground during World War II . In May 1940, it was a key objective of the invading German forces and became the scene of a last-ditch defence—the siege of Calais —which diverted a sizable amount of German forces for several days immediately prior to the Battle of Dunkirk . A total of 3,000 British and 800 French troops, assisted by Royal Navy warships, held out from 22 to 27 May 1940 against

6783-403: The 19th century where the / ˈ k æ l ɪ s / pronunciation with the s ending was prescribed through much of the century, but was disappearing by the end. In the beginning of the twentieth century, the English pronunciation / ˈ k æ l eɪ / KAL -ay with stress on the first syllable was firmly established. Sources on the early history of habitation in the area is limited. It

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6916-629: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,

7049-498: The 5th century saw the literary activities of the great Christian authors Jerome ( c.  347 –420) and Augustine of Hippo (354–430), whose texts had an enormous influence on theological thought of the Middle Ages, and of the latter's disciple Prosper of Aquitaine ( c.  390  – c.  455 ). Of the later 5th century and early 6th century, Sidonius Apollinaris ( c.  430 – after 489) and Ennodius (474–521), both from Gaul, are well known for their poems, as

7182-498: The Allies would target the Pas-de-Calais for invasion (rather than Normandy). The town, by then largely in ruins, was laid siege to and liberated by General Daniel Spry 's 3rd Canadian Infantry Division between 25 September and 1 October 1944. On 27 February 1945 Calais experienced its last bombing raid—this time by Royal Air Force bombers who mistook the town for Dunkirk, which was at that time still occupied by German forces. After

7315-711: The Boulevard La Fayette, the latter of which is noted for its oysters , lobster and crabs from Brittany. The Emile Fournier et Fils market on the Rue Mouron sells mainly smoked fish including salmon , trout , herring and halibut . Calais is part of Pas-de-Calais's 7th constituency for the National Assembly ; the current deputy is Marc de Fleurian of the National Rally , who ousted Pierre-Henri Dumont of The Republicans at

7448-471: The British army used Calais as their departing port to return home after occupying post-Waterloo France. General Murray appointed Sir Manley Power to oversee the evacuation of British troops from France. Cordial relations had been restored by that time and on 3 December, the mayor of Calais wrote a letter to Power to express thanks for his "considerate treatment of the French and of the town of Calais during

7581-836: 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. 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 . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication

7714-485: The English People . Many Medieval Latin works have been published in the series Patrologia Latina , Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum and Corpus Christianorum . Medieval Latin was separated from Classical Latin around 800 and at this time was no longer considered part of the everyday language. The speaking of Latin became a practice used mostly by the educated high class population. Even then it

7847-429: The English crown" owing to its great importance as a gateway port for the tin , lead , cloth and wool trades (or "staples"). Its customs revenues amounted at times to a third of the English government's revenue, with wool being the most important element by far. Of its population of about 12,000 people, as many as 5,400 were recorded as having been connected with the wool trade. The governorship or Captaincy of Calais

7980-436: The French service, betrayed to the authorities in London some French plans for the capture of Calais, to be followed by a descent upon England. Stukley himself might have been the author of these plans. On 7 January 1558, King Henry II of France sent forces led by Francis, Duke of Guise , who laid siege to Calais . When the French attacked, they were able to surprise the English at the critical strongpoint of Fort Nieulay and

8113-569: The French. Use of the term is reminiscent of the Spanish Reconquista , with which the French were certainly familiar—and, since it occurred in the context of a war with Spain ( Philip II of Spain was at the time Queen Mary's consort), might have been intended as a deliberate snub. The town was captured by the Spanish on 24 April 1596 in an invasion mounted from the nearby Spanish Netherlands by Archduke Albert of Austria , but it

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8246-613: 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. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;

8379-465: The Germanic tribes, who invaded southern Europe, were also major sources of new words. Germanic leaders became the rulers of parts of the Roman Empire that they conquered, and words from their languages were freely imported into the vocabulary of law. Other more ordinary words were replaced by coinages from Vulgar Latin or Germanic sources because the classical words had fallen into disuse. Latin

8512-529: The Germans at Dunkirk. During the ensuing German occupation, it became the command post for German forces in the Pas-de-Calais/Flanders region and was very heavily fortified, as the Germans generally believed that the Allies would invade there. It was also used as a launch site for V1 flying bombs and for much of the war, the Germans used the region as the site for railway guns to bombard

8645-535: The Latin vocabulary that developed for them became the source of a great many technical words in modern languages. English words like abstract , subject , communicate , matter , probable and their cognates in other European languages generally have the meanings given to them in Medieval Latin, often terms for abstract concepts not available in English. The influence of Vulgar Latin was also apparent in

8778-621: 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. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English

8911-436: The Place and opposite the Parc St Pierre is the Hôtel-de-ville (the town hall), and the belfry from the early 20th century. Today, Calais is visited by more than 10 million annually. Aside from being a key transport hub, Calais is also a notable fishing port and a centre for fish marketing, and some 3,000 people are still employed in the lace industry for which the town is also famed. The name Calais first appears in

9044-599: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to

9177-451: The Tour du Guet, or watch-tower, a structure built in the 13th century, which was used as a lighthouse until 1848 when a new lighthouse was built by the port. South east of the Place is the church of Notre-Dame , built during the English occupancy of Calais. Arguably, it is the only church built in the English perpendicular style in all of France. In this church, former French President Charles de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux . South of

9310-405: The UK government supplied fencing to be installed around the Eurotunnel complex, where the vehicles are loaded onto train shuttles in Calais. On 26 October 2016, French authorities announced that the camp had been cleared. By January 2017, 500–1,000 migrants, mostly unaccompanied minors , had returned and were living rough in Calais and there has been a presence ever since. Calais is located on

9443-463: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since

9576-576: 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 is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with

9709-486: The United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as

9842-465: The West Scottish accent. 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. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in

9975-488: 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". Most people in Britain speak with

10108-411: The characteristics described above, showing its period in vocabulary and spelling alone; the features listed are much more prominent in the language of lawyers (e.g. the 11th-century English Domesday Book ), physicians, technical writers and secular chroniclers. However the use of quod to introduce subordinate clauses was especially pervasive and is found at all levels. Medieval Latin had ceased to be

10241-645: The city of Saint-Pierre-lès-Calais merged with Calais in 1885. According to the INSEE census of 2017, Calais has 73,911 people (a decrease of 4.4% from 1999). The town's population ranked 60th nationally, down from 53rd in 1999. The city's proximity to England has made it a major port for centuries. It is the principal ferry crossing point between England and France, with the vast majority of Channel crossings being made between Dover and Calais. Companies operating from Calais include SeaFrance (currently in liquidation), DFDS Seaways , and P&O Ferries . The French end of

10374-456: The city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,625 (2020). Calais overlooks the Strait of Dover , the narrowest point in the English Channel , which is only 34 km (21 mi) wide here, and is the closest French town to England . The White Cliffs of Dover can easily be seen on a clear day from Calais. Calais is a major port for ferries between France and England, and since 1994,

10507-584: The classical Latin practice of generally placing the verb at the end, medieval writers would often follow the conventions of their own native language instead. Whereas Latin had no definite or indefinite articles, medieval writers sometimes used forms of unus as an indefinite article, and forms of ille (reflecting usage in the Romance languages) as a definite article or even quidam (meaning "a certain one/thing" in Classical Latin) as something like an article. Unlike classical Latin, where esse ("to be")

10640-592: The classical forms, testifies to the declining significance of classical education in Gaul. At the same time, good knowledge of Latin and even of Greek was being preserved in monastic culture in Ireland and was brought to England and the European mainland by missionaries in the course of the 6th and 7th centuries, such as Columbanus (543–615), who founded the monastery of Bobbio in Northern Italy. Ireland

10773-501: The composer Henri Dutilleux , the writers Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens , and the painters J. M. W. Turner , Carolus-Duran , Maurice Boitel and Eugène Boudin . It was the painter Édouard Lévêque  [ fr ] who coined the name for this area in 1911 to describe the distinctive quality of its light. Calais has a temperate oceanic climate ( Cfb in the Köppen climate classification ). Temperature ranges are moderate and

10906-530: The costs of maintaining the town as part of England. In 1830 some 113 manufacturers were based in Calais and the St Pierre suburbs, the majority of which were English. There are still two major lace factories in Calais with around 700 looms and 3000 employees. The town exports in the early 20th century were lace, chemicals, paper, wines, especially champagne, spirits, hay, straw, wool, potatoes, woven goods, fruit, glass-ware, lace and metal-ware. Principal imports in

11039-567: 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". When discussing

11172-420: The early 20th century included cotton and silk goods, coal, iron and steel, petroleum, timber, raw wool, cotton yarn and cork. During the five years 1901–1905 the average annual value of exports was £8,388,000 (£6,363,000 in the years 1896–1900), of imports £4,145,000 (£3,759,000 in 1896–1900). As a fishing port, Calais has several notable fishing markets including Les Délices de la Mer and Huîtrière Calaisenne on

11305-543: The embarkation." The population in 1847 was 12,580, many of whom were English. It was one of the main ports for British travellers to Europe. In World War I the British Expeditionary Force or BEF arrived in Calais on its way to the nearby frontline cutting through Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Flanders . Calais was a key port for the supply of arms and reinforcements to the Western Front . In

11438-467: The estuary progressively filled with silt and peat. Afterwards, canals were cut between Saint-Omer , the trading centre formerly at the head of the estuary, and three places to the west, centre and east on the newly formed coast: respectively Calais, Gravelines and Dunkirk . Calais was improved by the Count of Flanders in 997 and fortified by the Count of Boulogne in 1224. The first document mentioning

11571-579: The existence of this community is the town charter granted by Mathieu d'Alsace , Count of Boulogne , in 1181 to Gerard de Guelders ; Calais thus became part of the county of Boulogne. In 1189, Richard the Lionheart is documented to have landed at Calais on his journey to the Third Crusade . English wool trade interests and King Edward III 's claims to be heir to the Kingdom of France led to

11704-505: The feud between Burgundy and France: both sides coveted the town, but preferred to see England control it rather than their domestic rivals. The stalemate was broken by the victory of the French crown over Burgundy following Joan of Arc 's final battle in the siege of Compiègne in 1430, and the later incorporation of the duchy into France. In 1532, the English King Henry VIII visited Calais and his men calculated that

11837-423: The fortifications of Calais, it is one of the oldest monuments of Calais, although the oldest remaining traces date to 1302. It has a height of 35–39 metres (sources differ). An earthquake in 1580 split the tower in two, and at one time it threatened to collapse completely. The tower was repaired in 1606, and then had the purpose of serving as a hall to accommodate the merchants of Calais. It was damaged in 1658 when

11970-683: The historical record late in the twelfth century AD in a mention by Count Gerard of Guelders of a charter by his father Matthew of Alsace , Some references mention the Latin name Calesium being used as early as the ninth century but without providing sources for the claim. Medieval Latin Calesium derives ultimately from Latin Caletum , in turn from Caletes , a Belgic or Gallic tribe dwelling in Pays de Caux , in present-day Normandy. The Gaulish ethnonym Caletoi literally means "the hard ones", that

12103-458: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or

12236-421: The increasing integration of Christianity. Despite some meaningful differences from Classical Latin, its writers did not regard it as a fundamentally different language. There is no real consensus on the exact boundary where Late Latin ends and Medieval Latin begins. Some scholarly surveys begin with the rise of early Ecclesiastical Latin in the middle of the 4th century, others around 500, and still others with

12369-468: The invading German forces who took it during the siege of Calais . The Germans built massive bunkers along the coast in preparation for launching missiles at England. The old part of the town, Calais-Nord, is on an artificial island surrounded by canals and harbours. The modern part of the town, St-Pierre, lies to the south and south-east. In the centre of the old town is the Place d'Armes, in which stands

12502-523: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or 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

12635-462: 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 and accents vary amongst the four countries of

12768-457: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given 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

12901-503: The mayor was a member of the French Communist Party (PCF): Jean-Jacques Barthe (1971–2000) and Jacky Hénin (2000–2008). Place d'Armes is one of the largest squares in the city of Calais. It adjoins the watchtower, and during medieval times was once the heart of the city. While Calais was a territory of England (1347–1558), it became known as Market Square (place du Marché). Only at the end of English rule did it take

13034-588: The monastery of Vivarium near Squillace where many texts from Antiquity were to be preserved. Isidore of Seville ( c.  560 –636) collected all scientific knowledge still available in his time into what might be called the first encyclopedia , the Etymologiae . Gregory of Tours ( c.  538 –594) wrote a lengthy history of the Frankish kings. Gregory came from a Gallo-Roman aristocratic family, and his Latin, which shows many aberrations from

13167-410: The most striking difference is that medieval manuscripts used a wide range of abbreviations by means of superscripts, special characters etc.: for instance the letters "n" and "s" were often omitted and replaced by a diacritical mark above the preceding or following letter. Apart from this, some of the most frequently occurring differences are as follows. Clearly many of these would have been influenced by

13300-420: The name of Place d'Armes. After the reconquest of Calais in 1558 by Francis, Duke of Guise, Francis II gave Calais the right to hold a fair twice a year on the square, which still exists today, as well as a bustling Wednesday and Saturday market. The town centre, which has seen significant regeneration over the past decade, is dominated by its distinctive town hall ( Hôtel de Ville ) at Place du Soldat Inconnu. It

13433-466: The name of the city was most commonly spelt Cales , and this spelling survived well into the modern period, but Shakespeare for example used the spelling Callice . Confusingly, the name Cales found in the sarcastic rhyme beginning "A gentleman of Wales, a knight of Cales" and the ballad "The Winning of Cales" collected by Thomas Percy refers not to Calais, but to Cadiz in Spain. The Cales spelling

13566-414: The notice of contemporaries. Petrarch , writing in the 14th century, complained about this linguistic "decline", which helped fuel his general dissatisfaction with his own era. The corpus of Medieval Latin literature encompasses a wide range of texts, including such diverse works as sermons , hymns , hagiographical texts, travel literature , histories , epics , and lyric poetry . The first half of

13699-522: The old city walls, and the younger suburbs of St. Pierre, which are connected by a boulevard. Calais is part of the Côte d'Opale (Opal Coast), a cliff-lined section of northern French coast that parallels the white cliffs on the British coast and is part of the same geological formation . It is known for its scenic cliffs such as Cape Blanc Nez and Cape Gris Nez and for its wide area of dunes. Many artists have been inspired by its landscapes, among them

13832-583: The pleadings given in court. Even then, those of the church still used Latin more than the rest of the population. At this time, Latin served little purpose to the regular population but was still used regularly in ecclesiastical culture. Latin also served as a lingua franca among the educated elites of Christendom — long distance written communication, while rarer than in Antiquity, took place mostly in Latin. Most literate people wrote Latin and most rich people had access to scribes who knew Latin for use when

13965-547: The replacement of written Late Latin by written Romance languages starting around the year 900. The terms Medieval Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin are sometimes used synonymously, though some scholars draw distinctions. Ecclesiastical Latin refers specifically to the form that has been used by the Roman Catholic Church (even before the Middle Ages in Antiquity), whereas Medieval Latin refers to all of

14098-568: The sluice gates, which could have flooded the attackers, remained unopened. The loss was regarded by Queen Mary I of England as a dreadful misfortune. When she heard the news, she reportedly said, "When I am dead and opened, you shall find ' Philip ' [her husband] and 'Calais' lying in my heart." The region around Calais, then-known as the Calaisis , was renamed the Pays Reconquis ("Reconquered Country") in commemoration of its recovery by

14231-528: The south-eastern corner of England. In 1943 they built massive bunkers along the coast in preparation for launching missiles on the southeast of England. Despite heavy preparations for defence against an amphibious assault, the Allied invasion took place well to the west in Normandy on D-Day . Calais was very heavily bombed and shelled in a successful effort to disrupt German communications and persuade them that

14364-468: The spelling, and indeed pronunciation, of the vernacular language, and thus varied between different European countries. These orthographical differences were often due to changes in pronunciation or, as in the previous example, morphology, which authors reflected in their writing. By the 16th century, Erasmus complained that speakers from different countries were unable to understand each other's form of Latin. The gradual changes in Latin did not escape

14497-466: The summer of 2015. The UK blamed France for not doing enough to stop migrants from entering the Channel Tunnel or attempting to scale fences built along the border. The British Prime Minister David Cameron released a statement saying that illegal immigrants would be removed from the UK even if they reached the island. To discourage migrants and refugees from jumping on train shuttles at Calais,

14630-603: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. 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

14763-519: The town had about 2400 beds and stabling to keep some 2000 horses. Following the royal visit, the town's governance was reformed in 1536, aiming to strengthen ties with England. As part of this move, Calais became a parliamentary borough sending burgesses to the House of Commons of the Parliament of England . In September 1552, the English adventurer Thomas Stukley , who had been for some time in

14896-521: The town lacked any natural defences. Maintaining Calais was a costly business that was frequently tested by the forces of France and the Duchy of Burgundy , with the Franco-Burgundian border running nearby. The British historian Geoffrey Elton once remarked "Calais—expensive and useless—was better lost than kept". The duration of the English hold over Calais was, to a large extent, the result of

15029-403: 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'. 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

15162-552: The use of medieval Latin among the learned elites of Christendom may have played a role in the spread of those features. In every age from the late 8th century onwards, there were learned writers (especially within the Church) who were familiar enough with classical syntax to be aware that these forms and usages were "wrong" and resisted their use. Thus the Latin of a theologian like St Thomas Aquinas or of an erudite clerical historian such as William of Tyre tends to avoid most of

15295-581: The war there was little rebuilding of the historic city and most buildings were modern ones. Since 1999 or earlier, an increasingly large number of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers started to arrive in the vicinity of Calais, living in the Calais jungle , the nickname given to a series of makeshift camps . The people lived there while attempting to enter the United Kingdom by stowing away on lorries, ferries, cars, or trains travelling through

15428-407: The winters are cool with unstable weather. It rains on average about 700 to 800 mm (28 to 31 in) per year. The commune of Calais is divided into 13 quartier s : Changes in the number of inhabitants is known throughout the population censuses conducted since 1793 in Calais. Note the massive growth in population from 13,529 in 1881 to 58,969 in 1886, a growth of 335.9%; this is because

15561-568: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. 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. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows

15694-526: 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. 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

15827-645: Was a lucrative and highly prized public office; the famous Dick Whittington was simultaneously Lord Mayor of the City of London and Mayor of the Staple in 1407. Calais was regarded for many years as being an integral part of the Kingdom of England , with its representatives sitting in the English Parliament . The continued English hold on Calais however depended on expensively maintained fortifications, as

15960-488: Was added to the church under orders by Vauban . The church is dedicated to the Virgin, and built in the form of a cross, consisting of a nave and four aisles— The old grand altar dated to 1628 and was built from Carrara marble wrecked on the coast, during its transit from Genoa to Antwerp . It contained eighteen figures, the two standing on either side of the altar-piece—representing St. Louis and Charlemagne . The organ—of

16093-419: Was also spread to areas such as Ireland and Germany , where Romance languages were not spoken, and which had never known Roman rule. Works written in those lands where Latin was a learned language, having no relation to the local vernacular, also influenced the vocabulary and syntax of Medieval Latin. Since subjects like science and philosophy, including Rhetoric and Ethics , were communicated in Latin,

16226-489: Was also the birthplace of a strange poetic style known as Hisperic Latin . Other important Insular authors include the historian Gildas ( c.  500  – c.  570 ) and the poet Aldhelm ( c.  640 –709). Benedict Biscop ( c.  628 –690) founded the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow and furnished it with books which he had taken home from a journey to Rome and which were later used by Bede ( c.  672 –735) to write his Ecclesiastical History of

16359-434: Was also used in other European languages at the time, including Spanish, Italian and German and it is reflected in the city's name in the local Ch'ti language, Calés . Other archaic names for the city are Portuguese Calêsio and German Kalen . Kales , the city's historic name in Dutch and West Flemish (once spoken in the area) was retained until more recently in the name for the Strait of Dover , Nauw van Kales , and

16492-414: Was an island surrounded by marshes, and difficult to attack from the mainland. At some time before the 10th century, it would have been a Dutch -speaking fishing village on a sandy beach backed by pebbles and a creek, with a natural harbour at the west edge of the early medieval estuary of the river Aa . As the pebble and sand ridge extended eastward from Calais, the haven behind it developed into fen , as

16625-511: Was built in the Flemish Renaissance style between 1911 and 1925 to commemorate the unification of the cities of Calais and Saint Pierre in 1885. An extra terrace had been erected at the previous town hall in 1818. One of the most elegant landmarks in the city, its ornate 74-metre (246 ft) high clock tower and belfry can be seen from out to sea and chimes throughout the day and has been protected by UNESCO since 2005 as part of

16758-472: Was classified as a historical monument on 22 November 2010. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout

16891-465: Was heavily influenced by the language of the Vulgate , which contained many peculiarities alien to Classical Latin that resulted from a more or less direct translation from Greek and Hebrew ; the peculiarities mirrored the original not only in its vocabulary but also in its grammar and syntax. Greek provided much of the technical vocabulary of Christianity . The various Germanic languages spoken by

17024-422: 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

17157-593: Was no single form of "Medieval Latin". Every Latin author in the medieval period spoke Latin as a second language, with varying degrees of fluency and syntax. Grammar and vocabulary, however, were often influenced by an author's native language. This was especially true beginning around the 12th century, after which the language became increasingly adulterated: late Medieval Latin documents written by French speakers tend to show similarities to medieval French grammar and vocabulary; those written by Germans tend to show similarities to German, etc. For instance, rather than following

17290-472: Was not frequently used in casual conversation. An example of these men includes the churchmen who could read Latin, but could not effectively speak it. Latin's use in universities was structured in lectures and debates, however, it was highly recommended that students use it in conversation. This practice was kept up only due to rules. One of Latin's purposes, writing, was still in practice; the main uses being charters for property transactions and to keep track of

17423-585: Was returned to France under the Treaty of Vervins in May 1598. Calais remained an important maritime city and smuggling centre throughout the 17th century. However, during the next century, the port of Calais began to stagnate gradually, as the nearby ports of Boulogne and Dunkirk began to rise and compete. The French revolution at the end of the 18th century did not disturb Calais and no executions took place. In 1805, Calais hosted part of Napoleon's army and invasion fleet for several months before his aborted invasion of Britain . From October to December 1818,

17556-467: Was the only auxiliary verb, Medieval Latin writers might use habere ("to have") as an auxiliary, similar to constructions in Germanic and Romance languages. The accusative and infinitive construction in classical Latin was often replaced by a subordinate clause introduced by quod or quia . This is almost identical, for example, to the use of que in similar constructions in French. Many of these developments are similar to Standard Average European and

17689-532: 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 eighth and ninth 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

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