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61-649: Alentejo ( UK : / ˌ æ l ən ˈ t eɪ ʒ uː / AL -ən- TAY -zhoo , Portuguese: [ɐlẽˈtɛʒu] ) is a geographical, historical, and cultural region of south–central and southern Portugal . In Portuguese, its name means "beyond ( além ) the Tagus river " ( Tejo ). Alentejo includes the regions of Alto Alentejo and Baixo Alentejo . It corresponds to the districts of Beja , Évora , Portalegre , and Alentejo Litoral . Its main cities are Évora , Beja , Sines , Serpa , Estremoz , Elvas , and Portalegre . It has borders with Beira Baixa in

122-576: 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

183-559: 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 However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English.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

244-508: 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

305-406: 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

366-659: 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

427-520: 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

488-470: Is 24 metres (79 ft) high and was built over the ruins of a 16th-century Franciscan convent in 1846. The statues of St. Vincent and St. Francis Xavier had been moved to church of Nossa Senhora da Graça on Point Sagres 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) away. This lighthouse, guarding one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, is among the most powerful in Europe (the most powerful being Phare du Creach on

549-725: 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

610-421: Is among the highest in the country. Institutions of higher education include: The area is commonly known as the "breadbasket" of Portugal, a region of vast open countryside with undulating plains and rich fertile soil. With very few exceptions, all the major towns are mainly reliant on agriculture, livestock, and forestry. There are several types of traditional cheeses, wines, and smoked hams and sausages made in

671-475: 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. Cape St. Vincent Cape St. Vincent was already sacred ground in Neolithic times, as standing menhirs in

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732-472: Is home to the world's most important area for the growing of cork . Cork oak, known in Portugal as "sobreiro", has been grown commercially in the region for the past 300 years, with the areas between the trees typically given over to grazing , or on the more productive soils, to the growing of citrus fruit, vines or olives. As a consequence, a uniquely rich and varied ecosystem has developed. The bark of

793-795: 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 ,

854-517: Is more sparsely inhabited than the former. To the west, the coastal strip that runs from the port of Sines down to Cape St. Vincent comprises the Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park . The Alentejo region has a Mediterranean climate , typically warm-to-hot and dry for a large part of the year, with summer temperatures regularly reaching up to 40 °C (104 °F), while winters are relatively mild and wet. The climate

915-523: Is not uniform throughout the region, however: mid-summer temperatures in coastal areas are usually much lower (often around 25 °C (77 °F)) than inland ones (which frequently hover around 33 to 35.5 °C (91.4 to 95.9 °F)). This resembles the contrast between Casablanca and the Moroccan interior, where the presence of the nearby Atlantic Ocean gives rise to marked temperature differences between coastal and even nearby inland zones. Usually,

976-628: 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 the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in

1037-580: Is therefore named by him كنيسة الغراب ( Kanīsah al-Ghurāb , meaning "Church of the Raven"). King Afonso Henriques (1139–1185) had the body of the saint exhumed in 1173 and brought it by ship to Lisbon , still accompanied by the ravens. This transfer of the relics is depicted on the coat of arms of Lisbon . All existing buildings—including the Vila do Infante of Henry the Navigator —fell into ruins because of

1098-575: Is very likely that the Guadiana river valley away from the coast is one of the hottest on average in Europe. Portugal, including the Alentejo region, is affected by climate change and average temperatures are clearly on the rise. By acceptable standards of a developed country, the illiteracy rate in the region may still be surprisingly high among those older than sixty, in contrast with younger generations. The rate of coverage of pre-primary education

1159-547: 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

1220-658: 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

1281-638: The Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The Franciscan friars who cared for the shrine stayed on until 1834, when all monasteries were disbanded in Portugal. Several naval battles have been fought in the vicinity of this cape: This cape is the southwesternmost point in Portugal. It forms the southwestern end of the E9 European Coastal Path , which runs for 5,000 km (3,100 mi) to Narva-Jõesuu in Estonia . Approximately six kilometers from

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1342-644: 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 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

1403-493: 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

1464-490: 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),

1525-573: 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

1586-610: 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

1647-629: 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 ,

1708-485: The Alentejo region, including Queijo Serpa , Queijo de Évora , and Queijo de Nisa ( PDO cheeses); Vinho do Alentejo and Vinho do Redondo (wines); and presunto ( smoked ham ). Marble , cork , olive oil , and mining industries are other important activities in the region and tourism is expected to have growth potential. The Alqueva Dam is an important irrigation and hydroelectricity generation facility that supports part of Alentejo's economy. The region

1769-836: 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

1830-666: 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;

1891-922: 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

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1952-712: 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

2013-550: 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

2074-576: 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

2135-465: 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

2196-410: The adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within 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

2257-488: 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

2318-623: The cork oak is still harvested by teams of men using locally made hand-axes. No mechanical method has yet been invented that will allow the harvest to be achieved as effectively. The stripping of the bark is performed only in midsummer, when the bark can be removed more easily. The cork oak is the only tree known that will allow this regular stripping of bark without damage. The harvest of one mature tree provides sufficient bark to produce about 4,000 wine bottle corks. The industry provides employment for about 60,000 workers. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE )

2379-417: The country) and has a population of 537,556 (5.1% of the country). Excluding Ponte de Sor , its area is 26,432 km (10,205 sq mi) and its population 520,834. The population density of Alentejo is 19.1 per square kilometre (49/sq mi). Topographically, the countryside varies from the open rolling plains of the south of Alentejo to the granite hills that border Spain in the northeast. To feed

2440-622: 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

2501-458: 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

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2562-523: 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

2623-518: 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

2684-457: 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

2745-463: 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. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting

2806-473: The neighborhood attest. The ancient Greeks called it Ophiussa (Land of Serpents ), inhabited by the Oestriminis and dedicated here a temple to Heracles . The Romans called it Promontorium Sacrum (or Holy Promontory). Strabo, in his Geography calls this cape the most western tip of the known world and reports the place was considered magical. Common people believed the sun sank here hissing into

2867-429: The north, traditional economic activity may be more livestock-based as typified by cattle, sheep, and pig (both white and black) farming. To the south, agriculture may be more predominant. Parque Natural da Serra de São Mamede , a nature park area located to the east of Portalegre , includes medieval villages. In the south, near Mértola , there is another nature park area, named Parque Natural do Vale Guadiana . This

2928-702: The north, with Spain ( Andalucia and Extremadura ) in the east, Algarve in the south, and the Atlantic Ocean, Ribatejo , and Estremadura in the west. Alentejo is a region known for its traditional polyphonic singing groups, similar to those found in Tuscany , Corsica , and elsewhere. The comarca of the Alentejo became the Alentejo Province , divided into upper ( Alto Alentejo Province ) and lower ( Baixo Alentejo Province ) designations. The modern NUTS statistical region , Alentejo Region ,

2989-475: The ocean, marking the edge of their world, which Strabo qualifies as "common and vulgar reports" and attributes to Posidonius According to legend, the current name of this cape is linked to the story of a martyred fourth-century Iberian deacon St. Vincent whose body was brought ashore here. A shrine was erected over his grave; according to the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi , it was always guarded by ravens and

3050-401: The spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as 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

3111-603: 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

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3172-403: 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

3233-750: 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 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

3294-542: The village of Sagres, the cape is a landmark for a ship traveling to or from the Mediterranean . The cliffs rise nearly vertically from the Atlantic to a height of 75 meters. The cape is a site of exuberant marine life and a high concentration of birds nesting on the cliffs, such as the rare Bonelli's eagle , peregrine falcons , kites , rock thrushes , rock pigeons , storks and herons . The present lighthouse

3355-519: The warmest temperatures can be found in the southernmost inland parts of the region, along the Guadiana valley between Mértola and Juromenha , particularly in the areas close to Moura . However, the hottest days tend to deviate from the usual pattern and will arise when the winds are east or southeast and very hot air with temperatures reaching 25 °C (77 °F) or more at 850 mbar level (usually around 1,500 m.a.s.l.) enter Iberia from Africa. If

3416-485: The water needs of this considerable area, a number of public dams have been constructed, most notably the Alqueva Dam . The landscape is primarily one of soft rolling hills and plains, with conspicuous shrubs and the native cork oaks and holly/holm oaks , the established olive trees and grapevines , as well as eucalyptus trees and some native trees. Managed oak landscapes are locally known as montados . In

3477-507: The winds are strong enough, the deep and low-lying valley of the Sado river becomes extremely warm by European standards. Places like Alvalade do Sado and Alcácer do Sal and others below 100 metres (330 ft) can reach 45 °C (113 °F) under extreme circumstances, and 40 °C (104 °F) in the summer is regularly reached, despite the fact that they are relatively close to the coast. The highest temperature ever recorded in Portugal

3538-568: 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

3599-574: Was expropriated from the medieval provinces and historical territories of Estremadura Province (specifically the 1936 portions of the Ribatejo ). The term Entre-Tejo-e- Guadiana has become obsolete; it referred to roughly the same land area between the Tagus and the Guadiana rivers as part of the Kingdom of Portugal . Alentejo's area extends to 27,272 square kilometres (10,530 square miles) (29.6% of

3660-611: Was measured on 1 August 2003 in Amareleja and reached 47.4 °C (117.3 °F). The average daytime maximum temperatures reach 35 to 36 °C (95 to 97 °F) in July and August near Moura, 33 to 34 °C (91 to 93 °F) in the Sado Valley (and other inland valleys away from the coast). Many parts, however, are above 200 or 300 metres (660 or 980 ft) altitude, which leads to lower average temperatures also in summer. It

3721-422: 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

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