172-784: Appalachian English is American English native to the Appalachian mountain region of the Eastern United States . Historically, the term Appalachian dialect refers to a local English variety of southern Appalachia, also known as Smoky Mountain English or Southern Mountain English in American linguistics. This variety is both influential upon and influenced by the Southern U.S. regional dialect , which has become predominant in central and southern Appalachia today, while
344-707: A cot–caught merger , which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked , as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee ( talk and coffee ), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal : [oə] . A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes , using different
516-576: A Western Pennsylvania regional dialect has become predominant in northern Appalachia, according to the 2006 Atlas of North American English (ANAE). The ANAE identifies the "Inland South", a dialect sub-region in which the Southern U.S. dialect's defining vowel shift is the most developed, as centering squarely in southern Appalachia: namely, the cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga , Tennessee ; Birmingham, Alabama ; Greenville, South Carolina ; and Asheville, North Carolina . All Appalachian English
688-520: A pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə] , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents. Most Americans preserve all historical /r/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent . The only traditional r -dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England , New York City , and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across
860-399: A -prefixing; for example, it can only occur with verbs accented on the initial syllable: a-fóllowin but not a-discóverin or a-retírin . Moreover, it cannot occur on –ing forms functioning as nouns or adjectives; the forms must function as verbs. Thus, sentences like the movie was a-charmin are ungrammatical. 'A' can only be a prefix of verbs or complements of verbs with –ing . However,
1032-624: A Celtic culture, and had its own Celtic language, Cumbric , spoken predominately in Cumbria until around the 12th century. Parts of the north and east of England were subject to Danish control (the Danelaw ) during the Viking Age , but the northern part of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria remained under Anglo-Saxon control. Under the Vikings, monasteries were largely wiped out, and
1204-787: A Knave (1968). There are no recognised minority languages in Northern England, although the Northumbrian Language Society campaigns to have the Northumbrian dialect recognised as a separate language. It is possible that traces of now-extinct Brythonic Celtic languages from the region survive in some rural areas in the Yan Tan Tethera counting systems traditionally used by shepherds. Contact between English and immigrant languages has given rise to new accents and dialects. For instance,
1376-754: A Northern dialect area, some correspond the area north of a line that begins at the Humber estuary and runs up the River Wharfe and across to the River Lune in north Lancashire. This area corresponds roughly to the sprachraum of the Old English Northumbrian dialect , although the linguistic elements that defined this area in the past, such as the use of doon instead of down and substitution of an ang sound in words that end - ong ( lang instead of long ), are now prevalent only in
1548-636: A UK or Irish identity. 90.5% of the population described themselves as white, compared to an England and Wales average of 85.9%; other ethnicities represented include Pakistani (2.9%), Indian (1.3%), Black (1.3%), Chinese (0.6%) and Bangladeshi (0.5%). The broad averages hide significant variation within the region: Allerdale and Redcar and Cleveland had a greater percentage of the population identifying as White British (97.6% each) than any other district in England and Wales, while Manchester (66.5%), Bradford (67.4%) and Blackburn with Darwen (69.1%) had among
1720-631: A complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling , while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England ,
1892-447: A consonant, such as in pearl , car and fort . Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some accents of Eastern New England , New York City , and African-Americans , and a specific few (often older ones) spoken by Southerners , are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated. Rhoticity
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#17327944370822064-620: A dialect separate from the American Southern regional dialect, as it shares many core components with it. Research reveals that Appalachian English also includes many grammatical components similar to those of the Midland regional dialect , as well as several unique grammatical, lexical, and phonological features of its own. Research suggests that the Appalachian dialect is one of the most distinctive and divergent dialects within
2236-591: A distinctive coarse-grained rock used to make millstones , is widespread in the Pennines, and the variety of other rock types is reflected in the architecture of the region, such as the bright red sandstone seen in buildings in Chester , the cream-buff Yorkstone and the distinctive purple Doddington sandstone. These sandstones also mean that apart from the east coast, most of Northern England has very soft water , and this has influenced not just industry, but even
2408-444: A far more accurate comparison would be to 18th-century (or "colonial") English. Regardless, the Appalachian dialect studied within the last century, like most dialects, actually shows a mix of both older and newer features, with particular Ulster Scots immigrant influences. Appalachian English has long been a popular stereotype of Appalachians and is criticized both inside and outside the speaking area as an inferior dialect, which
2580-482: A few years. Because of the considerable difference of a -prefixing frequency according to age (the frequency varied between 10% and 50%), Walt Wolfram (1976) supports the "(...) contention that a -prefixing is a phenomenon that is dying out in Appalachia". A -prefixing can be traced back to the 16th century: The construction reached its height from 1500 to 1700 and developed out of using the preposition "on" and
2752-411: A generation or more after moving to large urban areas in the north and west suggests that Appalachian English is conservative rather than isolated. Beliefs about Appalachia's isolation led to the early suggestion that the dialect was a surviving relic of long-forgotten forms of English. The most enduring of these early theories suggested that the Appalachian dialect was a remnant of Elizabethan English,
2924-450: A haircut"). The -self/-selves forms are used almost exclusively as emphatics, and then often in non-standard forms (e.g., "the preacher hisself"). Second person pronouns are often retained as subjects in imperative sentences (e.g., "You go an' get you a cookie"). The possessive absolutive forms, Standard yours, his, hers, theirs , and ours appear as yourn, hisn, hern, theirn , and ourn . The possessive absolute form of "yinz/yunz/you'uns"
3096-514: A lineage of female realist writers from the North that later included Winifred Holtby , Catherine Cookson , Beryl Bainbridge and Jeanette Winterson . Many of the angry young men of post-war literature were Northern, and working-class life in the face of deindustrialisation is depicted in novels such as Room at the Top (1959), Billy Liar (1959), This Sporting Life (1960) and A Kestrel for
3268-399: A little pony and we was a-ridin' it one day" Common contexts also include where the participle form functions as an adverbial complement, such as after movement verbs ( come , go , take off ) and with verbs of continuing or starting ( keep , start , get to ). Examples include "All of a sudden a bear come a-runnin'", and "He just kep' a-beggin'". Phonological rules and restrictions apply to
3440-574: A major target for Luftwaffe attacks during the Second World War . The Blitz of 1940–1941 saw major raids on Barrow-in-Furness , Hull , Leeds , Manchester , Merseyside , Newcastle and Sheffield with thousands killed and significant damage done. Liverpool, a vital port for supplies from North America, was especially hard hit – the city was the most bombed in the UK outside London and Hull, with around 4,000 deaths across Merseyside and most of
3612-591: A merger with the THOUGHT ( caught ) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/ , /θ/ , and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong ), and variably by region or speaker in gone , on , and certain other words. Unlike American accents,
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#17327944370823784-884: A more modern occupation known as the Creswellian culture around 12,000 years ago. Kirkwell Cave in Lower Allithwaite , Cumbria shows signs of the Federmesser culture of the Paleolithic , and was inhabited some time between 13,400 and 12,800 years ago. Significant settlement appears to have begun in the Mesolithic era, with Star Carr in North Yorkshire generally considered the most significant monument of this era. The Star Carr site includes Britain's oldest known house, from around 9000 BC, and
3956-636: A nice day , for sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey , boost, bulldoze and jazz , originated as American slang. American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs . Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation , major, and many others. Compounds coined in
4128-556: A number of speech patterns found in Colonial American English but largely discarded in Standard speech, such as "r" intrusion (e.g., "warsh" for "wash") and a "y" sound in place of "a" on the end of certain words (e.g., "okry" for "okra"). The southern drawl is of an unknown American origin, although some of its characteristics suggest a relationship with the drawl of Ulster accents. Native American influences in
4300-480: A process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to
4472-680: A series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the " Inland North ". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents ) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u] ) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ] ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker
4644-638: A single Southern Mountain dialect of the United States. Appalachian terms found in Ozark English include fireboard , tow sack , jarfly , and brickle and similar speech patterns also exist, such as epenthetic h ( hit instead of it ), the use of the "a-" prefix ("a-goin'" for "going"), and the d -stop in place of certain "z" sounds (e.g., "idn't" for "isn't"), all of which is seen in other dialects of older Southern American English . Studies have shown that Ozark English has more in common with
4816-462: A survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink , you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in
4988-547: A theory popularized by Berea College president William Goddell Frost in the late 1800s. However, while Shakespearean words occasionally appear in Appalachian speech (e.g., afeared ), these occurrences are rare. David Hackett Fischer (1989) linked the dialect to the Southern Scots and Northumbrian English dialects of northern England, southern Scotland and Ulster. However, many aspects of this theory have been questioned by linguists, with Michael Ellis (1992) arguing that
5160-453: A variation of American English in these islands. In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people. The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called
5332-574: A verbal noun ending in -ing . Only used in formal and educated writing in the 17th century, it became nonstandard in the 18th century. Montgomery (2009) argues that a-prefixing developed from the preposition "an"/"on" in Early Middle English and suggests that it arose from the loss of the -n from "on" in examples like "hee set before his eyes king Henrie the eight with all his Lordes on hunting in his forrest at Windsore" (Thomas Nashe, "Unfortunate Traveller", 1594). In Appalachian English,
Appalachian English - Misplaced Pages Continue
5504-410: Is rhotic and characterized by distinct phonology , morphology , syntax , and lexicon. It is mostly oral but its features are also sometimes represented in literary works. Extensive research has been conducted since the 1930s to determine the origin of the Appalachian dialect. One popular theory is that the dialect is a preserved remnant of 16th-century (or "Elizabethan") English in isolation, though
5676-481: Is yournses . Pronouns and adjectives are sometimes combined with "'un" (meaning "one"), such as "young'un" to mean "child", "big'un" to mean "big one", and "you'uns" to mean "you all". "Young'n'" and "'big'n'" also are common in Northern England . The word element "-ever" is sometimes reversed in words such as "whatever" ("everwhat"), "whoever" ("everwho"), and "however" ("everhow"), but the usage remains
5848-654: Is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South. American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT ) have instead retained a LOT – CLOTH split : a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set ) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into
6020-664: Is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin , and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English , beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands ; Thomasites first established
6192-554: Is an increase from the 14,933,000 (and 6,364,000 households) counted in the 2011 census, and itself a growth of 5.1% from 2001. This means that Northerners comprise 28% of the English population and 24% of the UK population. Taken overall, 8% of the population of Northern England were born overseas (3% from the European Union including Ireland and 5% from elsewhere), substantially less than the England and Wales average of 13%, and 5% define their nationality as something other than
6364-483: Is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization, nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during
6536-420: Is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality : [aː] , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a " Southern drawl " that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels . The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE , GOAT , MOUTH , and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as
6708-550: Is often mistakenly attributed to supposed laziness, lack of education, or the region's relative isolation. American writers throughout the 20th century have used the dialect as the chosen speech of uneducated and unsophisticated characters, though research has largely disproven these stereotypes; however, due to such prejudice, the use of the Appalachian dialect is still often an impediment to educational and social advancement. Along with these pejorative associations, there has been much debate as to whether Appalachian English constitutes
6880-455: Is positively correlated with a shortage in access to environmental influences. These environmental influences include the following: housing; schooling; employment; medical assistance; and money. Appalachian English is often viewed by outsiders as a dialect of uneducated people. Individuals from Appalachia tend to be perceived as low-income and lower class, regardless of the individual's actual situation. Historically, these ideas originated prior to
7052-601: Is reflected in its literature. On the one hand, the wild moors and lakes have inspired generations of Romantic authors: the poetry of William Wordsworth and the novels of the Brontë sisters are perhaps the most famous examples of writing inspired by these elemental forces. Classics of children's literature such as The Railway Children (1906), The Secret Garden (1911) and Swallows and Amazons (1930) portray these largely untouched landscapes as worlds of adventure and transformation where their protagonists can break free of
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7224-496: Is the most widely spoken language in the United States ; the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce; and an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states . Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around
7396-484: Is the common language at home, in public, and in government. Northern England Northern England , or the North of England , is a region that forms the northern part of England and mainly corresponds to the historic counties of Cheshire , Cumberland , Durham , Lancashire , Northumberland , Westmorland and Yorkshire . The region also coincides with the medieval era borders of Anglian Northumbria ,
7568-469: Is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/ , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard . Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston , Pittsburgh , Upper Midwestern , and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ( /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ , respectively):
7740-501: Is used with much greater frequency in the Appalachian dialect. Similarly, the phrase "it is" frequently appeared as "it are" in Appalachian English as late as the mid-twentieth century. While the greatest amount of divergence in subject-verb concord occurs in the past tense of the verb 'to be', certain types of plural subjects have an effect on concord across various types of verbs. However, plural subjects continue to show
7912-708: The Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik , and the Brythonic Celtic Hen Ogledd kingdoms . The North is a grouping of three statistical regions : the North East , the North West , and Yorkshire and the Humber . These had a combined population of 15.5 million at the 2021 census , an area of 37,331 km (14,414 square miles) and 17 cities . Northern England is culturally and economically distinct from both
8084-946: The Chesterfield , North East Derbyshire , Bolsover , and Derbyshire Dales districts have joined with districts of South Yorkshire to form the Sheffield City Region , along with the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire, although for all other purposes these districts still remain in their respective East Midlands counties. Some parts of northern Derbyshire (including High Peak), Shropshire and Staffordshire are served by BBC North West . Some areas of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are served by BBC Yorkshire (formerly BBC North), whilst eastern Yorkshire shares its BBC region with Lincolnshire and small parts of Nottinghamshire and north west Norfolk . The historic part of Lincolnshire known as Lindsey (in essence
8256-482: The English-only movement , have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.) Puerto Rico is the largest example of a United States territory in which another language – Spanish –
8428-588: The Great Depression the outer British unemployment rate was 16.1% and the Southern rate was less than half that at 7.1%. The weakening economy and interwar unemployment caused several episodes of social unrest in the region, including the 1926 general strike and the Jarrow March . The Great Depression highlighted the weakness of Northern England's specialised economy: as world trade declined, demand for ships, steel, coal and textiles all fell. For
8600-716: The High Peak borough of Derbyshire are included in the Greater Manchester Built-Up Area , as villages and hamlets there such as Tintwistle, Crowden and Woodhead were formerly in Cheshire before local government boundary changes in 1974, due to their close proximity to the city of Manchester , and before this the borough was considered to be part of the Greater Manchester Statutory City Region . More recently,
8772-622: The Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent ), and the South . As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area , Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə] . These sound changes have triggered
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#17327944370828944-657: The Midlands and Southern England . The area's northern boundary is the border with Scotland , its western the Irish Sea and a short border with Wales , and its eastern the North Sea . Its southern border is often debated, and there has been controversy in defining what geographies or cultures precisely constitute the 'North of England' — if, indeed, it exists as a coherent entity at all. Many Industrial Revolution innovations began in Northern England, and its cities were
9116-551: The Native American languages . Examples of such names are opossum , raccoon , squash , moose (from Algonquian ), wigwam , and moccasin . American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse , from French ; cookie , from Dutch ; kindergarten from German , and rodeo from Spanish . Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and
9288-545: The Norman Conquest , and to put an end to the rebellion, William ordered the Harrying of the North . In the winter of 1069–1070, towns, villages and farms were systematically destroyed across much of Yorkshire as well as northern Lancashire and County Durham. The region was gripped by famine and much of Northern England was deserted. Chroniclers at the time reported a hundred thousand deaths – modern estimates place
9460-571: The North Sea coastline. The geography of the North has been heavily shaped by the ice sheets of the Pleistocene era, which often reached as far south as the Midlands. Glaciers carved deep, craggy valleys in the central uplands, and, when they melted, deposited large quantities of fluvio-glacial material in lowland areas like the Cheshire and Solway Plains . On the eastern side of
9632-490: The Old Norse language, having taken root in Britain with Scandinavian settlement there during the Viking Age (c. 800–1050 CE). Two such items are constructions with the word "till" to tell the time of day ("quarter till five") and the use of "at" in place of "that" as both a demonstrative and relative pronoun (Old Norse at ("that")). Some speech habits which can be traced back to the rural areas of northern England and
9804-644: The Personal Rule period. By the time war broke out in 1642, King Charles had moved his court to York, and Northern England was to become a major base of the Royalist forces until they were routed at the Battle of Marston Moor . At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution , Northern England had plentiful coal and water power while the poor agriculture in the uplands meant that labour in
9976-695: The River Mersey (the line between the Humber and Mersey estuaries being a common boundary) and River Trent . The Isle of Man is occasionally included in broad geographical definitions of "the North" (for example, by the Survey of English Dialects , VisitBritain and BBC North West ), although it is politically and culturally distinct from England. Some areas of Derbyshire , Lincolnshire , Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire have northern characteristics and include satellites of northern cities. Towns in
10148-402: The Wirral Peninsula to Doncaster , taking in the cities of Liverpool , Manchester , Leeds , and Sheffield , with a population of at least 7.6 million. Analysis by The Northern Way in 2006 found that 90% of the population of the North lived in and around: Liverpool , Central Lancashire , Manchester , Sheffield , Leeds , Hull and Humber Ports , Tees Valley and Tyne and Wear . At
10320-476: The a -prefix may not be attached to a verb which begins with an unstressed syllable, such as discover or retire . While much less frequent or productive, the a -prefix can also occur on participles ending in -ed , such as "a-haunted" The a -prefix has been found to occur most frequently in more animated or vivid narratives, as a stylistic device. Studies suggest that a -prefixing is more common with older speakers and might therefore disappear completely in
10492-655: The francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program , manoeuvre for maneuver , cheque for check , etc.). AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize . BrE prefers -ise , but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling ). There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences , called " comma splices " in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors
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#173279443708210664-429: The ice ages , Northern England was buried under ice sheets, and little evidence remains of habitation – either because the climate made the area uninhabitable, or because glaciation destroyed most evidence of human activity. The northernmost cave art in Europe is found at Creswell Crags in northern Derbyshire, near modern-day Sheffield, which shows signs of Neanderthal inhabitation 50 to 60 thousand years ago, and of
10836-715: The local Celtic languages . They are a dialectal continuum , middle areas that have a crossover between varieties spoken, around the North. Traditional dialectal areas are defined by their historic county or combined historic counties; including Cumbrian (Cumberland and Westmorland), Lancastrian (Lancashire), Northumbrian (Northumberland and Durham) and Tyke (Yorkshire). During the Industrial Revolution urban areas gained some or further distinction from traditional dialects; such as areas Mackem (Wearside), Mancunian (Manchester), Pitmatic (Great Northern Coalfield), Geordie (Tyneside), Smoggie (Teesside), Scouse (Liverpool) and around Hull . Linguists have attempted to define
11008-433: The 1640 Treaty of Ripon King Charles I was forced to temporarily cede Northumberland and County Durham to the Scots and pay to keep the Scottish armies there. To raise enough funds and ratify the final peace treaty, Charles had to call what became the Long Parliament , beginning the process that led to the First English Civil War . In 1641, the Long Parliament abolished the Council of the North for perceived abuses during
11180-709: The 18th century; apartment , shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium , townhouse , mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof ( driveway , breezeway, backyard ) . Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology ) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ( dirt roads , freeways ) to infrastructure ( parking lot , overpass , rest area ), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as store , shop , lumber —underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in
11352-409: The 1950s reshaped Northern England once more, and there are now significant populations from the Indian subcontinent in towns and cities such as Bradford, Leeds, Preston and Sheffield. Deindustrialisation continued and unemployment gradually increased during the 1970s, but accelerated during the government of Margaret Thatcher , who chose not to encourage growth in the North if it risked growth in
11524-413: The 2011 census, 86% of the Northern population lived in urban areas as defined by the Office for National Statistics , compared to 82% for England as a whole. Due to differing definitions and city limits , the list of largest towns and cities may be misleading. For example while Manchester is ranked fourth as a city, the greater urban area it leads ( Greater Manchester Built-up Area ) is the largest in
11696-427: The 20th century. The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas . The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing
11868-504: The Appalachian dialect are virtually nonexistent except for place names (e.g., "Appalachia", "Tennessee", "Chattahoochee River", "Cheoah Mountains"). While early settlers adopted numerous customs from tribes such as the Cherokee and Shawnee , they typically applied existing words from their own languages to those customs. The traditional Appalachian dialect spread to the Ozark Mountains in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. Ozark and Appalachian English have been documented together as
12040-436: The Appalachian dialect. These words are not exclusive to the region, but tend to occur with greater frequency than in other English dialects: Early theories regarding the origins of the Appalachian dialect tend to revolve around popular notions regarding the region's general isolation and the belief that the region is culturally static or homogenous. The tendency of Appalachian speakers to retain many aspects of their dialect for
12212-553: The Brigantes made the Romans wary, and they were conquered in a war beginning in the 70s under the governorship of Quintus Petillius Cerialis . The Romans created the province of " Britannia Inferior " (Lower Britain) in the North, and it was ruled from the city of Eboracum (modern York ). Eboracum and Deva Victrix (modern Chester) were the main legionary bases in the region, with other smaller forts including Mamucium (Manchester) and Cataractonium ( Catterick ). Britannia Inferior extended as far north as Hadrian's Wall , which
12384-627: The British form is a back-formation , such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar ). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems. While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions. The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in
12556-413: The East Coast (perhaps in imitation of 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious in the 20th century. The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ ɹ̠ ] or retroflex approximant [ ɻ ] , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound
12728-653: The Elizabethan era (including throughout the 1600s). Some pronunciation features reminiscent of those in the Scottish Lowlands and Ulster can also be heard, such as the pin-pen merger and goose fronting, the Scotch-Irish and English settlers had a strong influence on the Appalachian dialect, linguistic analyses suggest that Appalachian English developed as a distinctive dialect among English-speaking people in North America. The Appalachian dialect retains
12900-571: The Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity , the father–bother merger , Mary–marry–merry merger , pre-nasal "short a " tensing , and other particular vowel sounds . General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in
13072-490: The Lake District receive over 3,200 mm (130 in). Lowland regions in the more southern parts of Northern England (such as Cheshire and South Yorkshire) are the warmest with average maximum July temperatures of over 21 °C (70 °F): the highest points in the Pennines and Lake District reach only 17 °C (63 °F). The North has a reputation for cloud and fog – with the west's high average rainfall and
13244-421: The Midlands include the h-retention (e.g., hit for it ), the use of the word right in the place of very (e.g., "right cold"), and the presence of words such as yonder . Similarly the word "afeared" was common in northern England and the Midlands throughout the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s, though fell out of use in the early 1800s when it was supplanted in literary English after 1700 by the word "afraid". The word
13416-551: The North East and Cumbria, excluding the entirety, or at least the majority, of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Some settlements, including Sheffield, located in the far south of what would typically be defined as "the North", have been referred to as being in the " North Midlands " as opposed to "the North". Personal definitions of the North vary greatly. When asked to draw a dividing line between North and South, Southerners tend to draw this line further south than Northerners do. From
13588-539: The North East) or yous (common in areas with historical Irish communities). Many dialects use me as a possessive ("me car") and some treat us likewise ("us cars") or use the alternative wor ("wor cars"). Possessive pronouns are also used to mark the names of relatives in speech (for example, a relative called Joan would be referred to as "our Joan" in conversation). With urbanisation, distinctive urban accents have arisen which often differ greatly from
13760-608: The North emigrated, chiefly to the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The First World War was the turning point for the economy of Northern England. In the interwar years , the Northern economy began to be eclipsed by the South – in 1913–1914, unemployment in "outer Britain" (the North, plus Scotland and Wales) was 2.6% while the rate in Southern England was more than double that at 5.5%, but in 1937 during
13932-548: The North starts somewhere in North Yorkshire around the River Tees – the Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage suggests Thirsk , Northallerton or Richmond – and does not include cities like Manchester and Leeds , nor the majority of Yorkshire. Northern England is not a homogeneous unit, and some have entirely rejected the idea that the North exists as a coherent entity, claiming that considerable cultural differences across
14104-459: The North. The Lake District includes England's highest peak, Scafell Pike , which rises to 978 m (3,209 ft), its largest lake, Windermere , and its deepest lake, Wastwater . Northern England is one of the most treeless areas in Europe, and to combat this the government plans to plant over 50 million trees in a new Northern Forest . Uniquely for such a large urban belt in Europe,
14276-684: The North–South divide strengthened the distinct Northern English identity, which, despite regeneration in some of the major cities, remains to this day. The region saw several IRA attacks during the Troubles , including the M62 coach bombing , the Warrington bomb attacks and the 1992 and 1996 Manchester bombings . The latter was the largest bomb detonation in Great Britain since the end of
14448-725: The Norwegian king Harald Hardrada by the Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York marked the beginning of the end of Viking rule in England, and the almost immediate defeat of Godwinson at the hands of the Norman William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings was in turn the overthrow of the Anglo-Saxon order. The Northumbrian and Danish aristocracy resisted
14620-697: The Pennines, a former glacial lake forms the Humberhead Levels : a large area of fenland which drains into the Humber and which is very fertile and productive farmland. Much of the mountainous upland remains undeveloped, and of the ten national parks in England , five – the Peak District, the Lake District, the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales , and Northumberland National Park – are located partly or entirely in
14792-800: The Romans as Brigantia . Other tribes mentioned in ancient histories, which may have been part of the Brigantes or separate nations, are the Carvetii of modern-day Cumbria and the Parisi of east Yorkshire. The Brigantes allied with the Roman Empire during the Roman conquest of Britain : Tacitus records that they handed the resistance leader Caratacus over to the Empire in 51. Power struggles within
14964-537: The Roses , including the decisive Battle of Wakefield , although the modern-day conception of the war as a conflict between Lancashire and Yorkshire is anachronistic – Lancastrians recruited from across Northern England, including Yorkshire, even requiring mercenaries from Scotland and France , while the Yorkists drew most of their power from Southern England, Wales and Ireland. The Anglo-Scottish Wars also touched
15136-486: The Second World War, and damaged or destroyed much of central Manchester. The attack led to Manchester's ageing infrastructure being rebuilt and modernised, sparking the regeneration of the city and making it a leading example of post-industrial redevelopment followed by other cities in the region and beyond. At the 2021 census , Northern England had a population of 15,550,000, in 6,659,700 households. This
15308-573: The South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods. American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language , known as Webster's Dictionary ,
15480-403: The South. The era saw the 1984–85 miners' strike , which brought hardship for many Northern mining towns. Northern metropolitan county councils, which were Labour strongholds often with very left-wing leadership (such as Militant-dominated Liverpool and the so-called " People's Republic of South Yorkshire "), had high-profile conflicts with the national government. The increasing awareness of
15652-478: The Southern perspective, Northern England is sometimes defined jokingly as the area north of the Watford Gap between Northampton and Leicester – a definition which would include much of the Midlands . Various cities and towns have been described as or promoted themselves as the "gateway to the North", including Crewe , Stoke-on-Trent , and Sheffield . For some in the northernmost reaches of England,
15824-508: The Tees, Deira corresponded roughly to the eastern half of modern-day Yorkshire, Rheged to Cumbria, and Elmet to the western-half of Yorkshire. Bernicia and Deira were first united as Northumbria by Aethelfrith , a king of Bernicia who conquered Deira around the year 604. Northumbria then saw a Golden Age in cultural, scholarly and monastic activity, centred on Lindisfarne and aided by Irish monks. The north-west of England retains vestiges of
15996-528: The U.S. Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize , etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae , skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in
16168-570: The U.S. are for instance foothill , landslide (in all senses), backdrop , teenager , brainstorm , bandwagon , hitchhike , smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic ( human resources , affirmative action , correctional facility ). Many compound nouns have
16340-676: The U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky . A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots . Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in
16512-530: The U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ( merger , downsize , bottom line ), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball . The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ( elevator [except in
16684-427: The U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet , eyeglasses , and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." Gotten ( past participle of get ) is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from
16856-541: The U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler ), baggage , hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket , originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English. Linguist Bert Vaux created
17028-527: The UK's potash . Northern England has a cool, wet oceanic climate with small areas of subpolar oceanic climate in the uplands. Averaged across the entire region, Northern England temperature range and sunshine duration is similar to the UK average and it sees substantially less rainfall than Scotland or Wales. It is cooler, wetter and cloudier than England as a whole, containing both England's coldest ( Cross Fell ) and rainiest point ( Seathwaite Fell ). These averages disguise considerable variation across
17200-538: The United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-century British English has since lost. Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩ ) in all environments, including in syllable-final position or before
17372-563: The United States has advanced, succeeding its inception in 1949. The systematic study of linguistic boundaries in the United States was established by Hans Kurath . Hans Kurath was an American linguist who is acknowledged for his role as chief editor of the Linguistic Atlas of New England . The Linguistic Atlas of New England was the earliest, complete linguistic atlas of a broad region. Furthermore, many of Hans Kurath's initial ideas about linguistic boundaries are under discussion in
17544-641: The United States. "Them" is sometimes used in place of "those" as a demonstrative in both nominative and oblique constructions. Examples are "Them are the pants I want" and "Give me some of them crackers." Oblique forms of the personal pronouns are used as nominative when more than one is used (cf. French moi et toi ). For example, "Me and him are real good friends" instead of "He and I are really good friends." Accusative case personal pronouns are used as reflexives in situations which, in American English, do not typically demand them (e.g., "I'm gonna get me
17716-605: The West and Midwest, and New York Latino English , spoken in the New York metropolitan area . Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and " Yinglish " are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews , Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana , and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii , though primarily English-speaking,
17888-608: The Yorkshire-based Pilgrimage of Grace , all against Henry VIII . His daughter Elizabeth I faced another Catholic rebellion, the Rising of the North . The region would become the centre of recusancy as prominent Catholic families in Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire refused to convert to Protestantism. Royal power over the region was exercised through the Council of the North at King's Manor , York, which
18060-750: The absence of the FOOT – STRUT split (so put and putt are homophones ), the reduction of the definite article the to a glottal stop (usually represented in writing as t ' or occasionally th ' , although it is often not pronounced as a /t/ sound) or its total elision , and the T-to-R rule that leads to the pronunciation of t as a rhotic consonant in phrases like get up ( [ɡɛɹ ʊp] ). The pronouns thou and thee survive in some Northern English dialects, although these are dying out outside very rural areas, and many dialects have an informal second-person plural pronoun: either ye (common in
18232-555: The accents spoken in the " Midland ": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum. Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since
18404-505: The aeronautical sense ], gasoline ) as did certain automotive terms ( truck , trunk ). New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish ( chutzpah , schmooze, bupkis, glitch ) and German ( hamburger , wiener ). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7 ), while others have not ( have
18576-727: The area overwhelm any similarities. The Pennines , an upland range sometimes referred to as "the backbone of England" run through most of the area defined as northern England, which stretches from the Tyne Gap to the Peak District . Other uplands in the North include the Lake District with England's highest mountains, the Cheviot Hills adjoining the border with Scotland, and the North York Moors near
18748-484: The area was cheap. Mining and milling, which had been practised on a small scale in the area for generations, began to grow and centralise. The boom in industrial textile manufacture is sometimes attributed to the damp climate and soft water making it easier to wash and work fibres, although the success of Northern fabric mills has no single clear source. Readily available coal and the discovery of large iron deposits in Cumbria and Cleveland allowed ironmaking and, with
18920-481: The blends of tea enjoyed in the region. Rich deposits of iron ore are found in Cumbria and the North East, and fluorspar and baryte are also plentiful in northern parts of the Pennines. Salt mining in Cheshire has a long history, and both remaining rock salt mines in Great Britain are in the North: Winsford Mine in Cheshire and Boulby Mine in North Yorkshire, which also produces half of
19092-491: The booming industrial cities, some were escaping poverty, some were servants or slaves, some were sailors who chose to settle in the port towns, some were Jews fleeing pogroms on the continent, and some were migrants originally stranded at Liverpool after attempting to catch an onwards ship to the United States or to colonies of the British Empire . At the same time, hundreds of thousands from depressed rural areas of
19264-429: The boundaries should be fuzzy lines. These fuzzy lines should provide rough ideas of boundaries, rather than hard lines, because there is a lot of dialectic variety within these small areas that is often difficult to differentiate. The reality is a range of dialectic variants are commonplace in the Appalachian area of the country. Categorizing all of these different variants under one umbrella may actually further complicate
19436-595: The cities in this region are all as recent as the Industrial Revolution – most of them previously scattered villages. Vast urban areas have emerged along the coasts and rivers, and they run almost contiguously into each other in places. Near the east coast, trade fuelled the growth of major ports and settlements ( Kingston upon Hull , Newcastle upon Tyne , , Middlesbrough and Sunderland ) to create multiple urban areas. Inland needs of trade and industry produced an almost continuous urbanisation from
19608-418: The city centre destroyed. Hull, the worst bombed city outside of London suffered damage to 98% of all buildings, the highest percentage of any town or city. The rebuilding that followed, and the simultaneous slum clearance that saw whole neighbourhoods demolished and rebuilt, transformed the faces of Northern cities. Immigration from the " New Commonwealth ", especially Pakistan and Bangladesh , starting in
19780-584: The conquest, which likely populated much of the desolated regions of Cumbria, and which was persistent enough that the town of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire still had an ethnic enclave called Flemingate in the thirteenth century. During the Anarchy , Scotland invaded Northern England and took much of the land north of the Tees . In the 1139 peace treaty that followed, Prince Henry of Scotland
19952-406: The country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r -dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from
20124-441: The crucibles of many of the political changes that accompanied this social upheaval, from trade unionism to Manchester Liberalism . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the economy of the North was dominated by heavy industry . Centuries of immigration, invasion, and labour have shaped Northern England's culture, and it has retained countless distinctive accents and dialects , music, arts, and cuisine. Industrial decline in
20296-747: The desert". Monastic orders such as the Cistercians became significant players in the economy of Northern England – the Cistercian Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire became the largest and richest of the Northern abbeys, and would remain so until the Dissolution of the Monasteries . Other Cistercian abbeys are at Rievaulx , Kirkstall and Byland . The 7th-century Whitby Abbey was Benedictine and Bolton Abbey , Augustinian . A significant Flemish immigration followed
20468-548: The dialect is difficult to attribute to a single source. Montgommery (1991, 1995) identifies 18 characteristics of Appalachian grammar, including the use of might could for might be able to , the use of "'un" with pronouns and adjectives (e.g., young'un ), the use of "done" as a helping verb (e.g., we done finished it ), and 22 words such as airish ("airy") as being derived from the Scotch-Irish , Scottish and Northumbrian dialects of English. The use of double negatives
20640-436: The dialect of East Tennessee than with the dialect of West Tennessee or even Eastern Arkansas . Other distinctive features of Ozark English include phonological idiosyncrasies (many of which it shares with Appalachian English); certain syntactic patterns, such as the use of for to , rather than to , before infinitives in some constructions; and a number of lexical peculiarities. The systematic study of linguistic boundaries in
20812-496: The discovery of grave goods in Northern churchyards suggests that Norse funeral rites replaced Christian ones for a time. Viking control of certain areas, particularly around Yorkshire, is recalled in the etymology of many place names : the thorpe in town names such as Cleethorpes and Scunthorpe , the kirk in Kirklees and Ormskirk and the by of Whitby and Grimsby all have Norse roots. The 1066 defeat of
20984-614: The diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages. Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in
21156-742: The double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation. AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where
21328-656: The earliest evidence of carpentry in the form of a carved tree trunk from 11000 BC. The Lincolnshire and Yorkshire Wolds around the Humber Estuary were settled and farmed in the Bronze Age , and the Ferriby Boats – one of the best-preserved finds of the era – were discovered near Hull in 1937. In the more mountainous regions of the Peak District, hillforts were the main Bronze Age settlement and
21500-479: The east coast experiences a distinctive sea fret . Smog in urban areas was prevalent from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; sunshine duration has increased in urban areas in recent years with the Clean Air Act 1956 and the area's heavy industry in decline. The English spoken today in the North has been shaped by the area's history, and some dialects retain features inherited from Old Norse and
21672-529: The extent of the historical Northumbria , which excludes Cheshire and northern Lincolnshire, though the latter formed the Kingdom of Lindsey, which was periodically under Northumbrian rule. The Redcliffe-Maud Report (1969) proposed that southern Cheshire be grouped with north Staffordshire as part of a West Midlands province as opposed to a North West England one. Occasionally, "Northern England" may be used to describe England's northernmost reaches only, broadly
21844-517: The following two centuries) when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North, and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. While non-rhoticity spread on
22016-448: The form 'liketa' functions as an adverb and occurs before the past form of a verb. 'Liketa' carries a meaning similar to "on the verge of" or "came so close that I really thought x would", where x is the subject of the verb. It comes from a compression of the phrase "likely to". 'Liketa' also imposes a notion of impossibility on the clause in which it appears, distinguishing it from the word 'almost'. For example, "They almost made it to
22188-485: The greatest frequency of non-concord. The example below is taken from Wolfram & Christian (1976 :78): Conjoined noun phrases: Collective noun phrases: Other plural noun phrases: Expletive 'there': A notable feature of Appalachian English is the a -prefix which occurs with participle forms ending in -ing . This prefix is pronounced as a schwa [ə] . The a -prefix most commonly occurs with progressives, in both past and non-past tenses. For example, "My cousin had
22360-412: The historical accents of the surrounding rural areas and sometimes share features with Southern English accents. Northern English dialects remain an important part of the culture of the region, and the desire of speakers to assert their local identity has led to accents such as Scouse and Geordie becoming more distinctive and spreading into surrounding areas. The contrasting geography of Northern England
22532-944: The hospital , BrE to hospital ; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor , BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor ). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects. Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour , fiber for fibre , defense for defence , analyze for analyse , license for licence , catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling . Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to
22704-614: The influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish ) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers. Any phonologically unmarked North American accent falls under an umbrella known as General American. This section mostly refers to such General American features. Studies on historical usage of English in both
22876-528: The invention of the Bessemer process , steelmaking to take root in the region. High quality steel in turn fed the shipyards that opened along the coasts, especially on Tyneside and at Barrow-in-Furness . The Great Famine in Ireland of the 1840s drove migrants across the Irish Sea , and many settled in the industrial cities of the North, especially Manchester and Liverpool – at the 1851 census , 13% of
23048-438: The late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce . New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas,
23220-511: The locals were most likely pastoralists raising livestock. Roman histories name the Celtic tribe that occupied the majority of Northern England as the Brigantes , likely meaning "Highlanders". Whether the Brigantes were a unified group or a looser federation of tribes around the Pennines is debated, but the name appears to have been adopted by the inhabitants of the region, which was known by
23392-427: The mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in
23564-526: The modern-day. Appalachian English is one of the linguistic boundaries constructed by Hans Kurath. The origins of Appalachian English can be traced back to Scottish-Irish ancestors, and include unique grammatical and lexical differences Appalachian English can be found in the following states: Ohio; West Virginia; Kentucky; North Carolina; Northern Georgia; Northern South Carolina; western Virginia; Alabama; and Tennessee. Notwithstanding, when it comes to determining its specific boundaries, some linguists believe that
23736-696: The more northern parts of the region. As speech has changed, there is little consensus on what defines a "Northern" accent or dialect. Northern English accents have not undergone the TRAP – BATH split , and a common shibboleth to distinguish them from Southern ones is the Northern use of the short a (the near-open front unrounded vowel ) in words such as bath and castle . On the opposite border, most Northern English accents can be distinguished from Scottish accents because they are non-rhotic , although some Lancashire and Northumberland accents remain rhotic. Other features common to many Northern English accents are
23908-617: The most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents. Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English , which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans , has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture . Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English , spoken in
24080-428: The most part, Northern factories were still using nineteenth-century technology, and were not able to keep up with advances in industries such as motors, chemicals and electricals, while the expansion of the electric grid removed the North's advantages in terms of power generation and meant it was now more economic to build new factories in the Midlands or South. The industrial concentration in Northern England made it
24252-458: The nation". There are roles/portrayals of the language that have inspired it to be falsely associated with a stereotypical "hillbilly". Thus, creating misjudgments from non-Appalachians about the region. American English American English , sometimes called United States English or U.S. English , is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English
24424-597: The northern half of the county) is considered by many to be northern, or at least a larger part of Lincolnshire than merely the north and northeast Lincolnshire districts. The geographer Danny Dorling includes most of the West Midlands and part of the East Midlands in his definition of the North, claiming that "ideas of a midlands region add more confusion than light". Conversely, more restrictive definitions of Northern England also exist. Some are based on
24596-480: The onset of the American Civil War. Appalachian stereotypes are damaging to natives of the area. Consequently, natives hide or modify their accent when visiting or moving to areas outside of Appalachia. This is done in fear of accent discrimination . Accent discrimination undermines intelligence and the character of an individual. Furthermore, easier access to social relations via the internet has expanded
24768-402: The past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned / learnt , burned / burnt , snuck/sneaked , dove/dived ) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school ); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to
24940-473: The plural sense. For example, "That stick is 3 foot long", or "We need 6 foot of drywall". This is found in the Scots language. The word right can be used with adjectives (e.g., "a right cold morning") and along with its standard use with adverbs, can also be used with adverbs of manner and time (e.g., "right loud" or "right often"). Being part of the greater Southern United States , the dialect shares many of
25112-703: The population of Manchester and Salford were Irish-born, and in Liverpool the figure was 22%. In response there was a wave of anti-Catholic riots and Protestant Orange Orders proliferated across Northern England, chiefly in Lancashire, but also elsewhere in the North. By 1881 there were 374 Orange organisations in Lancashire, 71 in the North East, and 42 in Yorkshire. From further afield, Northern England saw immigration from European countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Scandinavia. Some immigrants were well-to-do industrialists seeking to do business in
25284-484: The process of studying the variants of Appalachian speech. Appalachian English is thought to be the oldest form of English to date-including the Shakespearean dialect-which can be a factor contributing to the myth of the dialect being outdated. In addition to the linguistic boundary debates, Appalachian English is surrounded by stereotypical views of the area and the people living in it. A sense of "Appalachianism"
25456-430: The quantity of negative beliefs associated with individuals from Appalachia. Despite all of the debates surrounding this dialect and whether or not its boundaries are legitimate and correct, to the people of Appalachia, their variety of English is central to their identities regardless of how it is seen by linguists, as well as outsiders. According to expert linguist Kirk Hazen, "Appalachia is the most misunderstood region in
25628-503: The region and larger than Leeds's urban area ( West Yorkshire Built-up Area ) despite Leeds being the largest as a sole city. The table below shows the urban areas in the region with a population of at least 250,000. Peat is found in thick, plentiful layers across the Pennines and Scottish Borders, and there are many large coalfields, including the Great Northern , Lancashire and South Yorkshire Coalfields . Millstone grit ,
25800-632: The region, and in just 400 years, Berwick-upon-Tweed – now the northernmost town in England – changed hands more than a dozen times. The wars also saw thousands of Scots settle south of the border, chiefly in the border counties and Yorkshire. After the English Reformation , the North saw several Catholic uprisings, including the Lincolnshire Rising , Bigod's Rebellion in Cumberland and Westmorland, and largest of all,
25972-472: The region, due chiefly to the upland regions and adjacent seas. The prevailing winds across the British Isles are westerlies bringing moisture from the Atlantic; this means that the west coast frequently receives strong winds and heavy rainfall while the east coast lies in a rain shadow behind the Pennines. As a result the coast north of the Humber are the driest parts of the North, the Tees basin has 600 mm (24 in) of rain per year while parts of
26144-404: The restrictions of society. Modern poets such as the Poets Laureate Ted Hughes and Simon Armitage have found inspiration in the Northern countryside, producing works that take advantage of the sounds and rhythms of Northern English dialects. Meanwhile, the industrialising and urbanising cities of the North gave rise to many masterpieces of social realism . Elizabeth Gaskell was the first in
26316-409: The same (e.g., "Everwho did this is in big trouble"). The conjugation of the verb "to be" is different from that of standard English in several ways, and sometimes more than one form of the verb "to be" is acceptable in Appalachian English. Divergence from standard English conjugation of the verb "to be" occurs with the highest frequency in the past tense, where grammatically plural subjects also take
26488-416: The same terms of the South. In its relation to south of the Midland, it has several terms in common with its North Midland counterpart, including poke (paper bag), hull (to shell), and blinds (shutters). Certain German-derived words such as smearcase (cottage cheese), however, are present in the North Midland dialect but absent in the Appalachian dialect. The following is a list of words which occur in
26660-416: The second half of the 20th century damaged the North, leading to greater deprivation than in the South. Although urban renewal projects and the transition to a service economy have resulted in strong economic growth in parts of the North, the North–South divide remains in both the economy and culture of England. For government and statistical purposes, Northern England is defined as the area covered by
26832-417: The singular form "was" rather than "were". Thus, the paradigm of the verb "to be" in Appalachian English more closely resembles the paradigm for other non-"be" verbs in English, where the past tense takes a single form, regardless of number or person. The use of the word ain't is also one of the most salient features of this dialect. While "ain't" is used to some extent in most American English dialects, it
27004-400: The three northernmost statistical regions of England: North East England , North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber . This area consists of the ceremonial counties of Cheshire , Cumbria , County Durham , East Riding of Yorkshire , Greater Manchester , Lancashire , Merseyside , Northumberland , North Yorkshire , South Yorkshire , Tyne and Wear and West Yorkshire , plus
27176-448: The top of the mountain" is allowed but not "They liketa made it to the top of the mountain." 'Liketa' does not carry the same notion of partial truth as 'almost'. Some nouns are spoken in pairs, the first noun describing the seemingly redundant second noun, as in "hound dog", "Cadillac car", "widow woman", "toad frog", "biscuit bread", or "rifle gun". Measurements such as "foot" and "mile" often retain their singular form even when used in
27348-431: The total somewhere in the tens of thousands, out of a population of two million. When the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, much of Northern England was still recorded as wasteland, although this may have been in part because the chroniclers, more interested in manorial farmland, paid little attention to pastoral areas. Following Norman subjugation, monasteries returned to the North as missionaries sought to "settle
27520-570: The traditional standard accent of (southern) England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved a trap–bath split . Moreover, American accents preserve /h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping , particularly in informal contexts. However, General American is also innovative in a number of its own ways: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from
27692-458: The unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire within the ceremonial county Lincolnshire . Other definitions use historic county boundaries, in which case the North is generally taken to comprise Cumberland , Northumberland, Westmorland , County Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire , often supplemented by Cheshire. The boundary is sometimes drawn without reference to human borders, using geographic features such as
27864-427: The variety of English spoken by Poles in Manchester is distinct both from typical Polish-accented English and from Mancunian. At a local level, the diversity of immigrant communities means that some languages that are extremely rare in the country as a whole have strongholds in Northern towns: Bradford for instance has the largest proportion of Pashto speakers, while Manchester has most Cantonese speakers. During
28036-417: The verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout , holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover , and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ( win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others). Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in
28208-727: The word corn , used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S. Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 , with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style ). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms ( lot , waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin , adobe in
28380-609: The world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American ; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent . The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in
28552-515: Was common among the rural population of the English Midlands and South in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s, and was correspondingly common amongst British colonists, in particular English colonists in the original thirteen colonies. The phrase fell out of use in England sometime in the early 1800s; however, it remained in use in the Appalachia region of North America until the mid-to-late twentieth century. A few items characteristic of Appalachian grammar originate, via British English and Scots dialects, in
28724-413: Was common in England during the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the Northern English Cumbrian dialect. Montgommery also identified several features, such as the use of the "a-" prefix (e.g., "a-goin'" for "going") and the attachment of "-ed" to certain verbs (e.g., knowed ), as originating in Southern and Midland English dialects. The use of "it are" (usually pronounced "it err") in place of "it is"
28896-426: Was founded in 1484 by Richard III. The Council existed intermittently for the next two centuries – its final incarnation was created in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace and was chiefly an institution for providing order and dispensing justice. Northern England was a focal point for fighting during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms . The border counties were invaded by Scotland in the Second Bishops' War , and at
29068-404: Was made Earl of Northumberland and kept the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumbria, as well as part of Lancashire. These reverted to English control in 1157, establishing for the most part the modern England–Scotland border. The region also saw violence during The Great Raid of 1322 when Robert the Bruce invaded and raided the whole of Northern England. There was also the Wars of
29240-440: Was the northernmost border of the Roman Empire . Although the Romans invaded modern-day Northumberland and part of Scotland beyond it, they never succeeded in conquering the reaches of Britain beyond the River Tyne . After the end of Roman rule in Britain and the arrival of the Angles , Yr Hen Ogledd (the "Old North") was divided into rival kingdoms, Bernicia , Deira , Rheged and Elmet . Bernicia covered lands north of
29412-412: Was used frequently in the work of Shakespeare. In Appalachia the word simply remained in use and did not get completely supplanted by the word "afraid", unlike in most of the English-speaking world. Though the word "afeared" originates in northern England and throughout the Midlands, it is nonetheless incorrect to refer to the word "afeared" as "Elizabethan" because it was commonly used in England long after
29584-469: Was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick / he ran quickly ; different use of some auxiliary verbs ; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns ; different preferences for
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