Understanding Language and Literacy

Language and Literacy 1
UNDERSTANDING LANGUAGE AND LITERACY

Language and Literacy 2
The colonial lag, accounts, in most parts, for the phonetic, grammatical as well as
lexical differences of the same word so that English is the functional native language of
Britain, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa; while it is a
second language, derived firstly from the colonial use of it in these parts, in Asia and Africa
mainly (Roach, 2009).
Phonemically, variations prominently ensue from the differential distribution of
vowels, consonants and syllables in various dialects. Therefore, ‘bottle’ becomes [ˈbɒtl5] in
UK English; [ˈbɑɾl5] in American English [ˈbɔɾl5] in the Australian usage of English (Roach,
2009).
If you are in London or South East England, it is Standard English to say, “You ain’t seen
nothing yet” (with the use of double negatives); demonstrative pronouns are used as a
determiner in Yorkshire or the Middle England (“... them books”). Other variations include
that of the Northern Regional Accents which are characterised by the omission of the /ʌ/
sound; shorter use of the /æ/ vowel and; the /ʊ/ becoming /uː/ (Lancashire, Yorkshire and
Liverpool for example); and the African American Vernacular English constituting omission
of auxiliaries, a distinct second person plural form and the use of the diphthong /aɪ/ (wherein
“my” is reduced to a vowel /a/) (Veerhoven, 2018)
Words that have been influenced by the contact with the Roman empire of the Germanic
tribes include: ‘street’ (originally, a straight paved Roman road) from the Old English ‘straèt’
from the Latin ‘strata. Considering an early example, the Latin ‘euangelium’ is a compound
word of words ‘eu’ (meaning ‘well’) and ‘angelion’ (meaning ‘news’) – both of which are
Greek (Jesperson, 2007). Records of medieval writers teaching philosophy, theology and
science show the expression of newly made native English words:
participle ← dàe-nimend

Language and Literacy 3
noun ← nama ← nomen (Latin)
preposition ← forsetennys (Latin ‘prae’ for ‘before’ and ‘positionem’ for ‘placing’)
Retained Greek words include: academy, harmony, ecstasy, irony, alphabet, epic, dogma,
acrobat, among others. And all these, only a few examples spanning across the middle ages to
the last century (Jesperson, 2007). Historical contexts such as the Renaissance and
Reformation revitalised and enlarged the linguistic scope of English.
American influence on the language proper of English, though scorned upon by many,
cannot be overlooked. With the nation’s advantage as the world’s leading economy and the
highly developed and powerful media culture, its efficacy towards having a controlling hand
on everyday use of English has only increased with time (Wren, 2010). Therefore, the
colloquial and Americanised use of the word ‘fix’:
“I’ll fix it for you” or “Try and fix it so that he escapes”
Or, the phrases, such as:
“frame up” for “trumped-up charge”
“pass out” for “die” or “faint”
Analysing texts from different points of time, the change of and in the English
language can be traced. For example, picking up an Old English text such as Beowulf, when
the West Germanic settlers brought influences upon the language (that would later become
the modern Dutch, German and, Frisian):
Heart ← heorte
Old ← eald