BLA2104: ORIGINS AND

DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND

SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LINGUISTICS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LECTURE 1 – ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH …………..…5

Origins and Spread of English ……………………………………………...…..……6

Rise of Middle English ………………………………….…………………………....7

Modern English ……………………………………………………………………….8

LECTURE 2 - THE NOTION OF LANGUAGE FAMILIES ………………..….9

Language Family ………………………………………………………….………….9

LECTURE 3 – LANGUAGE CHANGE ……………………………………..…..17

Language Change……………………………………………………………..……..17

Reasons for Language Change …………………………………………………..….18

Types of Language Change …………………………………………………....……18

LECTURE 4 – ENGLISH IN KENYA, ORIGINS AND SPREAD…….…….…22

Origin and History of English in Kenya…………………………………..…………22

The Status of English in Kenya …………………………………………………..….26

Characteristics of Kenyan English ……………………………………………..…….28

LECTURE 5 – ORIGINS, DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE IN BOTH COMMONWEALTH AND NON-COMMONWEALTH
COUNTRIES ………………………………………………………………..………39

History of the Commonwealth …………………………………………….……..…..39

English in Selected Commonwealth Countries ………………………………..……..42

English in Selected Non-Commonwealth Countries …………………………..……..50

References …………………………………………………………………………….57

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BLA2104: ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH

LECTURER - CHRISTOPHER MUGAMBI

CREDIT HOURS: 3

PRE-REQUISITES: NONE

PURPOSE

To describe the basic historical and linguistic facts of the development of English from its
Indo-European roots to its worldwide spread in modern times

OBJECTIVES

By the end of the course unit the learners should be able to:

i) Give an overview of the historical stages of Old English, Middle English, and
Modern English with world wide spread
ii) Analyze the important areas of change over the centuries and survey of the
worldwide varieties of English in our days
iii) Explain the origin, development and spread of the English language in
commonwealth and non-commonwealth countries

COURSE CONTENT
1. LECTURE 1 – ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH

i. Origins and Spread of English

ii. Rise of Middle English

iii. Modern English

2. LECTURE 2 - THE NOTION OF LANGUAGE FAMILIES

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 i. Language Family

3. LECTURE 3 – LANGUAGE CHANGE

i. Language Change

ii. Reasons for Language Change

iii. Types of Language Change

4. LECTURE 4 – ENGLISH IN KENYA, ORIGINS AND SPREAD

i. Origin and History of English in Kenya

ii. The Status of English in Kenya

iii. Characteristics of Kenyan English

5. LECTURE 5 – ORIGINS, DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN BOTH COMMONWEALTH AND NON-
COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES
i. History of the Commonwealth

ii. English in Selected Commonwealth Countries

iii. English in Selected Non-Commonwealth Countries

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LECTURE 1 - ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH

Introduction

In this lesson, we shall learn about the origin of English language, its spread and the major
milestones involved in its development.

Objectives

By the end of this topic, you should be able to:

1. list a number of English families
2. describe the origin and spread of English
3. outline major milestones in development of English

English is a Germanic language of the indo –European family. It is the second most
spoken language in the world after Mandarin – language spoken by Chinese. It has around
one billion speakers.

English is the language of science, aviation, computing diplomacy and tourism. It is

listed as the official language of over 45 countries and spoken extensively in other countries
where it has no official status. This compares to 27 countries recognizing French the official
language, 20 countries – Spanish and 17 countries – Arabic. English has the largest
vocabulary.

A List of English speaking countries

Antigua, Guyana, Australia, New Zealand, Bahamas, Jamaica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Belize
South Africa, Bermuda, Trinidad, Canada, Tobago, Dominica, United Kingdom, Grenada
United States of America

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ORIGINS AND SPREAD OF ENGLISH
The history of the language can be traced back to the arrival of three Germanic tribes
to Britain during the 5th century. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the Red sea from
what is today Denmark and Northern Germany.

The inhabitants of Britain were Celts and spoke Celtic language. This was quickly
displaced most of the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and
Brittany in France. The Angles were named from Engle (their land of Origin). Their language
was English from which the word English derives. The languages of the three tribes were
very closely related.

During the next few centuries, four dialects of English developed from the three
tribes:-

i. North Humbrian

ii. Mercian

iii. West Saxon

iv. Kentish

During the 7th and 8th century, North Humbrian’s culture and language dominated
Britain. The Viking invasions of the 9th century brought this domination to an end a long with
the destruction of Mercia. By the 10th century, the West Saxon’s dialect became the official
language of Britain; written Old English is mainly known from this period. The writing of an
alphabet called Runic came from the Scandinavian languages.

The Latin alphabet was brought over by Christian missionaries and it replaced the
Runic alphabet and has remained the writing system of English to the Present day.

At this time the vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo-Saxon basic with
borrowed words from Scandinavian languages (Danish + Norse) and Latin. Latin gave
English words e.g. street, Kitchen, kettle, cup, wine, candle. The Vikings Scandinavian added
Norse words e.g. ‘sky egg, cake, skin, raise, die, they and them’. Celtic words also survived
and mainly place and river names e.g. Deven, Kent, Thames etc.

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 Many parts of English and Norse words co-existed giving us words with the same or
slightly different meanings:
Norse English
Anger Wrath
Nay No
Ill Sick
Skill Craft
Skin hide

RISE OF MIDDLE ENGLISH

In 1066, the Normans conquered Britain; French therefore became the language of
Norman aristocracy and added more vocabulary to English more pairs of similar words arose:
French English
Close shut
Reply answer
Odor Smell
Annual year
Because the English under-class cooked for the Norman upper –class the words for
most domestic English e.g. Ox, cow, sheep, swine deer etc.
While the words of meat derived from them are French (beef, Mutton, pork, bacon)
The Germanic form of plurals add “en” at the end:

House –housen child – children

Shoe – shoen mouse –mouser
The Germanic plurals were eventually displaced by the French method of making
plurals, where we add ‘-s’:
Man - Men
Woman –women
Ox –oxen
French also affected spelling:
Germanic French
Cween queen

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 It wasn’t until the 14th century that English became dominant in Britain. By the end of
14th century the dialect of Landon had emerged as the standard dialect of what we now call: -
middle English.

MODERN ENGLISH
It began around the 16th century. And like all languages, it is still changing. Many
words have entered the language either directly or indirectly; since the 16th century because
of the contact that the British had from the many people from around the world.
Languages that have contribution words to English include German, Arabic, Latin, Hindi,
Italian, Greek, Malay, Dutch, Farsi, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Kiswahili.

Activity

 list a number of English families

 describe the origin and spread of English
 outline major milestones in development of English

Summary

In this lesson, we have learnt about the origin of English language, its
spread and the major milestones involved in its development.

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 LECTURE 2 - THE NOTION OF LANGUAGE FAMILIES

Introduction

In this lesson, you will learn the concept of language families and see an exemplification of
some of the language families of the world.

Objectives

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the concept of language families

2. Outline the various groups of the Indo-European family

Language Family

A language family is a parent language and the daughter languages that have developed from
it. There is no nature English, English is a product of many languages (constructive
language). Hence, English is a constructive language not a native language.

Proto language is a parent language from which it is assumed that many ancestral languages
come from it. For example, Proto-Germanic is the parent language of English and German.

Examples of Language Families

1. The Indo-European Language Family

To the indo-European language family belong most languages of Europe. The Indo-
European family is divided into several groups:

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 The Indo-European language family (Ramat and Ramat 1998) covers most of Europe
and spreads, with some breaks, across Iran and Central Asia down into South Asia. As a
result of colonial expansion, it is now also dominant in the Americas and in Australia and
New Zealand.
In Europe itself, only a few peripheral areas are occupied by non-Indo-European
languages, in particular areas where Basque and some Uralic languages are spoken and parts
of the Caucasus. The Indo-European family subdivides into a number of well established
branches.
The Celtic languages (Ball 1993, MacAulay 1993) were once also dominant
languages of western and central Europe, but with the expansion of Germanic and Romance
languages in particular they have retreated to the western fringes of Europe, the living
languages being Welsh in Wales, Irish on the west coast of Ireland, Breton in Brittany
(France), and Scots Gaelic in northwestern Scotland.
The Romance languages (Harris and Vincent 1988, Posner 1996) occupy most of
southwestern Europe, and are the descendants of Latin, the language of the Roman Empire.
Strictly speaking, the branch of Indo-European is Italic, since it includes a number of
languages other than Latin that died out by the early centuries of the Common Era as a result
of Roman and Latin expansion, so that all living Italic languages are in fact Romance
languages. The major living languages are French, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and
Romanian.
The Germanic languages (Konig and van der Auwera 1994) are the dominant
languages of northwestern Europe, extending into central Europe. This is the language family
that includes English, and also Dutch, German, and the Scandinavian languages (including
Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic); an offshoot of German with considerable
admixture from Hebrew-Aramaic and Slavic is Yiddish, the traditional language of
Ashkenazi Jews and a widely spoken language of Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The
Scandinavian languages form North Germanic, while the other languages cited are West
Germanic; a third sub-branch of the family, East Germanic, is now extinct, the only
substantially attested language being Gothic.
Turning to Eastern Europe, the northernmost Indo-European branch is Baltic, now
consisting of the two languages, Lithuanian and Latvian. The Baltic languages have a
particularly close relation to the Slavic (Slavonic) languages (Comrie and Corbett 1993), now
dominant in much of eastern and central Europe and including three subbranches. The East
Slavic languages are Russian, Belarusian (Belorussian), and Ukrainian. The West Slavic

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languages include Polish, Czech, and Slovak. The South Slavic languages are Slovenian,
Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian. As a result of ethnic differences, what linguists
would, on grounds of mutual intelligibility, consider a single Serbo- Croatian language is
now often divided into Serbian and Croatian, with Bosnian sometimes added as a third ethnic
variety.
Two further branches of Indo-European, each consisting of a single language, are
found in the Balkans. Albanian consists of two dialect groups, Gheg in the north and Tosk in
the south, which might well be considered distinct languages on the basis of the mutual
intelligibility test, although there is a standard language based on Tosk. Hellenic includes
only Greek, although it is customary to give a different name to the branch, in part because it
includes varieties of Greek over more than three millennia, from Mycenean through Classical
Greek and Byzantine Greek to the modern language.
Armenian, spoken primarily in Armenia though also in the Armenian Diaspora
originating in eastern Turkey, is another branch of Indo-European consisting of a single
language, although the differences between Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia)
and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in Turkey) are considerable, and there are
two written languages.
Finally, with respect to the living languages, the Indo-Iranian languages are spoken
from the Caucasus to Bangladesh. Indo-Iranian divides into two sub-branches, Iranian and
Indo-Aryan (Indic), the latter occupying an almost continuous area covering most of
Pakistan, northern India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. The most widely spoken Iranian languages
are Persian (Iran), with national variants Tajik (in Tajikistan) and Dari (in Afghanistan),
Kurdish (mainly in the border area of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq), Pashto (in Afghanistan and
Pakistan), and Balochi (in Pakistan).
The Indo-Aryan sub-branch of Indo-Iranian (Masica 1991) includes Sanskrit, the
classical language of Indian civilization; Pali, the sacred language of Buddhism; and a large
number of modern languages, of which the most widely spoken are Hindi and Urdu,
essentially different national forms of the same language, in India and Pakistan respectively;
Sindhi and Western Panjabi (Lahnda) in Pakistan; Nepali in Nepal; and Kashmiri, Eastern
Panjabi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Assamese, and Oriya in India;
Bengali in India and Bangladesh; and Sinhala, geographically separated from the other Indo-
Aryan languages in Sri Lanka. It should also be noted that the various Romani languages,
spoken by Rom (Gypsies), belong to the Indo-Aryan group of languages.

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 In addition, two branches of Indo-European consist of extinct but well attested
languages. The best known of the Anatolian languages, spoken in what is now Turkey, is
Hittite, language of a major ancient empire (seventeenth-twelfth centuries BCE). Tocharian is
a family of two closely related languages, attested in texts from the latter half of the first
millennium CE in what is now the Xinjiang region in northwestern China.

Indo – European languages

Celtic Latin
Thracian
Hellenic
Germanic Slavoni
c
Baltic Illynic

Celtic - welsh Germanic – English Latin –Italian

- Irish - German - Spanish

- Gaelic - Dutch - Catalan

- Breton - Swedish - French

- Scots Gaelic - Norwegian - Rumanian

- Portuguese
Slavonic – Russian Baltic – Lithuanian Hellenic -Greek Indic - Hindi

- Polish - Latvian - Urdu

- Slovak Illynic – Albanian - Nepali

- Czech - Bengali

- Croatian Iranian – Kurdish - Punjabi

- Serbian - Farsi - Gujarati

- Bulgarian

- Ukrainian

- Belarusan

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2. Uralic Language Family
The Uralic language family (Abondolo 1998) must once have been spoken over a
continuous part of northeastern Europe and northwestern Asia, but inroads by other
languages, primarily Indo-European and Turkic, have isolated many of the Uralic branches
and languages from one another geographically. The family falls into two clear subgroups,
Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic. The Samoyedic languages, all with small numbers of speakers,
are spoken along the northern fringe of Eurasia, roughly from the Kanin peninsula to the
Taymyr peninsula.
Finno-Ugric divides in turn into a number of branches: Balto-Finnic (around the
Baltic Sea), Saamic (Lappish) (northern Scandinavia to the Kola peninsula), Volgaic (on the
Volga, although the unity of this branch is now questioned), Permic (northeastern European
Russia), and Ugric (western Siberia and Hungary, though the unity of Ugric is also
questioned). The most widely spoken languages are two Balto-Finnic languages, Finnish and
Estonian, and one of the Ugric languages, Hungarian. It should be noted that the present
location of Hungarian is the result of a long series of migrations, so that Hungarian is now far
distant in location from its closest relatives within Finno-Ugric.

3. Altaic Families
Altaic is a proposed genetic grouping that would include minimally the Turkic,
Tungusic, and Mongolic families, perhaps also Korean and Japanese. Each of these
components is a well established language family, and Altaic lies perhaps at the dividing line
that separates proponents of wide ranging genetic groupings of languages from those that
remain skeptical. Here the various families and the languages they contain will be noted
without any commitment to the unity of the overall grouping. The Turkic languages
(Johanson and Csato 1998) are spoken, with interruptions, in a broad belt stretching from the
Balkans in the west through the Caucasus and Central Asia and into Siberia.
Classification of the Turkic languages has always been problematic, in part because
most of the languages are very close to one another linguistically, in part because population
movements and even, in recent times, language politics have tended to overlay new
distinctions on old ones. It is recognized that two languages form separate branches of the
family: Chuvash, spoken in the Chuvash Republic (Russia) on the Volga, and Khalaj, spoken
by a small and dwindling population in the Central Province of Iran. Johanson and Csato
(1998: 82–3) propose four other branches, listed here with representative languages.
Southwestern (Oghuz) Turkic includes Turkish (Turkey), Azeri (Azerbaijani).

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4. Chukotko-Kamchatkan Language Family
Chukotko-Kamchatkan is a small language family spoken on the Chukotka and
Kamchatka peninsulas in the far northeast of Russia. All of the languages, which include
Chukchi, are endangered.

5. Caucasian Families
Some of the languages spoken in the Caucasus belong to language families already
mentioned, in particular Indo-European (Armenian, Iranian) and Turkic. But there remain a
large number of languages that do not belong to any of these families. These languages are
referred to as Caucasian, but it is important to note that this is essentially a negative
characterization. Indeed, it is currently believed that there are two or three families
represented among the “Caucasian” languages.
The Kartvelian (South Caucasian) family is spoken in Georgia with some extension
into Turkey, and the main language, the only one to be used as a written language, is
Georgian, the official language of the Republic of Georgia.
The other two Caucasian families are Northwest Caucasian (West Caucasian, Abkhaz-
Adyghe) and Northeast Caucasian (East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestanian), although Nikolayev
and Starostin (1994) present a detailed argument for considering them to constitute a single
North Caucasian family; will be treated separately here.
The Northwest Caucasian languages are spoken in Abkhazia, the northwestern part of
the geographic territory of the Republic of Georgia, and in parts of Russia to the north of this.
The main languages are Abkhaz (in Abkhazia) and the varieties of Circassian (Kabardian and
Adyghe) spoken in Russia and by a sizeable diaspora in the Middle East.
The Northeast Caucasian languages are spoken primarily in the constituent republics
of the Russian Federation of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Daghestan, with some spillover into
Azerbaijan. The languages with the largest numbers of speakers are Chechen (Chechnya) and
Avar (Dagestan).

6. Other Language Families of Europe and Northern Eurasia

A number of other languages or small language families are or were spoken in Europe
or northern Asia but do not, at least unequivocally, belong to any of the above families.
Basque is a language isolate spoken in the Pyrenees, divided by the Spain-France border.
Etruscan was the language of Etruria in northern Italy before the spread of Latin; it is now
known to be related to two less well attested languages, Rhaetian in the Alps and Lemnian on

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the island of Lemnos (Limnos) in the Aegean. Hurrian (sixteenth century BCE) and Urartean
(ninth to seventh centuries BCE) are two related extinct languages once spoken in eastern
Anatolia.
The Yeniseian family of languages has only one survivor, Ket, spoken on the Yenisei
River in western Siberia, although other languages are known from historical records that
became extinct from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Yukaghir, spoken in the area of
the Kolyma and Indigirka rivers in northeastern Russia, is sometimes treated as a language
isolate, although many linguists believe that it is distantly related to Uralic. Nivkh (Gilyak) is
a language isolate spoken at the mouth of the Amur River and on Sakhalin Island. Ainu
(Shibatani 1990) is a virtually extinct language spoken in northern Japan (Hokkaido Island).
Some or all of the languages mentioned here are often referred to collectively as
Paleosiberian or Paleoasiatic, but this is essentially a negative characterization (they do not
belong to any of the established language families), with no implication that they are related
to one another.

Activity

 Discuss the concept of language families

 Outline the various groups of the Indo-European family

15
Summary

In this lesson, you have learnt the concept of language families and see
an exemplification of some of the language families of the world.

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 LECTURE 3 - LANGUAGE CHANGE

Introduction

In this lesson, we are going to learn the linguistic concept of language change and the
reasons that motivate this. We shall also learn the types of language change.

Objectives

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

1. Define the concept of language change

2. Outline various ways in which language changes

Language change is variation over time in a language's phonetic, morphological,

semantic, syntactic and other features. Language changes over the years. This is at
vocabulary, pronunciation, dialect, accent, semantics and grammatical levels. One result of
ongoing changes is that a single language can develop into several languages. The early
stages of such development are apparent in differences among Australian, American,
Canadian, Indian and Irish English dialects, all of which have sprung from the English
spoken in Britain.

In order for different dialects to develop into separate languages, groups of speakers
must remain relatively isolated from one another, separated by physical barriers such as
mountain ranges and great bodies of water or by social and political barriers such as those
drawn along tribal, religious, ethnic, or national boundaries.

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Reasons and Causes of Language Change

a) Economy: Speakers tend to make their utterances as efficient and effective as

possible to reach communicative goals. Purposeful speaking therefore involves a
trade-off of costs and benefits.
b) The principle of least effort - Speakers especially use economy in their articulation,
which tends to result in phonetic reduction of speech forms. See vowel reduction,
cluster reduction, lenition, and elision. After some time a change may become widely
accepted (it becomes a regular sound change) and may end up treated as a standard.
For instance: going to [ˈɡoʊ.ɪŋ.tʊ] → gonna [ˈɡɔnə] or [ˈɡʌnə], with examples of both
vowel reduction [ʊ] → [ə] and elision [nt] → [n], [oʊ.ɪ] → [ʌ].
c) Analogy: reducing word forms by likening different forms of the word to the root.
d) Language contact: borrowing of words and constructions from foreign languages.
e) The medium of communication - spoken language differs from written language
f) Cultural environment: Groups of speakers will reflect new places, situations, and
objects in their language, whether they encounter different people there or not.

Types of Language Change

All languages change constantly, and do so in many and varied ways. There are
various types of language change:

a) Lexical changes

The ongoing influx of new words in the English language, for instance, helps make it
a rich field for investigation into language change, despite the difficulty of defining precisely
and accurately the vocabulary available to speakers of English. Throughout its history
English has not only borrowed words from other languages but has re-combined and recycled
them to create new meanings.

Dictionary writers try to keep track of the changes in languages by recording the
appearance in a language of new words, or of new usages for existing words. Languages are
continually adding new words as well as dropping those that have fallen out of favour with
the users of a particular language.

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b) Phonetic and Phonological Changes

The concept of sound change covers both phonetic and phonological developments.

The sociolinguist William Labov recorded the change in pronunciation in a relatively

short period in the American resort of Martha’s Vineyard and showed how this resulted from
social tensions and processes. Even in the relatively short time that broadcast media have
recorded their work, one can observe the difference between the pronunciation of the
newsreaders of the 1940s and the 1950s and the pronunciation of today. The greater
acceptance and fashionability of regional accents in media may also reflect a more
democratic, less formal society — compare the widespread adoption of language policies.

Regional accents change as well. Sound changes that affect all words in which a
particular sound occurs in a particular sound environment are called ‘regular sound changes’.
They may be conditioned or unconditioned.

The mapping and recording of small-scale phonological changes poses difficulties,

especially as the practical technology of sound recording dates only from the 19th century.
Written texts provide the main (indirect) evidence of how language sounds have changed
over the centuries. But note Ferdinand de Saussure's work on postulating the existence and
disappearance of laryngeals in Proto-Indo-European as an example of other methods of
detecting/reconstructing sound-changes within historical linguistics.

Pronunciation changes too. Sound changes that affect individual words are called
‘sporadic sound changes’.

Sometimes a change affects a sound only in particular linguistic environments.

Consider the case of ‘cats’ and ‘dogz’. This kind of regular sound change is called
‘conditioned sound change’.

When there is excessive shifting of sounds that affect every word in which a particular
sound appears, it is referred to as ‘unconditioned sound change’.

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c) Spelling Changes

Standardization of spelling originated relatively recently. Differences in spelling often

catch the eye of a reader of a text from a previous century. The pre-print era had fewer literate
people: languages lacked fixed systems of orthography, and the handwritten manuscripts that
survive often show words spelled according to regional pronunciation and to personal
preference.

d) Semantic Changes

Semantic changes are shifts in meaning of the existing words. They include:

 Pejoration - in which a term acquires a negative association

 Amelioration - in which a term acquires a positive association
 Widening - in which a term acquires a broader meaning
 Narrowing - in which a term acquires a narrower meaning

Activity

1. Define the concept of language change

2. Outline various ways in which language changes

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Summary

In this lesson, we have learnt the linguistic concept of language change

and the reasons that motivate this. We have also learnt the types of
language change.

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 LECTURE 4 - ENGLISH IN KENYA, ORIGINS,
DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD

Introduction

In this lecture, we shall learn about the origin, development, spread and practice of English in
Kenya.

Objectives

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

 Explain the origin of English in Kenya

 Outline various commissions and their effect on English

 Describe some unique characteristics of Kenyan English

Origin and History of English in Kenya

English in Kenya has its basis in the colonial language policy following the scramble
for Africa by European powers which took place towards the end of the 19th century. The
boundaries of the continent were defined by Europeans in the Berlin Conference on
December 1884–January 1885. In 1886, a joint commission comprising of representatives
from powerful European nations like Britain, Germany and France met to deliberate on the
Zanzibar’s Sultan authority in the East African Coast. This led to the partitioning of African
nations culminating in the European colonization.
Kenya became part of the British East Africa Protectorate. There were several issues
that the British had to consider in order to facilitate their rule in the colonies. Among these

22
were language and educational policies. The colonial language policy in Kenya is important
putting into consideration that it impacted greatly on post-colonial language policy.

First Era
In the first epoch, there were several players involved in the formulation of language
policy. Among these were the Christian missionaries who thought that gospel would best be
spread in mother tongue and the colonial administrators who had an interest in controlled
teaching of English to Africans in order to obtain low cadre employees in their
administration. There were also the British settlers who feared the Europeanization of
Africans through English language lest they became too educated to accept the role of wage
labourers.
While the mother tongue, Kiswahili and English were used with ease at various levels
of education, the colonial administration grew apprehensive over the teaching of English to
Africans shortly before the 1920s. There was realization that English education interfered
with the goal of maintaining a subordinate class of workers, forcing it to review the education
policy. Kenyans who had taken in a lot of English book learning were reluctant to do menial
work, while preferring to take up white collar careers. Additionally, some colonialists were
jealous of allowing many Africans to learn their language. Many European settlers regarded
the teaching of the English language to natives as a potentially subversive force. Social
distance between master and subject had to be maintained partly through linguistic distance.
Following the review of the education policy, English was to be taught to the Africans
guardedly in order to ensure that the majority of them never acquired secondary and
university education. It should, however, be pointed out that denial of Africans to learn
English, on the contrary, provided a stimulus for them to study it. The colonized people had
already realized that English language was a sure ticket to white collar employment and
wealth, such that to deny them a chance to learn it was tantamount to condemning them to
perpetual menial jobs.
It is for this reason, for example, that the Kikuyu of Kenya started independent
schools to learn English without inhibition in the 1920s. There were times when the
administrators would favour the promotion of either African languages or English in view of
their interests at stake.

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Second Era
After the Second World War, there was a shift in the British colonial language policy
which hurt local languages. When self rule was imminent in Kenya following the freedom
struggle, the British colonialists mounted a campaign to create some Westernized elite in the
country. They believed that such an elite group would protect their interests in independent
Kenya. This was obviously another step that buttressed English supremacy.
In 1950-1951, the Education Department Reports pointed out that it was inappropriate
to teach three languages at the primary school. The Reports included Beecher’s 1949, Binn’s
1952 and the Drogheda Commission of 1952. The documents recommended that English be
introduced in the lower primary to be taught alongside the mother tongue, and called for the
dropping of Kiswahili in the curriculum, except in areas where it was the mother tongue. The
implementation of this policy took effect in 1953-1955.
Further boost for English, at the expense of local languages occurred when the Prator-
Hutasoit Commission endorsed that English be the only language of instruction in all school
grades, heralding the New Primary Approach, better known as the English Medium
Approach.
To implement the new curriculum, teachers were to be trained in English, while their
mother tongues were viewed as a premium in teaching the lower primary schools. Arguably,
this was another step in consolidating the rise of English in Kenya.

Third Era – Post Colonial Period

When Kenya attained self rule in 1963, English was declared the official language. It
was to be used in all important governmental sectors; education inclusive. This is no wonder
putting into consideration that this policy only re-emphasised what was already in place as a
result of the colonial language policy. Additionally, those who took the helm of leadership
after the colonialists were spawned by the colonial education system and in the
circumstances, there was a high likelihood that they would perpetuate neo-colonialism, rather
than help to bring change.
Such measures were mainly tailored to education. The Ministry of Education took
several steps in line with language policy. In 1964, the Kenya Education Commission
mounted a survey to establish the interests of the citizens with regard to language use. The
findings revealed that most people wanted a trilingual approach to education. The mother
tongue was preferred for verbal communication especially in rural areas, while English and
Kiswahili were preferred for education from lower primary to the university. Kiswahili was

24
especially favoured in education for purposes of national and regional unity. Furthermore,
Kiswahili was seen as the appropriate language for the Pan- Africanism dream. However,
unlike English, the language was not anchored in to the school curriculum, and for a long
time, it remained an optional subject.
In 1964 also, the Ominde Commission revealed that many Kenyans were in favour of
English as the medium of instruction from the beginning class in primary school to the
university. The Commission threw its weight behind English language arguing that it would
accelerate learning in all subjects by ensuring smooth transitions from “vernaculars,” and
owing to its fundamental resources. English was therefore introduced in beginners’ classes in
primary schools through the New Primary Approach (NPA), in which its learning was
heavily emphasized. The Task also emphasised the use of mother tongue and Kiswahili in the
education system; at different levels and localities.
In 1967, The Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) started producing books in various
mother tongues, Kiswahili inclusive; for use in primary schools. In the same year, Kiswahili
was pronounced the language of Adult Education alongside the mother tongue (Gorman
1974). However, in urban areas, Kiswahili was to be used singularly. Nonetheless, English
supremacy in the Kenya educational system was entrenched following the Gachathi
Commission in 1976, which recommended that the tongue becomes the language of
instruction from the fourth grade, in primary school, to the university. Though the
Commission also declared Kiswahili an important subject in primary and secondary classes,
the language received inferior status when compared with English in the school curriculum.
While English was allotted 8-10 periods out of the 40 hours per week, Kiswahili which was
allotted 3 hours.
In 1981, the Mackay Commission recommended 8 years of primary school, 4 years of
secondary school and 4 years of university education. It passed that English remains the
language of instruction, while Kiswahili was made a compulsory subject in both primary and
secondary education. This policy was also followed by the production of Kiswahili books to
meet the increased demands of both students and teachers. The Mackay Commission further
advised that the mother tongue be used in lower grades of primary schools, in areas where
this was possible.

25
The Status of English in Kenya

There exists a complex multilingual situation in Kenya. There are over forty two indigenous
languages. These languages belong to four major African languages. That is;

1. Bantu

2. Nilotic

3. Cushitic

4. Khoisan

The Bantus in Kenya are the majority. Apart from these four African languages, there
are two lingua francas, that is, English and Kiswahili.

According to the constitution of Kenya, English is a co-official language in Kenya

with Kiswahili. As an official language, it plays the following roles:

1. Instrumental - English is used for formal education.

2. Regulative - It is used for government administration and in law courts.

3. Communicative – It is used for interpersonal communication between individuals

speaking different native languages.

4. Occupational - English here is used both intra-nationally and internationally for

commerce and for science and technology.

5. Creative - It is used for non-technical writings such as fiction and political works.

The English language is used as a medium of instruction in schools and colleges. At

the primary and secondary level, it is also taught as one of the examinable subjects. At the
tertiary level or in universities and colleges, English is the language of instruction. At the
highest levels, PhD theses in many subjects are routinely written in English so that they can
become part of the international conversation of the discipline. University textbooks in many
subjects are written in English.

English language is also serves as a very important tool in government administration

and in law courts. Parliamentary debates and budget reading are done in English. Court
proceedings are also done in English.

26
 English is used as a tool of human communication and is especially where we have
people from different backgrounds who use different native languages. It is used for
communication in many towns like Nairobi. This language is also a top requirement for those
people seeking good jobs and is often the language in which much of the business of good
jobs is conducted. It is used to address foreigners or tourists who in most cases are from
English speaking countries.

Most newspapers and magazines like The Daily Nation, The East African Standard,
The Star and many more are written in the English language. Many media houses and radio
stations also use the English language in many of their programs like reading news and
interviews with politicians and other personnel.

The English language is associated with technological and economic development and
it is the principal language of diplomacy. Where Kenya needs to be represented in other
countries like Japan, German or America, it is the English language that is used.

English language is very practical in Kenya but it can be said to have affected the
code of other languages like Kiswahili and other local languages. The most obvious effect of
English on other languages is borrowed lexis. The borrowing may be functional – in that
terminology for new inventions (like the computer) is borrowed along with the invention or it
can be merely fashionable in that an English word is borrowed for a concept which is already
adequately lexicalized in the borrowing language like days of weeks and months.

The whole population may shift to English because they consider English powerful
than their own languages. This can be observed where some parents especially in urban areas
teach their children only English and not their own mother-tongues or Kiswahili.

It is widely accepted that English is a marker of good education and modality. It also
marks the speaker’s degree of modernization. This is what many people want and therefore, it
leads to people having an attitude towards other languages which is negative and be positive
towards the English language. Mother-tongues have been relegated to low codes and very
minimal functions and as such, they only function as languages of ethnic identity.

27
Characteristics of Kenyan English

A number of linguistic features distinguish Kenyan English from other varieties.

These features are also shared among other varieties of Englishes around the world. Most of
these unique characteristics are prevalent among the less educated Kenyans.

 Person

Third person singular is often omitted:

- he walk to school daily

- she go to the market

The third person singular is also used in the first person singular position:

- drink this, I drinks the other

- when I takes tea I feel good

 The Copula

At times, speakers may not use the copula in their constructions:

- if you interested I can give you an offer

- I going to the hospital

 Have

The perfective ‘have’ may also be omitted:

- we done the exercise

- the boy he eaten his food

28
 Regularizing Irregular Or Strong Verbs

Irregular verbs may also be made regular by adding the past form marker –ed at the end:

- the animal was catched

- they had eated
- she was beated

 Topicalisation

This is a feature one may find even in British English as a form of politeness:

- If you don’t mind me asking, how can I get across the border?

In Kenya, topicalization is a form of emphasis where the subject pronoun is at times

reinforced by the object pronoun, or just repeated:

- them they are happy

- we ourselves are going
- my grandmother she is unwell
- the dog it is barking
- me I hate that person

 Double Negative

In some constructions, one may come across double negatives especially in

conversational English:

- there wasn’t nobody when the house burned down

- nothing wasn’t stolen from me
- I don’t have nothing

29
 Lack Of Concord Between Noun Or Pronoun And Verb:

Relative pronouns must be of the same person and number; its antecedent and number
must agree:

- the guests is here

- checkers are an interesting sport

 The Genitive

In writing, the genitive is not marked:

- the girls hostel is around here

- the mechanics toolbox was stolen

When it comes to speech, the genitive marker ‘s’ is avoided:

- the car of the teacher

- this house if for my father
- the land of my mother

 Invariable Nouns Are Mostly Regularized For Number:

- equipments
- Luggages
- Beddings
- sheeps
- furnitures
- firewoods
- charcoals
- grasses
- childrens
- two dozen

30
  In A Sentence, Nouns Which Usually Remain Singular Are Pluralized:

- he was given five thousands shillings for shopping

- he has no hairs on his head
- he bought a five-years-old house

On the other hand, nouns which are normally plural are singularized:

- he gave me a trouser
- use the scissor to cut the paper

 Direct Translations And Transfer Of Concepts From First Language:

- I am hearing cold
- He is drinking cigarettes
- My cow has a child
- I stopped a car
- The bike stood near me
- Greet me your aunt
- I slept like that
- The car slept on the road
- Borrow me some money

 Gender

There is lack of feminine and masculine contrast in Kenyan English. There is lack of
gender differentiation of nouns:

- the girl himself looks pretty

- mercy took his children to school
- her wife is a secretary

31
 Prepositions

At times, prepositions are deleted in constructions. In its place, an inappropriate

preposition may be used. This happens because African languages tend to have very few
prepositions:

- they are interested with the story

- she prefers tea than porridge
- the teacher for duty is late

 Articles

Articles and other determiners tend to be omitted before nouns. Sometimes the wrong
article is applied:

- he is going to market
- she went for wedding
- it was encouragement for me
- he has African heritage
- she gave me egg

 Adjectives

Adjective forms tend to be used in the place of adverbs:

- I can do it proper
- I got the job easy
- The animal killed him merciless

32
 Yes/No Questions

The responses to these questions are usually to the form but not to the logic of the
question:

- You don’t know this, do you? Yes I don’t.

- You did not get what you wanted? Yes I did not.

 Question Tags

Kenyan English has one generalized question tag for all situations for auxiliaries.
Speakers normally use ‘isn’t it?’ for all sentences:

- You are going to town, isn’t it?

- The dog has died, isn’t it?
- There are so many people here today, isn’t it?
- God is good, isn’t it?
- I am a good person, isn’t it?

Sometimes the tag is replaced with a Swahili particle:

- He is a very useful person, ama?

- We must go to town, si ndio?
- You will score an A in this unit, au?

 Pronouns

Pronouns are inappropriately used in both written and spoken discourse. These pronouns
are easily misapplied:

- he thinks he is someone
- you are a nobody
- I am no one in this home

33
  Reduplication

Verbs tend to be reduplicated in order to indicate continuity:

 The striking students were just shouting shouting

 I spoke to him but he was just dozing dozing
 We went and went and went
 Since he was unemployed, he was doing doing some odd jobs

 Continuous Tense

Kenyan English usually has common senses used in present participle forms in situations
where the British English does not:

- I am understanding what he is saying

- This food is tasting nice
- I am seeing him but he is not seeing me
- I am hearing what you are saying

 Use of ‘There’ and ‘They’

The pronoun and the locative are usually exchanged:

- they are three books here

- there are mine

 Punctuation

Punctuation markers are avoided orthographically:

- I will not attend the meeting next week I am going to the conference
- kamau and onyango standing outside will not get into my office

34
 Vocabulary

Kenyan English has Africanisms (lexical items take n from local and indigenous
languages):

- Food – sweet potato, sweet bananas, ugali, posho, supu, githeri, matoke, mandazi, uji,
omena, pombe, chai etc.
- Political and administrative terms – uhuru, ndugu, askari, watchman, magendo, bunge,
chama, harambee, umoja etc.
- Titles and occupations of persons – manamba, mzee, fundi, mzungu, baba, mkubwa,
daktari, mwalimu, mwananchi etc.
- Clothing – buibui, kanzu, kitenge, khanga, kaunda suit etc.
- Miscellaneous – dawa, debe, duka, kiondo, kikapu, mabati, sufuria, jembe, panga,
kijiko, polepole, zero-grazing, boma, isikuti, something small, kitu kidogo, matatu etc.

 Accents

Accent is one single marker of ethnicity in Kenyan English. This refers to the features of
pronunciation which convey a speaker’s ethnic background as well as geographical place
of origin. The regional Englishes discussed below are as a result of missing consonants in
the speaker’s first languages. Ethnicity is not mostly marked by vowel sounds as most
Kenyan ethnic languages seem to share common vowels.

35
  An Analysis Of The Kipsigis Accent

The Kipsigis do not have consonant sounds such as /dӡ g v z b h k f w/. The following list
shows how words containing these sounds are pronounced:

English Kipsigis English

judge tʃatʃ
go ko
good kʊt
girl kal
dig tik
do tu:
dog tɔk
home ohm
arm harm
hear ear
very βeri
vote βote
pay bay
buy pai
bring pring
boy poy
zoo su:
zip sip
heed i:d

In both Kipsigis and Maasai Englishes, it may be noted that voice in consonant
sounds is not a feature of contrast between consonants. As a result, the consonant
sound /p, for instance, have variants of such as /b/ and /β/. The fricatives /f/ and /v/
serve as variants of the bilabial fricative /β/.

36
 An Analysis Of The Gikuyu Accent

Some consonants found in British English are absent from Gikuyu language.
These are /p b f l g d s tʃ dӡ v s/. Sometimes the replacement for any of these variants
may be more than one variant as shown in this table:

English Gikuyu English

Packet Mbagiti
Pin Mbini
Book iɸuku
Biscuit Muðigwiti
Chief ʃiɸo
Lunch Raadӡi
Gallon Ŋgereni
Jug dӡagi
Socks ðogiði
Drawer Diroo
Cement ðimiti
Inch Indӡi
Vest ɸeðiti
Dozen daðani

37
 Activity

1. Explain the origin of English in Kenya

2. Outline various commissions and their effect on English

3. Describe some unique characteristics of Kenyan English

Summary

In this lecture, we have learnt about the origin, development, spread

and practice of English in Kenya.

38
 LECTURE 5 - ORIGINS; DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN BOTH COMMONWEALTH
AND NON-COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES

Introduction

In this lecture, we shall learn about English countries that belong to the commonwealth as
well as language in non-commonwealth countries.

Objectives

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

1. Give a summarized history of the commonwealth

2. List reasons for the use of English among the commonwealth

countries

3. Outline the unique characteristics of English in a selected

commonwealth country

History of The Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations is a worldwide association of nations and their

dependencies, whose members share a common commitment to promoting human rights,
democracy, and economic development. All members accept the British monarch as the
symbolic head of the Commonwealth. All but one, Mozambique, were once associated in
some constitutional way with either the former British Empire or with another member
country. The association was formerly known as the British Commonwealth of Nations, but
today is referred to simply as the Commonwealth.

39
 About 1.7 billion people live in the 54 independent nations and the more than 20
dependencies that make up the Commonwealth. Commonwealth members share many
customs and traditions as a result of their association with Britain. Many have parliamentary
systems of government on the British model, and their judicial and educational institutions
are often similar to those in Britain. English is an official language of many members of the
Commonwealth. Since 1977 the second Monday in March has been celebrated as
Commonwealth Day; on that day the British monarch, as the head of the Commonwealth,
presents an annual message to all member countries.

Almost all members of the Commonwealth were once ruled by Britain as part of the
British Empire. Some of them, such as Australia and Canada, were largely settled by British
people. Others, such as India and Nigeria, were areas where British administrators governed a
large non-British population.

During the first half of the 19th century the British government granted settlers of
European origin in the colonies of Canada and Australia some self-government. At first, self-
government was limited to local affairs, but it was gradually extended. In the 19th and early
20th centuries a number of areas under British control gained almost full independence and
became known as dominions, rather than colonies. These included the Irish Free State,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 1926 dominions became defined as
free and equal countries within the British Empire. The Statute of Westminster, enacted by
the British Parliament in 1931, officially proclaimed the Commonwealth a free association of
self-governing dominions united by a common allegiance to the Crown. As such,
Commonwealth members were entitled to join international organizations as independent
nations.

In 1949 Commonwealth prime ministers issued the London Declaration. The

declaration changed membership in the Commonwealth from one based on common
allegiance to the British Crown to one in which members agreed to recognize the British
monarch as a symbol of their association, and thus head of the Commonwealth.
Commonwealth nations were no longer required to recognize the Crown as their head of
state. India became the first republican member with its own president as head of state. Today
the British monarch is considered the head of state in only 16 Commonwealth countries,
which are now formally called realms. Realms include Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The other members recognize the Crown only as head of the Commonwealth.

40
 The Commonwealth consists of 54 independent nations, their dependencies, and two
special members—the independent island nations of Nauru and Tuvalu. As special members,
Nauru and Tuvalu contribute to the organization’s budget on a voluntary basis and receive aid
from the Commonwealth, but do not participate in the meetings attended by heads of
governments. Only independent nations can be considered full members; they are all fully
sovereign and in no way subordinate to Britain. Dependencies of Commonwealth nations are
also included in the Commonwealth, although not as full members, and can participate in
many Commonwealth activities. English is an official language of many members of the
Commonwealth. These fully sovereign states recognize the monarch of the Commonwealth
realms as the Head of the Commonwealth and accept the English language as the means of
Commonwealth communication.
Mostly due to their history of British rule, many Commonwealth nations possess
traditions and customs that are elements of a shared Commonwealth culture. Examples
include common sports such as cricket and rugby, driving on the left, the Westminster system
of parliamentary democracy, common law, and widespread use of the English language and
designation of English as an official language. The English language is recognized as a
symbol of the members' heritage; as well as being considered a symbol of the
Commonwealth, recognition of it as "the means of Commonwealth communication" is a
prerequisite for Commonwealth membership.

The use of the English language in most member countries of the Commonwealth of
Nations was inherited from British colonization. English is spoken as a first or second
language in most of the Commonwealth. In a few countries, such as Cyprus and Malaysia, it
does not have official status, but is widely used as a lingua franca. Mozambique is an
exception - although English is widely spoken there, it is a former Portuguese colony which
joined the Commonwealth in 1996. Many regions, notably Canada, Australia, India, New
Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore and the Caribbean, have developed their own
native varieties of the language. As such, generalizations cannot be made about the various
forms of English used by the various member nations of the Commonwealth. Written English
as used in the Commonwealth generally favours British as opposed to American spelling,
with some exceptions in Canada and Australia. The report of the Inter-Governmental Group
on Criteria for Commonwealth Membership states that English is a symbol of
Commonwealth heritage and unity.

41
English In Selected Commonwealth Countries
 ENGLISH IN INDIA

This variety may be categorized as South Asian English. It is a variety spoken on the
Indian sub-continent with varieties stretching in a continuum which extends from Pidgin
forms of English known as Babu English to educated varieties which are indistinguishable
from British English.

Forces Influencing South Asia English

 Geographical - geographical varieties which may show differences in Indian, Malay,

Burmese and Singaporean Englishes
 Local languages – local languages too have influenced the kind of English spoken in
these areas. Therefore there are varieties based on: Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi
and Urdu languages.
 Class – the highly stratified Indian society also gives rise to varieties of English
spoken by their members.

Difficulties and Differences

There are difficulties in understanding or comprehending English spoken throughout
South Asia as these examples show.

 Syllable Timed Speech

English spoken in South Asia is generally syllable timed English as contrasted to
British English which is stress timed. By syllable timed speech we imply that all
syllables in an utterance are pronounced in equal stretches of time. Each syllable is
therefore given equal prominence. However in stress timed speech, prominence is not
given to the syllables between the beats and some of the syllables may be elided or
‘swallowed’ altogether. Kiswahili language like the Indian languages is syllable timed
unlike English. For Indian or Kiswahili speakers who pronounce every syllable in an
utterance, their accent may sound different and at times this may affect
comprehension for those speakers who are not used to this kind of accent.

42
 Retroflex
Also distinctive in South Asian speech are the retroflex plosive sounds which are
not found in the English language. A retroflex plosive sound is made when instead of
making a puff with air coming out forcefully from the lungs and mouth cavity the air
moves in the opposite direction i.e. from the outside and then into the lungs. For
example the two sounds below are contrasted showing the plosive as well as their
corresponding retroflexed sounds:

Plosive Retroflex

/t/ /ţ/

/d/ /ɗ/

Therefore English sounds which contain such plosive sounds tend to be

pronounced with a retroflex sound. For example, ‘today, do, teach, tell’.

 Grammar
The following grammatical constructions are found in the South Asian English:

 The use of progressive in ‘static’ verbs:

- I am understanding it;
- she is knowing the answer.
 The use of tag questions. Tag questions usually are constructed as
additional elements that are affixed at the end of a statement. For example;
You are going, no? ; They are here. isn’t it?
 Word order. Some of the sentences have altered word order or at times
they may have some elements removed, i.e.
- Who you come for. Yes?

- What you want.

- When you go?

43
 Vocabulary

There are some vocabulary items that have developed and are used by South
Asian speakers. The vocabulary items have been developed on regional basis as
shown:

Pakistan Gloss
Weekly off day off

Affectee someone affected

Bearer waiter

Boots shoes, tennis shoes

Cent percent a hundred percent

Conveyance means of transport

Evininger evening paper

Flying coach a type of bus

Freeship scholarship

Hotel eating house

Moot meeting

Opticals eyes glasses

(Crystal 1997:360)

44
Indian Gloss
Allotee a person allotted property
Ayah nurse
Chapatti type of flat bread
Cow-worship religious practice
Core 10 million
Dhobi washerman
Eve-teasing harassment of women
Godown warehouse
Goonda hooligan
Headbath hair washing
Himalayan blunder grave mistake
Intermarriage marriage between religious castes
Issueless childless
Jawan soldier
Kaccha road dirt road
Lakh hundred thousand
Lathi policemen’s baton
Makan housing
Nose-screw woman’s nose ornaments
Paisa 100th of a rupee
Ryot farmer
Schedule caste lowest Hindu class
Stepney spare wheel
Swadeshi hotel native restaurant
(Kachru 1986)

45
 Politeness in Indian English
o Fictive kinship
Kinship terms are sometimes used for people unrelated to the speaker. In order
to address a stranger or soften a refusal, a speaker may call the hearer ‘brother’ (bhai)
or ‘sister’; this was noted by Kachru (1983).

Kinship terms may not be found not only within the confines of the village in
the neighbourhood but extend to all kinds of social interaction in any setting. A man
may address a stranger of about the same age as:

 Bhai (for almost any male)

 Dãdã/bãbã (for grandfather figure)
 Bhaiyã (for a younger addressee)
 Babu/babuji: (the equivalent of Mr. Or Hon.)
 Beti (when addressing a daughter or young girl)
 Bahanji; ‘sister’ – used when women address one another.
 Dadi ‘grandmother’ – used to address an old woman.
(From D Souza 1988)

o Non-naming
Fictive names are used in Indian English in order to soften the differences by
establishing a more familiar relation in an exchange, as shown in the following
examples:

A wife may not use kinship terms when naming her husband or when referring
to him. This therefore gives rise to Linguistic devices often heard in Indian English.

A husband similarly avoids his wife’s name and those of her older
consanguine but can use them if necessary. He therefore does not have to resort to
extreme measures as his wife does.

o Teknonymy
The husband is referred to by his relationship to someone else by using special
terms. This may also extend to the women of the house:

 Lallukepitaji (Lallu’s father)

 Ramukima (Ramu’s mother)

46
  Omikibahu (Om’s mother)
 Opke bhai (your (PI) brother used when talking about the husband’s
sister).

o Use of Vocatives
In Bengali English one may attract the attention of a stranger by saying:

 ‘Sunun’ (Please listen) or

 “Dekhun (please see)
In Hindi in order to draw her husband’s attention, a wife may say;

 mai ne kaha (I said) or

 sunte ho (do you hear)

o The Magic Word

Magic words here refer to politeness terms such as ‘thank you’, ‘please’ which
are common place in British or American English. Such words may have no
equivalents in local south Asian languages. Nevertheless as a way of using politeness,
South Asian English speakers may revert to the near politeness terms found in their
languages. For example:

 ‘Please’ in Bengali is (dayakore) or literally ‘have mercy’. If this term

is used with intimate people it tends to have sarcastic connotation.
 An equivalent of ‘thank you’ in Marathi is ‘dhanyavad’.
 In Hindi ‘thank you’ is ‘shukriya’.

All these examples of the magic word equivalents which are taken for granted
among the British or American speakers are usually not said to members of one’s
family whether Marathi, Hindi or Bengali as they may increase distance between
members of a family.

Distance is negative in societies such as these where family ties are

paramount. Gratitude therefore is expressed by non verbal gestures.

47
English in Africa

Several dialects of West African English exist, with a lot of regional variation and
some influence from indigenous language. West African English tends to be syllable-timed,
and its phoneme inventory is much simpler than that of Received Pronunciation; this
sometimes affects mutual intelligibility with native varieties of English. A distinctive East
African English is spoken in countries such as Kenya or Tanzania. Small communities of
native English speakers can be found in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia; the dialects
spoken are similar to South African English. In countries such as Kenya -particularly in
Nairobi and other cities where there is an expanding middle class- English is increasingly
being used in the home as the first language, albeit with significant lexical influence from and
secondary use of Swahili in a context of code-switching.

 ENGLISH IN NIGERIA

In West Africa there are emerging distinct varieties of English namely; Nigerian,
Ghanaian and Gambian Englishes. But in many cases there is a tendency for international
overlap showing features common to these varieties. This is especially so in relation to accent
and grammar.

The lexicon of West African English shows similarities. Examples of these

supranational linguistic features:

 Chop-food (Sierra Leone English, Ghanaian English, Gambian English

and Nigerian English)
 Delayance – delay (SL, GH)
 Kola – fruit used as a stimulant, traditional symbol of friendship also
bribery (Gambian English); bribe (Nigerian English).
 Lappa – a large piece of cloth worn by women around the waist down
to the feet (SL) cloth used as a wrap around skirt (Gambian English).
 Stranger – guest (SL, Nigeria)
 Aunt, anti – female friend of family (SL English, Gambian English)

48
 o Vocabulary
Lexical borrowings from African sources into standard English commonly known
as Africanism have had an impact on English as a world language. The Nigerian
indigenous languages have contributed a number of lexical items as shown in these
examples (Note Y= Yoruba, H = Housa and I = Ibo)

Food
Okra (Y)

Amala (yam flour – Y)

Dodo (fried plantains – Y)

Eba (cooked gari - Y)

Egusi (melon seed soup – I)

Fufu (yam ugali – I)

Gari (cassava ugali – Y)

People
Babalawo (diviner – Y)

Dandoko (Porter – H)

Dogo (Tall person – H)

Ogboni (Secret society – Y)

Oba (king – Y)

Dibia (diviner – I)

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 Clothing
Ogbada (male gown – Y)

Lappa (women’s clothing – Y)

Custom
Calabash (container from fruit skin – Y)

Gangan (traditional drum – Y)

Sharia (Islamic law)

English in Non-Commonwealth Countries

 ENGLISH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

English in America has seen a lot of influences from many of the world’s languages.
These are some highlights:
- It started with Mayflower immigrants.
- The differences between American English and British English seem to originate
from developments in the Englishes in both countries after Mayflower.
- The people who went to America from Britain themselves spoke different varieties,
which now have undergone changes within Britain itself.
- There were in America many white immigrants who did not speak English and so
were African American blacks who did not.
- Shakespearian English at the same time may sound different from today’s British
speakers.
- American English speakers borrowed from various sources while forming their
language.

Some of their borrowings have found their way into international English:

50
 o American-Indian Influence
Canoe, tobacco hammock, hickory, squash; chipmunk, moose, muskrat, raccoon, skunk,
woodchuck;

Cultural terms: Squaw, moccasin, tomahawk, igloo, kayak, wigwam.

- Many of the borrowings are disappearing from AME i.e. powwow, skookum,
chautam, qua.
- The list of borrowing made in 1902 contained 132 words from the Algonquian
language alone and by 1958 not more than 37 were in use.

o French Influence

Plants/animals Food
Caribou chowder

Gopher alamode (pie)

Pumpkin

Carry-all

o Portuguese Influence

Toponyms: Furniture/buildings
Rapids depot

Prairie armor (armoire)

Levee shanty

Crevasse bureau

Chute

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o Spanish

Plants/animals Ranch life

Alfalfa chaparral

Marijuana cinch

Armadillo corral

Burro hacienda

Barracuda peon

Cockroach lasso

Chigger jigger

Coyote ranch

Mustang stampede

Wrangler

Sombrero

Desperado

Incommunicado

Vigilante

Toponymics
Sierra

Mesa

Canyon

Key

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Spanish Races/nationalities Miscellaneous
Dago fiesta

Creole filibuster

Mulatto hombre

Octoroon rumba

Pickaninny stevedore

Quadroon tornado

Vamoose

o Dutch influence

Food Farm/buildings Social

Cookie stoop (porch) boss

Waffle patron

Yankee

Transport Miscellaneous
Span dope

Sleigh dump

Cuboose (of horses) poppycock

Santa Claus

Snoop

Spook

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 o German Influence

Educational Food/Drink Social

Semester frankfurter beer garden

Seminar hamburger Christmas tree

Lager beer bum

Noodle

 ENGLISH IN LIBERIA

The republic of Liberia is situated on the Atlantic coast of West Africa. It was
founded in 1822 as a settlement for freed slaves from the USA. The link with America is
symbolized in the Liberian flag. Liberia deserves its own categorization since English is the
only official language and also used as the first language for majority of the population. Most
of the first language speakers of English are descendants of the 19th century black American
settlers who were encouraged and helped by a group of philanthropical societies to leave
USA for what was conceived as their own homeland. These descendants known as Americo-
Liberians have established English in the country.

Several varieties of Liberian English can be distinguished along a social continuum,

but Liberian Settler English (LSE) is the true first-language variety.

Phonology

In comparison with other African English varieties, LSE has a rich vowel system with
qualitative contrasts e.g. between KIT and FLEECE as well as between FOOT and GOOSE.

Another difference is the realization of the final vowel is words such as HAPPY,
where LSE has [ε} while other varieties have [i].

A characteristic found in LSE is the consonantal reduction such as in CATCH or

REACH where the affricate is reduced to a fricative.

LSE is non-rhotic with frequent loss of /r/.

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Grammar

LSE uses non-standard forms in the verb phrase such as I DO SEE BOY ALL DE
TIME/ I AIN SEE HIM used with first and second person pronouns.

There is also the use of DONE as in HE DONE COME (he has come) and this carries
the badge of settler identity. It is only used by settlers as a settler feature.

Lexicon

LSE includes reduplicated forms such as BUGABUG (termite) and retains older
meanings such as FAVOUR in the sense of ‘resemble’. Outside child - ‘a child
acknowledged although born outside marriage’ is an example of localism.

Activity

 Give a summarized history of the commonwealth

 List reasons for the use of English among the

commonwealth countries

 Outline the unique characteristics of English in a selected

commonwealth country

55
Summary

In this lecture, we shall learn about English countries that belong to

the commonwealth as well as language in non-commonwealth
countries.

56
References

1. Wells J.C. (1982) Accents of English vols i – ii

2. Melchers G. and P, Shaw (2003) World Englishes.

3. Barley R.W. and Gorlach M. Eds. (1982) English as A World Language.

4. Pyres T. and Algeo (1971). The Origins And Development Of The English Language

5. Trudgill p. and Hannah J. (1994) International English.

6. Trudgill and Watts R. (eds) (2002) Alternative Histories Of English.

7. Wolfram W. and Schilling Estes N. (1998) American English.

8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_change - cite_note-2#cite_note-2
9. McArthur, Tom (2002). The Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. ISBN 0-19-866248-3.
10. Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
11. Trudgill, Peter and Jean Hannah. (2002). International English: A Guide to the
Varieties of Standard English, 4th ed. London: Arnold.

57
 MOUNT KENYA UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LINGUISTICS
ENG 122 – ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH
CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT TEST – 30 MARKS
Time: 1 hour

Instructions: Attempt 3 questions

NAME: ____________________________________ REG. NO.:___________________

1. Select two commonwealth and two non – commonwealth countries and discuss unique
characteristics of English in each country. (10 marks)

2. Discuss the chronology of education commissions in Kenya and show how they have
affected the policy of English use and practice in Kenya. (10 marks)

3. State and explain five factors that cause language change. (10 marks)

4. Discuss the origin, rise and development of English highlighting the three main stages
from Old English, Middle English to Modern English. (10 marks)

58