English in North America

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English in North America

• Lecture by
• Prof. Dr. Hildegard L.C. Tristram
• Winter Semester 2003/2004
• Potsdam

Historical Facts / Lexis / Influences by Other
Languages
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2. The Most Important Historical Dates

• Historical Dates in the Development of English

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The Most Important Historical Dates

• 1492 Columbus discovers the American Continent
• 1497 Jean Cabot discovers the North American
  East Coast
• 1607 First English settlement in Virginia
• (Jamestown)
• 1620 Plymouth Plantation (Puritans)

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The Most Important Historical Dates
1664 Capture of New Holland 1776 Declaration
of Independence 1791 British North America
divided 1812-14 English-American War
1861-65 Civil War, abolition of slavery
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The Most Important Historical Dates

• 1867 British North America Act - British
  Dominion of Canada
• 1914-18 WW I
• 1939-45 WW II
• 1949 Newfoundland and Labrador join Canada

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3. Lexis

• Britain and America are sister nations divided
  only by a common language.
• (Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British WW II
  war time Prime Minister, considered by many to be
  a master statesman)

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Lexis

• So-called Americanisms are of three sorts
• 1. Some words retained their meanings from the
  time when British speakers carried them over to
  the New World (archaisms), while the same words
  developed different meanings in other World
  Englishes.
• e.g. AmE sick meaning ill or AmE fall
  meaning autumn

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Lexis

• Some words developed specific meanings in the
  specifically different socio-cultural
  environment of life in North America.
• e.g. AmE flashlight meaning torch or AmE
  bathroom, washroom meaning toilet, lavatory

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Lexis

• 3. Still other words are new coinages altogether
  (neologisms), due to the different development
  of life-styles in the Old and in the New World.
• e.g. AmE elevator meaning lift, AmE
  French fries meaning chips and AmE chips
  meaning crisps.

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Lexis

• A few other examples
• American English British English
• a quarter hour a quarter of an hour
• apartment house block of flats
• apartment flat
• (tr)ashcan dustbin
• auto(mobile) (motor-)car
• baby-carriage pram (

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Lexis

• American English British English
• battery (automobile) accumulator (car)
• beach seaside
• bill bank note
• bug any small insect
• busy (of telephone) engaged
• Calaveras County (Co.) Co. Durham
• candy sweets
• candy-store sweet-shop

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Lexis

• American English British English
• cookie biscuit
• chicken yard fowl-run
• condo(minium) a flat in a block of flats or
  terraced house
• cookbook cookery-book
• corn maize
• druggist chemist
• expressway, freeway, turnpike motorway
• flashlight (electric) torch

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Lexis

• Frank McCourt, Angelas Ashes (1997) and Tis
  (1999)
• Irish American best-selling author

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• If I had the money I could buy a torch and read
  till dawn. In America a torch is called a
  flashlight. A biscuit is called a cookie, a bun
  is a roll. Confectionary is pastry and minced
  meat is ground. Men wear pants instead of
  trousers and theyll even say this pant leg is
  shorter than the other which is silly. When I
  hear them saying pant leg I feel like breathing
  faster. The lift is an elevator and if you want a
  WC or a lavatory you have to say bathroom even if
  there isnt a sign of a bath there. And no one
  dies in America, they pass away or theyre
  deceased and when they die the body, which is
  called the remains, is taken to a funeral home
  where people just stand around and look at it and
  no one sings or tells a story or takes a drink
  and then its taken away in a casket to be
  interred. They dont like saying coffin and they
  dont like saying buried. They never say
  graveyard. Cemetery sounds nicer .

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4. Influence by other Languages

• Languages in contact
• Borrowing and Shift
• Borrowing
• 1. cultural borrowing 2. intimate borrowing
• Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949)

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Influence by other Languages

• 1. Cultural borrowing
• introduction of words from a prestigious
  language other than ones own in peoples
  everyday language
• i.e. borrowing from superstratum
• ex. from 18th century French chic, chemise,
  garage, beige, précis

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Influence by other Languages

• 2. Intimate borrowing
• languages spoken side by side with the prestige
  language by minority groups in one and the same
  country or area (substratum)
• example from Jiddish
• bagel, deli(catessen), kosher, glitch, khutzpe
  etc.

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Influence by other Languages

• Intimate borrowing presupposes
• Bilingualism
• Diglossia
• Polyglossia

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Influence by other Languages

• Intimate borrowing
• loanwords and loan translations (so-called
  calques)
• loanwords direct transfer of lexis from one
  language to another, usually in this order
• nouns adjectives verbs other...
• ex. caucus, frontier, liver worst/sausage, kraut

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Influence by other Languages

• loan translations
• phrases or syntagms which are translated word by
  word in the borrowing process
• ex. Wie heißt das in Englisch?
• Ich war für drei Monate in Amerika.

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Influence by other Languages

• Contact of immigrant English in North America
  with
• a. Native American languages
• b. Immigrant languages
• development of a very rich mixed vocabulary
  involving both cultural borrowing and intimate
  borrowing

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Influence by other Languages Native American
languages

• Contact with native American languages
• 1.animal and plant names
• skunk, sequoia, raccoon, muskrat, opossum,
  squash
• 2.social terms
• squaw, papoose Indian child, caucus
• 3. cultural terms
• tomahawk, moccasin, tepee, wigwam, toboggan,
  totem
• loan translations peace-pipe, to smoke a
  peace-pipe with s.o./together

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Influence by other Languages Native American
languages

• 4. toponyms (place names)
• Chicago, Mississippi, Missouri, Connecticut,
  Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mount Monadnok, Manhattan,
  Lake Winnipesaukee
• 5. peoples
• Micmac, Mohicans, Mohawks, Apaches, Sioux
  Indians, Blackfoot Indians, Delaware, Menomini
• 6. languages
• Dakota, Kansa, Iowa, Missouri, Winnebago, Crow,
  Hopi, Navajo, Cherokee, Huron

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Influence by other Languages Spanish

• Contact with immigrant languages (Spanish)
• Loans from Spanish are mostly, but not
  exclusively, localized in the South West.
• Today there is the important Mexican connection
  (Chicano/Chicana).

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Influence by other Languages Spanish

• 1.animal and plant names iguana, coyote,
  mustang, marijuana 2.social terms relating to
  Spanish speaking people gringo, gaucho,
  desperado, bracero, creole, mulatto, peonage,
  calaboose 3.cultural terms patio, adobe,
  rodeo, stampede, chaparral, lasso, corral,
  sombrero, poncho, cafeteria, pueblo, bonanza

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Influence by other Languages Spanish

• 4. topographical terms canyon, mesa, ranch,
  Angeleno inhabitant of Los Angeles 5.
  toponymns Los Angeles,, with the Spanish
  derived pronunciation of /?los ??n???liz/ and
  NOT /?los?ein???l?s/ as said wrongly by most
  German students! Santa Fé, Santa Barbara,
  Santa Monica, San Diego, Baja California,
  Mesa Verde, Sacramento, Ajo

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Influence by other Languages Spanish

• 6. cultural terms patio, adobe, rodeo,
  stampede, chaparral, lasso, sombrero, poncho,
  cafeteria, puebo, bonanza 7. food and
  drinks nacho, chili con carne, taco,
  tortilla, tequila, guacamole, batida de coco
  

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Influence by other Languages Spanish

adobe architectural style and farolitos
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Influence by other Languages French

• Mostly from the Missisippi area.
• (cf. Lousiana Purchase, bought by Thomas
  Jefferson from Napoléon Bonaparte in 1803)
• Louisiana Purchase 

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Influence by other Languages French

• 1.animals and plantscaribou, pumpkin
•   2.landscape levee dyke, bayou swampy,
  swampy ditch, ravine, rapids, crevasse,
  coulee, prairie
•   3.food chowder (chaudière), e.g. clam
  chowder
•   4.administration depot, bureau
•  
• picayune, from Louisana French le picaillon a
  small coin, meaning niggardly spread all over
  the US. The Times-Picayune is the most important
  newspaper in New Orleans, cf. http//www.timespic
  ayune.com/

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Influence by other Languages Dutch

• 1.food cold/cole slaw, cookie, cruller a small
  cake of sweet dough, twisted
• 2.landscape bluff
• 3.toponyms Harlem, Brooklyn, Staten Island,
  Rhode Island
• 4.maritime terminology yacht, scow large
  flat- bottomed boat with square ends
  for transporting weight
•  5.various spook, boss (

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Influence by other Languages German

• large German settlement areas in Pennsylvania,
  Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Texas
• 1.food and drink terms lager(beer),
  (beer)stein, liverwurst/worst, liver sausage,
  hamburger, smare case/cooking cheese
• 2.social terms kindergarten/kindergarten,
  beergarden

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Influence by other Languages German

• 3.various fresh cute, cheeky, to klatch
  gossip, to swits sweat, shlep, zeitgeist,
  zwieback, dachshund, wanderlust, umlaut,
  semester, superman (loan translation ?
  Nitzsches philosophy)

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Influence by other Languages Italian

• mainly, if not exclusively food terms
• spaghetti, pizza, lasagna, espresso, café
  latte

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Influence by other Languages AAVE

• tote (bag) - carrier bag
• buckra - white man, master
• man - expression of admiration, surprise,
  regret etc (strong emotions)

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Canadian Lexis

• the general vocabulary is American, with
  specifically local lexis
• provinces, mounties police, canuck French
  Canadian (term of abuse), métis offspring of a
  white and member of one of the First Nations,
  Newfies Newfoundlanders

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Canadian Lexis

• a few conventionalized British words
• AmE CanE BrE
• baggage luggage
• chores odd jobs
• clothes-pin clothes-peg
• letter-carrier postman
• package parcel

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Canadian Lexis

• a few conventionalized British words
• AmE CanE BrE
• necktie tie
• oatmeal porridge
• gas petrol
• shade blinds
• stairway staircase
• faucet tap

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North American LexisSummary

• Lexis based on immigrant English in the 17th and
  18th century (founder principle)
• enriched by the contact with
• native American languages
• other immigrant languages
• developed its own terminology through frontier
  spirit creativity, industrialization and
  globalization