Special Colloquial Vocabulary

3. Special Colloquial Vocabulary

a)Dialects

The history of the English language begins with the incursions of the Germanic tribes in the middle of the 5^th century. The Jutes came first and occupied the smallest territory (Kent and the Isle of Wight). The Saxons occupied practically all of England south of the Thames with the exception of the Jutish territories and Cornwall. They also occupied some territories north of the Thames. The Angles occupied the greater part of what is now England.

The first dialect that could lay claim to literary precedence was the Northumbrian, the language of the kingdom of Northumbria , including the north of England and the south of Scotland. Other dialects which had grown apart by the 8^th century were Mercian, Saxon, Kentish. After the fall of Northumbria from its political supremacy Northumbrian sank to the position of a provincial dialect and under King Alfred in the 9^th century the West Saxon dialect came to be predominant and was regarded as a literary language.

The Norman Conquest displaced the southern dialect of Wessex from the position of supremacy. The West Saxon sank to the level of other dialects.

The development of feudalism in England tended to create dialectical divergences of speech. During the 12^th- 13^th centuries there existed a number of dialects each of which had as much right as any other to be called the English language. During the Middle English period there existed the following dialects: Northern, Midland, Southern. The Northern dialect was the descendant of the Northumbrian dialect of Old English. Later a variety of the Northumbrian dialect was developed into the Scottish language. The Midland dialect was the descendant of the Mercian dialect of the Old English period. It was divided into two distinct varieties: East Midland and West Midland. The Southern dialect was spoken between the Thames and the English Channel. It was a descendant of the West Saxon dialect. Of these three dialects it was the Midland dialect that became the national language of the country. The reason that led to the predominance of the Midland dialect was a large territory which was most important economically, politically and culturally.

The dialect of London was the dialect of such cultural centres as Oxford and Cambridge. It was the form of speech native to Chaucer who wrote in the Midland dialect and contributed greatly to raising it to the position of superiority.

The dialectical peculiarities observed in some of the elements of the Modern English vocabulary go back to the dialects of Old English and to the subsequent dialectical division of the feudal epoch. Those Old English words that were not included into the most stable and widely used layer of the English vocabulary are often preserved in dialects: bairn (child), kemp (fighter). Sometimes dialectical words are not remnants of Old English words but corrupted words and expressions, such as nammut (lunch), gurt (great), zote (soft).

There are also borrowed words used only in dialects: bonny (pretty), tass (cup).

As far as grammatical peculiarities are concerned the following cases can be mentioned: the usage of I be in the South , I is in the North. In the South they use the interrogative and negative constructions without the auxiliary do.

There is one more dialect that enjoys a somewhat peculiar position for it can be met almost anywhere in English-speaking countries – Cockney. Its lexical, phonetical and grammatical peculiarities can be found in the speech of Eliza Doolittle in B.Shaw’s “Pygmalion”.

There are two kinds of ordinary Cockney: – the variety of Modified Standard speech which is the typical Cockney English of London, as spoken by educated middle-class people; - the variety of Modified Standard which is also heard in London but which is spoken by the semi-literate and quite illiterate.

There are several peculiarities of Cockney. In pronunciation speakers consistently drop the sound [h] where it ought to be heard and put in [h] where there is none: ’am an’ heggs (ham and eggs), I ’ate (I hate), in the hopen air (in the open air).

The substitution of [n] by [n] is quite a common thing: mornin’, goin’, puddin’.

The sounds [d] and [t] are also frequently dropped as in an’ (and), hobjec’ (object), nex’ (next).

The sound [w] is dropped : ekal (equal).

The diphthong shift is characteristic of Cockney: [ai] is used instead of [ei], [oi] instead of [ai], [au] instead of [ou].

The Cockney grammar exhibits several anomalies: I’s bin (have been); I ain’t (am not); I, we, you calls; we, you was; I has; he do.

In the Ukrainian language there are three groups of territorial dialects: northern, south-eastern, south-western. E.g.: in the northern dialect such words can be found as: коросліп (пролісок), веселуха (райдуга), хупавий (гарний), жалива (кропива), скот (худоба), но (але) are used in the south-eastern dialect. In the northern dialect such words as бараболя (картопля), стрий (дядько по батькові), банітувати (лаяти), пантрувати (стежити) are used.

b) Slang

By slang we mean words or phrases in common colloquial usage in some or all of their senses hanging on the outskirts of the literary language but continually forcing their way into it. On the other hand, the term is often applied to the words and phrases peculiar to people of some class or profession. Slang is often humorous, witty. It is more and more penetrating into the literary language. The slang word is a deliberate substitute for a word of the vernacular just as a nickname is a substitute for a personal name. Slang is unstable and it has no fixed meaning.

Slang can be of two types: general and special. General slang includes words that are not specific for any social or professional group: bean, block, dome, upper storey for a head; three sheets in the wind, half-seas-over, pin-eyed for drunk. Базар (розмова), здрейфити (злякатися), наїжджати (чіплятися, погрожувати, кльово (дуже добре) are used in the Ukrainian language.

Special slang is peculiar for some groups of people: university slang, football slang etc.

Special slang should be distinguished from terms. When the word is the only name for the special notion it belongs not to slang but to terminology. If the word is a jocular name for something that can be described in some other way it is slang. There are cases when words originated as professional slang later assumed the dignity of special terms or passed on into general slang. The expression to be on the beam was first used by pilots about the beam of the radio beacon indicating the proper course for the aircraft to follow. Then figuratively to be on the beam came to mean to be right and to be off the beam began to mean to be at a loss.

The most important peculiarities of slang concern the plane of content not the plane of form. The lexical meaning of a slang word contains not only the denotational component but also an emotive component. Slang words are clearly motivated: cradle-snatcher (an old man who marries a young woman); belly-robber (the head of a military canteen).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A – Adjective

Adv – Adverb

Lat – Latin

N – Noun

N’s – Noun in the Genitive Case

Num – Numeral

OE – Old English

OFr – Old French

OSc – Old Scandinavian

Prep - Preposition

V - Verb

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