Social variation

8.    Social variation.

As for the accents, they refer to the varieties in pronunciation, which convey information about a person’s geographical origin. These varieties are partly explained by social mobility and new patterns of settlement. Distinct groups or social formation within the whole may be set off from each other in a variety of ways: by gender, by age, by class, by ethnic identity. Particular groups will tend to have characteristic ways of using the language-characteristic ways of pronouncing it, - for example - and these will help to mark off the boundaries of one group from another. They belong to different social groups and perform different social roles. A person might be identified as ‘a woman’, ‘a parent’, ‘a child’, ‘a doctor’, or in many other ways. Many people speak with an accent, which shows the influence of their place of work. Any of these identities can have consequences for the kind of language they use. Age, sex, and socio-economic class have been repeatedly shown to be of importance when it comes to explaining the way sounds, constructions, and vocabulary vary.

I think the best example to show it is the famous play “Pygmalion” by Bernard Shaw touched upon social classes, speech and social status of people using different types of accents and dialects. One of the ideas was that it is possible to tell from a person’s speech not only where he comes from but what class he belongs to. But no matter what class a person belongs to, he can easily change his pronunciation depending on what environment he finds himself in. The heroine Liza aired his views, saying: “When a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own. Well, I am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours.” (№13, p.64).

So some conclusions about the kinds of social phenomena that influence change through contact with other dialects can be made:

a)    dialects differ from region through the isolation of groups of speakers;

b)    dialects change through contact with other dialects;

c)    the upper classes reinforce Standard English and RP through education.

9.    Dialects of England: Traditional and Modern.

After the retirement of the Romans from the island the invading immigrants were the Jutes, Saxons, Danes and Angles. The Jutes seized Kent, The Isle of Wight and a part of the mainland; the Saxons had all those parts that have now the suffix ‘sex’, as Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, and Wessex; and the Angles took possession of that tract of the north that has the present terminations ‘land’, ‘shire’ and ‘folk’, as Suffolk, Yorkshire, Northumberland. These last afterwards gave the name to the whole island.

Dialects are not to be considered corruption of a language, but as varieties less favoured than the principal tongue of the country. Of the various dialects, it must be borne in mind that the northern countries retain many words now obsolete in current English: these words are of the genuine Teutonic stock. The pronunciation may seem rough and harsh, but is the same as that used by the forefathers; consequently it must not be considered barbarous. The other countries of England differ from the vernacular by a depraved pronunciation.

Awareness of regional variation in England is evident from the fourteenth century, seen in the observation of such writers as Higden/Trevisa or William Caxton and in the literary presentation of the characters in Chaucer’s “Reeve’s Tale” or the Wakefield “Second Shepherd’s Play”. Many of the writers on spelling and grammar in the 16^th and 17^th centuries made comments about regional variation, and some (such as Alexander Gil) were highly systematic in their observants, though the material is often obscured by a fog of personal prejudices.

The picture which emerges from the kind of dialect information obtained by the Survey of English Dialects relates historically to the dialect divisions recognized in Old and Middle English.

The classification of modern dialects presents serious difficulties as their boundaries are rather vague and the language standard more and more invades the spread area of the dialectal speech. One of the most serious attempts at such classification was made by A. Ellis. His classification more or less exactly reflects the dialectal map of modern Great Britain and it was taken as the basis by many dialectologists.

The map below displays thirteen traditional dialect areas (it excludes the western tip of Cornwall and most of Wales, which were not English speaking until the 18^th century). A major division is drawn between the North and everywhere else, broadly following the boundary between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia, and a Secondary division is found between much of the Midlands and areas further south. A hierarchal representation of the dialect relationship is shown below. (№8, p.324).

Relatively few people in England now speak a dialect of the kind represented above. Although some forms will still be encountered in real life, they are more often found in literary representations of dialect speech and in dialect humour books. The disappearance of such pronunciations, and their associated lexicon and grammar, is sometimes described as “English dialects dying out”. The reality is that they are more than compensated for by the growth of a range of comparatively new dialect forms, chiefly associated with the urban areas of the country. If the distinguishing features of these dialects are used as the basis of classification, a very different-looking dialect map emerges with 16 major divisions.

Part II. Background of the Cornish language.

The southwestern areas of England include Devonshire, Somersetshire, Cornwall, Wiltshire and Dosertshire. But first of all I’d like to draw your attention to the Cornish language as it doesn’t exist now.

The History of Cornish.

1. Who are the Cornish?

The Cornish are a Celtic people, in ancient times the Westernmost kingdom of the Dumnonii, the people who inhabited all of Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset.

The Cornish are probably the same people who have lived in Cornwall since the introduction of farming around 3000 B.C.. The start of farming in Cornwall may also indicate the start of what some scholars now term ‘proto Indo-European’, from whence the Celtic languages along with the Italic and other related groups of languages began evolving.

2. What is a Celtic Language?

Around 2000 B.C., the group of languages now called Celtic languages started to split away from the other members of the Indo-European group of languages. By 1200 B.C. Celtic civilisation, a heroic culture with its own laws and religion is first known. It is from this period that the first king lists and legends are believed to come.

3. How is Cornish Related to other Celtic Languages?

Between 1500 B.C. and the first encounters with the Romans (around 350 B.C.), the Celtic languages are believed to split into two distinct groups, the ‘p’ and ‘q’ Celtic branches. Cornish, Welsh and Breton (to which Cornish is most closely related) are the three remaining ‘p’ Celtic languages. Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx being the ‘q’ Celtic tongues.

4. The Decline of Cornish.

Cornish developed pretty much naturally into a modern European language until the 17^th century, after which it came under pressure by the encroachment of English. Factors involved in its decline included the introduction of the English prayer book, the rapid introduction of English as a language of commerce and most particularly the negative stigma associated with what was considered by Cornish people themselves as the language of the poor.

5. The Rebirth of Cornish.

Cornish died out as a native language in the late 19^th century, with the last Cornish speaker believed to have lived in Penwith. By this time however, Cornish was being revived by Henry Jenner, planting the seeds for the current state of the language and it is supposed that the last native speaker was the fishwoman Dolly Pentreath.

6. Standard Cornish.

Standard Cornish was developed from Jenner’s work by a team under the leadership of Morton Nance, culminating in the first full set of grammars, dictionaries and periodicals. Standard Cornish (Unified) is again being developed through UCR (Unified Cornish Revised), and incorporates most features of Cornish, including allowing for Eastern and Western forms of pronunciation and colloquial and literary forms of Cornish.

7. Who uses Cornish Today?

Today Cornish typically appeals to all age groups and to those either who have an empathy with Cornwall, who have Cornish roots or perhaps have moved to Cornwall from elsewhere. One of the great successes of Cornish today is ifs wide appeal. After a break in native speakers for nearly one hundred years, Cornwall now has many children who now have Cornish as a native language along side English, and many more who are fluent in the language.