The Varieties of English

There are many varies of English in the world today which might sound odd, but considering English is a global language this is not that weird at all. With all these countries all over the world; in Asia, Australia, America and Europe and in Africa, and all with their different languages, dialects and accents there's no wonder how their ways of speaking English turned out differently.

The most known English varieties that we know well are, perhaps, American English, British English and Australian English. But in this entry, I am going to write about three more kinds of english; Singapore English, Caribbean English and Hinglish.

Where Singapore English and Caribbean English descend from are quite obvious, but Hinglish might be a little bit trickier for some to figure out? Hinglish is a blending of the two words "Hindi" and "English". Hindi is the official language in India, besides English. Hinglish is most common in the Urban and semi-urban centers of the states in India where Hindi is spoken, and the Hinglish speakers are assumed by some to soon outnumber the native English speakers.

The columnist Devyani Chaubal was the first author to use Hinglish, and after her Shobhaa De who used Hinglish elements in her books and columns in the Indian magazine Stardust.  And through the years, Hindlish has been used in advertising, for example in slogans. An example is the Pepsi commercials; "Yehi hai right choice, Baby" which means "this is the right choice, Baby".  There is also written a book called "The Queen's Hinglish: How to speak Pukka".

Hinglish is also affecting the English spoken in England because people adapts words and expressions used by the Indian immigrants. Kind of like the "Kebab Norwegian" language in Norway which is Norwegian influenced with words and expressions from other languages.

But back to the Singapore English. This is a dialect of the English language used in Singapore, influenced by both Chinese and Malay (Malaysia). The Singapore English is emerging and the the difference between the English of the various ethnic groups in Singapore is mainly the intonation.

David Deterding claims that it is fully possible to sound Singaporean and still be easily understood in the rest of the world. Considering this I would guess that the Singaporean language havn't influenced the Singapore English much.

The Caribbean English is a broad term for the various dialects of the English language spoken in the Caribbean. The daily use of English in the Caribbean includes a different set of pronouns, for example; me/meh/mi, you/yuh, we/wi/alawe and dem/den/deh for "them". They often skip the "th" in words

The Caribbean English is also influenced by other languages, as Irish and Scottish. For example the Jamaican English: "Whierr iz dath bwoy?"  Also from Bahamas their tongue is similar to the accents of south western England and Wales: "Wey iz dat boy?".

I think it's curious that there are so many languages, so many varieties of English with influences and accents, and still, most of them are understandable. Don't you? Letting the English language getting influenced by other languages makes us richer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish

http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/SingaporeEnglishterm.htm