Novembre 2014 – Language Blues

2014 Novembre

The suffix –wise… grammar-wise!

Wise is often used as a suffix in spoken English; actually, it seems to be one of those “magic” versatile words that are used in a lot of different contexts, like our dearest friend “get” 🙂 But…what does it mean? How is it used? And… is its use always…

British accents and dialects – Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland

NORTHERN IRELAND Many of the accents spoken in the province of Ulster share common features with Scottish English. Here are some distinguishing features: 1) Diphthongs in words like goat and face tend to be monopthongs, so they sound like “goot” and “fees”. 2) The “oo” in cook or book is…

British accents and dialects – the Midlands and the North of England

THE MIDLANDS As the word suggests, this is the “centre” of England. Here we can distinguish between East Midlands and West Midlands. The most famous dialect is the one spoken in Birmingham, which is called BRUMMIE. Linguistic variation has diminished a lot in these areas and it now tends to…

British accents and dialects – Southern Britain

Southern English has some common features that can be grouped as follows: 1) “r-dropping”: the “r” at the end of a word is not pronounced. Actually, it sounds similar to the “i” in girl or the “u” in purse; e.g. water or better are pronounced “uotǝ” and “betǝ”. That symbol…

British accents and dialects – an introduction

The Cornish and Manx dialects are facing the threat of extinction, sharing the same fate as some other 33 languages across Europe. This is what I’ve found out in an article recently published in the Western Morning News. The information is gathered from the UNESCO Languages in Danger Project, which…

Mese: Novembre 2014