124-511: Hong Kong English is a variety of the English language native to Hong Kong . The variant is either a learner interlanguage or emergent variant, primarily a result of Hong Kong's British colonial history and the influence of native Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. English is one of two official languages in Hong Kong – the other being Chinese ( Cantonese ) – and is used in academia , business and
248-546: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that
372-483: A "dialect derived from archaic Patuá." He also underlined the fact that "modern" Patuá has been strongly influenced by Cantonese, namely since the beginning of the 20th century, adding that it was "quite a miracle" that Patuá has been able to survive for four centuries in Macau, considering that "Chinese culture is quite absorbing." "Let's revive an almost lost memory," Fernandes said about efforts by Patuá aficionados to ensure
496-635: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become
620-593: A Portuguese-influenced manner, i.e. to use Portuguese expressions or a Portuguese accent, is referred to as portuguesado or portuguezado , which for instance may be used in the phrase falâ portuguesado ("to speak in a Portuguese way"). Where Portuguese has influenced Macanese, Macanese may also influence the Portuguese dialect as spoken by ethnic Macanese. Reportedly, words like chuchumeca ("troublemaker") and vangueado ("fainted") may be used by (especially older) Macanese when speaking Portuguese. There
744-679: A calque of big shot . Older terms may have entered Macanese through Indo-Portuguese, for example tifinâ ("to have lunch") coming from English tiffin which is an especially commonplace term in Indian English , while newer English-derived terms have almost certainly entered Macanese through Hong Kong English , such as chop or chope in the sense of "stamp" or "seal", which is not only found in Hong Kong English but also in Hong Kong Cantonese . The Portuguese contribution to
868-651: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative
992-484: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English
1116-929: A more general sense of "not" as well as the interjection "no", while nunca-si (lit. "no if") is used for "never"; or olâ (from Portuguese olhar , "to look") also bearing the meanings of "to see", "to watch", and even sometimes "to understand". There are also some particles found in Macanese which are not found in modern Portuguese, but which survives in other Romance languages; for example, namás or na-más ("just; only; no more") corresponding to Asturian namás , Catalan només , Romanian numai , and Latin American Spanish nomás . Some words with now-obsolete senses in Portuguese may retain those senses in Macanese. For example, azinha means "quickly" in Macanese, and derives from Portuguese asinha , which
1240-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in
1364-688: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,
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#17328561396201488-679: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop
1612-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English
1736-455: A sharp distinction between the "archaic" Macanese, spoken until the early 19th century, and the "modern" form that was strongly influenced by Cantonese . The modern version arose in the late 19th century, when Macanese men began marrying Chinese women from Macau and its hinterland in the Pearl River delta. The British rule of Hong Kong from the mid-19th century also added many English words to
1860-744: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide
1984-426: A split in the realisation of /v/ as [f] or [w]. Some of the more salient features are listed below. Some words and phrases widely understood in Hong Kong are rare or unheard of elsewhere. These often derive from Chinese, Anglo-Indian , or Portuguese/ Macanese . In 2015 University of Hong Kong professor Lisa Lim stated that some of the words, by that year, had declined in usage. English language English
2108-543: A study conducted of five Hong Kong speakers of English, it was concluded, controversially, as they conceded, that HKE was at most an emergent variety and perhaps no more than a "learner interlanguage". In the Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes , it has been classified as in the third phase, that of Nativisation, but more recently it has been shown that many young people are happy to identify themselves as speakers of Hong Kong English, so it may be regarded as progressing into
2232-501: A variety on par with other Asian varieties, such as Indian English or Singapore English , is due to a lack of research. As a result of the colonial legacy, the pronunciation of Hong Kong English was assumed to be originally based on British English, However, nowadays, there are new features of pronunciation derived from American English, and the influence of American English has emerged. Furthermore, there seem to be some innovative developments that are unique to Hong Kong English, such as
2356-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in
2480-440: Is cacús ("toilet, outhouse") deriving from Dutch kakhuis , probably via Indonesian kakus . There are also a few words in common Macanese use that are ultimately of Japanese origin, for example sutate ("soy sauce"), possibly derived from すったて ( suttate ), a regional dish from Shirakawa prepared by mixing stone-ground soybeans with a miso and soy-sauce-based broth. Such words may have entered Macanese through
2604-552: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than
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#17328561396202728-660: Is stress-timed . ⟨s⟩ before a consonant or word-finally may be pronounced either as / s / or / ʃ / , the latter a feature influenced by European Portuguese. The usage of /ʃ/ is recorded at least as early as the 1980s, as recorded in the Glossário Do Dialecto Macaense (1988). ⟨s⟩ between vowels is usually pronounced / z / , same as in Portuguese; and word-initial ⟨s⟩ followed by a vowel, ⟨-ss-⟩, and ⟨ç⟩ are all pronounced /s/ . Portuguese ⟨lh⟩ / ʎ / tends to become just / l / , for example Macanese mulé ("woman") derived from Portuguese mulher , although
2852-582: Is a Portuguese-based creole language with a substrate from Cantonese , Malay and Sinhala , which was originally spoken by the Macanese community of the Portuguese colony of Macau . It is now spoken by a few families in Macau and in the Macanese diaspora . UNESCO’s Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger classifies Patua as a "critically endangered" and places the number of speakers at 50 as of 2000 . The language
2976-529: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by
3100-643: Is actively spoken by just several dozen elderly individuals, mostly women in their eighties or nineties, in Macau and Hong Kong , and only a few hundred people among the Macanese Diaspora overseas, namely in California. Macanese is a creole language, that is, the result of a fusion of several languages and local innovations that became the mother tongue of a community. As such, it is difficult to classify within any major family. Because of its historical development, it
3224-599: Is also called by its speakers as papia Cristam di Macau ("Christian speech of Macau") and has been nicknamed dóci língu di Macau ("Sweet Language of Macau") and doci papiaçam ("sweet speech") by poets. In Chinese it is called " 澳門土生土語 " ("Macanese native-born native language"). In Portuguese , it is called macaense , Macaista chapado ("pure Macanese"), or o patuá (from French patois ). The terms " 澳門話 " ("Macanese speak") and " 澳門土生土語 " ("Macanese native-born native language") in Chinese (Cantonese),
3348-516: Is also included as a separate variety of English within the International Corpus of English, with a dedicated local research team collecting data to describe the usage of English in Hong Kong. It has also been argued that there is no such thing as Hong Kong English and the predominance of recent works discuss Hong Kong phonology in terms of erroneous deviation from varieties such as British and American English. In one co-authored work describing
3472-522: Is also some backslang in Macanese, for example náchi deriving from china , both meaning "a Chinese thing/person". The phonology of Macanese is relatively similar to European Portuguese , however there is a slightly tonal or sing-songy quality, possibly as an influence of Malay and/or Cantonese. Unlike Cantonese however, the tones largely do not differentiate otherwise homophones. In addition, spoken Macanese appears to be syllable-timed , like Brazilian Portuguese , but unlike European Portuguese which
3596-459: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English
3720-603: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in
3844-679: Is always used for words of Cantonese or Malay origin containing ⟨ch⟩ ( c /t͡ʃ/ in Malay, / t͡sʰʲ / [ t͡ɕʰ ] or / t͡sʲ / [ t͡ɕ ] in Cantonese). Another difference is that ⟨d⟩ is almost exclusively pronounced as [ d ] (or even un-aspirated [ t ] as in Cantonese), as opposed to / ð / in European Portuguese or / d͡ʒ / in Brazilian Portuguese in certain positions. ⟨h⟩
Hong Kong English - Misplaced Pages Continue
3968-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on
4092-480: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c. 450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as
4216-510: Is closely related to other Portuguese- and Malay-influenced creoles of Southeast Asia, notably the Kristang language of Malacca and the extinct Portuguese-influenced creoles of Indonesia and Flores , as well as to the Indo-Portuguese creoles of Sri Lanka and India . A sizeable amount of the Macanese lexicon derives from Malay, through various Portuguese-influenced creoles ( papiás ) like
4340-420: Is highly politicised and compartmentalised in Hong Kong, where the two official languages are seen as having different and distinct uses. Indeed, it has been argued that even English language teachers in Hong Kong would refuse to acknowledge the local variant of English within a classroom setting, opting instead for more "standard" variations. It has been argued that the lack of recognition of Hong Kong English as
4464-520: Is not silent is with Cantonese loanwords, for example h ám-chói from Cantonese 鹹菜 (Jyutping: h aam coi ). In this case, ⟨h⟩ is simply pronounced / h / , a sound familiar to almost all Macanese, as modern Macanese still living in Macau are all proficient in Cantonese to some degree. In terms of vowels, the first syllable in Macanese is usually pronounced openly even when unstressed. For example, comê (from Portuguese comer /kuˈmeɾ/ )
4588-413: Is often (but not always) reflected in spelling, e.g. Macanese f i liz /fiˈliz/ from Portuguese f e liz , or i zizí from Portuguese e xigir . The pronunciation of nasal vowels may differ between different speakers, as there is no standardized pronunciation; for example, sâm ("to be", from Portuguese são ("they (pl.) are") may be pronounced either as /saŋ/ or /sã(ŋ)/ , hence
4712-527: Is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by
4836-424: Is pronounced /kɔˈme/ rather than /kuˈme/ , as if it were spelt * cómê . This however does not apply to unstressed final vowels; unstressed ⟨o⟩ in the final syllable of a word is generally still pronounced as / u / . And as seen with the example of fucinho , if non-final / o / shifts to /u/ in a Macanese word, it is almost always reflected in spelling. Similarly, if non-final /e/ shifts to /i/ , it
4960-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in
5084-599: Is speculated to have gone out of common Portuguese use after the 18th century. Depending on the case, Portuguese slang and jargon word variants may become the most common form used in Macanese, for example puliça ("police officer") derived from Portuguese polícia . In addition to inherited terms from Indo-Portuguese , it is also speculated that Macanese has been influenced by Portuguese varieties and creoles spoken in Africa. For example, Portuguese direito ("fair, just") becomes drêto in Macanese, very similar in form to
Hong Kong English - Misplaced Pages Continue
5208-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English
5332-708: Is the calquing of phrases from Cantonese into Macanese, for example nê-bôm (negative imperative particle, "don't") derived from Portuguese não é bom ("it is not good"), but actually semantically being a calque of 唔好 ("don't", lit. "not good"). Some words may be derived from (Indo-)Portuguese but take on senses of related words from Cantonese, for example vangueâ ("to faint; to feel dizzy") originally coming from Indo-Portuguese bangueiro ("drunk; high") but being supplanted semantically by Cantonese 暈 ("dizzy; to feel dizzy"); or caréta ("car; any kind of vehicle") coming from Portuguese carreta ("cart") but being semantically supplanted by Cantonese 車 , with
5456-482: Is the now nearly extinct native language of the so-called Macanese people , Macau's Eurasian minority, which presently comprises some 8,000 residents in Macau (about 2% of its population), and an estimated 20,000 emigrants and their descendants, especially in Hong Kong , Brazil , California , Canada , Peru , Costa Rica , Australia , Portugal and Paria peninsula of Venezuela . Even within that community, Macanese
5580-550: Is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in the United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and
5704-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from
5828-493: Is treated differently depending on the borrowing source (if any); for Portuguese words, it is generally spelled but not pronounced in full Portuguese words, for example h ómi from Portuguese h omem , but tends to be dropped in compound words, e.g. a mestê from Portuguese há mester . For English words, the ⟨h⟩ is also silent, but is generally also not written out at all, for example anidiu from honeydew , or ambâc from humbug . The only case in which ⟨h⟩
5952-479: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English
6076-499: The Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it
6200-537: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today
6324-532: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of
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#17328561396206448-647: The Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of the Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are
6572-660: The Kabuverdianu dretu ("correct"), also descended from the same Portuguese word. In some cases, non-Portuguese terms may be combined with Portuguese-derived grammatical particles to form terms unique to Macanese, for example English park + Macanese -â (from Portuguese -ar ) → parcâ ("to park (a vehicle)"). Conversely, Portuguese-derived terms may also combine with non-Portuguese grammatical particles to form Macanese terms, for example amor (Macanese, Portuguese "love") + Cantonese -仔 zai2 (diminutive suffix) → amochâi ("sweetie, darling"). Depending on
6696-831: The Kristang of Malacca and the creole spoken in the Indonesian island of Flores . Words of Malay origin include sapeca ("coin; money"), copo-copo ("butterfly"), and santám ("coconut milk"). Many words also came from Sinhala , through the Indo-Portuguese creoles of the Kaffir and Portuguese Burgher communities of Sri Lanka . Some terms are derived from other Indian languages through other Indo-Portuguese creoles brought by natives of Portuguese India, these include Konkani and Marathi languages . Examples of words from these sources include fula ("flower") and lacassá ("vermicelli"). A few words in Macanese also come from Dutch , likely through Malay or Indonesian. An example
6820-731: The Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on
6944-584: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as
7068-518: The courts , as well as in most government materials. Major businesses routinely issue important material in both Chinese and English, and all road and government signs are bilingual. Since the Handover , English in Hong Kong remains primarily a second language, in contrast to Singapore where English has been shifting toward being a first language. The falling English proficiency of local English language teachers has come under criticism. The proportion of
7192-651: The lingua franca of Macau, refers to any language of Macau (such as the Tanka dialect of Yue Chinese , Standard Cantonese with Macau unique phrases and expressions , Macanese, Portuguese with Macau accent, Hakka, etc.) and the Macanese language, respectively. Although there have been attempts by the Portuguese Macau government in the mid-1990s to redefine the Portuguese and English term " Macanese " as Macau Permanent Resident (anyone born in Macau regardless of ethnicity, language, religion or nationality) , in accordance with
7316-511: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in
7440-558: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to
7564-596: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with
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#17328561396207688-595: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through
7812-463: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English
7936-403: The Chinese (Cantonese) usage, this did not succeed. Consequently, the Portuguese and English term " Macanese " refers neither to the indigenous people of Macau ( Tanka people ) nor to the demonym of Macau, but to a distinctive ethnicity (1.2% of the population) special to Macau. Patuá arose in Macau after the territory was leased by Portugal in the mid-16th century and became a major hub of
8060-537: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent
8184-628: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of
8308-543: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in
8432-414: The Hong Kong population who report using English (that is, all forms) as their "usual spoken language" increased from 2.8% in 2006 to 4.3% in 2016, while 51.1%, 63.5% and 65.6% respectively, reported being able to speak, write and read the language. The existence of Hong Kong English, as a distinct variety of the English language, is still a matter of debate among many scholars. In the literature examining
8556-632: The Japanese Catholic population which settled in the Pátio do Espinho during the 17th and 18th centuries. For instance, miçó ("salt and soybean paste"), from Japanese miso , was recorded in the Ou-Mun Kei-Leok published in 1751. Cantonese contributions include amui ("(Chinese) girl") coming from 阿妹 ("little sister") and laissi ("gift of cash") coming from 利是 ("red packets"). In some cases, there may be two words in Macanese meaning
8680-571: The Macanese language. The language is included in UNESCO 's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger . In spite of its unique character and centuries-old history, Macanese has received scant attention from linguists. Philologist Graciete Nogueira Batalha (1925–1992) published a number of papers on the language. A Macanese-Portuguese glossary was published in 2001. In the 21st century, some younger Macanese are making efforts to rejuvenate Patuá, especially by using it in original music and drama. Macanese
8804-472: The Portuguese naval, commercial, and religious activities in East Asia. The language developed first mainly among the descendants of Portuguese settlers. These often married women from Portuguese Malacca , Portuguese India and Portuguese Ceylon rather than from neighbouring China , so the language had strong Malay and Sinhala influence from the beginning. In the 17th century, it was further influenced by
8928-550: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after
9052-490: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In
9176-630: The aspirated consonants [ pʰ , tʰ , kʰ ] assimilate to the unaspirated ones. For example, 「 算盤 」 (Jyutping: syun p un ) and 「 麵包 」(Jyutping: min b aau ) are borrowed into Macanese as sin- p un and min- p au respectively, noting that both words use ⟨p⟩ as opposed to the latter being borrowed as *min- b au . Likewise, [t͡s] (Jyutping: z ) and [t͡sʰ] (Jyutping: c ) are usually both borrowed into Macanese as ch , for example 「 瓜子 」 (Jyutping: gwaa z i ) and「 吵吵鬧鬧 」(Jyutping: c aau c aau naau naau ) are borrowed into Macanese as qua ch í and ch au- ch au-lau-lau respectively, rather than
9300-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,
9424-449: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of
9548-400: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. John Trevisa , c. 1385 Middle English
9672-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of
9796-682: The continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into
9920-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered
10044-467: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and
10168-529: The early 20th century, because of its perceived "low class" status as a "primitive Portuguese". All people, including many Chinese learning Portuguese as their second or third language, are required to learn standard European Portuguese . Other Macanese people learn Cantonese, another language with co-official status with Portuguese in Macau. Because of this, code switching even occurs between the Creole, standard Portuguese, and Cantonese in informal speech. Macanese use
10292-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially
10416-539: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from
10540-684: The elite in England eventually developed into the Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases
10664-498: The existence of Hong Kong English as a distinct variety, scholars have sought evidence of expression of the variant which may be classified according to the following criteria: Using these criteria, scholars have said that Hong Kong English possesses the attributes of a distinct variety. Hong Kong English is also featured as a separate entity in the Oxford Guide to World English, under the sub-heading of "East Asia". Hong Kong English
10788-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in
10912-427: The former being borrowed as *guazí . English-derived terms include adap (from "hard-up", meaning "short of money"), afêt ("fat"), anidiu ("honeydew (melon)"), and possibly gudám ("store", "shop" from Malay gudang , but also the sense "downstairs" possibly deriving from English go down ). There are also a few terms calqued from English, for example tiro-grandi ("an important person") being
11036-499: The fourth phase, that of Endonormative Stabilisation. Furthermore, by the criteria identified in the above section, scholars have noted that there is very little literature produced in English which is meant for local consumption. It has been demonstrated that English spoken in Hong Kong is highly intelligible to listeners from elsewhere, which helps explain why an increasing number of people are happy to be identified as speakers of this variety. However, it has been noted that language use
11160-710: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of
11284-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,
11408-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where
11532-414: The infinitive, for example vivo ("to live") coming from Portuguese vivo ("I live, I am living") rather than the infinitive viver . Likewise, vêm ("to come") and têm ("to have") deriving from Portuguese vem ("he/she/it/they (sg.) is/are coming") and tem ("he/she/it/they (sg.) have"), rather than the infinitives vir and ter , which would have yielded *ví and *tê . On
11656-604: The influx of immigrants from other Portuguese colonies in Asia, especially from Portuguese Malacca, Indonesia , and Portuguese Ceylon, that had been displaced by the Dutch expansion in the East Indies , and Japanese Christian refugees. Like any other language, Macanese underwent extensive changes in usage, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary over the centuries, in response to changes in Macau's demographics and cultural contacts. Some linguists see
11780-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as
11904-524: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English
12028-467: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of
12152-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as
12276-447: The late poet José dos Santos Ferreira ("Adé"), chose the "sweet language" as their creative medium. On the other hand, Macanese never enjoyed any official status, and was never formally taught in Macau. Starting in the late 19th century, its role in the life of the colony was greatly diminished by the central government's drive to establish standard Portuguese throughout its territories. High-society Macanese gradually stopped using it in
12400-436: The lexicon came mainly from the dialects of southern Portugal . For example, chomâ ("to call") likely deriving from a dialectal variant of standard Portuguese chamar . Otherwise, verbs derived from Portuguese tend to lose their -r endings. -ar , -er and -ir usually become -â , -ê and -í . In some cases, verbs may be derived from the first- or third-person singular present form rather than
12524-443: The lexicon. Over its history the language also acquired elements from several other Indian tongues and a string of other European and Asian languages. These varied influences made Macanese a unique "cocktail" of European and Asian languages. Macanese lawyer and Patuá supporter Miguel Senna Fernandes has said that Patuá was "not yet dead, but the archaic form of Patuá has already died," adding that "modern" Patuá could be considered
12648-409: The mother tongue of several thousand of people, in Macau, Hong Kong and elsewhere, through 19th and early 20th century. At that time, Macanese speakers were consciously using the language in opposition to the standard Portuguese of the metropolitan administration. In the early 20th century, for example, it was the vehicle of satirical sketches poking fun at Portuguese authorities. A few writers, such as
12772-721: The other hand, compare rí ("to laugh") and crê ("to believe") from Portuguese rir and crer respectively. Depending on the age of a Macanese derivation, it may also lose ⟨-r-⟩ after a consonant as well, for example Portuguese esc r eve r became Macanese isquevê ("to write"). Some Macanese formations are derived from Portuguese (or older Galician-Portuguese) terms that are not found in modern standard Portuguese, for example nádi (negative future particle, "will not") deriving from Portuguese não há-de ("(there) will not be"). Portuguese words may also be used in different and/or expanded senses, for example nunca (Portuguese "never") being used with
12896-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it
13020-657: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from
13144-544: The same meaning as the Macanese term. Even the word for "money", sapeca , may be a semantic loan from Cantonese 錢 , as the term used to only refer to coins with square holes in the middle (compare French cognate sapèque ). Aspiration is usually not taken into account when loaning Cantonese words into Macanese, that is, words with [ pʰ ] , [ tʰ ] , [ kʰ ] ( Jyutping : p, t, k ) and [ p ] , [ t ] , [ k ] (Jyutping: b, d, g ) are both borrowed as p, t, c/qu , making
13268-499: The same thing but of different origins, for example pâm (from Portuguese pão ) and min-pau (from Cantonese 麵包 ) both meaning "bread". In this particular case, min-pau is the more common word, however this may vary with other cases. In addition, pâm is also used in some fixed phrases, such as pâm-di-casa (lit. "home bread"), a type of sweet bread that is/was typically baked at home by Macanese. In addition to directly borrowing words, one somewhat common feature
13392-474: The scenario, some speakers may perform code-switching , where certain (usually more complicated) concepts are expressed using Portuguese; or Portuguese interjections may be used in a Macanese sentence, for example Calôr qui pidí misericórdia ("it's so hot", lit. "heat asking for mercy"), where misericórdia comes from Portuguese. Otherwise, nationalities and names of countries are generally directly borrowed from Portuguese. In Macanese, to speak in
13516-415: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout
13640-478: The source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to
13764-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and
13888-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into
14012-491: The survival of Macau's "sweet language" that, after all, is part of its unique history. The language played an important role in Macau's social and commercial development between the 16th and 19th centuries, when it was the main language of communication among Macau's Eurasian residents. However, even during that period the total number of speakers was relatively small, probably always amounting to just thousands, not tens of thousands of people. Macanese continued to be spoken as
14136-473: The variation mulier /-lj-/ also exists, cf. Kristang muleh . In some cases, this may be due to Macanese inheriting directly from Old Galician-Portuguese ⟨ll⟩. ⟨Nh⟩ / ɲ / however is generally retained, for example fucinho /fuˈsiɲu/ ("snout") from Portuguese focinho , although some speakers may use /nj/ instead. Also, / ʃ / and / ʒ / generally tend to be pronounced as / t͡ʃ / and / d͡ʒ / respectively, although / t͡ʃ /
14260-459: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. Macanese language Macanese patois (endonym: Patuá )
14384-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during
14508-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by
14632-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,
14756-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with
14880-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century
15004-479: Was already in decline while Macau was a Portuguese territory, and that situation is unlikely to improve now that the territory is under Chinese administration. Still, its speakers take great pride in the fact that Macau has its own local language, something that Hong Kong does not have. They argue that Macau's unique status as a 500-year-old bridge between Orient and the Occident justifies deliberate efforts to preserve
15128-511: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in
15252-500: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by
15376-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English
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