Opposition
126-508: Appointed The Nevis Island Assembly is the devolved local legislative body for the island of Nevis within the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis . The Assembly has a total of eight members. Five are directly elected in single-member constituencies using the first-past-the-post system. Three are appointed. Members serve five-year terms. The Nevis Island Assembly meets in Charlestown on
252-546: 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
378-401: A referendum on Nevis to separate from Saint Kitts had 2,427 votes in favour and 1,498 against, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed. Before 1967, the local government of Saint Kitts was also the government of Nevis and Anguilla. Nevis had two seats and Anguilla one seat in the government. The economic and infrastructural development of the two smaller islands was not a priority to
504-456: A spring called the "Source", located 1,800 feet (550 m) up the mountain, to storage tanks at Rawlins Village, and since 1912, to Butler's Village. Additional drinking water comes from Nelson's Spring near Cotton Ground and Bath Spring. Groundwater has been extracted since the 1990s, and mixed with the Source water. During the 17th and 18th centuries, massive deforestation was undertaken by
630-635: 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
756-549: A Royal Patent for colonisation to the Earl of Carlisle . However, actual English settlement did not happen until 1628, when Anthony Hilton moved from nearby Saint Kitts following a murder plot against him. 80 English settlers accompanied him, soon boosted by a further 100 settlers from London who had initially hoped to settle Barbuda . Hilton became the first Governor of Nevis. After the Treaty of Madrid between Spain and England, Nevis became
882-651: 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
1008-484: 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
1134-529: A gallon from Saint Kitts yielded 16 ounces (0.47 litres). Twenty per cent of the English colonial empire 's total sugar production in 1700 was derived from Nevisian plantations. Exports from West Indian colonies like Nevis were worth more than all the exports from all the mainland Thirteen Colonies of North America combined at the time of the American Revolutionary War . The enslaved families formed
1260-566: A large fleet of canoes along in support. In the same year, a Franco-Dutch invasion fleet was repelled off Nevis by an English fleet. Letters and other records from the era indicate that colonists on Nevis hated and feared the Kalinago. In 1674 and 1683, they participated in attacks on Kalinago villages in Dominica and St. Vincent , despite a lack of official approval from the Crown for the attack. On Nevis,
1386-409: A lava dome, created in recent, pre-Columbian time. Pyroclastic flows and mudflows were deposited on the lower slopes of the cone simultaneously. Nevis Peak is located on the outer crater rim. Four other lava domes were constructed on the flanks of the volcano, one on the northeast flank (Madden's Mount), one on the eastern flank (Butlers Mountain), one on the northwest coast (Mount Lily) and one on
SECTION 10
#17330859188721512-583: A major part of the English West Indies and an admiralty court also sat in Nevis. Between 1675 and 1730, the island was the headquarters for the slave trade to the Leeward Islands, with approximately 6,000–7,000 enslaved West Africans passing through en route to other islands each year. The Royal African Company brought all its ships through Nevis. A 1678 census shows a community of Irish people – 22% of
1638-654: A miraculous snowfall in a hot climate. Nevis was part of the Spanish claim to the Caribbean islands, a claim pursued until the 1670 Treaty of Madrid , even though there were no Spanish settlements on the island. According to Vincent Hubbard, author of Swords, Ships & Sugar: History of Nevis , the Spanish ruling caused many of the Arawak groups who were not ethnically Caribs to "be redefined as Kalinago overnight". Records indicate that
1764-520: 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
1890-688: 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,
2016-679: 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
2142-407: 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
2268-744: 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
2394-697: A society with a majority of small, landowning farmers and entrepreneurs created a stronger middle class in Nevis than in Saint Kitts, where the sugar industry continued until 2006. Even though the 15 families in the wealthy planter elite no longer control the arable land, Saint Kitts still has a large, landless working class population. The population had reached 7,470 by 1842. Nevis was united with Saint Kitts and Anguilla in 1882, and they became an associated state with full internal autonomy in 1967, though Anguilla seceded in 1971. Together, Saint Kitts and Nevis became independent on 19 September 1983. On 10 August 1998,
2520-447: 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
2646-552: 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
SECTION 20
#17330859188722772-431: Is 93 square kilometres (36 sq mi) and the capital is Charlestown . Saint Kitts and Nevis are separated by The Narrows , a shallow 3-kilometre (2 mi) channel. Nevis is roughly conical in shape with a volcano, Nevis Peak , at its centre. The island is fringed on its western and northern coastlines by sandy beaches composed of a mixture of white coral sand with brown and black sand eroded and washed down from
2898-459: 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
3024-603: 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
3150-675: Is an island in the Caribbean Sea that forms part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies . Nevis and the neighbouring island of Saint Kitts constitute the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis , a singular nation state. Nevis is located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago about 350 kilometres (220 mi) east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Antigua . Its area
3276-407: 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
3402-528: 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
3528-546: Is celebrated as Emancipation Day and is part of the annual Nevis Culturama festival. A four-year apprenticeship programme followed the abolishment of slavery on the plantations. In spite of the continued use of the labour force, the Nevisian slave owners were paid over £150,000 in compensation from the British Government for the loss of property, whereas the enslaved families received nothing for 200 years of labour. One of
3654-576: 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 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
3780-424: 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
3906-454: Is separated from these three by a deeper channel. There are visible wave-breaking reefs along the northern and eastern shorelines. To the south and west, the reefs are located in deeper water. The most developed beach on Nevis is the 4.8 km (3.0 mi) or 6.5 km long (4.0 mi) Pinney's Beach , on the western or Caribbean coast. There is sheltered swimming at Pinney, Nisbet, Lovers, and Oualie beaches. The eastern coast of
Nevis Island Assembly - Misplaced Pages Continue
4032-517: 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
4158-465: Is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by 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
4284-558: Is the official language, and its literacy rate of 98 per cent is one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere . In 1498, Christopher Columbus gave the island the name San Martín (Saint Martin). However, the confusion of numerous poorly-charted small islands in the Leeward Island chain meant that this name ended up being accidentally transferred to another island, which is still known as Saint-Martin . The current name Nevis
4410-777: 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
4536-943: The Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on 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
4662-587: 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
4788-594: 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 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
4914-479: 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
5040-762: The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) exams, the Cambridge General Certificate of Education Examination (GCE) and the Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examinations is now consistently among the highest in the English-speaking Caribbean. The formation of the island began in mid-Pliocene times, approximately 3.45 million years ago. Nine distinct eruptive centres from different geological ages, ranging from mid-Pliocene to Pleistocene , have contributed to
5166-537: 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
Nevis Island Assembly - Misplaced Pages Continue
5292-532: 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
5418-561: The Spanish phrase Nuestra Señora de las Nieves , which translates as Our Lady of the Snows ; the name was given by the island's Spanish discoverers and first appeared on maps in the 16th century. Nevis is also known by the sobriquet "Queen of the Caribees", which it earned in the 18th century because of its many sugar plantations. Nevis is both geographically smaller and less populous than Saint Kitts. It maintains significant autonomy within
5544-584: 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
5670-577: 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 the elite in England eventually developed into
5796-511: 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
5922-493: The trade winds . There is a slightly hotter and somewhat rainier season from May to November. English (language) English 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
6048-536: The volcanic rock of which the island is made. Seven volcanic centers make up Nevis. These include Round Hill (3.43 Ma ), Cades Bay (3.22 Ma), Hurricane Hill (2.7 Ma), Saddle Hill (1.8 Ma), Butlers Mountain (1.1 Ma), Red Cliff and Nevis Peak (0.98 Ma). These are mainly andesite and dacite lava domes , with associated block and ash flows , plus lahars . Nevis Peak has the highest elevation, at 984 m. Cades Bay and Farm Estate Soufriere are noted areas of hydrothermal activity. Water has been piped since 1911 from
6174-558: 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
6300-596: 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
6426-595: 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
SECTION 50
#17330859188726552-488: The Bath Spring near Bath village, just south of the capital Charlestown. After heavy rains, powerful rivers of rainwater pour down the numerous ravines , known as ghauts. When the water reaches the coastline, the corresponding coastal ponds, both freshwater and brackish, fill to capacity and beyond, spilling over into the sea. With modern development, the existing freshwater springs are no longer enough to supply water to
6678-463: 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
6804-537: 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
6930-628: 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
7056-523: The English built Fort Charles and a series of smaller fortifications to aid in defending the island. This included Saddle Hill Battery, built in 1740 to replace a deodand on Mount Nevis. In 1706, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville , the French Canadian founder of Louisiana in North America, decided to drive the English out of Nevis and thus also stop pirate attacks on French ships; he considered Nevis
7182-543: 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
7308-517: The French were driven off the island. Among the Nevisian men, women and children carried away on d'Iberville's ships, six ended up in Louisiana, the first persons of African descent to arrive there. One consequence of the French attack was a collapsed sugar industry and during the ensuing hardship on Nevis, small plots of land on the plantations were made available to the enslaved families in order to control
7434-676: The Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to 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
7560-476: The Island Main Road, a new airport terminal and control tower, and a major airport expansion, which required the relocation of an entire village in order to make room for the runway extension. Modernised classrooms and better-equipped schools, as well as improvements in the educational system, have contributed to a leap in academic performance on the island. The pass rate among the Nevisian students sitting for
7686-585: The Leeward Island Amerindian groups popularly referred to as Arawaks and Kalinago , a complex mosaic of ethnic groups with similar culture and language. Dominican anthropologist Lennox Honychurch traces the European use of the term "Carib" to refer to the Leeward Island aborigines to Columbus, who picked it up from the Taínos on Hispaniola . It was not a name the Kalinago called themselves. "Carib Indians"
SECTION 60
#17330859188727812-502: 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
7938-551: The Spanish enslaved large numbers of the native inhabitants on the more accessible of the Leeward Islands and sent them to Cubagua , Venezuela , to dive for pearls. Hubbard suggests that the reason the first European settlers found so few Kalinago on Nevis is that they had already been rounded up by the Spanish and shipped off to be used as slaves. Nevis had been settled for more than two thousand years by Amerindian peoples prior to having been sighted by Columbus in 1493. The indigenous people of Nevis during these periods belonged to
8064-442: 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
8190-405: The United States can be said to be a partial by-product of these wars, and the strategic trade aims that often ignored North America. Three privateers ( William Kidd being one of them) were employed by the Crown to help protect ships in Nevis' waters. During the 17th century, the French, based on Saint Kitts, launched many attacks on Nevis, sometimes assisted by the Kalinago, who in 1667 sent
8316-542: The amount of tax collected on the Leeward Islands was recorded. The sums recorded for 1676 as "head tax on slaves", a tax payable in sugar, amounted to 384,600 pounds in Nevis, as opposed to 67,000 each in Antigua and Saint Kitts, 62,500 in Montserrat , and 5,500 total in the other five islands. The profits on sugar cultivation in Nevis was enhanced by the fact that the cane juice from Nevis yielded an unusually high amount of sugar. A gallon (3.79 litres) of cane juice from Nevis yielded 24 ounces (0.71 litres) of sugar, whereas
8442-446: The area around Charlestown. In this regard, Nevis fared better than Anguilla, where there were no paved roads, no electricity and no telephones until 1967. However, electricity did not become available island-wide on Nevis until 1971. An ambitious infrastructure development programme was introduced in the early 2000s which included a transformation of the Charlestown port, construction of a new deep-water harbour, resurfacing and widening
8568-407: 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,
8694-401: 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
8820-404: 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. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with
8946-429: The coastline of Nevis up to an altitude at which the mountain slopes were too steep and rocky to farm. Nonetheless, once the sugar industry was finally abandoned, vegetation on the leeward side of the island regrew reasonably well, as scrub and secondary forest. Nevis has several natural freshwater springs, including Nelson's Spring. The island also has numerous non-potable volcanic hot springs , including most notably
9072-627: The colonial capital for the Leeward Islands until the seat was transferred to Antigua for military reasons in 1698. During this period, Nevis was the richest of the English Leeward Islands. Nevis outranked larger islands like Jamaica in sugar production in the late 17th century. The planters' wealth on the island is evident in the tax records preserved at the Calendar State Papers in the Colonial Office 's Public Records, where
9198-544: The colonial federal government. When the hospital in Charlestown was destroyed in a hurricane in 1899, planting of trees in the squares of Saint Kitts and refurbishing of government buildings, also in Saint Kitts, took precedence over the rebuilding of the only hospital in Nevis. After five years without any proper medical facilities, the leaders in Nevis initiated a campaign, threatening to seek independence from Saint Kitts. The British Administrator in Saint Kitts, Charles Cox,
9324-638: 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
9450-461: The de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and 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
9576-476: 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
9702-467: 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
9828-401: 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
9954-539: 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
10080-408: 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
10206-447: The federation, including a separate government headed by the premier of Nevis and a separate legislature . Nevis has twice voted – in 1977 , in an unofficial referendum, and in 1998 , in an official one – to secede from the federation, but neither attempt succeeded. The majority of the approximately 12,000 Nevisians are of primarily African descent, with notable British, Portuguese , and Lebanese minority communities. English
10332-420: The fighting, 3,400 enslaved Nevisians were captured and sent off to Martinique, but about 1,000 more, poorly armed and militarily untrained, held the French troops at bay, by "murderous fire" according to an eyewitness account by an English militiaman. He wrote that "the slaves' brave behaviour and defence there shamed what some of their masters did, and they do not shrink to tell us so." After 18 days of fighting,
10458-475: The formation. No single model of the island's geological evolution can, therefore, be ascertained. Nevis Peak (985 m or 3,232 ft high) is the dormant remnant of one of these ancient stratovolcanoes . The last activity took place about 100,000 years ago, but active fumaroles and hot springs are still found on the island, the most recent formed in 1953. The composite cone of Nevis volcano has two overlapping summit craters that are partially filled by
10584-470: The funds assigned for the hospital could thus be spent on the construction of a new official residence in Nevis. After d'Iberville's invasion in 1704, records show Nevis' sugar industry in ruins and a decimated population begging the English Parliament and relatives for loans and monetary assistance to stave off island-wide starvation. The sugar industry on the island never fully recovered and during
10710-518: The general depression that followed the loss of the West Indian sugar monopoly , Nevis fell on hard times and the island became one of the poorest in the region. The island remained poorer than Saint Kitts until 1991, when the fiscal performance of Nevis edged ahead of the fiscal performance of Saint Kitts for the first time since the French invasion. Electricity was introduced in Nevis in 1954 when two generators were shipped in to provide electricity to
10836-710: 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
10962-479: 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,
11088-407: 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
11214-403: 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
11340-524: 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
11466-467: 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
11592-485: The island faces into the Atlantic Ocean. The colour of the sand on the beaches of Nevis is variable: on a lot of the bigger beaches the sand is a yellow-grey in colour, but some beaches on the southern coast have darker, reddish, or even black sand. Under a microscope it becomes clear that Nevis sand is a mixture of tiny fragments of coral, many foraminifera , and small crystals of the various mineral constituents of
11718-596: The island in 1603, spending two weeks to cut 20 tons of lignum vitae wood. Gilbert sailed on to Virginia to seek out survivors of the Roanoke settlement in what is now North Carolina . Captain John Smith visited Nevis on his way to Virginia in 1607 on the voyage that founded Jamestown , the first permanent English settlement in the New World. On 30 August 1620, James I of England asserted sovereignty over Nevis by giving
11844-431: 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
11970-473: The large labour force required to work the sugar plantations. After the 1650s, the supply of white indentured servants began to dry up due to increased wages in England and less incentive to migrate to the colonies. By the end of the 17th century, the population of Nevis consisted of a small, wealthy planter elite in control, a marginal population of poor Whites, a great majority of African-descended slaves, and an unknown number of maroons , escaped slaves living in
12096-498: The loss of life due to starvation. With less profitability for the absentee plantation owners, the import of food supplies for the plantation workers dwindled. Between 1776 and 1783, when the food supplies failed to arrive altogether due to the rebellion in North America , 300–400 enslaved Nevisians starved to death. On 1 August 1834, slavery was abolished in the British Empire . In Nevis, 8,815 slaves were freed. The first Monday in August
12222-537: The metropolitan British Foreign Office gave result and the federal government in Saint Kitts was ordered by their superiors in London to take speedy action. The Legislative Council took another five years to consider their options. The final decision by the federal government was to not rebuild the old hospital after all but to instead convert the old Government House in Nevis into a hospital, named Alexandra Hospital after Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII . A majority of
12348-488: The mountains. In 1780, 90 per cent of the 10,000 people living on Nevis were Black. Some of the maroons joined with the few remaining Kalinago in Nevis. Memories of the Nevisian maroons' struggle under the plantation system are preserved in place names such as Maroon Hill, an early centre of resistance. The great wealth generated by the colonies of the West Indies led to wars among the great powers of Europe. The formation of
12474-520: The ocean life sheltered by the reef that made it feasible for the Amerindians to settle this area around 600 BC. With the loss of the natural vegetation, the balance in runoff nutrients to the reef was disturbed, eventually causing as much as 80 per cent of the large eastern fringing reef to become inactive. As the reef broke apart, it, in turn, provided less protection for the coastline. During times of maximum cultivation, sugar cane fields stretched from
12600-480: The plantations, rather than letting the French have them, and hid in the mountains. It was the enslaved Africans who held the French at bay by taking up arms to defend their families and the island. The slave quarters had been looted and burned as well, as the main reward promised the men fighting on the French side in the attack was the right to capture as many slaves as possible and resell them in Martinique . During
12726-407: The planters as the land was initially cleared for sugar cultivation. This intense land exploitation by the sugar and cotton industry lasted almost 300 years, and greatly changed the island's ecosystem . In some places along the windswept southeast or "Windward" coast of the island, the landscape is radically altered compared with how it used to be in pre-colonial times. Due to extreme land erosion,
12852-417: The population – existing as either indentured servants or freemen. Due to the profitable slave trade and the high quality of Nevisian sugar cane , Nevis soon became a dominant source of wealth for the colonial slavocracy . When the Leeward Islands were separated from Barbados in 1671, Nevis became the seat of the Leeward Islands colony and was given the nickname "Queen of the Caribees". It remained
12978-426: 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
13104-404: The region's headquarters for piracy against French trade. During d'Iberville's invasion of Nevis, French buccaneers were used in the front line, infamous for being ruthless killers after the pillaging during the wars with Spain where they gained a reputation for torturing and murdering non-combatants. In the face of the invading force, the English militiamen of Nevis fled. Some planters burned
13230-608: 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
13356-672: The second floor of Museum of Nevis History building. Mark Brantley has been Premier of Nevis since the 2017 election after leading the Concerned Citizens' Movement to victory. In the election the CCM lost a seat (St James') to the NRP. This legislature -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Saint Kitts and Nevis -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Nevis Nevis ( / ˈ n iː v ɪ s / NEE -viss )
13482-464: 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
13608-425: The south coast (Saddle Hill, with a height of 375 metres or 1,230 feet). The southernmost point on the island is Dogwood Point which is also the southernmost point of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis . During the last ice age , when the sea level was 60 metres (200') lower, the three islands of Saint Kitts, Nevis and Sint Eustatius (also known as Statia) were connected as one island. Saba , however,
13734-474: 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
13860-455: 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
13986-471: The topsoil was swept away, and in some places at the coast, sheer cliffs as high as 25 metres (82 feet) have developed. Thick forest once covered the eastern coastal plain, where the Amerindians built their first settlements during the Aceramic period, complementing the ecosystem surrounding the coral reef just offshore. It was the easy access to fresh water on the island and the rich food source represented by
14112-412: 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. Though some mention
14238-463: The volcanic rocks that make up the island. The gently-sloping coastal plain (1 km (0.62 mi) wide) has natural freshwater springs as well as non-potable volcanic hot springs , especially along the western coast. The island was named Oualie , translated as "land of beautiful waters", by the Kalinago and Dulcina ("Sweet Island") by the early British settlers. The name Nevis is derived from
14364-622: The wealthiest planter families in Nevis, the Pinneys of Mountravers Plantation, claimed £36,396 (equivalent to £4,418,540 in 2023) in compensation for the slaves on the family-owned plantations around the Caribbean. Because of the early distribution of plots and because many of the planters departed from the island when sugar cultivation became unprofitable, a relatively large percentage of Nevisians already owned or controlled land at emancipation. Others settled on crown land. This early development of
14490-433: The whole island. The water supply now comes mostly from Government wells. The major source of potable water for the island is groundwater, obtained from 14 active wells. Water is pumped from the wells, stored and allowed to flow by gravity to the various locations. The climate is tropical with little variation, tempered all year round (but particularly from December through February) by the steady north-easterly winds, called
14616-473: 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
14742-785: 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
14868-539: 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,
14994-438: 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
15120-405: 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
15246-553: Was derived from the Spanish name Nuestra Señora de las Nieves by process of abbreviation and anglicisation . The Spanish name means Our Lady of the Snows . It is not known who chose this name for the island, but it is a reference to the story of a 4th-century Catholic miracle related to a snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome . Presumably the white clouds that usually cover the top of Nevis Peak reminded someone of this story of
15372-511: 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
15498-500: 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
15624-533: 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
15750-572: Was the generic name used for all groups believed involved in cannibalistic war rituals, more particularly, the consumption of parts of a killed enemy's body. The Amerindian name for Nevis was Oualie , land of beautiful waters. The structure of the Kalinago language has been linguistically identified as Arawakan . Despite the Spanish claim, Nevis continued to be a popular stop over point for English and Dutch ships on their way to North America . Captain Bartholomew Gilbert of Plymouth visited
15876-471: Was unmoved. He stated that Nevis did not need a hospital since there had been no significant rise in the number of deaths during the time Nevisians had been without a hospital. Therefore, no action was needed on behalf of the government, and besides, Cox continued, the Legislative Council regarded "Nevis and Anguilla as a drag on St. Kitts and would willingly see a separation". A letter of complaint to
#871128