Discovering Language - Varieties of English (1973)

[Music] the English language is created by the people who use it now I suppose you're going to put in a plug for the dictionary right again the dictionary is important because a lot of words are not pronounced as they look for example but it's do Monday Bill I know pretty good huh yeah real good have you done your but the English spoken in America is just one variety of the language people who live in different English-speaking countries speak different kinds of English these are Australians we won't know ourselves next Monday why m'am dad's ordered a new washing machine that'll run on our plant it's on it way up from Sydney listen to the way a New Zealander speaks as he tells about his English-speaking country New Zealand covers a little more than 100,000 square miles and our population is more than 2 million and we can find another variety of English in London England see there Susan those bears come from North America they look Jolly Fierce Michael don't lean over so far do as your mother tells you Michael all right Dad it's just that they put on such a show so the English language today sounds different in the different places where it's spoken around the world one cause of these differences is pronunciation for example let's think about a business office an American would say this girl is a secretary but an Englishman would say this girl is a secretary and I would say this place where you keep your car is a garage to me it's a garage where does an American scientist work in a laboratory where does an English scientist work in a laboratory so differing pronunciation is one example of differences in English today another cause of differences is the different words English-speaking people use for the same things for example take cars what would an American call this type of car a sedan I'd call it a saloon what about the parts of a car we raised the hood to check the spark plugs we raised the Bonnet to check the sparking plugs and now you can see the wind screen to us that's the windshield and this is a fender it's a mudguard or Wing to us and that's the boot that just opened the trunk to us the English language is also different in various parts of the world because the same words have different meanings this for instance what's the surface of the street called the pavement no that's the pavement over there where people walk that's the sidewalk and the boy on the sidewalk is eating french fries to us they're chips these are chips not to us to us they're crisps and varieties of English today also differ with expressions for instance what do you think of this elegant dinner ooh Some spread a super tuck in oh good show nice going which shows how different Expressions as well as words word meanings and pronunciations helped make English different in the different parts of the English-speaking world like England and Canada and the United States even here English varies this is Richmond Virginia does anyone want to ask Jennifer any questions your name is Jennifer Jenkins the song's name is Jenny Jenkins why is your name like the song's name is there anything special about the song and this is Chicago Jeff I'd like you to meet Peggy in brother Ted they've just moved here from New York pleased to meet you Peggy Ted what's it like in New York well so people who live in different places speak their own varieties of English but what sort of work they do also affects the way they speak think of the doctors nurses and technicians who work in a hospital theirs is a specialized occupation special vocabulary usually develop from occupations like this so there are medical vocabularies we'll suture the bypass graph just below the leion and legal vocabularies we could always plead noo to avoid private claims and uh litigate only the issue of a stole and motion picture vocabularies all right now keep panning as we Dolly now zoom into close spacecraft test conduct and space technology VAB of his Personnel in the control room all report they are go for the mission and this has been reported to the test supervisor Bill shik the test supervisor now going through some status checks launch operations manager Paul Don reports go for launch launch director Roco Patron new words that specialized Fields develop are spread through the English-speaking World by newspapers and other kinds of communication at the same time media add to the variety of English by using specially coined words recording is called a cassette even though just part of a television set is the picture tube you know that what's on the tube means what's on TV on the tube the Telly Television TV you hear people speak many varieties of English today and you pick up many new Expressions words and figures of speech besides many many English-speaking people are on the Move carrying with them their varieties of English hearing the many sounds of their native tongue easterners go to the Midwest to see Lincoln's home in Springfield [Music] Illinois midwesterners go east to Valley Forge Pennsylvania and pennsylvanians go south to Williamsburg Virginia new zealanders go to Quebec in [Music] Canada and Canadians go to London helping our language change more rapidly than ever before our world is different from what it was in the past and so is our language our language is changing and growing growing and changing and the changes are rapid [Music] our language is being enriched by the people who use it this is the state of our language [Music] today