Studies of the very earliest form of language which can be called English, and its later influence. East Anglia - the easternmost area of England - was probably home to the first-ever form of language which can be called English. East Anglian English has had a very considerable input into the formation of Standard English, and contributed importantly to the development of American English and (to a lesser extent) Southern Hemisphere Englishes; it has also experienced multilingualism on a remarkable scale. However, it has received little attention from linguistic scholars over the years, and this volume provides an overdue assessment. The articles, by leading scholars in the field, cover all aspects of the English of East Anglia from its beginnings to the present day; topics include place names, non-standard grammar, dialect phonology, dialect contact, language contact, and a host of other issues of descriptive, theoretical, historical and sociolinguistic interest and importance. Professor JACEK FISIAKteaches in the Department of English at the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland; Professor PETER TRUDGILL is Chair of English Linguistics at the University of Fribourg. Contributors: PETER TRUDGILL, JACEK FISIAK, KARL INGE SANDRED, GILLIS KRISTENSSON, LAURA WRIGHT, CLAIRE JONES, TERTU NEVALAINEN, HELENA RAUMOLIN-BRUNBERG, KEN LODGE, DAVID BRITAIN, PATRICIA POUSSA

Extremely isolated communities offer "laboratory conditions" for examining the processes of language change and dialect formation. This book presents findings of the first ever ethnographic field work on the most remote island in the world with a permanent population, Tristan da Cunha. It documents the historical formation of a unique local dialect and investigates the sociolinguistic mechanisms that underlie dialect contact and new-dialect formation. It also uncovers the linguistic consequences of post-insularity - language change processes as a result of increasing contacts with other communities and speakers. Researchers and students of language variation will find this book a unique resource.

Published in 1897, this two-volume work by Robert Seymour Conway (1864 1933), classical scholar and comparative philologist, later Hulme Professor of Latin at the University of Manchester, aims to shed light on the origins of the Latin language and Roman institutions by careful examination of the dialects and customs of Rome's neighbours. The work is laid out in geographical order, beginning with Southern Oscan in Sicily and moving north through Volscian and Latinian to conclude with Umbrian and Picenum, so that the influence of one dialect on its neighbours can be traced. This first volume collects all the surviving remains of these minor Italic dialects, gleaned primarily from epigraphic sources (such as Oscan inscriptions at Pompeii and elsewhere), but also from the evidence of coins, glosses and other references in later writers, and geographical and proper names from the dialect areas.

Variation within the English language is a vast research area, of which dialectology, the study of geographic variation, is a significant part. This book explores grammatical differences between British English dialects, drawing on authentic speech data collected in over thirty counties. In doing so it presents a new approach known as 'corpus-based dialectometry', which focuses on the joint quantitative measurement of dozens of grammatical features to gauge regional differences. These features include, for example, multiple negation (e.g. don't you make no damn mistake), non-standard verbal-s (e.g. so I says, What have you to do?), or non-standard weak past tense and past participle forms (e.g. they knowed all about these things). Utilizing state-of-the-art dialectometrical analysis and visualization techniques, the book is original both in terms of its fundamental research question ('What are the large-scale patterns of grammatical variability in British English dialects?') and in terms of its methodology.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the syntactic variation of the dialects of Spanish. More precisely, it covers Spanish theoretical syntax that takes as its data source non-standard grammatical phenomena. Approaching the syntactic variation of Spanish dialects opens a door not only to the intricacies of the language, but also to a set of challenges of linguistic theory itself, including language variation, language contact, bilingualism, and diglossia. The volume is divided into two main sections, the first focusing on Iberian Spanish and the second on Latin American Spanish. Chapters cover a wide range of syntactic constructions and phenomena, such as clitics, agreement, subordination, differential object marking, expletives, predication, doubling, word order, and subjects. This volume constitutes a milestone in the study of syntactic variation, setting the stage for future work not only in vernacular Spanish, but all languages.

Originally published in 1906, this study by E. C. Quiggin was, as its author put it, 'the first serious attempt at a scientific description of a northern dialect of Irish'. Quiggin maintained that collecting linguistic data from the people who were born before the famine was of immediate concern because their particular grasp of the vernacular would help shed much-needed light on the mysteries of Old and Middle Irish orthography. Drawn primarily from evidence of the speech found in a hamlet called Meenawannia near Donegal, this volume represents a fascinating case study of the Irish language at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Here is a feast of words that will whet the appetite of food and word lovers everywhere. William Grimes, former restaurant critic for The New York Times, covers everything from bird's nest soup to Trockenbeerenauslese in this wonderfully informative food lexicon.
Eating Your Words is a veritable cornucopia--a thousand-and-one entries on candies and desserts, fruits and vegetables, meats, seafood, spices, herbs, wines, cheeses, liqueurs, cocktails, sauces, dressings, and pastas. The book includes terms from around the world (basmati, kimchi, haggis, callaloo) and from around the block (meatloaf, slim jims, Philly cheesesteak). Grimes describes utensils (from tandoor and wok to slotted spoon and zester), cooking styles (a bonne femme, over easy), cuts of meat (crown roast, prime rib), and much more. Each definition includes a pronunciation guide and many entries indicate the origin of the word. Thus we learn that olla podrida is Spanish for 'rotten pot' and mulligatawny comes from the Tamil words milaku-tanni, meaning 'pepper water.' Grimes includes helpful tips on usage, such as when to write whiskey and when to write whisky. In addition, there are more than a dozen special sidebars on food and food word topics--everything from diner slang to bad fad diets--plus a time line of food trends by decade and a list of the best regional snack foods.
Even if you don't know a summer sausage from a spring chicken, you will find Eating Your Words a delectable treat. And for everyone who loves to cook, this superb volume is an essential resource--and the perfect gift.

New York City English is one of the most recognizable of US dialects, and research on it launched modern sociolinguistics. Yet the city's speech has never before received a comprehensive description and analysis. In this book, Michael Newman examines the differences and similarities among the ways English is spoken by the extraordinarily diverse population living in the NY dialect region. He uses data from a variety of sources including older dialectological accounts, classic and recent variationist studies, and original research on speakers from around the dialect region. All levels of language are explored including phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon, and discourse along with a history of English in the region. But this book provides far more than a dialectological and historical inventory of linguistic features. The forms used by different groups of New Yorkers are discussed in terms of their complex social meanings. Furthermore, Newman illustrates the varied forms of sociolinguistic significance with examples from the personal experiences of a variety of New Yorkers and includes links to sound files on the publisher's site and videos on YouTube. The result is a rigorous but accessible and compelling account of the English spoken in this great city.

Spanglish-a hybrid of Spanish and English-is intricately interwoven with the history and culture of Latinos, the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States. With deep roots that trace back to the U.S. annexation of Mexican territories in the early to mid-19th century, Spanglish can today be heard in as far-flung places as urban cities and rural communities, on playgrounds and in classrooms around the country. This volume features the most significant articles including peer-review essays, interviews, and reviews to bring together the best scholarship on the topic. Learn about the historical and cultural contexts of the slang as well as its permeation into the pop culture vernacular. Ten signed articles, essays, and interviews are included in the volume.

Spanglish-a hybrid of Spanish and English-is intricately interwoven with the history and culture of Latinos, the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States. With deep roots that trace back to the U.S. annexation of Mexican territories in the early to mid-19th century, Spanglish can today be heard in as far-flung places as urban cities and rural communities, on playgrounds and in classrooms around the country. This volume features the most significant articles including peer-review essays, interviews, and reviews to bring together the best scholarship on the topic. Learn about the historical and cultural contexts of the slang as well as its permeation into the pop culture vernacular. Over 10 signed articles, essays, and interviews are included in the volume.

Also featured is an introduction by Ilan Stavans, one of the foremost authorities on Latino culture, to provide historical background and cultural context; a chronology of events; and suggestions for further reading to aid students in their research.

The present study explores the aesthetic productivity of idiomatic ambiguity in children's literature. Looking at the connection between context and understanding of idiomatic expressions in either their phrasal or their compositional reading, the study investigates how ambiguity is activated, if, how, and when it is perceived on the different levels of communication, and how literary texts use this ambiguity in playful ways.

This volume brings together research on panel studies with the aim of providing a coherent empirical and theoretical knowledge-base for examining the impact of maturation and lifespan-specific effects on linguistic malleability in the post-adolescent speaker. Building on the work of Wagner and Buchstaller (2018), the present collection offers a critical examination of the theoretical implications of panel research across a range of geographic regions and time periods. The volume seeks to offer a way forward in the debates circling about the phenomenon of later-life language change, drawing on contributions from a variety of linguistic disciplines to examine critical topics such as the effect of linguistic architecture, the roles of mobility and identity construction, and the impact of frequency effects. Taken together, this edited collection both informs and pushes forward key questions on the nature of lifespan change, making this key reading for students and researchers in cognitive linguistics, historical linguistics, dialectology, and variationist sociolinguistics.

Southern Min (also known as Hokkien or Minnan) is a major branch of Chinese spoken mainly in Fujian and Taiwan, but also in Guangdong, Hainan and Hong Kong, as well as in many countries of Southeast Asia. Highly conservative in its linguistic profile, it is considered by many scholars to be a living language fossil due to the preservation of many archaic features that reflect its long-lasting history and culture. Yet to date there has been no comprehensive study of Southern Min using a typological framework, as the tendency is to base analyses on the model of Mandarin Chinese, the standard language. This grammar aims to present a systematic description of the Hui'an variety of Southern Min, mainly based on data collected via naturally occurring conversation. The volume includes four parts: nominal structure, predicate structure, clause structure and complex sentences, as well as a brief overview of phonology. It will have great appeal for heritage speakers, graduate students and scholars in both Chinese linguistics and typology.

This pioneering work explores epigraphic evidence for the development of English before the Anglo-Saxon period, bringing together linguistic, historical and archaeological perspectives on early inscriptions, making them more accessible to a wider audience. The volume offers a new account of the Germanic development of Anglo-Saxon England, beginning with an examination of the earliest inscriptions from northern Europe and the oldest inscriptions preserving Germanic names, many of which have only been discovered since the 1980s. The book charts the origins of key terms such as Angle, Saxon and Jute and early writing systems used by Germanic peoples. Drawing on epigraphic evidence from northwestern Germany through to southwestern Denmark and sub-Roman Britain, Mees situates the analysis within historical and linguistic frameworks but also provides archaeological contextualisations, assessed chronologically, for the inscriptions. Taken together, the work re-examines existing models of the early development of English through the lens of contemporary approaches, opening paths for new directions in research on historical dialectology. This book is key reading for students and scholars interested in the history of English and historical linguistics.

The origins of Basque dialects, a highly disputed area of research in Basque studies, are examined. The author, the foremost expert on Basque dialects, traces their emergence to medieval times, using: a) the profusion of features common to all dialects: b) the large number of innovations common to all dialects; and c) the fact that the only truly divergent dialects are the western and Souletin ones. In contrast, the three central dialects differ in far fewer and less important respects. The main contribution of Standard Basque and Its Dialects to the scholarly debate about the formation of Basque is that it identifies the nuclei from which the current dialects almost certainly emerged. The book explains the points of view that Basque speakers have upheld concerning their dialects, the formation of provincial standards starting in the eighteenth century, and the launch of Standard Basque in the second half of the twentieth century.

Este libro reune contribuciones de destacados investigadores de la linguistica hispanica para ofrecer un panorama integral de los castellanos del Peru, incluidos algunos que han sido tradicionalmente objeto de discriminacion, como el castellano andino, el amazonico y el afroperuano. Los capitulos se concentran en diferentes variedades habladas en el Peru desde distintos enfoques teoricos y metodologicos, atendiendo a su formacion, su contexto social e historico y los fenomenos de contacto que las caracterizan. De este modo, aunque el volumen tiene un foco regional muy especifico, los problemas que aborda son de interes y relevancia para el estudio de otras variedades del espanol, para el tratamiento de otros problemas derivados del contacto linguistico y para la dialectologia e historia de los castellanos latinoamericanos en general. Escrito en castellano, este volumen sera de interes para estudiantes graduados en linguistica hispanica e investigadores dedicados a la dialectologia, la sociolinguistica y la linguistica del contacto.

Paris became the largest city in the Western world during the thirteenth century, and has remained influential ever since. This book examines the interlinked history of Parisian speech and the Parisian population through various phases of immigration, dialect-mixing and social stratification from the Middle Ages to the present. It reveals how new urban modes of speech developed during periods of expansion, how the city's elites sought to distinguish their language from that of the masses, and how a working-class vernacular eventually emerged with its own "slang" vocabulary.

Dialectology proper has traditionally focused on the geographic distribution of language variation as an end in itself and has remained relatively segregated from other branches of linguistic and extra-linguistic inquiry. Cross-fertilizing winds have been blowing through the field for more than a decade, but much work remains for adequate synthesis. This book seeks to further the interdisciplinary integration of the field by highlighting, and harnessing, the many dialectic tensions inherent in language variation research and dialect definition. Undertaking a broadscale experiment in applied dialectics, the book demonstrates multiple grounds for insisting on a more robust, integrational approach to dialectology while simultaneously demonstrating grounds for defining the Phula languages of China and Vietnam. The Phula languages belong to the Burmic sub-branch of the Tibeto-Burman family and are primarily spoken in southeastern Yunnan Province, China. With origins as early as the ninth century, these language varieties have been left undefined, and largely unresearched, for hundreds of years. Based on extensive original fieldwork, the book identifies 24 synchronic Phula languages descended from three distinct macro-clades diachronically. This is accomplished by blending typological-descriptive, historical-comparative and socio-cognitive perspectives. Diagnostics include both qualitative and quantitative measurements, and insights from history, geography, ethnology, language contact, sociolinguistics and more are called on for data interpretation. This dialogic approach incorporates complexity by asserting that dialectology itself best flourishes as an interdependent dialectic - a dynamic synthesis of competing perspectives.

This series of HANDBOOKS OF LINGUISTICS AND COMMUNICATION SCIENCE is designed to illuminate a field which not only includes general linguistics and the study of linguistics as applied to specific languages, but also covers those more recent areas which have developed from the increasing body of research into the manifold forms of communicative action and interaction. For "classic" linguistics there appears to be a need for a review of the state of the art which will provide a reference base for the rapid advances in research undertaken from a variety of theoretical standpoints, while in the more recent branches of communication science the handbooks will give researchers both an overview and orientation. To attain these objectives, the series aims for a standard comparable to that of the leading handbooks in other disciplines, and to this end strives for comprehensiveness, theoretical explicitness, reliable documentation of data and findings, and up-to-date methodology. The editors, both of the series and of the individual volumes, and the individual contributors, are committed to this aim. The language of publication is English. The main aim of the series is to provide an appropriate account of the state of the art in the various areas of linguistics and communication science covered by each of the various handbooks; however no inflexible pre-set limits will is imposed on the scope of each volume. The series is open-ended, and can thus take account of further developments in the field. This conception, coupled with the necessity of allowing adequate time for each volume to be prepared with the necessary care, means that there is no set time-table for the publication of the whole series. Each volume is a self-contained work, complete in itself. The order in which the handbooks are published does not imply any rank ordering, but is determined by the way in which the series is organized; the editors of the whole series enlist a competent editor for each individual volume. Once the principal editor for a volume has been found, he or she then has a completely free hand in the choice of co-editors and contributors. The editors plan each volume independently of the others, being governed only by general formal principles. The series editors only intervene where questions of delineation between individual volumes are concerned. It is felt that this (modus operandi) is best suited to achieving the objectives of the series, namely to give a competent account of the present state of knowledge and of the perception of the problems in the area covered by each volume. To discuss your handbook idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.

While variation within individual languages has traditionally been focused upon in sociolinguistics, its relevance for grammatical theory has only recently been acknowledged. On the methodological side, there is an ongoing competition between large-scale statistical analyses and investigations that rely more heavily on introspection and elicited grammaticality judgements. The aim of this volume is to bridge the 'cultural gap' between empirical-variationist and formal-theoretical approaches in linguistics. The volume offers case studies that seek to combine corpus-based and competence-based approaches to the description of variation. In doing so, it opens up new avenues for locating and analyzing variability, both at the level of the individual speaker and between speakers of different dialects and generations. The contributions document the plurality of current research into models of grammatical competence that live up to the challenge of variationist data. More specifically, parameter-based (e.g. Minimalist), constraint-based (e.g. Optimality Theoretic), and usage-based (e.g. Construction Grammar) approaches to variation are discussed. The volume therefore is of interest to a broad public within linguistics, including syntacticians of different theoretical persuasion, morphologists and sociolinguists. While a majority of contributions addresses facets of variation in English and German, the volume also includes variationist studies written by specialists of French, Dutch, Icelandic, and Uralic.

Matthew Chen's landmark study offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of the rich and complex patterns of tone used in Chinese languages. Chinese has a wide repertoire of tones that undergo often surprising changes when they are connected in speech flow. This tonal alternation is known as tone sandhi. Chen examines tone sandhi phenomena across a variety of Chinese dialects. His book is the culmination of a ten-year research project and explores a range of important theoretical issues against a wealth of empirical data not previously accessible to linguists.

English Accents and Dialects is an essential guide to contemporary social and regional varieties of English spoken in the British Isles today. Together with invaluable overviews of numerous regional accents and dialects, this fifth edition provides a detailed description of key features of Received Pronounciation (RP) as well as several major non-standard varieties of English.
Key features:

• main regional differences are followed by a survey of speech in over 20 areas of the UK and Ireland, audio samples of which are available to download at www.routledge.com/cw/hughes
• recent findings on London English, Aberdeen English and Liverpool English
• contains new entries on Hull, Manchester, Carlisle, Middlesbrough, Southampton, London West Indian, Lancashire and the Shetlands
• additional exercises with answers online accompany the new varieties
• clear maps throughout for locating particular accents and dialects.

This combination of reference manual and practical guide makes this fifth edition of English Accents and Dialects a highly useful resource providing a comprehensive and contemporary coverage of speech in the UK and Ireland today.

Folklinguistics and Social Meaning in Australian English presents an original study of Australian English and, via this, insights into Australian society. Utilising folklinguistic accounts, it uncovers everyday understandings of contemporary Australian English through variations across linguistic systems (sounds, words, discourse and grammar). Focusing on one variation at time, it explores young speakers' language use and their evaluations of the same forms. The analysis of talk about talk uncovers ethnic, regional and social Others in social types and prevailing ideologies around Australian English essential for understanding Australian identity-making processes, as well as providing insights and methods relevant beyond this context. These discussions demonstrate that while the linguistic variations may occur in other varieties of English, they are understood through local conceptualisations, and often as uniquely Australian. This book harnesses the value and richness of discourse in explorations of the sociocultural life of language. The findings show that analysis attending to language ideologies and identities can help discover the micro-macro links needed in understanding social meanings. The volume explores a wide range of language features but also provides a deep contemplation of Australian English.

This volume brings together researchers whose analysis and insights provide a comprehensive and up-to-date account of Singapore's rich linguistic diversity. Applying a combination of descriptive, empirical, and theoretical approaches, the authors investigate not only official languages such as English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil, but also minority languages such as the Chinese vernaculars and South Asian and Austronesian languages. The chapters in this volume trace the historical development, contemporary status, and functions of these languages, as well as potential scenarios for the future. Exploring the tension between language policies and linguistic realities in Singapore, the contributions in this volume capture the shifting educational, political, and societal priorities of the community through its past and contemporary present.

This volume brings together researchers whose analysis and insights provide a comprehensive and up-to-date account of Singapore's rich linguistic diversity. Applying a combination of descriptive, empirical, and theoretical approaches, the authors investigate not only official languages such as English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil, but also minority languages such as the Chinese vernaculars and South Asian and Austronesian languages. The chapters in this volume trace the historical development, contemporary status, and functions of these languages, as well as potential scenarios for the future. Exploring the tension between language policies and linguistic realities in Singapore, the contributions in this volume capture the shifting educational, political, and societal priorities of the community through its past and contemporary present.

Social processes and the nature of language variation have driven sibilant variation across the Spanish-speaking world. This book explores the current state of Spanish sibilants and their dialectal variations. Focusing on different processes undergone by sibilants in Spanish (e.g., voicing, devoicing, weakening, aspiration, elision) in various geographical areas and language contact situations, each chapter offers an analysis on a unique sociolinguistic case from different formal, experimental, and data-based approaches. The opening chapter orients the reader with an overview of sibilant system's evolution, which serves as an anchor to the other chapters and facilitates understanding for readers new to the topic. The volume is organized around three thematic sections: part one, Spain; part two, United States; and part three, Central and South America. The collection includes research on dialects in both Peninsular and Trans-Atlantic Spanish such as Jerezano, Caribbean Spanish in Boston and New York City, Cuban Spanish in Miami, Colombia-Barranquilla Spanish, northern Buenos Aires Argentine Spanish, and USA heritage Spanish, among other case studies. This volume offers an original and concise approach to one of the most studied variables in Spanish phonetics, taking into account geographically-based phonetic variation, sociolinguistic factors, and various Spanish language contact situations. Written in English, this detailed synthesis of the wide-ranging geolinguistic features of Spanish sibilants provides a valuable resource for scholars in Hispanic studies, linguistics, Spanish dialectology and sociolinguistics.