If you stand in London's Trafalgar Square for just a few minutes on any day, you will no doubt hear a wide variety of ways of speaking English. Visitors from America, India, Nigeria, and Australia are often heard heard speaking the world's most widely used language. Yet even within the British Isles, the varieties of English are many, and you will also no doubt hear quite a few visitors from other parts of Britain and from Ireland in the heart of London. English 571 will offer you the chance to learn about language and culture in Britain and Ireland largely through reading fiction and drama written by authors with a keen ear for the different ways of speaking English (also known as "dialects"). For example, the urban dialect of London known as Cockney has been immortalized by George Bernard Shaw in his play Pygmalion. By the way, British dialects outside of London go by other names: the Liverpool accent of the Beatles, for example, is known as Scouse.

While most people in Britain now live in cities, the dialects they speak have their roots in the surrounding countryside.

Much in the Cockney vernacular--as well as much in standard English--reflects the pronunciation and grammar of speakers in East Anglia, the region just northeast of London. The speech of East Anglia not only found its way into the standard and nonstandard dialects of London but also contributed much to the distinctive speech of New England. It is no accident that Cambridge, Braintree, and other place names from East Anglia are found in Massachusetts since it was from that part of England that many of the Puritans lived before migrating to America.

In other parts of the United States, moreover, particular words and other structures can be traced back to a wide range of locations in Britain and Ireland. For example, many people in Ohio use redd up (i.e., clean up), as in redd up a kitchen. This is also a common term in rural Scotland.

In comparison with the dialects of East Anglia and other areas in southern England, the vernaculars of Scotland and northern England have been less influential in the formation of American, Australian, and other varieties of English. Even so, northern British dialects of have loomed large in novels from the 19th century onward. The austere moors of Yorkshire are the setting for Emily Brontė's Wuthering Heights. Linguistic investigations in the 20th century have shown that Brontė had a good ear for the dialect of Yorkshire and a talent for representing it on the printed page.

The existence of dialects in Britain is nothing new: in fact, much in today's speech can be traced back for centuries.

One gate in Canterbury guards over the ancient road from London taken by countless pilgrims like those that Chaucer imagined. It does not take much looking to find characteristics in modern vernaculars that were also common in Middle English. For example, there are still parts of England where people still use the pronoun thou much in the same way that Chaucer would have done. At various points in the course we will consider historical facts pertinent to language in the British Isles as we know it today. Some of the facts to be considered will be primarily linguistic: e.g., the difference between pronouns in Middle English and pronouns today. Other facts will involve social and political history: for example, the influences that led to foreign words and other structures creating new dialects of English. Such influences are especially notable in the regions where the Celtic languages are still spoken: Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. To read about English in the Celtic lands and to see more highlights of 571, press here.