American English - The History of English (8/10)

Free learning from The Open University http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/english-language

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Learn about American-English and how some American words were actually English to start with.

(Part 8 of 10)
Playlist link - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA03075BAD88B909E

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• French
• France
• war
• conquer
• boats
• sonnet
• dictionary
• religion
• Oxford
• print
• words
• USA
• Native Americans
• diaper
• pizza

[jeabo0adhd]

We may speak a different dialect but any Englishman who does not sound like a pikey or chav is understood without any effort.

[Strideo1]

@steevmac Interesting.

[steevmac]

@Strideo1 For example the 'g' in "ing" was strongly pronounced in educated speech... the 'r' was rolled like it is in Spanish in educated speech in England. "Dumb" would have been pronounced "doombb" with the 'u' almost making an 'ooo' sound and the 'b' being fully pronounced. The 'l' in "folk" would have also been pronounced.

[Strideo1]

@steevmac But I have no trouble understanding recordings from the 1700s either!

Just kidding! :P

You may indeed have a point there.

[steevmac]

@Strideo1 You are quite right, nobody has difficulty in understanding writings of the 1700s, or indeed the 1600s, for one specific reason: the writing system has changed very little since then.

I was in fact referring to the spoken form of the language which would be very difficult to grasp for the modern ear in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary and semantics...

[Strideo1]

@steevmac Not so. I have very little difficulty understanding the writings of authors from the 1700s.

[callmesquirrel]

this videos are sooo sweet!

[misssupernova]

''probably due to their relaxed attittude to drugs''.....mega lol.

[Voodoofreak35]

Thumbs up for the reference to the dental practice in the Great Britain! :)

[NovaScotiaChick]

Trust the Brits to come up with this kind of wit. Masters of it.