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Dialect Levelling
Dialect levelling (or leveling in American English) is an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of a dialect's features when in contact with one or more other dialects. This can come about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain dialects, often amidst a process of language codification, which can be a precursor to standardization. One possible result is a koine language, in which various dialects mix together and simplify, settling into a new and more widely embraced form of the language. Another possible path is that a speech community increasingly adopts or exclusively preserves features with widespread social currency at the expense of their more local or traditional dialect features. Dialect levelling has been observed in most languages with large numbers of speakers after industrialization and modernization of the areas in which they are spoken. However, while less common, it could be observed in pre-industrial times too, especially in colonial di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken language in the United States and, since 2025, the official language of the United States. It is also an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states and the ''de facto'' common language used in government, education, and commerce in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in all territories except Puerto Rico. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other forms of English around the world. Any North American English, American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markedness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modernisation
Modernization theory or modernisation theory holds that as societies become more economically modernized, wealthier and more educated, their political institutions become increasingly liberal democratic and rationalist. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s, most influentially articulated by Seymour Lipset, drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, and saw a resurgence after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation of modernization theory.Francis Fukuyama, ''The End of History and the Last Man ''. New York: The Free Press, 1992, pp. 68-69, 133-134. The theory is the subject of much debate among scholars. Critics have highlighted cases where industrialization did not prompt stable democratization, such as Japan, Germany, and the Soviet Union, as well as cases of democrati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of Provinces of the Netherlands, twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares Maritime boundary, maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium. The official language is Dutch language, Dutch, with West Frisian language, West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English_language, English, and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean Netherlands, Caribbean territories. The people who are from the Netherlands is often referred to as Dutch people, Dutch Ethnicity, Ethnicity group, not to be confused by the language. ''Netherlands'' literally means "lower countries" i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish English
Hiberno-English or Irish English (IrE), also formerly sometimes called Anglo-Irish, is the set of dialects of English native to the island of Ireland. In both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, English is the first language in everyday use and, alongside the Irish language, one of two official languages (with Ulster Scots, in Northern Ireland, being yet another local language). The writing standards of Irish English, such as its spelling, align with British English. But the diverse accents and some of the grammatical structures and vocabulary of Irish English are unique, including certain notably conservative phonological features and vocabulary: those that are no longer common in the dialects of England or North America. It shows significant influences from the Irish language and, in the north, the Scots language. Phonologists today often divide Irish English into four or five overarching dialects or accents: Ulster or Northern Irish accents, Western and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bristol Channel
The Bristol Channel (, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales (from Pembrokeshire to the Vale of Glamorgan) and South West England (from Devon to North Somerset). It extends from the smaller Severn Estuary of the River Severn () to the North Atlantic Ocean. It takes its name from the English city and port of Bristol. Long stretches of both sides of the coastline are designated as Heritage Coast. These include Exmoor, Bideford Bay, the Hartland Point peninsula, Lundy Island, Glamorgan, Gower Peninsula, Carmarthenshire, South Pembrokeshire and Caldey Island. Until Tudor times the Bristol Channel was known as the Severn Sea, and it is still known as this in both and . Geography The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) defines the offshore western limit of the Bristol Channel as "a line joining Hartland Point in Devon () to St. Govan's Head in Pembrokeshire ()". Western and northern Pembrok ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Māori People
Māori () are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, indigenous Polynesians, Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand. Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of Māori migration canoes, canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several centuries in isolation, these settlers developed Māori culture, a distinct culture, whose language, mythology, crafts, and performing arts evolved independently from those of other eastern Polynesian cultures. Some early Māori moved to the Chatham Islands, where their descendants became New Zealand's other indigenous Polynesian ethnic group, the Moriori. Early contact between Māori and Europeans, starting in the 18th century, ranged from beneficial trade to lethal violence; Māori actively adopted many technologies from the newcomers. With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840, the two cultures coexisted for a generation. Rising ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Isles
The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebrides, Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland), and over six thousand smaller islands. They have a total area of and a combined population of almost 72 million, and include two sovereign states, the Republic of Ireland (which covers roughly five-sixths of Ireland), and the United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Channel Islands, off the north coast of France, are normally taken to be part of the British Isles, even though geographically they do not form part of the archipelago. Under the UK Interpretation Act 1978, the Channel Islands are clarified as forming part of the British Islands, not to be confused with the British Isles. The oldest rocks are 2.7 billion years old and are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples that Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, migrated to Britain after its End of Roman rule in Britain, Roman occupiers left. English is the list of languages by total number of speakers, 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 list of languages by number of native speakers, third-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish language, Spanish; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in list of countries and territories where English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand English
New Zealand English (NZE) is the variant of the English language spoken and written by most English-speaking New Zealanders. Its language code in ISO and Internet standards is en-NZ. It is the first language of the majority of the population. The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet esof the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and become distinctive only in the last 150 years". The variety of English that had the biggest influence on the development of New Zealand English was Australian English, itself derived from Southeastern England English, with considerable influence from Scottish and Hiberno-English, and with lesser influences the British prestige accent Received Pronunciation (RP) and American English. An important source of vocabulary is the Māori language of the indigenous people of New Zealand, whose contribution distinguishes New Zealand Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relexification
In linguistics, relexification is a mechanism of language change by which one language changes much or all of its lexicon, including basic vocabulary, to the lexicon of another language, without drastically changing the relexified language's grammar. The term is principally used to describe pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages. Relexification is not synonymous with lexical borrowing, by which a language merely ''supplements'' its basic vocabulary with loanwords from another language. Language creation and relexification hypothesis Relexification is a form of language interference in which a pidgin, a creole or a mixed language takes nearly all of its lexicon from a superstrate or a target language while its grammar comes from the substrate or source language or, according to universalist theories, arises from universal principles of simplification and grammaticalization. The language from which the lexicon is derived is called the "lexifier". Michif, Media Lengua, and Lanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creole Language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable form of contact language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fledged language with Nativization, native speakers, all within a fairly brief period. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed language, mixed or hybrid language, creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar (e.g., by eliminating irregularities). Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are Language acquisition, acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist. The precise number of creole languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the late 12th century, the League expanded between the 13th and 15th centuries and ultimately encompassed nearly 200 settlements across eight modern-day countries, ranging from Tallinn in Estonia in the east, Bergen (Bjørgvin) in Norway to the North to the Netherlands in the west, and extended inland as far as Cologne, Prussia (region), the Prussian regions and Kraków, Poland. The League began as a collection of loosely associated groups of German traders and towns aiming to expand their commercial interests, including protection against robbery. Over time, these arrangements evolved into the League, offering traders toll privileges and protection on affiliated territory and trade routes. Economic interdependence and familial connections am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
