Lulu: Hello again, and welcome back to Britain under the microscope. 欢迎你回到《闲话英伦》，这是我们的特辑，the epic story of English, English的前世今生。Hello, Alan!
Alan: Hello, everybody!
Lulu: So what are we going to talk about today? If I remember last time, you are going to explain why English has such a huge vocabulary, how English actually developed into a world language.
Alan: Yeah, so the last episode we finished of looking at in English around 16th、17th century when trade became more important in England. And this was the time that Britain continue to trade the rest of the world, but also it began to colonize.
Lulu: 就是殖民了，colonize.
Alan: And this was the era of the start of the British empire. So as English people and then later Scottish people started to move around the world, they brought the language with them. So one of the first places that England colonized was North of America.
Lulu: So that is how American English started.
Alan: Absolutely, from 17th century American language started to develop.
Lulu: So why is America English so different from British English. And many people in China would probably think British English is more traditional, is that right?
Alan: Wow, actually not. American English is actually closer to the English that Shakespeare would have spoken.
Lulu: So in that way, American English is actually more traditional or older compare with modern Day British English.
Alan: Oh, yeah. The pronunciation is a bit closer and as you might have remembered in the previous episode on the differences between American English and British English. Some of American words are actually words Shakespeare would have used, like "fall" for "autumn".
Lulu: I know American would say "fall" instead of Autumn, but that was Shakespearean.
Alan: Yeah. Shakespeare used in his plays.
Lulu: Wow.
Alan: And also "trash" as well.
Lulu: For "rubbish"
Alan: Yeah.
Lulu: "trash" was invented by Shakespeare, that is very interesting. What about the spelling?
Alan: Wow, spelling is pretty much everybody here knows, the spelling is slightly different, and this because of Webster's dictionary（韦氏字典）. So at the beginning of the 19th century, Webster created many of the American spellings, and this was to create a somewhat said perform of English. Because you have to remember this time America only became independent from Britain.
Lulu: So they want some sort of independent their own identity.
Alan: Yeah.
Lulu: They want to be separated from Britain.
Alan: So they change the spelling a little bit to separate themselves from Britain.
Lulu: If you're more interested in the difference between America English and Britain English, you can listen to one of other shows where we explored a bit more. So Alan, apart from the United State, did English go anywhere else?
Alan: Well, one of the biggest countries it went to was Australia in 18th century. So when the British first arrived in Australia, started to colonize it and it was used as a penal colony.
Lulu: A penal colony, that means they send their prisoners there.
Alan: Yeah, so this was called transportation. And lots of prisoners, lots of criminals, they were sent away from Britain and they went down under as we would say.
Lulu: To Australia.
Alan: Yeah, and the accent some were reflects this. Some people say that the Australia accent is strongly influenced by 18th century London accent.
Lulu: Oh, even till now.
Alan: Even till now. The research people are not too sure, but it would make sense. Because lots of the people who were transported, they did come from London, or the area around from London.
Lulu: Is it also because the crime rate there was higher.
Alan: Yes, it was. And also there were lots of Irish people that immigrated to Australia later on. So the accent has a little bit of Irish influence as well.
Lulu: Ah, so for me, Australian accent when you first encounter it, you can have some trouble understanding it. I remembered the first time I went to Australia, I was in a shop, I was getting a sandwich and they asked me if I wanted butter and obviously because I pronounce it as "butter". I didn't realize they were talking about " butter" until I asked them to repeat it.
Alan: Oh, yeah. Butter itself is a quite interesting word because I would say it as "butter", so let's have a listen to someone speaking with Australia accent. So you can tell the difference from my accent.（录音材料）So what do you think?
Lulu: I think overall it's much flatter, it's much harder, but I can still understand a lot of it. They do use some similar expressions to British English.
Alan: Yeah.
Lulu: One of the other major English accent, is probably Indian accent. Because English is one of the official languages in India.
Alan: Yeah. The British first went to India for trade in the 17th century, but they began to occupy India in the 18th and 19th century. And India, Pakistan, Burma and Sri Lanka and later Bangladesh, these countries became independent in 1949.
Lulu: Em…But India still has English as their official language.
Alan: Yeah, that is because English still used as the lingua franca because India has so many different languages.

Lulu: Lingua franca we mentioned before, it's a shared language for people who originally speak different languages.
Alan: Yeah, because it has so many different languages pronunciation is affected by local languages. So there is no such thing as standard India pronunciation.
Lulu: Yeah, but they are all equally difficult to understand, especially for Chinese learners.
Alan: Oh, absolutely. Where I grew up, I'm somewhat used to Indian pronunciation because I lived in an area with a very large community. So I could understand accent pretty well now.
Lulu: It all comes from practice, really.
Alan: Absolutely.
Lulu: Just have to get used to it.
Alan: En, but the influence of Indian language on English is quite large, so for example, words like Jungle, Bungalow, Veranda, even Shampoo.
Lulu: Shampoo was originally from Indian language?
Alan: Yeah.
Lulu: Hnhn, You wouldn't really realize how many words in English are originally from other languages.
Alan: Yeah, absolutely. So let's just have a quick listen to someone's speaking with an Indian accent, and tell us what do you think? （录音材料）
Lulu: Ok, this is a bit more difficult to understand. I think it is talking about some sort of religious Festival.
Alan: En, yeah.
Lulu: Ah, but there is a lot of things that are none English in it.
Alan: En, yeah.
Lulu: That makes it really difficult to understand. So having said all these we talked about American English, Australia English, even Indian accent. But what is the standard accent, and what is the standard pronunciation, or standard English.
Alan: Loads of people keep asking me that question, "What is standard English?" and the thing is there is no such thing.
Lulu: So you don't have like Putonghua.
Alan: No, English can't. Because if you think about it, how do you decide what is standard English? You can decide which standard base on where English comes from, so England; or you decide based on where the most native speaker are? Which is United State?
Lulu: Ah.
Alan: But does this make other forms of English wrong. So if you grow up in Australia, or grow up in New Zealand, or places like Nigeria where English is widely spoken. In Nigeria, there are more English speakers there, native English speakers there than they are in the UK.
Lulu: So how do decide which one is correct?
Alan: Oh, you can't. Can you imagine going to a native speaker from another country and say your English is wrong.
Lulu: So they are all correct.
Alan: They are all correct, and that is why it's very important when you are learning English is to remember that there are lots of different versions of English and they are all correct.
Lulu: Oh, That is why English is a world language.
Alan: Yes, the most important thing is being able to understand each other. So whenever you learn English, it is always important to mix it with many different accents of English as possible. To listen to many different versions of English as possible.
Lulu: En.
Alan: Because all of them are correct.
Lulu: It is exactly now nobody owns English any more.
Alan: No.
Lulu: It likes what we think of Chinese, we think of China owns language, but nobody owns English language any more. So that is a major difference and sometimes students would ask me what is the most standard accent? I simply told them there is not.
Alan: There isn't. For example, my accent, as I said before I come from South London so I have a little bit of London influenced at my accent. But sometimes people can't understand my accent.
Lulu: It is very important to understand. That English is a world language that is used for communication with people around the world.
Alan: Absolutely.
Lulu: So don't focus too much on your pronunciation. As long as people can understand you, you are fine.
Alan: So in the next episode we are gonna talk about English now. So what is the current situation with English, we'll also be discussing a little bit about the future of English. What do the experts think the English that we speak in a hundred or two hundreds year times. What would that be like.
Lulu: That is fascinating. Can't wait.
Alan: So until next time.
Lulu: See you next time.
Alan&Lulu: Bye.

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