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Territorial varieties of English pronunciation.

1. English has been subject to a large degree of regional dialect variation for many centuries. Its global spread now means that a large number of dialects and English-based creole languages andpidgins can be found all over the world.

2. Several educated native dialects of English have wide acceptance as standards in much of the world. In the United Kingdom much emphasis is placed on Received Pronunciation, an educated dialect of South East England. General American, which is spread over most of the United States and much of Canada, is more typically the model for the American continents and areas (such as the Philippines) that have had either close association with the United States, or a desire to be so identified. In Oceania, the major native dialect of Australian English is spoken as a first language by the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Australian continent, with General Australian serving as the standard accent. The English of neighbouring New Zealand as well as that of South Africa have to a lesser degree been influential native varieties of the language.

3. Aside from these major dialects, there are numerous other varieties of English, which include, in most cases, several subvarieties, such as Cockney, Scouse and Geordie within British English;Newfoundland English within Canadian English; and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") and Southern American English within American English. English is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France's Académie française; and therefore no one variety is considered "correct" or "incorrect" except in terms of the expectations of the particular audience to which the language is directed.

4. Scots has its origins in early Northern Middle English^[75] and developed and changed during its history with influence from other sources. However, following the Acts of Union 1707 a process oflanguage attrition began, whereby successive generations adopted more and more features from Standard English. Whether Scots is now a separate language or is better described as a dialect of English (i.e. part of Scottish English) is in dispute, although the UK government accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.^[76] There are a number of regional dialects of Scots, and pronunciation, grammar and lexis of the traditional forms differ, sometimes substantially, from other varieties of English.

5. English speakers have many different accents, which often signal the speaker's native dialect or language. For the most distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English, and for a complete list of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Within England, variation is now largely confined to pronunciation rather than grammar or vocabulary. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the country, but a process of lexical attrition has led most of this variation to die out.^[77]

6. Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several pidgins and creole languages have been formed on an English base, such as Jamaican Patois, Nigerian Pidgin, and Tok Pisin. There are many words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words.

Words may be grouped according to their initial letters. Alphabetic

organization is the simplest and most universal grouping of written words used in

most dictionaries. Grouping according to the words’ final letters is used in inverse

dictionaries and helps to make lists of words with similar suffixes or rhymin

words.

Grouping according to the length of words (the number of letters they

contain) is meant for communication engineering, automatic reading of messages

and correction of mistakes. The number of syllables is important theoretocally:

shorter words occur more frequently and have a greater number of meanings.

Grouping according to the words’ frequency is based on statistical counts. It

is used for practical purposes in lexicography, language teaching and shorthand. It

is also important theoretically – the most frequent words are polysemantic and

stylistically neutral.

Synonymy is the coincidence in the essential meaning of words which usually

preserve their differences in connotations and stylistic characteristics.

Synonyms are two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and

possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings,

interchangeable in some contexts. These words are distinguished by different shades

of meaning, connotations and stylistic features.

The synonymic dominant is the most general term potentially containing the

specific features rendered by all the other members of the group. The words face,

visage, countenance have a common denotational meaning "the front of the head"

which makes them close synonyms. Face is the dominant, the most general word;

countenance is the same part of the head with the reference to the expression it bears;