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1497
1st English-language contact with Canada
The 1st English-language contact with Canada was as early as 1497, when John Cabot reached Newfoundland; but English migration along the Atlantic coast did not develop until a century later, when the farming, fishing, and fur-trading industries attracted English-speaking settlers. -
1st expedition from England to the New World
Commissioned by Walter Raleigh. The 1st expedition proved to be a failure. -
South Asian English
The 1st British contact came in 1600 with the formation of the British East India Company. It established its 1st trading station at Surat in 1612, and by the end of the century others were in existence at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. In 1835 the introduction of an English educational system in India was proposed. So English became the primary medium of instruction, guaranteeing its status and steady growth during the next century. -
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Linguistic backgrounds
During the 17th century, new shiploads of immigrants brought an increasing variety of linguistic backgrounds. Pennsylvania, for example, came to be settled by Quakers whose origins were mostly in the Midlands and the north of England. -
1st permanent English settlement
It was established in Chesapeake Bay. It was called Jamestown (after James I) and the area Virginia (after the 'Virgin Queen', Elizabeth). The southern colonists came mainly from England's 'West Country', such counties as Somerset and Gloucestershire, and brought with them its characteristic accent, with its 'Zummerzet' voicing of s sounds, and the r strongly pronounced after vowels. -
African slaves arrival
During the early years of American settlement, a highly distinctive form of English was emerging in the islands of the West Indies and the southern part of the mainland, spoken by the incoming black population. This was a consequence of the importation of African slaves to work on the sugar plantations. The first 20 African slaves arrived in Virginia on a Dutch ship in 1619. -
Cape Cod Bay landing
The first group of Puritans arrived on Mayflower. Prevented by storms from reaching Virginia, they landed at Cape Cod Bay, and established a settlement at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Many of the Plymouth colonists came from counties in the east of England, in particular, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Essex, Kent, and London, with some from the Midlands, and a few from further afield. The eastern accents were rather different, notably, lacking an r after vowels. -
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Scots-Irish immigrants arrival
In the 18th century, there was a vast wave of immigration from northern Ireland. The Irish had been migrating to America from around 1600, but the main movements took place during the 1720s, when around 50,000 Irish and Scots-Irish immigrants arrived. -
Australia
Australia was visited by James Cook in 1770, and within the 20 years Britain had established its first penal colony at Sidney, thus relieving the pressure on the overcrowed prisions in England. The British Isles provided the main source of settlers, and thus the main influence on the language. Many of the convicts came from London and Ireland (especially following the 1798 Irish rebellion), and features of Cockney and Irish English can be traced in the speech patterns heard in Australia today. -
New Zealand
Captian Cook charted the islands in 1769-70, and European whalers and traders began to settle there in the 1790s, expanding developments already taking place in Australia. Christian missionary work began from 1814. However, the official colony was not established until 1840. There was then a rapid increase in European immigration. As early as the turn of the century, visitors were making comments on the emergence of a New Zealand accent. -
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1st census
By the time of the first census, in 1790, the population of the country was around 4 million, most of whom lived along the Atlantic coast. A century later, after the opening up of the west, the population numbered over 50 million, spread throughout the continent. The accent which emerged can now be heard all over the so-called Sunbelt (from Virginia to southern California), and is the accent most commonly associated with present-day American speech. -
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Linguistic diversity
The 19th century saw a massive increase in American immigration, as people fled the results of revolution, poverty, and famine in Europe. Large numbers of Irish came following the potato famine in the 1840s. Germans and Italians came, escaping the consequences of the failed 1848 revolutions. So it was not only England which influenced the directions that the English language was to take in America. -
English and South Africa
British involvement in the region dates only from 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, when an expeditionary force invaded. British control was established in 1806, and a policy of settlement began in earnest in 1820. English was made the official language of the region in 1822, and there was an attempt to anglicize the large Afrikaans-speaking population. English became the language of law, education, and most other aspects of public life. -
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The growth of Black English Vernacular
According to some linguists, generations of close contact resulted in the families of the slave-owners picking up some of the speech habits of their servants, which gradually developed into the distinctive southern 'drawl'. Information is clearer from the mid-19th century, when the abolitionist movement focused national attention on blacks' civil rights, and sympathetic representations of Black English began to appear in literary works. -
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A world language
English is now the dominant or official language. It is this spread which makes the application of the term 'world language' a reality. The present-day world status of English is primarily the result of two factors: the expansion of British colonial power, which peaked towards the end of the 19th century, and the emergence of the United States as the leading economic power of the 20th century. It is the latter factor which continues to explain the position of the English language today.
