The British Empire: A source for good or evil? February 2014 | Page 2

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Colonies' contribution to
English language

Why can we say that the colonies contributed to enrich the
English language ?

1. English language, a way to unify the empire ?
The British territory was quite big, and they needed to speak the same
language in order to communicate between the countries and the main country
(doc. 1). We can see that big countries like Canada, USA or Australia are in this
Empire. Next to this, there are some countries where English is the official
language but another one is the most spoken by the inhabitants. It helped also
people of different nationalities or religions, such as Muslim and Hindu, which
didn't want to speak the language from another religion, so English contributed to
resolve this problem as they all learn English to talk between themselves.

2. New words for new products
When they had new colonies, the British got new products, and they were
forced to use the names of the products they bought, and this contributed to make
the English language grow (doc. 2). Many goods from England were transmitted to
colonies so they used the appropriated words, and it contributed to enrich the
English language. After many years, the language was really improved both in
England and colonies.

3. Some differences between two countries
There are some differences between the English of two countries, like USA
and England. There are more than 120 words that are radically different, such as
autumn in British English and fall in American English. Some words have just 1
letter of difference, like colour in British English which becomes color. The
pronunciation may also be different.
During the past centuries, the language evolved in many points, some words
disappeared, some were created and some were changed into the ones we know
actually.

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