Accents of English

This part of the electronic course in linguistics is concerned with different accents of English in the British Isles and overseas locations of the anglophone world. It is divided into four sections with various subdivisions:

1)  The British Isles
          England and Wales
          Scotland
          Ireland

2)  The New World
          Canada
          The United States
          The Caribbean

3)  The Southern Hemisphere
          South Africa
          Australia
          New Zealand

4)  New Englishes
          West Africa
          East Africa
          South Asia
          South-East Asia

The sound files, which are supplied here, are supposed to illustrate the regions in question. By and large, the speakers use a more general form of English in their country. This is due to the major source of the sound files, radio stations in the internet. Nonetheless, it is hoped that the selections give an impression of how English is pronounced in the major locations of the anglophone world. Note that speakers from the fourth group, the New Englishes, are not native speakers of English, i.e. they do not descend from original English settlers during the colonial period and this separates them from the remaining speakers from other countries.