ENGLISH AS SPOKEN.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 207, 17 September 1937, Page 4

ENGLISH AS SPOKEN.

'Tn tlie world-wide expansion of our language, the ' direct influence of the Mother Countiy, as regards spoken English, is hainpered by the extreme variety of speech in the British Isles, and by the prominence, doubtless inevitable, of London and the Home counties. American-English Is nearer to a standard; it is more thoroughly and evenly pronounced; it is more easily understood overseas. The influenee of America is enormous, and it is indubitably growing. Thc power of the talking filrn has been decisive. The increasing competition behveen English and American broadcasting is important also, and the issue has still to be determined. From my comparative ohservations in many countries I should infer that the spoken language in England is undergoing a process of more rppid change than in any other quarter of the English-speaking world, partieularly as regards the vowel sounds. More, perhaps, than any other single eircumstance, this may be of consequence in determining how far the English of the wider world is to be the English we know at home." — Mr S. K. Rateliffe in the "Schoolmaster." 0