WHAT A GLOBAL LANGUAGE ENGLISH IS!

Africa, Asia, Australia-Oceanica, Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America.........Yes, these are the continents in which English is spoken as first or as a second language:) As a far as I know, English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.But, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world. After looking at the wesite "http://web.ku.edu/idea/", you can see that is true. And considering the countries in these continents, I am sure once more there is actually a huge amount of people speaking this language.

This week my topic is the usage of English all over the world. And the dialect differences of it. For this, I have visited five websites and I have listened English utterances of people fom different countries.The first website, I have visited is www.eviews.net/library.shtml. Here, there are speeches of people whose native language is English. Nevertheless, they are from different parts of the world. That means they all have different accents. As a first, I have listened to a woman from Scotland. Her accent resembles British. But there are some differences actually. For examle, while she is saying "going, coming, doing", she drops "g" sound, and she prounces it as /k^mın/. And, the prouncation of "r" sound is also different. As you now, the Americans prounounce "r" which is alveolar trill. Also, while they are speaking it is easy to hear "r" sound especially the ones at the end of the words. Scottish woman' s prounciation it is not same with the Americans'. While she is saying "You can cover....", she prounces the word "cover" as /kavı'/. From this aspect, it is same with British. Additionally, there are some nuances between the porounciation of vowels. While she is saying "bird", she pronounces it as "bırd" not as /b3rd/, "because" as /bıkoz/....etc. I have also listened to an Australian man whose speech I have found to understand a bit difficult. Indeed, there are sme distintive fature of his dialect. The most significant point is his exaggrating the "a" sound in the words. For example, while he is saying "They are coming..", he is saying "are" by exaggrating "a". Another thing is his prounciation of the word "nice". He is saying it as /nois/. While he is uttering the word "city", you can hear that it is as "cidi". Like Americans, their usage of "d" sound is striking:) Next, I have listened to a man from Southern English whose accents is British one:) His speech is very fluent and not difficult ot understand so much. Nonetheless, his swallowing some sounds makes some words dificult to undersatand. The most noticable thing in this accent is he does not prounce the "r" sounds at he end of the words. (Exact feature of British:) ) What has drawn my attention in his speech is aspiration. /p/, /t/, /k/ sounds are aspirated. For example, while saying "place", "take" and "fantastik", he aspirated these sounds. As a reasult, akthugh he is swallowing some sounds, his aspirating these sounds make the end of words much more understandable. The other one I want to mention is the accents of American poeples from West Coast, East Coast, and Atlantic. Although they are from Amrica, their accents differ from each other. When you listened to them, you come to this conclusition. However, there are similarities. First of all, it is much more easy to understand ehat they are saying. Their speeches are much more clear. I think, this is most probably a result of their using alveolar trill /r/. While they are talking, to notice "r" sound in the words is simple. Furthermore, they use stress very much. In the sentence "I have been really interested in Archeology." uttered by the woman from West Coast of America, she is stressing the word "really". Or in the other sentences, the words such as very", "simply" are stressed. In the sentence "Definitely, you are familiar with it.", she is stressing the word "definitely"... there are lots of examples for that. I also want to talk about their extent usage of /d/. The word, "sit" is pronounced as /sıd/ or the word "city" as /sıdı/. While saying "This year", they are saying it by using /$/ sound between thses kinds of two words.

http://alt-usage-english.org/audio_archive.shtml is the second website I have visited. Here, there are five spoken texts which are:
Arthur the Rat (Australia, Canada, England, India, Ireland, USA)
The Rainbow Passage (Australia, England, USA)
The North Wind and The Sun (England, USA)
Bother, father caugh...(Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, USA)
I teach Ferdinand...(Australia, Canada, England, USA)

And, as I have written, each of these spoken texts are read by people who have different accents. Firstly, ı have listened to Australian people. Actually, this is time it is much more easy to follow the sentences uttered by the speaker. This can be because I have looked at the texts before istened to speakers. As I have been asble to comprehend the texts, it is not difficult to get the meaning. After listening to Australians, I come to the conculion that the things I have written for the speeches of the Australians in the website "eviews" are also valid for these ones. Their pronounciation of vowels are a very significant feture of their accent. They are exaggrating "a" sound. "His friends asks him..." In this sentence, one of these persons prounces "ask" exaggrating the prounciation of "a" at the beginning of the word. Also their usage of [d] instead of [t] is striking. As an example: "...half in and half out of his hole." Here, the man says "out" as /oud/. And of course there are lots of examples for them. When I have listened to Canadian person, I have been amazed:) For me, his speech is so much pure and easy to understand. what I have realized in Canadian accent is there is not a distinctive diffirantion between [a] and the converse version of it. Something like [c](As there is not that letter in my keyboard, I could not write it.) Although Sometimes the /r/ sound is flapped, this flapping is not so much frequent. Irish speaker speaks so much fluently that I have so much enjoyed to listen to him. What I noticed is that there are so much aspiration in his speech. Nevertheless, the words are clear. His sayin "either" as /aıdır/ is another thing draws my attention. I also want tp tak about the accent of Indian person. His speech is strange for me. While speaking, he is a bit like hesitating. There are stops between the words and sentences in his speech. I have tried to listen to the person's speaking from New Zealand but it too short to undertand.
I have visited another website which is "http://www.gazzaro.it/accents/files/accents2.html." Here, again there are a lot of accents ranging from Scottish to Ottawa..and surely, every person from these different places have different accents. I have listened to most of them. Although the language they are speaking is same; nevertheless, the style how they speak it different from each other very much. And the most stange ones for me are the ones from Ottawo, Dublin, Jamaica and Vancouver. Actually, I have not listened to their speech in my life. And their accents are really noticable from others:) I am not able to imagine they are speaking in front of me:) If such kind of a thing happens, I am not sure whether I will be able to understand what they are saying. Lets talk a bit about the websites "http://web.ku.edu/idea/" and "http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/english0" . Here again there are lots of accents which are differeing from each other. But what diffres them from the others is these websites include non-native speakers of english too. Therefore, I have a big opprtunity to listen to English speaking of people from almost all over to world, even Turkey:) The Turkish woman is apeaking English so much fluent that I have been proud of her very much:) Actually, she wasa born in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. After having been graduated from high school, ahe and her family moved to New York. After two years, they moved to Canada. Now, she is studying Economics. And the Spanish speaker's accent is very familiar to me. My Spanish instructor is a native Spanish. She is speaking as same as the Spanish speaker in the "classweb" website. While she is speaking, you can easily recognize her Spanish accent.

All these accents makes me realize English has such a huge speaking area. Yes, there are diffrences between non-native and native varieties. First of all, we can notice that non-native ones have any way less or more the accents of their native languages. However, this does not make the understanding of their speech much difficult although in some parts, there occur such problems. Native ones, on the other hand, are not as easy as non-native ones to understand.The most important factor is fluency I think. They are much more fluent than non-natives. In non-native ones's speeches, there are pauses, which make the comprehension easy. this is not valid for native ones'. Any way, the significant thing is accent is an important part of language. To speak target language / foreign language by using its phonotic rules is the thing what makes you successful in speaking. Otherwise, it would be something which cannot be understood and which cannot be nice. Although there are lots of versions of speaking English, which are accents, for second lanuage learners, to consantrate on American and British accent is the most appropriate one. Because they are under the categor of so called " standard English.
I have put these websites at the bottom of my blog under the topic of "LETS LOOK AT THESE WEBSITES!" I recommend all of you to benefit from them as much as possible. They are surely very helpful for your improvement of english pronounciation.