World Englishes

In this post, we will explain some of the lexical, linguistics and grammatical features of the varieties of English mentioned in the previous post.

Hong Kong English [HKE]

HKE lexical inventory :

• Standard English inventory

·               Borrowings from local languages such as Cantonese.

  [eg: Mahjong : a game / Kwalilo : a foreigner]

·               English lexical items adapted or created for the local situation.

[eg: Astronaut – a HK person who has emigrated overseas with his/her family, but returns to work in HK, and frequently flies between the places]

• Rare English words current in HKE 

         [eg: Shroff – a payment counter /Nullah – a monsoon drain]

HKE grammatical features : 

• Lack of Subject-Agreement [eg: One of the team members are going]
• Article omission [eg: It is used by (X) human body.]
• Verb and verb phrases in HKE [eg: finite vs non-finite, auxiliaries]
• Clause and sentences structure in HKE [eg: coordination, predicators and subordination] 

Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE)


Linguistics features :

• Vowels are reduced from their usual qualities. [eg:  /e/ --- [ei], /o/ --- [u] and /∂/--- [ae], /u/ --[u:]]
•  Consonants are realized differently [eg: /θ/ --- [s] or [t], /ð/ ---[d] or [z]]
•  Stress in NPE appeared to be influenced by the tone syllable.

Cameroon Pidgin English (CamP)

Linguistics features :

• Linguistic items borrowed from English are simply monosyllabic or disyllabic lexical items which undergo a morphological process of compounding to yield different CamP words and expressions that are morphologically and semantically  different from their English counterparts.  
• Examples: 
  Sense-boy = an intelligent person 
  A walker-boy = a traveler  
•  Walker-book = passport
• Book-man = educated person
• Bush-cow = buffalo  

Malaysian English

As for Malaysian English, you can go through our previous post on CMC Research.


*Copyright of Mr. Agaban, Lecturer of Voe Sem 2, 2012/2013