Comparing English Languages

The standard English language is a west Germanic and global lingua franca. A lingua franca briefly means that the language is expected to be understood worldwide. The standard English English is mostly written, but there are heaps of spoken varieties of the language. English is one language who contains a variety of different ways to speak it. 

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Scottish English

The main formal Scottish is called standard Scottish English, SSE. It can be characterized with some distinct differences in pronunciation and how it´s written. The Scottish dialect can be divided from English by many factors, but the main factor is phonology. The language has less vowels than most English languages. In Scotland they also speak Highland English which is influenced by Gaelic. 

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Scottisms are expressions or idioms that are typical for Scottish. These are more usual to appear spoken than written. Scotts can for example say: “She was a bit pit oot when I told her” which means “She was a bit upset when I told her” or "That's outwith my remit" meaning "It's not part of my job to do that". These are grammatically correct in the SSE language. 

If your click the video below, you can enjoy some Scottish and learn more about the different ways of grammar and pronunciation. 

Ugandan English 

Ugandan english or ”Uglish” (pronounced you-glish)is the dialect of English spoken in Uganda.

Have you ever heard this sentence: ” stop cowardsing and go see that girl. Don´t just beep her again, bench her.”? this may make no sense to an English English speaker, but if you’re from Uganda you will be able to understand this perfectly fine. Translated to British English the frase means ”Stop being a coward and go see that girl, don't just call her again, stop by her”. Ugandan english may sound like typos to many people but it's common expressions in Uganda. An Ugandan form of English with influences from local dialects has formed several new words with their own unique meaning. 

Some will resemble  obvious English words like: dirten, meaning to make something dirty; cowardising, to behave like a coward. Other words come from the youth culture and are picked up around colleges. Words like to beep -meaning to call someone and hang up simultaneously. Or Benching, which is a word that evolved from slang, meaning to stop by someone you have a romantic interest in. 

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Video source here