New Englishes

1.       You didn't see him, is it?

2.       When you would like to go?

3.       That man he is tall

4.       Her jewelleries were stolen

5.       I am understanding it now

6.       They two very good friends.

7.       Sushila is extremely a lazy girl

8.       When you leaving?

In class we worked on a task from a former exam. There are numbers of "New Englishes" - mainly new spoken varieties - developing in today's internationalised world. These have language features that do not exist in the written standards of British, North-American or Australian English. Above you see some examples of non-standard grammar. Below you will find the sentences rewritten in standard written English.

1.       You didn't see him, did you?

2.       When would you like to go?

3.       That man is tall./ that man, he is tall./ he is tall.

4.       Her jewelry was stolen

5.       I understand it now

6.       The two of them are very good friends/ They are very good friends

7.       Sushila is an extremely lazy girl

8.       When are you leaving?/ When will you leave?/ When do you leave?/ When will you be leaving?

 Now I will pick four of the examples above and explain how the structure of each differs from the norms of standard written English.

1.       You didn't see him, is it? Here, the question following should consist of the same verb as in the first part of the sentence. The subjects of the sentence should also be the same. The way the sentence is written does not give the reader the impression that the follow up question belongs to the rest of the sentence.

2.       When you would like to go? Here, the sentence syntax is wrong. For the sentence to be a question "would" have to come before the subject.

3.       That man he is tall. Here, we have two subjects: "that man" and "he". With the unnecessary use of "he", the meaning of the sentence becomes indistinct. We could write the sentence like this: That man, he is tall. When adding a comma in between, we emphasize that that man is tall.

4.       When you leaving?  The use of the -ing ending in this sentence is wrong. This is a common mistake among the spoken and written varieties of English. If you are to use the ing-ending, this sentence has to consist of another verb, for example "are": When are you leaving? You can also add would + be: When would you be leaving? You can also conjugate the verb "leaving": When will you leave?