Colonial Spread Of English: American Continent And Oceania (A Timeline)

Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura

Colonial Spread of English:
American Continent and Oceania (A Timeline)

Diana Cosmina Stanciu
UNED Terrassa
Telf. 628490082
dstanciu2@alumno.uned.es
Terrassa, 25 de Enero de 2012

INDEX

Introduction 3

SPREAD OF ENGLISH IN THE AMERICAN CONTINENT 4

SPREAD OF ENGLISH IN NORTH AMERICA 4
Timeline: Spread of English inthe thirteen American Colonies 4
Timeline: Spread of English in Canada 6

SPREAD OF ENGLISH IN THE CARIBBEAN, CENTRAL
AND SOUTH AMERICA 8
Timeline: Spread of English in the Caribbean 8
Timeline: Spread of English in Central and South America 10

SPREAD OF ENGLISH IN OCEANIA 12
Timeline: Spread of English in Australia 12
Timeline: Spread of English in NewZealand 13
Timeline: Spread of English in other Pacific islands 14

CONCLUSION 15

BIBLIOGRAPHY 16

WEBLIOGRAPHY 16

INTRODUCTION
The foundations for the expansion of English were laid as the British Empire itself expanded (roughly between 1600 and 1900). English language served as a tool to strengthen British rule.
At the time of Elizabeth I (1533–1603), therewere approximately seven million native speakers of English. There were very few non-native speakers of English. Even Richard Mulcaster, an enthusiastic supporter of the English language admitted in 1582 that ‘our English tung… is of small reatch, it stretcheth no further then this Iland of ours, naie not there ouer all’ (quoted from Görlach 1991: 229–30). In the course of the seventeenth,eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the number of native and non-native speakers of English grew exponentially.
This huge expansion cannot be attributed to any great merit of the English language as such. Rather it must be attributed to historical developments by which England (and later Britain) gained a huge empire.
This paper consists of a detailed chronology of the colonial spread of the Englishlanguage in the American Continent and Oceania.

SPREAD OF ENGLISH IN THE AMERICAN CONTINENT

SPREAD OF ENGLISH IN NORTH AMERICA
The North American colonies are often regarded as a separate entity from the rest of the British Empire. It is often referred to as “the First British Empire” and is treated distinctly from the rest of the Imperial experience, although Canada was to play a majorrole in both of those imperial endeavours.
Both Canada and the thirteen American colonies were “settlement colonies”, that is settlements where the British intended to establish homesteads. Hence the complex political, cultural and linguistic relationship they have had with their erstwhile homeland. The varieties of English spoken today in North America all belong to Kachru´s Inner Circle.Timeline: Spread of English in the thirteen American Colonies
1586 - Roanoke Colony founded, abandoned the next year.
1608 - Founding of the Jamestown Settlement. Attempted colony at Sagadahoc fails.
1620 - Plymouth Colony founded in 1620, merged with Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.
1622 - Province of Maine, granted in 1622, sold to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1677.
1623 - Province of NewHampshire, settled in 1623.
1628 - Salem Colony, later Salem, Massachusetts, settled in 1628, merged with Massachusetts Bay Colony the next year
1630 - Puritans found Boston and ten other settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
1634 - Province of Maryland, later Maryland, founded in 1634
1634-36 - First English settlements in the Connecticut River Valley.
1636 - Connecticut Colony founded.Roger Williams founds the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
1635 - Saybrook Colony, founded in 1635, merged with Connecticut in 1644.
1636 - Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, first settled in 1636.
1638 - New Haven Colony, founded in 1638, merged with Connecticut in 1665.
1664 - Province of New York, captured in 1664.
1664 - Province of New Jersey, captured in 1664....