The UAE has been influenced by the English language since Great Britain signed treaties to make the Trucial States. Since then, English has grown as a universal language and has become even more important since the discovery of oil. Today, English is taught in many schools in the UAE, but a particular variety is not super clear. There are many different people in the UAE from different backgrounds, so the variety spoken is dependent on the variety spoken in a community.
Syntactical Restructuring
The syntactical features below are common in the UAE. Some of these features are specific to large groups that are located in the country, while some are findings made by Ronald Boyle in Language contact in the United Arab Emirates (Boyle, 2012, p.p. 321-326).
-Variation in verb complementation patterns are seen in news writing.
For example: "to- clauses" in phrases like "The emirate had been considering to launch such a festival during Ramadan" or "Do you envisage to carry out this major project in phases."
-The use of "-'s" genitive occurs more frequently with inanimate nouns.
For example: "Al Kaabi suggested that the military aircraft's participation gives people more thrills" (Boyle, 2012, p.326).
-Hindi and Kannada have an influence on the system of tense, mode, aspect in Indian English (Boyle, 2012, p.326).
For example: "Cooper has been leading the Aero GP competition with 25 points at the end of the third day of the show" (Boyle, 2012, p.326).
-The alternation of past and present in Indian English is the result of the influence of Hindi due to its allowance of the present tense in past tense situations.
For example: "Once there was a team and their name is Dodgers."
-The use of prepositions can be seen.
For example: "Their mother's house allowed them to to do errands while they were there."
-Word order in wh- interrogative clauses changes.
For example: "Where would be the honor?"
-Variation in verb complementation patterns are seen in news writing.
For example: "to- clauses" in phrases like "The emirate had been considering to launch such a festival during Ramadan" or "Do you envisage to carry out this major project in phases."
-The use of "-'s" genitive occurs more frequently with inanimate nouns.
For example: "Al Kaabi suggested that the military aircraft's participation gives people more thrills" (Boyle, 2012, p.326).
-Hindi and Kannada have an influence on the system of tense, mode, aspect in Indian English (Boyle, 2012, p.326).
For example: "Cooper has been leading the Aero GP competition with 25 points at the end of the third day of the show" (Boyle, 2012, p.326).
-The alternation of past and present in Indian English is the result of the influence of Hindi due to its allowance of the present tense in past tense situations.
For example: "Once there was a team and their name is Dodgers."
-The use of prepositions can be seen.
For example: "Their mother's house allowed them to to do errands while they were there."
-Word order in wh- interrogative clauses changes.
For example: "Where would be the honor?"
![Picture](/uploads/1/1/8/0/118025978/editor/screen-shot-2018-03-03-at-5-31-23-pm.png?1520127431)
In the text to the left, is a portion of an article entitled "Eid in the Past and Present in the UAE" by Mary Achkhanian, an Emirati reporter for Gulf News. To reinforce the syntactical varieties of UAE English mentioned above, a specific section from the text has been highlighted that shows how the reporter goes from the past tense to an incorrect present tense. For example the word "meet" could be "met" due to the context of the sentence.
Analysis of UAE English Orthography
In order to identify the habits in UAE orthography, I have looked at the spelling of words across several articles in Gulf News, a newspaper published in English in Dubai. I have found that several different articles (written at different dates and on different topics) tend to use a British English spelling for certain words. My findings are below.
In the article entitled "Eid in the Past and Present in the UAE" by Mary Achkhanian, viewers can see that she uses the word "center" by spelling it as "centre." This is a property seen in British English. Other words with this property include "fibre" instead of "fiber", theatre" instead of "theater", and "litre" instead of "liter."
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In the article entitled "UAE condemns US decision to recognise Jerusalem as capital of Israel" by WAM, readers see the use of the word "recognize" spelled as "recognise" This is another property of British English spelling that can be seen in words like "apologise" and "organise" instead of "apologize" and "organize."
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I have concluded that there is possibly a leaning towards the British spelling of words in the UAE during English language instruction. This makes sense due to the early British influence in the UAE. All of these samples were taken from articles from different authors. This can not be a mistake due to the reoccurring pattern that is evident here.