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| St. Louis, Missouri |
St. Louis, Missouri:This article is about the city in Missouri. For other uses of Saint Louis, see Saint Louis.
Saint Louis (pronounced in English, Image:ltspkr.png in French), frequently spelled St. Louis, encompasses an independent city in the American state of Missouri (the "City of Saint Louis") and its metropolitan area ("Greater Saint Louis"). The city, which is named after Louis IX of France, is adjacent to, but not a part of, Saint Louis County, Missouri. The Saint Louis metropolitan area, which includes counties in both Missouri and Illinois, is the 19th largest in the United States, with a total population of 2,698,672 as of the 2000 census.
While the population of the metropolitan area has been increasing, the population of the City of Saint Louis (348,189) has been declining since the 1950s, as many have moved to the many suburbs in Saint Louis County, or to other parts of the metropolitan area. This exodus to the suburbs appears to have finally stopped at the beginning of this century thanks to recent attempts to revitalize the downtown area, and the city in general.
The city has several common nicknames, including the, "Gateway City", "Gateway to the West", and "Mound City." St. Louis is also sometimes called "Saint Louie", "River City," and "Baseball City USA."
History
nickname statue of the city's namesake on horseback, was widely used as a symbol of the city before construction of the Arch.]]
Prior to the arrival of French explorers in 1763 the area that would become Saint Louis was a major center of the Mississippian mound builders. The presence of numerous mounds, now almost all destroyed, earned the later city the nickname of "Mound City".
European exploration of the area had begun nearly a century earlier. Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, both French, traveled through the Mississippi River valley in 1673, and five years later, La Salle claimed the entire valley for France. He called it "Louisiana" after King Louis XIV; the French also called their region "Illinois Country". In 1699, a settlement was established across the river from what is now Saint Louis, at Cahokia. Other early settlements were downriver at Kaskaskia, Illinois, Prairie du Pont, Fort de Chartres, and Sainte Genevieve. In 1703, Catholic priests established a small mission at what is now St. Louis. The mission was later moved across the Mississippi, but the small river at the site (now a channelized drainage ditch near the southern boundary of the City of Saint Louis) still bears the name River Des Peres (River of the Fathers).
In 1763, Pierre Laclède, his 13-year-old stepson Auguste Chouteau, and a small band of men traveled up the Mississippi from New Orleans. In November, they landed a few miles downstream of the river's confluence with the Missouri River at a site where wooded limestone bluffs rose 40 feet above the river. The men returned to Fort de Chartres for the winter, but in February, LaClede sent Chouteau and 30 men to begin construction. The settlement was established on February 15, 1764.
The settlement began to grow quickly after word arrived that the 1763 Treaty of Paris had given England all the land east of the Mississippi. Frenchmen who had settled to the river's east moved across the water to "Laclede's Village". Other early settlements were established nearby at Saint Charles, Carondelet (now a part of the city of Saint Louis), Saint Ferdinand (now Florissant), and Portage des Sioux.
From 1766 to 1768, St. Louis was governed by the French lieutenant governor, Louis Saint Ange de Bellerive. After 1768, St. Louis was governed by a series of Spanish governors, whose administration continued even after Louisiana was secretly returned to France in 1800 by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. The town's population was then about a thousand.
Saint Louis was acquired from France by the United States under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The transfer of power from Spain was made official in a ceremony called "Three Flags Day". On March 8, 1804, the Spanish flag was lowered and the French one raised. On March 10, the French flag was replaced by the United States flag.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition left the Saint Louis area in May 1804, reached the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1805, and returned on Sept. 23, 1806. Many other explorers, settlers, and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would later take a similar route to the West.
The steamboat era began in Saint Louis on July 27, 1817, with the arrival of the Zebulon M. Pike. Rapids north of the city made Saint Louis the northernmost navigable port for many large boats, and Pike and her sisters soon transformed St. Louis into a bustling boomtown, commercial center, and inland port. By the 1850s, Saint Louis had become the largest U.S. city west of Pittsburgh, and the second-largest port in the country, with a commercial tonnage exceeded only by New York.
Missouri became a state in 1820. Saint Louis was incorporated as a city on December 9, 1822. A U.S. arsenal was constructed at Saint Louis in 1827.
Immigrants flooded into Saint Louis after 1840, particularly from Germany, Bohemia and Ireland, the latter driven by an Old World potato famine. The population of Saint Louis grew from fewer than 20,000 in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to just over 160,000 by 1860.
Two disasters occurred in 1849: a cholera epidemic killed nearly one-tenth of the population, and a fire destroyed numerous steamboats and a large portion of the city.
In the first half of the 19th century, a second channel developed in the Mississippi River at Saint Louis. An island ("Bloody Island") formed between the two channels, and a smaller island ("Duncan's Island") developed below Saint Louis. It was feared that the levee at St. Louis might be left high and dry, and federal assistance was sought and obtained. Under the supervision of Robert E. Lee, levees were constructed on the Illinois side to direct water toward the Missouri side and eliminate the second channel. Bloody Island was joined to the land on the Illinois side, and Duncan's Island was washed away.
Militarily, the Civil War (1861-1865) barely touched St. Louis; the area saw only a few skirmishes in which Union forces prevailed. But the war shut down trade with the South, devastating the city's economy. Missouri was nominally a slave state, but its economy did not depend on slavery, and it never seceded from the Union. The arsenal at Saint Louis was used during the war to construct ironclad ships for the Union.
On July 4, 1876 the City of Saint Louis voted to remove itself from Saint Louis County and become Saint Louis City and Saint Louis County. At that time the County was primarily rural and sparsely populated, and the fast-growing City did not want to spend their tax dollars on infastructure and services for the inefficent county. This decision would gravely come back to haunt the City as white flight with suburban development and population migration outside the City limits would cost the City millions of lost tax dollars and contribute to the City's deterioration.
Saint Louis is one of several cities that claims to have the world's first skyscraper. The Wainwright Building, a 10-story structure designed by Louis Sullivan and built in 1892, still stands at Chestnut and Seventh Streets and is today used by the State of Missouri as a government office building.
Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication here in 1893. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail the principles of radio communication. The apparatus that he used contained all the elements that were incorporated into radio systems before the development of the vacuum tube.
In 1896, one of the deadliest and most destructive tornadoes in U.S. history struck St. Louis and East St. Louis. The confirmed death toll is 255, with some estimates above 400, and injuries over 1,000. It left a mile wide continuous swath of destroyed homes, factories, mills, saloons, hospitals, schools, parks, churches, and railroad yards. Damages adjusted for inflation (1997 USD) make it the costliest tornado in U.S. history at an estimated $2.9 billion. Several other tornadoes have hit the city making it the worst tornado afflicted large city in the U.S.; with the most deadly and destructive occurring in 1871 (9 killed), 1890 (4 killed), 1904 (3 killed, 100 injured), 1927 (79 killed, 550 injured), and 1959 (21 killed, 345 injured).
In 1904, the city hosted the World's Fair and the Olympic Games, making the United States the first English-speaking country to host the Olympics. Citizens of St. Louis still look back fondly on the events of 1904; there were several events held in 2004 to commemorate the centennial.
The uranium used in the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb was refined in Saint Louis by Mallinckrodt Chemical Co., starting in 1942.
The Pruitt-Igoe housing project, built in 1955 and demolished in 1972, is one of the most infamous failures of urban planning. (The buildings were the first major work by Minoru Yamasaki, who later designed the World Trade Center.)
Downtown Redevelopment
There is a lot of construction going on in downtown St. Louis. There is The Bottle District which is an entertainment district that will open in spring 2007 that will be located north of the Edward Jones Dome. Also the St. Louis Cardinals new ballpark will open next year with a Ballpark Village to follow where the ballpark once stood. Additionally, for several years the Washington Loft District has been gentrifying an expanding corridor along Washington Street from the Edwards Jones Dome extending westward almost two dozen blocks. Rehabilitation of other downtown areas is proposed.
Geography
Washington Loft District
St. Louis is located at (38.648056, -90.212222).
The city lies along the western banks of the Mississippi River, just south of the Missouri-Mississippi confluence. Much of the area is a gently rolling prairie with low hills and broad, shallow valleys. Both the Mississippi River and the Missouri River have cut large valleys with wide flood plains. Limestone underlies much of the area and there are some sinkholes and caves, although most of the caves have been sealed shut.
The western and northern boundaries of Saint Louis County are defined by the Missouri River. Near the southern boundary of Saint Louis County is the Meramec River.
At the southern boundary of the city of Saint Louis (separating it from the county) is the River des Peres, virtually the only river or stream within the city limits that is not entirely underground. Most of River des Peres was either channelized or put underground in the 1920s and early 1930s. The lower section of the river was the site of some of the worst flooding of the Great Flood of 1993.
Near the central, western boundary of the city is Forest Park, site of the 1904 World's fair, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 or, as it is commonly known, the Saint Louis World's Fair, and the 1904 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic Games held in North America. At the time, Saint Louis was the fourth most populous city in the United States.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 171.3 km² (66.2 mi²). 160.4 km² (61.9 mi²) of it is land and 11.0 km² (4.2 mi² or 6.39%) of it is water.
Metropolitan statistical area
mi²
The Saint Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area, the 18th largest in the United States, has a total population of 2,698,672). This area includes Saint Louis County (1,016,315), the independent City of Saint Louis (348,189), the Missouri counties of Saint Charles (283,883), Jefferson (198,099), Franklin (93,807), Lincoln (38,944) and Warren (24,525), and the Illinois counties of Madison (258,941), Saint Clair (256,082), Clinton (35,535), Monroe (27,619) and Jersey (21,668).
Cityscape
The city is divided into 81 neighborhoods. The divisions have no legal standing, although some neighborhood associations administer grants or hold veto power over historic-district development. Nevertheless, the social and political influence of neighborhood identity is profound. Some hold avenues of massive stone edifices built as palaces for heads of state visiting the 1904 World's Fair. Others offer tidy working-class bungalows, hip loft districts, or areas hard-hit by social problems and unemployment. Many of them have retained - quite consciously and deliberately - a camaraderie that is missing from many American towns today.
Among the best-known, architecturally significant, or well-visited neighborhoods are Downtown St. Louis, Midtown St. Louis, Benton Park, Carondelet, the Central West End, Clayton/Tamm (Dogtown), Dutchtown South, Forest Park Southeast, Grand Center, The Hill, Lafayette Square, Shaw (home to the Missouri Botanical Garden and named after the Garden's founder, Henry Shaw), Soulard (home of the second-largest Mardi Gras festival in the nation), TowerGrove East and Tower Grove South, and Wydown/Skinker.
People and culture
Social changes in the twentieth century influenced radically the sorts of people who exist in Saint Louis now. From 1810, the date of the first Federal census, to 1880, the population totals include with the city of Saint Louis the population of Saint Louis County, which in 1880 was separately enumerated at 31, 888 people.
In 1910, 687, 029 people lived in the city. 125, 706 foreign-born people were residents in 1910. 47,765 of those persons were natives of the German Empire. In 1910, 11.3 per cent of the foreign-born people were of Irish nativity, 4.1 per cent of English, 12.3 of Russian, 6 of Italian, and 8.8 of Austrian. 43,960 African Americans composed 6.4 per cent of the total population.
Like other large American cities, St. Louis experienced a large population shift to the suburbs in the twentieth century, particularly in the years following the Second World War.
Populations of city and county: 1810, 5,667; 1820, 10,049; 1830, 14,145; 1840, 35,979; 1850, 104,978; 1860, 190,524; 1870, 351,189.
Populations of the town itself: in 1799, 925; 1810, 1,400; 1820, 4,000; 1830, 4,977; 1840, 16,469; 1850, 77,860; 1860, 170,773; 1870, 310,864; 1880, 350,518; 1900, 575,238; 1910, 687,029; 1920, 772, 897; 1940, 816,048.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there are 348,189 people, 147,076 households, and 76,920 families residing in the city. The population density is 2,171.1/km² (5,622.9/mi²). There are 176,354 housing units at an average density of 1,099.7/km² (2,847.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 51.20% African American, 43.85% White, 1.98% Asian, 0.27% Native American, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.80% from other races, and 1.88% from two or more races. 2.02% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. Historically, North Saint Louis City has been primarily African American while South Saint Louis City has been primarily White. This has changed in recent years as large portions of North Saint Louis City have been depopulated, with African-American residents moving either south or to surrounding counties.
There are 147,076 households, out of which 25.4% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 26.2% are married couples living together, 21.3% have a female householder with no husband present, and 47.7% are non-families. 40.3% of all households are made up of individuals and 12.9% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.30 and the average family size is 3.19.
In the city the population is spread out with 25.7% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.9% from 25 to 44, 19.1% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there are 88.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 84.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city is $27,156, and the median income for a family is $32,585. Males have a median income of $30,106 versus $24,987 for females. The per capita income for the city is $16,108. 24.6% of the population and 20.8% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 36.4% of those under the age of 18 and 17.4% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
Cuisine
- Anheuser-Busch beers
- Fried-brain sandwiches
- Gooey butter cake
- Missouri wine
- Pork steaks
- Provel cheese
- Saint Louis-style pizza, exemplified by regional chain Imo's Pizza
- Schlafly beers
- Ted Drewes Frozen Custard
- Toasted ravioli
- Vess soda
- St. Paul sandwiches
- Saint Louis-style barbecue, often featuring spare ribs and thin, tangy tomato-based barbecue sauce
- Slingers
Museums and other points of interest
Slingers
There are several museums and attractions in the city. The City Museum offers a variety of interesting exhibits, including several large caves and a huge outdoor playground. It also serves as a meeting point for Saint Louis' young arts scene. The Eugene Field House, located in downtown Saint Louis, is a museum dedicated to the distinguished children's author. The Missouri Historical Society presents exhibits and programs on a variety of topics including the 1904 World's Fair, and a comprehensive exhibit on Lewis and Clark's voyage exploring the Louisiana Purchase.
The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra plays at Powell Symphony Hall. Leonard Slatkin is one of the former conductors. The Fox Theatre, originally one of many movie theatres along Grand Boulevard, is now a newly restored theatre featuring a Byzantine facade and Oriental decor. The Fox Theatre presents a Broadway Series in addition to concerts.
There are several notable churches in the city, including the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, a large Roman Catholic cathedral designed in the Byzantine and Romanesque styles. The interior is decorated with lovely mosaics, the largest mosaic collection in the world.
The Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (1834), also known as the "Old Cathedral", is the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River. The Old Cathedral is located adjacent to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
The Hill is an historically Italian neighborhood where many of the area's best Italian restaurants can be found. The Hill was the home of Yogi Berra and many other noted baseball players. The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame is also located by Busch Stadium in downtown Saint Louis.
Laclede's Landing, located on the Mississippi Riverfront directly north of the historic Eads Bridge, is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. St. Louis also possesses several distinct examples of 18th and 19th century architecture, such as the Soulard Market district (1779-1842), the Chatillon-de Menil House (1848), the Bellefontaine Cemetery (1850), the Robert G. Campbell House (1852), the Old Courthouse (1845-62), the original Anheuser-Busch Brewery (1860), and two of Louis Sullivan's early skyscrapers, the Wainwright Building (1890-91) and the Union Trust Building.
There are also several notable museums in surrounding cities. The Delmar Loop, located in University City, just west of the Saint Louis city line, is a popular entertainment, cultural and restaurant district. The Butterfly House is located in western St. Louis County.
The Museum of Transportation is located in Kirkwood, a suburb in southwestern St. Louis County.
Six Flags St. Louis, known as, "Six Flags over Mid-America," when it opened in 1971, is an amusement park located in Eureka, Missouri, in the far west of St. Louis County.
Saint Charles, is the seat of St. Charles County and first capital of the state of Missouri, and is the location from which the Lewis and Clark Expedition began. It also has a downtown historic district with many small craft shops.
Cahokia Mounds, located near Collinsville, Illinois, holds the ruins of a city of the ancient Mississippian aboriginal culture. Similar mounds within Saint Louis, used as construction fill in the 1800s, gave the city one of its nicknames.
Magic House, children's hands on exploration museum, located in Kirkwood. One of the top rated family attractions in the US. Worldways Children's museum, an international children's cultural museum. Located in Kirkwood off Kirkwood Road.
Media
The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch is the region's major daily newspaper. Founded by Joseph Pulitzer in the 1800s, the paper was owned by Pulitzer Publishing until 2005, when the company was acquired by Lee Enterprises. The company also owns the Suburban Journals, a collection of local newspapers. The daily [http://www.belleville.com/ Belleville News Democrat], published in Belleville, Illinois, serves many Illinois communities in the St. Louis Metro Area.
The St. Louis Business Journal, published weekly on Fridays, covers the region's business news.
In 1900, St. Louis had at least five daily newspapers: the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the St. Louis Republic in the morning, and the Post-Dispatch and Star-Chronicle in the afternoon, as well as the German-language Westlische Post. One by one, these papers folded or consolidated. The Post-Dispatch bought out its remaining afternoon competitor, the Star-Times, in 1951. Until the mid-1980s, the morning Globe-Democrat, which was editorially more conservative than the Post-Dispatch, served as the Post's main rival. Although the Post-Dispatch and the Globe-Democrat maintained a joint-operating agreement for years, the Globe-Democrat folded shortly after the Post-Dispatch switched from afternoon to morning publication.
The city's main alternative weekly publications include the Evening Whirl, and the [http://www.riverfronttimes.com/ Riverfront Times]. African-American weeklies include the St. Louis Argus (est. 1912), the Saint Louis American (est. 1928), and the St. Louis Sentinel (est. 1969). A variety of glossy monthly and quarterly publications cover topics such as local history, cuisine, and lifestyles. St. Louis is also home to the last remaining metropolitan journalism review, the [http://www.stljr.org/ St. Louis Journalism Review], based at Webster University in the suburb of Webster Groves, Missouri.
The St. Louis metro area is served by a wide variety of local television stations, and is the twenty-first largest designated market area (DMA) in the U.S., with 1,222,380 homes (1.11% of the total U.S.). The major network television affiliates are KMOV 4 (CBS), KDNL 30 (ABC), KSDK 5 (National Broadcasting Company), KTVI 2 (Fox Broadcasting Company), KPLR 11 (WB), and WRBU 46 (UPN). There is also a PBS station at KETC 9.
The region's radio airwaves offer a variety of locally produced programming. KMOX (1120 AM), which pioneered the call-in talk radio format in the 1960s, retains significant regional influence due to its 50,000-watt, clear-channel signal, its sports lineup, and an unusually active newsroom operation. Public radio station KWMU (90.7 FM), an NPR affiliate, also provides extensive, locally produced programming treating social issues, politics, and the arts. St. Louis is one of only a few U.S. cities to have its own independent community radio station, KDHX (88.1 FM), which features a wide range of music and talk from local residents. Washington University's college radio station, KWUR (90.3 FM), also provides community broadcasting and an eclectic mix of underground music.
Music
St. Louis has long been associated with ragtime, jazz and blues. Early rock and roll singer/guitarist Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan and continues to perform there several times a year. Soul music artists Ike Turner and Tina Turner and jazz innovator Miles Davis began their careers in nearby East St. Louis, Illinois.
In the 1990's, the metro area produced several prominent alt-country artists, including Uncle Tupelo, a Belleville, Illinois trio often considered the originators of the style, and The Bottle Rockets. More recently, the rise of Nelly, The Saint Lunatics, Murphy Lee, Chingy, J-Kwon and other musicians have made it one of the centers of rap and hip-hop, often mentioned side-by-side with New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Detroit.
Parks and outdoor attractions
Detroit
The city operates 105 parks that serve as gathering spots for neighbors to meet, and contains playgrounds, areas for summer concerts, picnics, baseball games, tennis courts, and lakes.
Forest Park, located on the western edge of the central corridor of the City of St. Louis, is one of the largest urban parks in the world, outsizing Central Park in New York City by 500 acres. It offers many of Saint Louis' most popular attractions: the free Saint Louis Zoological Park, the Municipal Theatre (also known as, "The Muny," the largest and oldest outdoor musical theatre in the United States), the Saint Louis Science Center and Observatory (with its architecturally distinctive McDonnell Planetarium), the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, and, of course, plenty of lakes and scenic, open areas. Forest Park completed a multimillion dollar renovation in 2004 for the centennial of the St. Louis World's Fair.
The Missouri Botanical Garden, also known as "Shaw's Garden", is one of the world's leading botanical research centers. It possesses a beautiful collection of flowery plants, shrubs, and trees, and includes the Japanese Garden, which features a lake filled with koi and gravel designs, the woodsy English Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Home Gardening Center, a rose garden, the climate-controlled dome Climatron, as well as many other scenic gardens. Immediately south of the Missouri Botanical Garden is Tower Grove Park, a gift to the City by Henry Shaw.
The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, better known as the Gateway Arch, is perhaps the most recognizable structure of the city. It is located near the riverfront in downtown Saint Louis, and was designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen. The Arch is the centerpiece of a national park that also includes the nearby Old Courthouse, where the famous Dred Scott case was tried. This area is also the location of the annual July 4th festival, Fair Saint Louis, widely regarded as America's largest birthday celebration.
Sports
|
| Club |
Sport |
League |
Venue |
Logo |
St. Louis Cardinals
| Major League Baseball |
National League |
Busch Stadium |
Busch Stadium |
| St. Louis Rams |
Football |
National Football League : NFC |
Edward Jones Dome |
Edward Jones Dome |
| St. Louis Blues |
Ice Hockey |
National Hockey League |
Savvis Center |
Savvis Center |
| St. Louis Steamers |
Soccer |
Major Indoor Soccer League |
Savvis Center |
Savvis Center |
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Enthusiastic and knowledgeable fans give the city a reputation as, "a top-notch sports town" and being dubbed as, "Baseball City USA." The Sporting News rated St. Louis the nation's, "Best Sports City." Although the city has or had professional football, hockey, basketball teams, it is baseball that is undeniably the epicenter of the city's sporting life. The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the oldest franchises in Major League Baseball, have accumulated nine World Series titles since 1892, second only to the New York Yankees. (The 2005 baseball season will be the last played at historic Busch Stadium. A new stadium, which will have the same name, is currently under construction, with views of the Saint Louis skyline and the Gateway Arch.)
The city of St. Louis has earned 12 professional sports championships. As mentioned earlier the St. Louis Cardinals have won 9 World Series Championships with one of the championships played against the old cross-city rival the St. Louis Browns. The St. Louis Rams have won one Super Bowl Championship, and the St. Louis Hawks gave the city its lone NBA Championship. On top of that the St. Louis Blues hold the record for most consecutive playoff appearances, in all of sports, with 26 straight. The Blues have also made 3 trips to the Stanley Cup Finals winning none.
The Savvis Center will host the 2007 Frozen Four college ice hockey tournament on April 5 and April 7, 2007. The Savvis Center also hosts the annual "Braggin' Rights" game, a men's college basketball rivalry game between Illinois and Missouri. St. Louis is roughly equidistant from the two campuses.
In March 2005, the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis hosted the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Final Four. In April 2009, Edward Jones Dome will host the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship Final Four.
Gateway International Raceway hosts NASCAR events in nearby Madison, Illinois.
There are also several minor league teams in the area. The Gateway Grizzlies (Minor League Baseball) of the Frontier League, which plays at GMC Stadium across the river in Sauget, Illinois. The River City Rascals (Minor League Baseball) also of the Frontier League, play at T.R. Hughes Stadium in nearby O'Fallon, Missouri. The Missouri River Otters (United Hockey League) play at Family Arena in St. Charles, Missouri. The River City Rage are an Arena Football team that play in the National Indoor Football League at Family Arena. The St. Louis Flight are a basketball team that play in the newly reincarnated American Basketball Association, also at Family Arena.
Economy
Saint Louis punches above its weight as a center for corporate headquarters. Beer commercials have made the city well known as the home of Anheuser-Busch Breweries. Two local brokerages, A.G. Edwards and Edward Jones, have grown into dominant players on America's financial landscape. It is also the site for the headquarters of Energizer, the battery company. Neighboring suburbs host Monsanto, formerly a chemical company and now a leader in genetically modified crops, and Solutia, the former Monsanto chemical division that was spun off as a separate company in 1997. Hardee's corporate headquarters lies in the metro area. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is headquartered in Clayton. Emerson Electric is headquartered in the north side of St. Louis.
However, in recent years, many longtime corporate pillars have left St. Louis. Saint Louis was the corporate headquarters of McDonnell-Douglas prior to its 1997 merger with Boeing. Upon the merger, the area became the headquarters for Boeing's $27 billion-per-year Integrated Defense Systems division and its company-wide Phantom Works R&D operation. Locally, Boeing manufactures the F/A-18 Super Hornet and JDAM smart bombs, and has developed — at times secretly — several unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs). However, when Boeing relocated its corporate headquarters from Seattle, Washington in 2001, it moved to Chicago, Illinois — Saint Louis was not one of the final candidates.
From 1994 until its acquisition in 2000 by Tyco International, another chemical company, Mallinckrodt, was headquartered in Saint Louis County. Many of the former Mallinckrodt facilities are still in operation by Tyco in the Saint Louis suburb of Hazelwood, Missouri.
Saint Louis was the corporate headquarters for animal feed and human-food maker Ralston Purina. After divesting all of its businesses except the pet food division, Nestle S.A., the world's largest food company acquired it in 2001. Several of the divested business still remain in St. Louis including Energizer, Ralcorp and Protein Technologies, Inc. n/k/a Solae. Trans World Airlines (acquired by American Airlines, which then dismantled TWA's St. Louis hub), telecommunications company SBC (moved to San Antonio), and military contractor General Dynamics (moved to Washington, D.C.). All major St. Louis banks have been purchased by out-of-town banks. The city retains a Federal Reserve Bank.
Saint Louis remains home to railway car plants; two DaimlerChrysler plants in the nearby suburb of Fenton, where minivans and pickup trucks are built; a General Motors plant in suburban Wentzville; and a Ford Motor Company plant in Hazelwood, where SUVs are built.
The region has built up a formidable health care industry. This is dominated by BJC HealthCare, which operates Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital, plus eleven others. BJC benefits from a symbiotic relationship with Washington University's School of Medicine, which is a major center of medical research. Other major players include SSM Health Care, St. John's Mercy, and the Tenet Healthcare Corporation chain. St. Louis is also home to two companies that produce radiation therapy planning software, CMS, Inc. and Multidata Systems International.
Although local housing costs have risen in recent years, they are still significantly below the national average, and are a revelation to new arrivals from the coasts. From the mid-1990s onward, the City of St. Louis itself has seen a major surge in housing rehabilitation as well as new construction on cleared sites. As a rule, other costs of living also are at or below the national average. Wages tend to reflect these facts, likewise being at or slightly below the average.
Colleges and universities
Saint Louis and its surrounding area are the home of several major universities, colleges, and higher education facilities:
- Saint Louis University, the oldest university west of the Mississippi River
- Parks College of Engineering, Aviation, and Technology A division of SLU.
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Webster University
- University of Missouri - St. Louis
- Concordia Seminary of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
- Fontbonne University
- Eden Seminary
- Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, one of the two Southern Illinois University system schools
- Lindenwood University
- Maryville University
- Harris-Stowe State University
- Hickey College
- Missouri Baptist University
- Ranken Technical College
- University of Phoenix - St. Louis Campus
- Saint Louis College of Pharmacy
- Missouri Tech University
- Kenrick Glennon Seminary
- National Academy of Beauty Arts
- Missouri College
- Deaconess College of Nursing
- Aquinas Institute of Theology
- Covenant Theological Seminary
- Allied Medical College
- Patricia Stevens College
Medicine
Because of its colleges, hospitals, and companies like Monsanto, Saint Louis is respected as a center of medicine and biotechnology. Barnes-Jewish hospital, in junction with Washington University in St. Louis's School of Medicine, is the fifth largest in the world, while WashU's Medicial School consistently ranks in the top 5 nationally.
Transportation
Like most American cities, the main method of transportation is the automobile. Use of the automobile is supported by the existence of many limited-access interstate highways (I-70, I-55,
Missouri
:For the Native American tribe, see Missouri tribe.
Missouri, named after the Missouri Siouan Indian tribe meaning "town of the large canoes", is a U.S. state in the United States with Jefferson City as its capital. It is a midwestern state, with some Northern, Eastern, Western, and Southern cultural influences. The state's nickname is the [http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/history/slogan.asp Show-Me] State; the U.S. Post Office abbreviation for Missouri is MO and the state public university's main campus is located in Columbia. The Mississippi and Missouri rivers are the two large rivers which flow through this state.
USS Missouri was named in honor of this state.
History
Originally part of the Louisiana Purchase, Missouri was admitted as a state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise. It earned the nickname "Gateway to the West" because it served as a departure point for settlers heading to the west. It was the starting point and the return destination of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. During the Civil War, Missouri, a slave state, remained in the Union, but sentiment was split with a significant portion of the populace in some areas supporting the Confederate cause.
Law and government
The capital of Missouri is Jefferson City.
The current constitution of Missouri, the fourth constitution for the state, was adopted in 1945 and provides for three branches of government, the legislative, judicial and executive branches. The legislative branch consists of two bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate. These bodies comprise the General Assembly of the State of Missouri.
The House of Representatives has 163 members that are apportioned based on the last decennial census. The Senate consists of 34 members from districts divided such that the population of each district is approximately equal.
The Judicial department consists of a supreme court consisting of 7 judges. Superior and inferior courts are also provided.
The executive branch is headed by the Governor.
- The Governor of Missouri is Matt Blunt (Republican).
- The Lieutenant Governor of Missouri is Peter Kinder (Republican)
- The Missouri Attorney General is Jay Nixon (Democrat)
- The Missouri Secretary of State is Robin Carnahan (Democrat)
- The Missouri State Auditor is Claire McCaskill (Democrat)
- The Missouri State Treasurer is Sarah Steelman (Republican)
- The Senior United States Senator is Christopher S. "Kit" Bond (Republican)
- The Junior United States Senator is James M. Talent (Republican)
Although neither major party has traditionally been dominant in Missouri, the Republican Party has been gaining strength there in recent years. Missouri has a longer stretch of supporting the winning presidential candidate than any other state, having chosen with the nation in every election since 1904 with the exception of Adlai Stevenson in 1956. In 2004, George W. Bush won the state's 11 electoral votes by a margin of 7 percentage points with 53.3% of the vote. Democrat John Kerry only won four of the state's 115 counties—St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ste. Genevieve, and Jackson County.
Geography
1956
Missouri's border physically touches a total of eight different states. It is bounded on the north by Iowa; on the east, across the Mississippi River, by Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee; on the south by Arkansas; and on the west by Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska (the latter two across the Missouri River.)
North of the Missouri River lie the Northern Plains that stretch into Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Here, gentle rolling hills remain behind from a glacier that once had extended from the north to the Missouri River.
The Ozark plateau begins south of the river and extends into Arkansas, S. E. Kansas, and N. E. Oklahoma. Springfield, Missouri in southwestern Missouri lies on the Ozark plateau. Southern Missouri is the home of the Ozark Mountains, a dissected plateau surrounding the Precambrian igneous St. Francois Mountains. It is in the Ozarks that a distinct dialect, often compared to that of residents in certain areas of Kentucky and Tennessee, still exists.
The southeastern part of the state is home to the Bootheel, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain or Mississippi embayment. This region is the lowest, flattest and wettest part of the state. It is also the most fertile. It is here that one finds cotton and rice production. The Bootheel area was the focus of the great New Madrid Earthquake of 1811–1812.
Although now generally considered part of the Midwest, Missouri was once thought of as Southern, and still is by many Missourians today.
For example, Mark Twain, who grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, in Life on the Mississippi described his upbringing as in "the South." Still, while larger cities, especially those in the northern part of the state (i.e. St. Louis, Columbia, Kansas City) consider themselves "Midwestern", rural areas and cities further south (i.e. Cape Girardeau and Springfield) consider themselves more "Southern".
Additional topics
- Climate of Missouri
- Missouri National and State Parks
- List of Missouri counties
Transportation
List of Missouri counties
Kansas City is still a major railroad hub for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, and Union Pacific. The state of Missouri also has two major airport hubs now as well with Kansas City International Airport and Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport. Several highways also traverse the state.
- Interstate 29, Interstate 229
- Interstate 35, Interstate 435 (the Perimeter around the Kansas City Metropolitan Area), Interstate 635
- Interstate 44
- Interstate 55, Interstate 155, Interstate 255
- Interstate 57
- Interstate 64
- Interstate 70, Interstate 170, Interstate 270 (the Perimeter around the Missouri side of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area), Interstate 470, Interstate 670
- Interstate 72
- Interstate 49 (Proposed)
Economy
[http://www.bea.gov/ The Bureau of Economic Analysis] estimates that Missouri's total state product in 2003 was $195 billion. Per capital personal income in 2003 was $29,464, 27th in the nation.
Major industries include aerospace, transportation equipment, food processing, chemicals, printing/publishing, electrical equipment, light manufacturing.
The agriculture products of the state are beef, soybeans, pork, dairy products, hay, corn, poultry, and eggs. Missouri is ranked 6th in the nation for the production of hogs and 7th for cattle. As of 2001, there were 108,000 farms, the second largest number in any state after Texas. Missouri also actively promotes its quickly-growing wine industry.
Missouri has vast quantities of limestone. Other minerals mined are lead, coal, Portland cement and crushed stone. Missouri produces the most lead of all of the states in the Union with most of these mines in the central eastern portion of the state. Missouri also ranks first or near first among the production of lime.
Tourism, services and wholesale/retail trade follow manufacturing in importance.
Demographics
As of 2004, the population of Missouri was estimated to be 5,754,618. This includes 194,000 foreign-born (3.4% of the state population). The state's population has increased by 638,000 since 1990, a growth of 12.5%.
Race and ancestry
The racial makeup of the state and comparison to the prior census:
The five largest ancestry groups in Missouri are: German (23.5%), Irish (12.7%), American (10.5%), English (9.5%), French (3.5%). 'American' includes those reported as Native American or African American.
German-Americans are a large ancestry group present in most of Missouri. In southern Missouri, most residents are of British/American ancestry. The northern edge of the state also has a high proportion of residents of British and American ancestry. Blacks are a populous minority in the City of St. Louis and central Kansas City and are also an important minority in the southeastern bootheel and the Missouri River Valley, areas where plantation agriculture was once important. Missouri Creoles of French ancestry are concentrated in the Mississippi River valley south of St. Louis.
6.6% of its population were reported as under 5, 25.5% under 18, and 13.5% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 51.4% of the population.
3.4% of Missourians are foreign-born, and 5.1% speak a language other than English at home. The 1997 birth and death rates were:
| Births: | 74,037 |
| Deaths: | 54,322 |
| Infant deaths: | 564 |
81.3% were high school graduates (higher than the national average) while 21.6% had a bachelor's degree or higher.
The mean commute time to work was 23.8 minutes. The homeownership rate in 2000 was 70.3% with the mean value of the owner occupied dwelling being $89,900. There were 2,194,594 households with 2.48 people per household. The median household money income for 1999 was $37,934 with the 1999 Per Capita Money Income of $19,936. There were 11.7% (637,891) Missourians living below the poverty line in 1999.
Religion
The religious affiliations of the people of Missouri:
- Christian – 83%
- Protestant – 62%
- Baptist (mostly Southern Baptist) – 23%
- Methodist – 8%
- Lutheran – 4%
- Episcopal – 4%
- Other Protestant – 23%
- Roman Catholic – 20%
- Other Christian – 1%
- Other Religions – 1%
- Non-Religious – 16%
Of those Missourians who identify with a religion, three in four are Protestants. There is also a moderate-sized Catholic community present in the some parts of the state; approximately one out of five Missourians are Catholics. Heavily Catholic areas include Kansas City and St. Louis.
A number of religious organizations have their headquarters in Missouri, including the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, which has its headquarters in Kirkwood, outside St. Louis. Kansas City is the headquarters of the Church of the Nazarene. Independence, outside of Kansas City, is the headquarters for the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), and the Latter Day Saints group Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Springfield is the headquarters of the Assemblies of God.
Culture
There is an idiom "being from Missouri" which relates to the state's unofficial slogan: "show me" (which even appears on their license plates). People from Missouri have a reputation for being skeptical. (See [http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/6d7ce/515/] and
[http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/history/slogan.asp].)
Important cities and towns
license plate
Education
Missouri's public school system includes kindergarten to 12th grade and requires all children between the ages of 7–16 inclusive to be enrolled in a school. The University of Missouri is Missouri's statewide public university system, having campuses in Saint Louis, Kansas City, Columbia and Rolla. Additionally, Missouri has several regional public universities in different parts of the state, the largest being Missouri State University (after heated political debate in Jefferson City, the name was changed from Southwest Missouri State University in spring 2005) having the second largest student enrollment after University of Missouri-Columbia (commonly referred to as "Mizzou").
Colleges and universities
Professional sports teams
- Baseball: Saint Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals
- Football: Saint Louis Rams and Kansas City Chiefs
- Hockey: Saint Louis Blues
- Soccer: Kansas City Wizards
- Indoor Soccer: St. Louis Steamers
- Arena Football: Kansas City Brigade
Minor leagues
- Baseball:
- Springfield Cardinals (Class AA, Texas League)
- Mid-Missouri Mavericks (Independent, Frontier League)
- River City Rascals (Independent, Frontier League)
See also
- Missouri River
- Missouri tribe
- Missouri Pacific Railroad
- Henry Shaw Ozark Corridor
- List of people from Missouri and the Missouri Wall of Fame
- List of individuals executed in Missouri
- List of BSA local councils and districts in Missouri
- List of Missouri State Highways
- List of television stations in Missouri
References
- U.S. Census Bureau.
- [http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/29000.html Missouri QuickFacts]. Geographic and demographic information.
- [http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0056/tab40.pdf Missouri - Race and Hispanic Origin: 1810 to 1990] (PDF)
External links
- [http://www.state.mo.us/ Missouri Government]
- [http://www.mohistory.org/ Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis]
- [http://www.system.missouri.edu/shs/ State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia]
- [http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/africanamerican/intro.asp Missouri's African American History]
- [http://www.missouritourism.org Missouri State Tourism Office]
- [http://www.statelocalgov.net/mo.htm State and Local Government on the Net]
- [http://www.vitalrec.com/mo.html Vital Records Information]
- [http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2001/tables/redist_mo.html Census Data]
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Category:States of the United States
ko:미주리 주
ja:ミズーリ州
simple:Missouri
English language
English is a West Germanic language that is spoken in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, and many other countries. English is now the third-most spoken native language worldwide (after Chinese and Hindi), with some 380 million speakers. It has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries and that of the United States from the 20th century to the present. Through the global influence of native English speakers in cinema, airlines, broadcasting, science, and the Internet in recent decades, English is now the most widely learned second language in the world. Many students worldwide are required to learn some English, and a working knowledge of English is required in many fields and occupations.
History
English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Old Saxon language brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "creolised" to some degree (though it was never a full creole in the linguistic sense of the word); creolisation arises from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Friesian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated.
These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what would be called Old English, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now the Netherlands and north-west Germany. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jorvik). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain would be partly creolised by the contact with Norse invaders. This resulted in a stripping away of much of the grammar of Old English, including gender and case, with the notable exception of the pronouns; thus, the language became simpler and plainer. The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet.
For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
Classification and related languages
The English language belongs to the western subbranch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The closest living relative of English is Scots (Lallans), a West Germanic language spoken mostly in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland. Like English, Scots is a direct descendant of Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon.
After Scots, the next closest relative is Frisian—spoken in the Netherlands and Germany. Other less closely related living languages include Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Plattdüütsch and the Scandinavian languages. Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (pronunciations are not always identical, of course), because English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from French, via the Norman language after the Norman conquest and directly from French in further centuries; as a result, a substantial share of English vocabulary is quite close to the French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional differences in meaning.
Geographic distribution
Norman conquest
English is the second or third most widely spoken language in the world today; a total of 600–700 million people use English regularly. About 377 million people use English as their mother tongue, and an equal number of people use it as their second or foreign language. It is used widely in either the public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world. In addition, the language has occupied a primary place in international academic and business communities. The current status of the English language compares with that of Latin in the past.
English is the primary language in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Belize, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland (Irish English), Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the United States.
English is also an important minority language of South Africa (South African English), and in several other former colonies and current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, for example Guam and Mauritius.
In Hong Kong, English is an official language and is widely used in business activities. It is taught from kindergarten, and is the medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and all universities. Substantial numbers of students acquire native-speaker level. It is so widely used and spoken that it is inadequate to say it is merely a second or foreign language, though there are still many people in Hong Kong with poor or no command of English.
The majority of English native speakers (67 to 70 per cent) live in the United States. Although the U.S. federal government has no official languages, it has been given official status by 27 of the 50 state governments, most of which have declared English their sole official language. Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico have also designated Hawaiian, French, and Spanish, respectively, as official languages in conjunction with English.
In many other countries where English is not a major first language, it is an official language; these countries include Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
English is the most widely learned and used foreign language in the world, and as such, many linguists believe it is no longer the exclusive cultural emblem of "native English speakers", but rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it grows in use. Others believe that there are limits to how far English can go in suiting everyone for communication purposes. It is the language most often studied as a foreign language in Europe (32.6 per cent), followed by French, German, and Spanish. It is also the most studied in Japan, South Korea and in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where it is compulsory for most high school students. See English as an additional language.
English as a global language
See also: English on the Internet
Because English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a "global language". While English is not the official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its global status.
There are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community). On the other hand, it excludes those who, for one reason or another, are not fluent. It can also marginalise populations whose first language is not the global language, and lead to a cultural hegemony of the populations speaking the global language as a first language. Most of these arguments hold for any candidate for a global language, though the last two counter-arguments do not hold for languages not belonging to any ethnic group (like Esperanto).
A secondary concern with respect to the spread of global languages (English, Spanish, etc.) is the resulting disappearance of minority languages, often along with the cultures and religions that are primarily transmitted in those languages. English has been implicated in a number of historical and ongoing so-called "language deaths" and "linguicides" around the world, many of which have also led to the loss of cultural heritage. In the Americas, Native American nations have been most strongly affected by this phenomenon.
Dialects and regional variants
The expansiveness of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a variety of English dialects and English-based creoles and pidgins.
The major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English, Newfoundland English within Canadian English, and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") within American English. English is considered a pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard.
Some consider Scots as an English dialect. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially. The Scottish dialect retains many German aspects including guttural pronunciations.
Because of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or language. For more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English speakers. For more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language.
Many countries around the world have blended English words and phrases into their everyday speech and refer to the result by a colloquial name that implies its bilingual origins, which parallels the English language's own addiction to loan words and borrowings. Named examples of these ad-hoc constructions, distinct from pidgin and creole languages, include Engrish, Wasei-eigo, Franglais and Spanglish. (See List of dialects of the English language for a complete list.) Europanto combines many languages but has an English core.
Constructed variants of English
- Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in the Far East teach it as an initial practical subset of English.
- Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.
- English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
- Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international co-operation and communication in specific areas.
- European English is a new variant of the English language created to become the common language in Europe.
Sounds
Vowels
Notes:
It is the vowels that differ most from region to region.
Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used in North American English, the second corresponds to English spoken elsewhere.
#North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with or . According to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998), this sound is present in Standard Canadian English.
#Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See cot-caught merger.
#The North American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel.
#Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is schwa .
#This sound is often transcribed with or with .
#The letter U can represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.
Consonants
This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
#The velar nasal is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas.
#The alveolar flap is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English | |
