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ABC News (Australia)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/tok-pisin
For readers interested in pidgin and creole varieties of English, the ABC News website has a section devoted to news articles written in Tok Pisin.
BBC Voices archive
Although archived since 2014, this is a useful site for exploring dialect variation, and contains a wide variety of recordings of regional accents from different parts of the British Isles.
British Library: Digitised manuscripts
https://www.bl.uk/research/digitised-manuscripts
This extensive collection of digitised manuscripts includes many examples in English from the 13th century onwards.
Collins Dictionary
https://www.collinsdictionary.com
A free online dictionary, based on the vast Collins corpus of written and spoken language in use. As well as definitions, each entry includes lists of synonyms and collocations, as well as contextual examples. The website also includes a large collection of engaging blogs for ‘language lovers’.
The Dialect and Heritage Project (University of Leeds)
https://dialectandheritage.org.uk
An ongoing online study of English dialects, a successor to the extensive Survey of English Dialects undertaken in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to findings from the current survey, the website includes a link to the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture, which includes dialect recordings and other items relating to the original survey.
Dictionary of Old English (University of Toronto)
https://doe.artsci.utoronto.ca
An ongoing project using surviving manuscripts to record the vocabulary of English from 600 to 1150, with letters A to Le now available. Individual users can have up to 20 free logins a year. (Click on ‘Purchase’ on the home page.) The University of Toronto also oversees the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, which contains all the surviving OE texts, and can be accessed through institutional subscriptions.
English-Corpora.org
https://www.english-corpora.org
Originating from the Brigham Young University collection, this now independent collection of corpora, created and overseen by Professor Mark Davies, runs to thousands of texts and billions of words. With material from British, American and other dialects of English, it enables users to explore discourse in a variety of ways, particularly looking at patterns in the use of lexis and grammar in relation to register and genre. Access is free following registration, and there is plenty of guidance on how to search and analyse the resources.
The Gersum Project
A collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge, Cardiff and Sheffield to explore the influence of Old Norse vocabulary on English ‘by examining the origins of more than 900 words in a corpus of Middle English poems from the North of England’. Clear guidance is given on how to use and search the database.
Internet Grammar of English (University College London)
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar
An easy-to-use online grammar course and glossary designed for undergraduates (published 1996–98). The IGE is also available as an app for Apple and android devices.
Middle English Compendium (University of Michigan)
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary
The compendium’s main component is a searchable, evidence-based ME dictionary, which provides definitions, spelling variations and etymological information, as well as quotations drawn from an extensive range of primary sources.
Original Pronunciation
http://www.originalpronunciation.com
Professor David Crystal’s engaging website ‘devoted to the production or performance of works from earlier periods of English’ and covering the pronunciation of both Old English and Early Modern English. It also includes various articles about evidence for early pronunciation as well as some recorded examples.
Oxford English Dictionary
An invaluable, authoritative resource of over 500,000 entries, which is constantly being expanded and updated. Users can search words and phrases using either the main dictionary or the historical thesaurus. Four ‘hubs’ on the OED’s homepage – Word stories, Word lists, World Englishes, History of English – admit the user to a wide range of excellent resources. Although full access to the dictionary requires a subscription, most university and public libraries provide free access for their members.
Oxford Text Archive (University of Oxford)
https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui
This site offers access to a wealth of transcribed historical texts, free to download, although some require prior permission. Collections of related texts, such as the Corpus of Early English Correspondence, can be quickly found and accessed by putting ‘corpus’ in the search box.
Speech Accent Archive (George Mason University)
This archive enables users to listen to a wide variety of both ENL and ESL speakers reading the same paragraph, so is ideal for comparing accents. Phonetic transcriptions of the recordings are also provided.
A Thesaurus of Old English (University of Glasgow)
https://oldenglishthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk
An ‘inside-out dictionary’, enabling users to search by meaning for Old English words and build an awareness of semantic fields and cultural values during this period.
VARIENG (University of Helsinki)
https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/varieng
Helsinki University’s research unit for studying variation, contacts and change in English is the website host for a Corpus Resource Database (CoRD) which provides information about and access to relevant corpora for studying historical English. Of particular interest are the various atlases of historical English and the collections of historical texts.
World Wide Words
A fun and accessible site compiled by Michael Quinion, who wrote many of the entries for The Oxford Dictionary of New Words. Last updated in February 2024, the site contains a wealth of short articles about the origins of words and about current usage.
The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (APiCS)
A fascinating resource for anyone interested in learning more about these hybrid languages.
The Foundation for Endangered Languages
http://www.ogmios.org/index.php
The FEL’s online newsletters provide an insight into the kind of work being done to protect endangered languages.
Glottolog
A comprehensive catalogue of global languages (including sign languages), currently listing 8,612 entries. Glottolog is compiled and edited by a team of researchers attached to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
International Phonetic Association
https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org
This website includes access to charts of the IPA symbols and diacritics as well as a table giving definitions of the sounds represented.
PHOIBLE
PHOIBLE (Phonetics Information Base and Lexicon) describes itself as ‘a repository of cross-linguistic inventory data’. Its contents have been collected from various sources and cover over 2,000 languages and more then 3,000 speech segments, the latter plotted on global distribution maps.
UNESCO World Atlas of Languages
UNESCO’s interactive atlas focuses on global languages particularly in terms of social, cultural and political contexts, as well as identifying the degree of stability and sustainability of each language.
World Atlas of Language Structures Online
Edited by Matthew S Dryer and Martin Haspelmath, and published by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, this site provides extensive data and commentary about a wide range of global language features and their distribution.
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