So?

bmattock said:
When I was in Brazil, several years ago, I was informed that Brazil is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world; not Portugal. Furthermore, apparently the dialect of Brazilian Portuguese is not the dialect of modern Portugal. Rather, it is related as, say, modern English relates to Middle English. The Portuguese who colonized Brazil brought their (then current) language with them. In later years, Portuguese as it is spoken in Portugal changed, but it did not change as much in Brazil.

The unusual (and somewhat amusing) part to me was that Brazil exports a large number of television shows to Portugal, where they are quite popular. As a result, Portuguese parents are becoming concerned that their children are growing up speaking what English-speakers might consider Elizabethan English in terms of equivalence!
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In French speaking Quebec, the language is less changed from the French spoken during colonization times, than the French used today in France, which has evolved and changed to a much greater degree over the same period of time.
 
Al Kaplan said:
I don't remember which science fiction author it was who referred to what we speak in the U.S. and Canada as "North American Anglic".
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Too bad this isn't more accepted. It might help us get beyond the parochializm/parochialism of which English is more right. 😱
 
My friend Maria from south of France was visiting, we saw a French Canadian (Jesus de Monreal?) film and she resorted to reading the subtitles in English.

Many of the conversations I have had in Paris began with donc, usually signaling a slight change in direction, and now that I think of it, there is a Canadian program filmed in BC in which the title character is an investigator (surprise) who routinely interviews witnesses, with much of his dialogue beginning with "so", and it seems a more personal, or friendly way of beginning a discussion in some cases, gaining attention and putting people at ease at the same time.

If you read the repair manual for cars, something I did often in my misspent youth, you will see the term "oil sump" which refers to the oil pan reservoir, not just the pan , and certainly in almost every home insurance contract you will see "sump" in terms of a water sump. Driver's and passenger side seems to be off in the UK, but it is normally used in the manuals as being more accurate than saying, perhaps, the left side as that would depend on which way the car was facing. ;-)

There was a time early in broadcasting, when a broadcaster was expected to speak with a neutral accent, and were actually sent to Cleveland to polish it.

In the Czech Republic, many of the English teachers seemed to be American, and the result being that many Czechs speak English understood well by those from that continent.

So, have a pop and chill out?

Regards, John
 
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JohnTF said:
In the Czech Republic, many of the English teachers seemed to be American, and the result being that many Czechs speak English understood well by those from that continent.
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Interesting. I met a Czech woman in London who was there to attend school with the express purpose of improving her English language skills. She had nearly completed her course but admitted to me that she was failing. She couldn't seem to understand a word the Brits said in English, but easily understood my American English. Now I understand why!
 
Gumby said:
Interesting. I met a Czech woman in London who was there to attend school with the express purpose of improving her English language skills. She had nearly completed her course but admitted to me that she was failing. She couldn't seem to understand a word the Brits said in English, but easily understood my American English. Now I understand why!
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If you have a pronounced southern accent, they may think you speak as if you came from another planet. I have no trouble, and find say a Carolina accent pleasing, but people I have met in Europe say they are met with blank looks.


John
 
The standard of english, in general, has been in decline for some considerable time. This decline has been hastened, in my opinion, by the influence of the United States. Only recently a BBC correspondent in Afghanistan commented on the death of a British "lootenant-colonel" ( I can only presume that the correspondent meant lieutenant-colonel).
We also, nowadays, have train stations in Britain where once we had railway stations.
I feel that the usage of english is in mortal decline and we shall soon all have to speak american.
 
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Jmiothy said:
The standard of english, in general, has been in decline for some considerable time. This decline has been hastened, in my opinion, by the influence of the United States. Only recently a BBC correspondent in Afghanistan commented on the death of a British lootenant-colonel.
We also, nowadays, have train stations in Britain where once we had railway stations.
I feel that the usage of english is in mortal decline and we shall soon all have to speak american.
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The language belongs to all who use it. If you want a dead language, try Latin, Greek or maybe Aramaic. Did you ever wonder why English (even if it isn't the King's English) is so ubiquitous? Do you think it's because it's the language of Great Britain? Or do you think it might be because of U.S. English?

Not to be snarky, and I realize you may speak with tongue in cheek. I'm just sayin.
 
Jmiothy said:
The standard of english, in general, has been in decline for some considerable time. This decline has been hastened, in my opinion, by the influence of the United States. Only recently a BBC correspondent in Afghanistan commented on the death of a British "lootenant-colonel" ( I can only presume that the correspondent meant lieutenant-colonel).
We also, nowadays, have train stations in Britain where once we had railway stations.
I feel that the usage of english is in mortal decline and we shall soon all have to speak american.
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That's dangerous talk around here Bud! - but there is no way a Yorkshire dude like me could be influenced - our English is awsome!...the rest sucks! - go figure! 😀
 
crawdiddy said:
The language belongs to all who use it. If you want a dead language, try Latin, Greek or maybe Aramaic. Did you ever wonder why English (even if it isn't the King's English) is so ubiquitous? Do you think it's because it's the language of Great Britain? Or do you think it might be because of U.S. English?

Not to be snarky, and I realize you may speak with tongue in cheek. I'm just sayin.
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Dear Dan,

Does it? Is Italian, Provençal, Catalan, Castilian or French 'legitimate' Latin? Or are they all *******izations? EDIT: Or *astardizations or ba*tardizations -- donch'a lurve clean-up-the-*ucking-langage programmes?

Languages differentiate. Go back 1000 years and no doubt you'd find lots of people saying they all spoke the Latin that 'belonged to everyone who spoke it'. And they all spoke different languages.

Distinguishing between American and English (and indeed the Indian, Australian and South African versions of the same original language) may be premature -- but sooner or later, even American speakers are going to have to admit it, and they can't really claim that they speak English, while native-born Englishmen don't.

Anyone else for 'Anglic'?

Tashi delek,

R.
 
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Jmiothy said:
The standard of english, in general, has been in decline for some considerable time. This decline has been hastened, in my opinion, by the influence of the United States. Only recently a BBC correspondent in Afghanistan commented on the death of a British "lootenant-colonel" ( I can only presume that the correspondent meant lieutenant-colonel).
We also, nowadays, have train stations in Britain where once we had railway stations.
I feel that the usage of english is in mortal decline and we shall soon all have to speak american.
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Language is in a state of constant flux. Do you think Chaucer would approve of contemporary English? Or even understand it? Or even Shakespeare? My native language has a very small vocabulary and so it ‘borrows’ words from English like digidol from digital etc... Seeing as my ancestors had no such thing. Therefore it becomes an amalgamation like any other language. You can’t expect it to stand still and you can’t site that your own regional and temporal dialect is the ‘proper’ dialect because there cannot be a standard in a language whose dictionary is subject to yearly amendments. Why do we no longer use the word ‘thy’ to indicate a singular ‘you’ in contemporary English? Would thou consider that improper use of the word you? Is that a sign of improper use of English? How about the word ‘pig’ – it’s a relatively modern word, so is it a mark of degradation? To say that a language is in a state of degradation is absolutely ludicrous! As long as those speaking a language are able to communicate effectively said language is doing it’s job is it not?

When the UK is so blessed with such an array of dialects to the point where a Londoner would have trouble understanding me and I have a hard time understanding those from North Wales or Newcastle with their own idiosyncrasies that sometimes date back centuries what’s the difference with such a thing happening in our time? What about the remnants of Polari in English today? Brought to us by early TV shows such as the Carry On’s and Steptoe and sons dating back to the end of the first half of the last century? Can a masculine man or woman not be ‘butch’? Is that a ‘proper’ English word? Not 150 years ago! When a Scottish man asks a Welsh man how old he is the conversation goes “what age are you?” “30, I am” and when the Welshman asks the same of him it goes “how old are you?” “I’m 35”. Language is very complicated and I don’t believe people should just expect it to stand still. It’s going to change and fashions are going to come and go, some will stay some won’t. It’s life.
 
I'm not sure that you can state that language is declining, just that it's changing and moving away from a personal or temporal standard.

The example of Olde English is illustrative of this.
 
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NathanJD said:
... What about the remnants of Polari in English today? ...
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Palare? Bona to vada your dolly old eek? (Julian and Sandy, Round the Horne)

Yes, language is constantly changing. But sometimes, too, it is diverging, look you, innit?

Thee's cassn't understan' I 'cos thee'st foreign, bouy, and don' talk proper like us does over St. Denys.

A friend pointed out long ago that most Britons speak at least two dialects, according to where they are. Perhaps it was a little snobbish but as he said, "I don't talk the same languge to you as I do when I go to the garage to get my car repaired." Come to that, my oldest friend and I (same minor public school) do sometimes talk proper and sometimes like we'm where we'm from (Kernow). And he's half Hungarian...

Tashi delek,

R.
 
Roger, all of this is an interesting discourse. And since I'm waiting (what seems like forever) for some van dyke prints to dry, I'll unload with some observations/questions:

1. "Allora" in Italian has been in use for at least 30 years (so at least as long as I can remember...). Smart to use a three-syllable vocalized pause. It often gives you time to think about how you will (deferentially) tell your interlocutor to jump off a bridge ("Si prega di andare in quel paese...").

2. Why have Brits resurrected "whilst" from the discard pile, only to misuse it the same way Americans misuse "while" (i.e., as a substitute for "although?"

3. Why do Brits - who invented the concept of a "company" or a corporation as a singular artificial person under the law - consistently treat corporations as plural (or perhaps collective) nouns: "Nikon are releasing..." Nikon has been a corporation since 1917 and refers to itself in English press releases in the singular.

4. How is it that, despite having the BBC for decades, the British government has not crushed regional drift? I'm talking about High Barnet (where I lived with my parents). How can you still be on the Northern Line and not speak the Queen's English? 🙂

5. It's fascinating that when you see an American movie about the Revolutionary War, the English speak with a britannic accent and the (future) Americans always speak with a Great Lakes American accent. Really, at that time, both sides would have sounded like New Englanders.

6. How is it that British English took the French-influenced spellings of "colour," "spectre," etc., but the Americans took the straight Latin forms (color, specter, etc.)?

7. Why did the (English-speaking) Canadians adopt the word "serviette" (napkin)? If you had to guess what that was, what would it be? My guess would have been a tampon (oddly, a different type of feminine hygeine product in the States is a "sanitary napkin"). Wow. Think I can skip dinner now.

8. One thing I learned in linguistics studying in Italy is that "BBC" English has 31 vowel sounds and American English only has 13 (Italian has 7 or 5, depending on the regional variant). Aside from the fact that Americans have been the dominant tourist force for 50 years, they have the biggest army, they export the most popular culture, and they unleash the largest number of language tutors on the world, their version of English is probably easier to learn as well.

9. Many newscasters in the United States are actually Canadians (c.f. the late Peter Jennings). The Chicago-Detroit-Cleveland dialect is considered standard for broadcast, and nobody does it better than the Canadians (...just as one time in an interview, Neil Diamond said that no one could sing Christmas songs like he could...)

Whoops, prints are dry. Gotta go!

Dante
 
I love listening to the BBC news. "Their" pronunciation of certain English words really threw me at first. "Con - trov - o -see" (controversy), is my favorite.
 
There was this boy at my high school with a very pronounced British accent, even though he came to Canada with his parents at age 3. He was very full of himself.
 
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