No one speaks english anymore??

On 3/16/2013 11:17 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2013-03-16 20:03:03 -0700, PeterN said:

On 3/15/2013 11:19 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2013-03-15 20:07:31 -0700, MaxD said:

On 3/15/2013 3:14 AM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2013-03-15 01:00:51 -0700, Rob said:


The French don't want to speak to Canadian French speaking people.
Must have been the war the French lost and still show hostilities.

Most of the "Arcadians" ended up in Louisiana, and nobody understands
them.


excusez-moi!!

Max

You have mois which need excusing?
OK! I guess I should have spelt it correctly, "Acadians".

Careful you don't OD on andouille, I understand the DEA is considering
labeling it a controlled substance.


I hear there is a move to ban poutine.

I don't believe poutine made it into Cajun cuisine, or even much beyond
a minor intrusion, just below the North-Eastern Canadian-US border.
...unless there is a little known "poutine underground" which Homeland
Security has yet to unearth.



The grounds for a proposed ban on poutine are the polar opposites of any
ban on Debouillie.


--
PeterN

On 17/03/2013 1:53 PM, PeterN wrote:
On 3/15/2013 3:35 PM, Robert Coe wrote:
On Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:02:40 +1100, Rob wrote:
: Sitting in a restaurant in Switzerland a group of Japanese were in to
: dine. The waiter spoke German (Swiss dialect) so in this situation they
: were communicating in broken English, funniest thing I've seen for a
: long time of course I knew what they were saying and understood the
: conversation but I don't think either understood each other.

Once at a hotel restaurant in Trondheim, Norway, the waitress
addressed me in
English, but I decided to try out my 3-day-old Norwegian. She immediately
concluded that I didn't speak either language and smoothly switched to
German.
I know enough German to grasp what she was saying, but I knew when I was
licked and reverted to English. The waitress didn't tell me I was
crazy, but
I'm sure that's what she thought.

After spending a week in Spain, I worked up the nerve to try my pigeon
Spanish by asking for directions: The young lady I asked replied, with a
distinctly British accent, "I'm sorry sir, I don't understand Spanish."



Speaking Swiss/German this chap came up and asked "where's the railway
station", which I understood, my reply in English "down there" I don't
know what his thoughts were.

Rob wrote:

Speaking Swiss/German this chap came up and asked "where's the railway
station", which I understood, my reply in English "down there" I don't
know what his thoughts were.

He only understood "railway station".

(Translate that!)

-Wolfgang

On Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:46:42 -0400, Robert Coe wrote:

But
enough people say that they find southern accents incomprehensible that I have
to believe them.

Bob


I've lived all over the U.S., and I think it's a bit of snobbery
personally.

rwalker wrote:
On Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:46:42 -0400, Robert Coe wrote:

But
enough people say that they find southern accents incomprehensible that I have
to believe them.

Bob

I've lived all over the U.S., and I think it's a bit of snobbery
personally.

Well, it may or may not be in any given instance, but
you can rest assured that it is in many case merely an
expression of a fact. Probably any linguist could
provide more specific details, but I am personally aware
of how accents and dialects affect English, Spanish, and
two Eskimo languages. Which is to say that it is not
unique to the accents of Southerners in the US, but is a
universal trait for all peoples around the globe.

One personal example is really very interesting in
understanding it too. I was born in Western Washington,
and did not hear anyone with a different accent until I
was about 10 years old. At that time I encountered a
school teacher from New York City, and an engineer from
New Jersey. They said lots of strange things in strange
ways, and I could understand them but with lots of
giggles. The guy from NYC didn't know corn had to be
planted every year... and the guy from New Jersey
mentioned a "donkey" one day and had a room full of
people rolling on the floor laughing! He said "d-unkey"
rather than "d-onkey". (Look it up in a
dictionary... both are correct!) And then...

In about 1956 they had race riots in the south, and it
was on TV. I could not understand a word they said!
While an accent from the North East was strange, an
accent from the South was impossible. And then...

Time moved on, and my family moved to Tucson Arizona. A
few years later I attended the University of Arizona,
and took a chemistry class with a lab, and my assigned
lab partner was from Brooklyn NY. I couldn't understand
a word he said! After living in Arizona a Southern
accent (neighbors from Arkansas) sounded slightly odd,
but understandable. And someone from the North East was
impossible to understand. Yet I had never really
noticed and difference between the accents of Washington
and Arizona.

That is, in about 5 years of exposure to the language as
spoken in Arizona as opposed to how it is spoken in
Washington, my ability to understand accents completely
flip flopped. Washington is more similar to the North East,
Arizona is more similar to the South.

Today of course television has changed America in many
ways, and regional accents that thick are less common.
We tend to hear each of them often enough to recognize
the words with relative easy.

But, I have a friend who was born in England. She
perhaps does not speak the Queen's English, but she
certainly can sound English. Another friend and I
delight in telling others about some of her classic
forms of speach impediment: like saying "sqiwerls" when
she means a squirrel. The first time we heard her say
that it was 5 minutes before either of us could talk...

Whatever, regional accents and dialectic differences in
how language is spoken and used are very real and are
not in any way a class distinction.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On Sun, 17 Mar 2013 18:51:46 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Whatever, regional accents and dialectic differences in
how language is spoken and used are very real and are
not in any way a class distinction.

Well, that's one take on it.

| Time moved on, and my family moved to Tucson Arizona. A
| few years later I attended the University of Arizona,
| and took a chemistry class with a lab, and my assigned
| lab partner was from Brooklyn NY. I couldn't understand
| a word he said!

I once lived in Tucson, but I don't remember any Arizona
accent. Most of the older people I knew were from NY. The
younger people were mainly midwest immigrants. The U of A
students seemed to be mainly from California. I only had one
acquaintance who was a Tucson native and she had no
discernible accent.

| Whatever, regional accents and dialectic differences in
| how language is spoken and used are very real and are
| not in any way a class distinction.
|

In my experience they're nothing but. Anyone who goes to
colllege these days comes out with an Ohio-style, neutral
accent. It's become the mark of culture. *Any* local accent
indicates a person who is not versed in the standards of
the PC multiculturalism that's disseminated through mainstream
media and required for white-collar employment. But of course
the educated classes no longer make fun of yokels. So long
as they don't live nearby such people are appreciated as living
examples of rich, "authentic" ethnicity and interviewed for PBS
documentaries.

rwalker wrote:
On Sun, 17 Mar 2013 18:51:46 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Whatever, regional accents and dialectic differences in
how language is spoken and used are very real and are
not in any way a class distinction.

Well, that's one take on it.

But it is also an easily verifable take (which any
linguist will expond on), while saying that such
distinctions are merely snobbery, probably is itself an
expression of snobbery.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"Mayayana" wrote:
| Time moved on, and my family moved to Tucson Arizona. A
| few years later I attended the University of Arizona,
| and took a chemistry class with a lab, and my assigned
| lab partner was from Brooklyn NY. I couldn't understand
| a word he said!

I once lived in Tucson, but I don't remember any Arizona
accent. Most of the older people I knew were from NY. The
younger people were mainly midwest immigrants. The U of A
students seemed to be mainly from California. I only had one
acquaintance who was a Tucson native and she had no
discernible accent.

You do understand what "no discernible accent" means,
right?

I met a young woman here in Barrow few years ago that I
noticed had "no discernable accent". Now, that was as
opposed to her mother, who was born in Asia and had a
very distinct accent!

So I mentioned to this lady one day that she didn't have
an accent; she misunderstood me and thought I was
referencing her lack of a foreign accent. She pointed
out that she had been born in the America and was a
genuine American. So I said, no no no, I mean, you
ain't got no accent girl! You sound like the kids who
grew up next door to me. And I asked her where she grew
up at.

Literally twenty miles away from where I grew up! She
indeed had no accent... to me. (The two people I was
with had a field day telling us that we both had a very
distinct accent...)

Note that the differences in accents all up and down the
western US is only slight. It is very hard to point out
difference between speach in Washington and Arizona (ask
them to pronounce "Washington State" and to tell you
what they do when they they wash their hands, and you'll
hear the difference). Arizona (at least in the 1960's)
was influenced greatly by southerners and people who
spoke Spanish. Washington was more influenced by New
England.

| Whatever, regional accents and dialectic differences in
| how language is spoken and used are very real and are
| not in any way a class distinction.

Perhaps I should have put more emphasis on the fact that
I was taking about *regional* accents. There can of
course also be differences between classes, but that
isn't a regional accent either.

In my experience they're nothing but. Anyone who goes to
colllege these days comes out with an Ohio-style, neutral
accent. It's become the mark of culture.

It actually has very little to do with a college
education, and has a great deal to do with the ubiquity
of television exposure to young children.

*Any* local accent
indicates a person who is not versed in the standards of
the PC multiculturalism that's disseminated through mainstream
media and required for white-collar employment.

Not really. It would indicate someone who had been
isolated from that as a child. Radio, Televison and the
movies are all a great influence, but the penetration of
TV into virtually all homes by approximately 1960 is by
far the most signficant cause.

But of course
the educated classes no longer make fun of yokels.

What planet do you reference this to???? eh??? :-)

So long
as they don't live nearby such people are appreciated as living
examples of rich, "authentic" ethnicity and interviewed for PBS
documentaries.

I hope you realize that concept is one that comes into a
great deal of conversation which could be likened to
this business of "make fun of yokels"! I was explaining
precisely that this afternoon to a visitor here in
Barrow who has a moderate interest in anthropology and
wanted to learn about the effects of a small population
that is extremely diverse and very multilingual.

Just that here the tables are turned in terms of just
who or what defines a "yokel". Typically for example
anyone schooled in anthropology more than 40 years ago
is almost certainly a yokel unless they can show
otherwise. The more famous the school they attened, the
harder the proof will be.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

Tony Cooper wrote:
On Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:55:31 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:


| Time moved on, and my family moved to Tucson Arizona. A
| few years later I attended the University of Arizona,
| and took a chemistry class with a lab, and my assigned
| lab partner was from Brooklyn NY. I couldn't understand
| a word he said!

I once lived in Tucson, but I don't remember any Arizona
accent. Most of the older people I knew were from NY. The
younger people were mainly midwest immigrants. The U of A
students seemed to be mainly from California. I only had one
acquaintance who was a Tucson native and she had no
discernible accent.

Floyd made no claims about an Arizona accent. He happened to be in
Arizona, and was in conversations with a Brooklynite. It was the
Brooklynite who had the accent. The Arizona reference was simply
where he happened to be when he came across the Brooklyn accent.

The point was that I had in fact been in Arizona long
enough, and at an age, where by that time I most
distinctly spoke more with an Arizona accent as opposed
to a Washington accent.

The Brooklyn, Bronx, New York accent being such that not a word could
be understood is, of course, hyperbole.

Not so. I literally could not understand enough to
carry on even a simple conversation. The one I remember
was the first thing he said, which it turned out was
something to the effect that we needed some "water". I
was embarrassed to ask him to repeat it... six times!
What I did was look at what he was reading in the book,
realized what he would want to do, and from that
determined what he was saying. I could not understand
enough of what he said to even get the context to pick
out words I didn't recognize.

Certainly, some people from
that area have pronounced accents and use some terms that are not
idiomatic to Washingtonians (where Floyd was from) or to Arizonians
(where Floyd was at the time), but they are for the most part
understandable. The biggest difference, to my ear, is that they sound
more aggressive in normal conversation than I'm used to as a native
Midwesterner.

The key words are "to my ear". Everyone has a different
ear, and the accent you are most used to listening to is
"no accent at all". To your ear...

But certainly to someone somewhere it is probably the
thickest accent they've ever heard!

| Whatever, regional accents and dialectic differences in
| how language is spoken and used are very real and are
| not in any way a class distinction.
|

In my experience they're nothing but. Anyone who goes to
colllege these days comes out with an Ohio-style, neutral
accent.

That's as much hyperbolic as Floyd's comment. Some coming out of the
better eastern universities cultivate what would be called in the UK
"RP", or "Received Pronunciation" that is associated with the
upper-class. Some coming out of SEC universities strive to maintain
their southern accents as a mark of their own special culture and
charm.

There are some, of course, who do work at acquiring a more neutral
accent, but it's not as prevalent as you indicate. And, some who
should.

What is defined as a "more neutral accent" depends
entirely on where one is located. In the US it was long
thought that Nebraska was just about the perfect place
to learn English if a job in the TV or Radio industry
was the point. Bill Moyers was one of, and probably the
first, with a Texas accent to make it big. And that may
of course have partially been the result of people
listening to Lyndon Johnson as the President of the
United States.

Incidentally, in high school and in college I worked in
the broadcasting industry in Tucson, including working
for the two Spanish language radio stations that existed
at the time. Trust that the Spanish accents from south
of our border are just as varied as the English is north
of the border. A typical announcer in Mexico at the
time had to come from the northern central part of
Mexico. Border town Spanish was not acceptable, nor was
their equivalent of our "Southerner" from the Yukatan.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)