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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 30 2011 12:39 HULKAMANIA wrote: I mean to the point where some American dialects are basically mutually unintelligible. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
You do? Do you see a UP Yooper and an inner-city Atlanta gangster having an easy time exchanging philosophy over coffee? I don't. I'm from Clarksville, TN. I have cousins-in-law from Thomaston, GA that I have a difficult time following in conversation, and we're both from "The South." Travel up the coast and you've got Philly, Baltimore, Brooklyn accents (which vary wildly from upper Maine). Compare those to Southwestern Chicano. Compare that OC California. We have highly Polish-ized English in Chicago. We have highly Sinicized English in New York and San-Fran. Miami has dialects that are practically Cuban/English pidgins. And these are only the broadest strokes, and we're still only continental. We have Alaskans, Samoans, and Puerto Ricans to consider. I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say that members of these groups might have an incredibly hard time making themselves understood to one another. The media is misleading in these areas because one of the prime missions of popular media is a speaking voice that can be easily parsed by the widest spectrum of the population possible. Education is misleading as well, because highly educated speakers tend to suppress their regional markers as much as possible. But, yes, the extent to which dialects differ between local, folk speakers from different states (or even different cities within the same state) might surprise you. It sure surprised me. | ||
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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:00 HULKAMANIA wrote: You do? Do you see a UP Yooper and an inner-city Atlanta gangster having an easy time exchanging philosophy over coffee? I don't. I'm from Clarksville, TN. I have cousins-in-law from Thomaston, GA that I have a difficult time following in conversation, and we're both from "The South." Travel up the coast and you've got Philly, Baltimore, Brooklyn accents (which vary wildly from upper Maine). Compare those to Southwestern Chicano. Compare that OC California. We have highly Polish-ized English in Chicago. We have highly Sinicized English in New York and San-Fran. Miami has dialects that are practically Cuban/English pidgins. And these are only the broadest strokes, and we're still only continental. We have Alaskans, Samoans, and Puerto Ricans to consider. I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say that members of these groups might have an incredibly hard time making themselves understood to one another. The media is misleading in these areas because one of the prime missions of popular media is a speaking voice that can be easily parsed by the widest spectrum of the population possible. Education is misleading as well, because highly educated speakers tend to suppress their regional markers as much as possible. But, yes, the extent to which dialects differ between local, folk speakers from different states (or even different cities within the same state) might surprise you. It sure surprised me. Then you have a problem with comprehension. There is literally no accent that should be unintelligible to you. Also, you're mixing english as a second language accents with native north american accents. That makes zero sense, as they aren't regional dialects. | ||
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TALegion
United States1187 Posts
The reason why english is difficult is because of the universal property of, "silent letters," found in many words. Adding on more letters to simplify the language is backwards, and proposing this idea make me think you're a troll. Also, in a short, blunt manner, I need to ask: Who gives a fuck? If someone's confused with English as a language, I don't think the words, "Color," (colour), "Harbor," (Harbour), "Labor," (Labour) and the likes are the reason why. | ||
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Grobyc
Canada18410 Posts
neighbour harbour parlour etc =/ | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:15 pfods wrote: Then you have a problem with comprehension. There is literally no accent that should be unintelligible to you. Also, you're mixing english as a second language accents with native north american accents. That makes zero sense, as they aren't regional dialects. I suppose I could have a problem with comprehension, but honestly I doubt it. I'm a highly-literate, well-educated, English-language-studies graduate student. And I've been studying linguistics academically for several years now. However: my capacities of comprehension are beside the point. What the idea of "mutual unintelligibility" implies is that native, folk speakers of one dialect could not understand native, folk speakers of another dialect. An interested third party (me) doesn't factor in. I simply mentioned my cousins-in-law to illustrate how much dialects can vary even within regions that people traditionally assume are homogenous. Also: second language accents are one of the many ways in which dialects are formed and characterized. Where do you think, for instance, the Minnesotan accent (think Fargo) came from? Minnesota? If they are Americans and they speak English. They are speaking an American dialect of English by definition. And anyway, I don't know why I'm subjecting myself to this. I can see you're well-read on dialectology and sociolinguistics, and have reasonable, nuanced opinions on the subject of language variation within these United States. I'll let you take it from here. | ||
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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:29 HULKAMANIA wrote: I suppose I could have a problem with comprehension, but honestly I doubt it. I'm a highly-literate, well-educated, English-language-studies graduate student. And I've been studying linguistics academically for several years now. And I'm a 2500 diamond zerg player, ya know? On January 30 2011 13:29 HULKAMANIA wrote: However: my capacities of comprehension are beside the point. What the idea of "mutual unintelligibility" implies is that native, folk speakers of one dialect could not understand native, folk speakers of another dialect. An interested third party (me) doesn't factor in. I simply mentioned my cousins-in-law to illustrate how much dialects can vary even within regions that people traditionally assume are homogenous. Also: second language accents are one of the many ways in which dialects are formed and characterized. Where do you think, for instance, the Minnesotan accent (think Fargo) came from? Minnesota? If they are Americans and they speak English. They are speaking an American dialect of English by definition. And anyway, I don't know why I'm subjecting myself to this. I can see you're well-read on dialectology and sociolinguistics, and have reasonable, nuanced opinions on the subject of language variation within these United States. I'll let you take it from here. This whole part is why I don't believe the first part. You can't take someone from mexico, teach him english, and now say he has an american accent/dialect. He has a mexican accent, and speaks a regional dialect, such as texan, south cali, etc. You can't claim this is a new dialect that was just invented, and use it to explain how someone from wisconsion can't understand him. That's completely intellectually dishonest. This is especially true because you mention native speakers vs native speakers above, but now you add in foreigners learning english as a second language. That just isn't how it works, no matter how much you want to act like you're steven pinker or noam chomsky by name dropping. | ||
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Phantasmic
United States15 Posts
I spell harbor, harbour. I spell color, colour. I always have and have always gotten marked off in my English classes back in the day when I was still in school. The U's in both of those words make sense. You don't say Harbor. You say harbour, same with colour. You do pronounce the u, but in America you don't put the u. | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:34 pfods wrote: And I'm a 2500 diamond zerg player, ya know? This whole part is why I don't believe the first part. You can't take someone from mexico, teach him english, and now say he has an american accent/dialect. He has a mexican accent, and speaks a regional dialect, such as texan, south cali, etc. You can't claim this is a new dialect that was just invented, and use it to explain how someone from wisconsion can't understand him. That's completely intellectually dishonest. This is especially true because you mention native speakers vs native speakers above, but now you add in foreigners learning english as a second language. That just isn't how it works, no matter how much you want to act like you're steven pinker or noam chomsky by name dropping. Anyway it's been a pleasure talking to you. | ||
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pfods
United States895 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:38 HULKAMANIA wrote: Anyway it's been a pleasure talking to you. Don't be snarky. If you're clearly correct you can mount a more effective argument than "my cousins can't understand each other oh and I'm a Ph.D in linguistics". | ||
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eLiE
Canada1039 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:28 Grobyc wrote: I find it annoying that many spellchecks (including TLs) identify words with the added u as errors. neighbour harbour parlour etc =/ Agreed! Gets super annoying, esp when my word file randomly changes back to US dictionary. | ||
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meegrean
Thailand7699 Posts
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Avaloch
241 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:49 eLiE wrote: Agreed! Gets super annoying, esp when my word file randomly changes back to US dictionary. You can set your default dictionary to be British English and delete US English as an option then it shouldn't switch randomly any more :D | ||
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nalgene
Canada2153 Posts
This character is basically "ou" Harbōr Harbor Harbour Chō Cho Chou etc Long vowels... | ||
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Inertia_EU
United Kingdom513 Posts
On January 29 2011 00:29 KwarK wrote: I'm much more worried about 'payed' and 'layed'. It seems I see these abominations more regularly than I see the correct spelling recently and it makes me sad. Before we get to work on using just one set of acceptable spellings we should teach people to spell. My thoughts exactly. Those sort of mistakes make me cringe. | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19180 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:28 Grobyc wrote: I find it annoying that many spellchecks (including TLs) identify words with the added u as errors. neighbour harbour parlour etc =/ TL doesn't have a spellcheck. It's your browser that does. In Firefox, Tools > Options > Content > Languages. Canadian and British spell check dictionaries are available (and probably others too). On January 30 2011 13:15 pfods wrote: Then you have a problem with comprehension. There is literally no accent that should be unintelligible to you. Also, you're mixing english as a second language accents with native north american accents. That makes zero sense, as they aren't regional dialects. Indians are native English speakers. Put one of them in a room with someone from Boston, and I promise you nobody will know what the fuck is happening. And if you want to restrict the dialects to just North America, put someone from Boston and someone from New Orleans in a room; same thing will happen. On January 30 2011 13:38 Phantasmic wrote: For having lived in America my whole life and never being out of country, I tend to spell in the British-English area. I spell harbor, harbour. I spell color, colour. I always have and have always gotten marked off in my English classes back in the day when I was still in school. The U's in both of those words make sense. You don't say Harbor. You say harbour, same with colour. You do pronounce the u, but in America you don't put the u. Maybe you don't, but in Philly we actually pronounce them more like harber and kuhller. In which case, the u alone make sense, and the o is superfluous. By the way you've posted, I'm inclined to think that you've read the OP and maybe a few other posts, but haven't bothered with the tail end of the thread, as you've gone and clumped about two dozen distinct American dialects into "you". Way to go. | ||
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StellarSails
United States32 Posts
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world! | ||
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GreEny K
Germany7312 Posts
On January 29 2011 00:44 theSAiNT wrote: I'm afraid that's just not true. English is NOT a phonetic language (whatever your teachers may tell you.) The pronunciation of words is not a direct function of spelling unlike in some other languages (Spanish I believe is close to phonetic). Harbor (American) and Harbour (UK) should be pronounced the same. Serbo-Croatian is the same way, pronounce it the way it is spelled. Makes life much easier when you're growing up and learning your own language, how to write and read. | ||
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GreEny K
Germany7312 Posts
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GreEny K
Germany7312 Posts
On January 30 2011 13:34 pfods wrote: And I'm a 2500 diamond zerg player, ya know? Not impressed | ||
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