It means in my Pidgin English: I don't really know what I wanted to say with that. _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
Yep, you got the standard translation down perfectly. But "iz" in "snizob" is actually the way some black people alter words in order to be "creative". This feature is a very recent adaptation, inspired by the rapper by the name of "Snoop Dog", who changed words in such a way in one of his songs. So, many blacks now speak like that.
Benjamin would say that this is merely an expression of their "dialect", and that nothing at all is improper about it. _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:42 pm Post subject:
Porthos wrote:
If no form of speaking or writing is inherently wrong, then I should be able to write like this, without any of you looking down on me:
Leenguishics ais a vary komplikated ishue. Akordin to sum a yall, wall shood bes able to tak however wes wants, cuz it don't mater, cuz yall edumukated folks is a bunch of snizobs.
I wouldn't look down on you for writing like that; I only look down on you for not acknowledging a difference between being inherently wrong and being stigmatized.
Benjamin would say that this is merely an expression of their "dialect", and that nothing at all is improper about it.
If you speak that way, it isn't. If you would write it down that way...well, that would be a a wee bit problematic in certain situations. However, your piece of writing seems to be a borderline case...you see? I got it right.
But it isn't pure unadultered AAVE you put in here, is it?
Although I'm esentially a descriptivist (as I have mentioned ad nauseam here and in another forum, too), I DO think that children have to be made familiar with the standard written (and spoken) forms at school. For the simple reason that their life will be far less complicated and they can avoid being misunderstood or labelled as "uneducated", "lazy" or even "unintelligent" by people who might fit in this description more than the poor dialect speaker.
At the same time, I think all dialects and language varieties are worthy and valid but it applies to spoken language. Writing is another kettle of fish. It's an abstraction of language and not *the* language itself. Writing was standardised on a purely practical basis, as pointed out earlier. I hope no-one wants to go back to the times before the standardisation of spelling when anyone could write anything the way he wanted to. It would be slightly cumbersome, don't you think so? _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
Last edited by Liz on Tue May 15, 2007 1:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
The reason for this is purely practical. Imagine what would happen if every single person in the UK were allowed to write according to the rules of their own native dialects in formal situations as well. Everything would go pear shaped for sure as speakers of one particular dialect might not understand the non-standard writing of an other dialect speaker.
Exactly! And this is precisely why it is important to have a standard! If it weren't for standards or accepted norms, we wouldn't be able to effectively communicate with one another! Imagine that.
My response to this would be that it might not really be necessary that people from Southwest England can communicate effectively with people from Northeast Scotland in their respective dialects. Afterall, no-one seems to be too bothered that this sort of communication is not usually possible between people from, say, England and the Netherlands or Germany, and much less with France, for example.
Porthos wrote:
If no form of speaking or writing is inherently wrong,
No form of speaking or writing is inherently 'wrong', providing that it conforms to the complex internal rules present within that system.
Porthos wrote:
then I should be able to write like this, without any of you looking down on me:
Leenguishics ais a vary komplikated ishue. Akordin to sum a yall, wall shood bes able to tak however wes wants, cuz it don't mater, cuz yall edumukated folks is a bunch of snizobs.
I wouldn't look down on you, no.
Liz wrote:
What about that?
"Linguistics is a very complicated issue. According to some of Y'all, we all should be able to talk however we wants, 'cause it don't matter, 'cause y'all educated folks is a bunch of snobs."
(I hope I've got it right as a non-American English speaker... )
It's standard ortography but still, the grammar is non-standard. What do you think of that?
This is the sort of thing I'm proposing. Not so much radical differences in spelling, because English spelling is largely etymological rather than phonemic anyway.
Porthos wrote:
Benjamin would say that this is merely an expression of their "dialect", and that nothing at all is improper about it.
Of course. As Deborah pointed out, you fail to make a distinction between 'improper' and 'stigmatised'.
I know that I went out on a limb there. I expected a barrage of replies that were contradictory to my personal set of beliefs. I continue to stand by my own convictions. However, I have a presentiment that I am playing a totally different ball game here and it is patently obvious that linguistics is and has never been my field of expertise.
All of you made valid responses. I do not denigrate the viability of dialects, God forbid. I'd be one of the first to mourn their loss if they ever go the way of the infamous Dodo.
However, I do not think like a linguist here. My treatment towards the issue is akin to that of a government policymaker with his eyes on social cohesion as well as national identity. To me, language and politics are natural bedfellows. When we speak a language, we assert a communal identity. Languages can be used to include as well as to exclude individuals. To me, language is a tool to further cultural ends.
This is why I am casting aspersions on the viability of literature being produced in any dialect. It is simply not a viable business model for any respectable publishing house worth its weight in salt to commit itself to printing works in a non-standard dialect. Did Shakespeare write overwhelmingly in dialect (assuming his native dialect differed substantially from the standard) or did he have his finger on the pulse of the literary public and write in a language that was best able to communicate his ideas?
Would Karl Marx's Das Kapital have been a bestseller of his times if it was written in his own dialect instead of standard High German?
As for Benjamin's outrageous proposition that people of dialect-speaking backgrounds should be given carte blanche to write in a way that conforms to their native speech patterns, I can only wring my hands in dispair. The corollary of his argument would be that all native English dialect speakers have the right to write phonetically irrespective of geographical boundaries. Or does this privilege to write phonetically only extend to people of the British Isles?
So the Chinese exchange student in Sixteen Candles was speaking a legitimate form of English when he yelped, 'Wassa happening hot stuff? No more yankie, my wankie!'
Whatever that means, linguists locked up in their ivory towers would probably clamour to confer a degree of legitimacy on such forms of speech and urge society to accept that people who speak like that have a grasp of English which is anyway as good as Shakespeare's - it is just different, that's all. _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
If you speak that way, it isn't. If you would write it down that way...well, that would be a a wee bit problematic in certain situations. However, your piece of writing seems to be a borderline case...you see? I got it right.
But it isn't pure unadultered AAVE you put in here, is it?
Although I'm esentially a descriptivist (as I have mentioned ad nauseam here and in another forum, too), I DO think that children have to be made familiar with the standard written (and spoken) forms at school. For the simple reason that their life will be far less complicated and they can avoid being misunderstood or labelled as "uneducated", "lazy" or even "unintelligent" by people who might fit in this description more than the poor dialect speaker.
At the same time, I think all dialects and language varieties are worthy and valid but it applies to spoken language. Writing is another kettle of fish. It's an abstraction of the language and not *the* language itself. Writing was standardised on a purely practical basis, as pointed out earlier. I hope no-one wants to go back to the times before the standardisation of spelling when anyone could write anything the way he wanted to. It would be slightly cumbersome, don't you think so?
Bingo. Thank you, Ma'am. You hit the bull's eye. You just hit my detractors for a six. _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
Bingo. Thank you, Ma'am. You hit the bull's eye. You just hit my detractors for a six.
I'm honoured. /Blushes at being called "Ma'am" for the first time ever. /
It wasn't my intention, though...I mean "hitting your detractors for a six" as I'm partly acting like a detractor of yours, however, to a lesser extent than Benjamin.
As far as Shakespeare is concerned, he DID write things that you would consider non-standard forms nowadays, for instance, double negatives, synthetical and analytical forms of superlative mixed (e.g. the most unkindest) and so on.
What about Chaucer then? The biggest part of The Canterbury Tales is written in dialect, still it's one of the best known and the most acknowledged literary works ever written.
The cult novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess was written in a Russian-English mixed language which is not even an existing dialect but a fictional cant.
Some contemporary Scottish and Irish dramas/novels wouldn't be popular at all if they hadn't been written in vernacular. (I don't name names here because I don't feel like bashing contemporary writers on a forum like this.) Trainspotting is a little different from these books but the fact that half of the novel was written in Edinburgh vernacular makes it even more interesting.
I could go on and on with other examples from the English as well as the world's literature, ad infinitum.[/i] _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
I'm woefully ignoring American literature...What a shame!
So: Mark Twain, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston...there are much more books worth mentioning but my head is empty at the moment. It isn't empty in fact but it's rather full of other things as I'm completely snowed under.
I haven't mentioned literary works written in other languages, either, but it would be ever so time-consuming... _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
Shakespeare was a revolutionary and he, to put it crudely, genuinely knows his stuff. When he wrote about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or the milk of human kindness, he stringed words together to form a euphony.
'Wassa happening hot stuff? No more yankie, my wankie' is just cacophony.
I am sure there are books written in a dialect instead of in the standard English. In fact, many poems of Robert Burns were not written in the Queen's English. However, it is also not accurate to say that Burns wrote in a dialect as he was merely adhering to the conventions of standard Scottish English of his time.
As for Mark Twain, as far as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are concerned, he wrote in standard English while resorting to the vernacular to fill in his dialogues. This, I approve of heartily and have no criticism of weaving dialect into speeches in order to confer an air of legitimacy on the storyline.
_________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
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