Now in non-standard forms of English, I would probably start to have understanding difficulties. In the example Benjamin initially gave:
Tha wance wes ih wren wee hed med his nest in thi garidge. He lived theor wiris famly. Wurn day he end his marras went oot tu luck fo surm scran tu bring theor banties, leavin thi yung bords aal alern.
I can easily turn most of it back into plain English:
There once was a wren which had made his nest in the garage. He lived there with his family. One day he and his marras went out to look for some scran to bring their banties, leaving the young birds all alone.
The words in boldface are unfamiliar to me, but from context, I can guess that marras is probably missus (itself a dialectical form of mistress, but a common one), scran is probably food, and banties are babies. So I'm doing okay there -- in print. As Benjamin points out, though, the accent would probably be difficult for me to follow until I got used to it. But I'm guessing that it would be the accent and not the few changes in vocabulary that would prove the biggest impediment to understanding!
Caribbean forms of English probably give us better examples of dialectical divergence. In them, there are major grammatical changes that differ markedly from any British, American, Canadian, or Antipodean standard speech. When I hear songs in those dialects on the radio, they can be hard to follow sometimes, and not just because of the accents. I'm sure rapid speech would be almost impossible to understand. I remember watching the movie "The Harder They Fall", set in Jamaica, and needing the subtitles to get through it. I suspect the same holds true for standard French and Haitian French, if greg's past examples of it are any indication. _________________ An apple a day....
Now in non-standard forms of English, I would probably start to have understanding difficulties. In the example Benjamin initially gave:
Tha wance wes ih wren wee hed med his nest in thi garidge. He lived theor wiris famly. Wurn day he end his marras went oot tu luck fo surm scran tu bring theor banties, leavin thi yung bords aal alern.
I can easily turn most of it back into plain English:
There once was a wren which had made his nest in the garage. He lived there with his family. One day he and his marras went out to look for some scran to bring their banties, leaving the young birds all alone.
The words in boldface are unfamiliar to me, but from context, I can guess that marras is probably missus (itself a dialectical form of mistress, but a common one), scran is probably food, and banties are babies. So I'm doing okay there -- in print. As Benjamin points out, though, the accent would probably be difficult for me to follow until I got used to it. But I'm guessing that it would be the accent and not the few changes in vocabulary that would prove the biggest impediment to understanding!
Mind you that "accent" as you put it is just as much an aspect of English dialects as things like syntax, morphology, and lexicon... it is not a distinct thing from such in reality.
Uriel wrote:
Caribbean forms of English probably give us better examples of dialectical divergence. In them, there are major grammatical changes that differ markedly from any British, American, Canadian, or Antipodean standard speech. When I hear songs in those dialects on the radio, they can be hard to follow sometimes, and not just because of the accents. I'm sure rapid speech would be almost impossible to understand. I remember watching the movie "The Harder They Fall", set in Jamaica, and needing the subtitles to get through it. I suspect the same holds true for standard French and Haitian French, if greg's past examples of it are any indication.
Mind you that what the general populace speaks in Jamaica is not English. The majority in Jamaica actually speaks Jamaican Creole, which is actually a distinct language from English, and even the English commonly spoken there is heavily influenced by such (due to such being a product of decreolization). Same thing applies to Haiti, but with Haitian Creole and French instead. Neither case can be called dialect divergence, as creole formation is a distinctly different process from such.
Accent and dialect are still distinct. Lots of people speak the same dialect with different accents.
Accent (or phonology) is one of many ways in which dialects can differ from each-other. There doesn't have to be significant lexical or syntactic differences between varieties for them to constitute different dialects. At least in Europe, if differences are significant enough between dialects such that understanding is genuinely impeded, they tend to be viewed as different languages — even though the distinction is ultimately very arbitrary and often political.
However, you are correct to say that the differences between British Received Pronunciation, Conservative General American, Refined Australian etc. are in reality very slight. This is primarily because they are all derived from varieties spoken in Southeast England.
Accent and dialect are still distinct. Lots of people speak the same dialect with different accents.
Accent (or phonology) is one of many ways in which dialects can differ from each-other. There doesn't have to be significant lexical or syntactic differences between varieties for them to constitute different dialects. At least in Europe, if differences are significant enough between dialects such that understanding is genuinely impeded, they tend to be viewed as different languages — even though the distinction is ultimately very arbitrary and often political.
Unfortunately, such is often made more confusing by the common use of the word dialect by even some linguists to refer to traditional dialects, such as those of northern England or southwestern England. The matter is that in many cases, such traditional dialects could almost be considered to be distinct languages from the standard languages with which they are commonly grouped, such as with respect to traditional northern English English dialects and southeastern English English or conservative rural North Germanic dialects and the continental North Germanic standard languages. Hence, it is implied that if some variety is not that distinct from a standard language, it is not really a "dialect".
Benjamin wrote:
However, you are correct to say that the differences between British Received Pronunciation, Conservative General American, Refined Australian etc. are in reality very slight. This is primarily because they are all derived from varieties spoken in Southeast England.
Mind you that all North American English dialects other than Newfoundland English are derived from dialects spoken in southeastern England; while some do have some other Scottish and Irish English, that is little different in reality from, say, German and Scandinavian influence upon NAE dialects. What makes conservative GA basically different from RP is not simply its genetic relation to southeastern English English dialects but rather its basic conservativeness - really the only way in which it differs from the southeastern English English at the time which it split from it is really relatively limited phonological changes, primarily a series of vowel mergers. This is as opposed to more progressive NAE varieties, which have many things such as the complete loss of phonemic vowel length, large-scale vowel shifts, significant elision and assimilation, much the less significant verbal system changes (shared by at least all modern NAE dialects).
Mind you that what the general populace speaks in Jamaica is not English. The majority in Jamaica actually speaks Jamaican Creole, which is actually a distinct language from English, and even the English commonly spoken there is heavily influenced by such (due to such being a product of decreolization). Same thing applies to Haiti, but with Haitian Creole and French instead. Neither case can be called dialect divergence, as creole formation is a distinctly different process from such.
The everyday language in Jamaica is called Patois - and you are right, it is not exactly English, but a creole based upon English and their native African language. As my parents are Jamaican, I can understand Patois, even imitate it. However, most Jamaicans can understand and to length even speak English - it is the national language after all and all signs, government documents, textbooks etc are written in English. Nothing is written in Jamaican Patois - it has no real standard for writing.
Honestly though I never thought it was that different from English, but then I'm at an unfair advantage, seeing as I grew up in a Patois speaking family. I was reading the wikipedia entry on Jamaican Patois the other day and I am think they translate the phrases in really odd ways.
Quote:
/mi afi suim/ ('I ought to swim' or 'I should swim')
Um, it's "I have to swim"! I can break down the syllables quite easily.
mi = I
af = have
fi = to
suim = swim
Not that hard when you know how to break down the syllables. Of course the accent can take some getting used, but isn't that true of all languages?
Mind you that what the general populace speaks in Jamaica is not English. The majority in Jamaica actually speaks Jamaican Creole, which is actually a distinct language from English, and even the English commonly spoken there is heavily influenced by such (due to such being a product of decreolization). Same thing applies to Haiti, but with Haitian Creole and French instead. Neither case can be called dialect divergence, as creole formation is a distinctly different process from such.
The everyday language in Jamaica is called Patois - and you are right, it is not exactly English, but a creole based upon English and their native African language. As my parents are Jamaican, I can understand Patois, even imitate it. However, most Jamaicans can understand and to length even speak English - it is the national language after all and all signs, government documents, textbooks etc are written in English. Nothing is written in Jamaican Patois - it has no real standard for writing.
The matter is that very large parts of the world are like that in reality; it is not strange at all for the general population to speak things other than the official language or even the primary literary language in a given area. Take the many modern Arabic varieties (which are in no fashion crossintelligible despite all being called "Arabic") versus Modern Standard Arabic, which everyone literate in the Arabic-speaking world can read and write despite few being able to speak it fluently, or the many Chinese languages versus Standard Mandarin, where the vast majority's home language is in their local language even though the vast majority of writing today is in Standard Mandarin and a large part of the population today is bilingual in their local language and Standard Mandarin.
Tiffany wrote:
I was reading the wikipedia entry on Jamaican Patois the other day and I am think they translate the phrases in really odd ways.
Quote:
/mi afi suim/ ('I ought to swim' or 'I should swim')
Um, it's "I have to swim"! I can break down the syllables quite easily.
mi = I
af = have
fi = to
suim = swim
Not that hard when you know how to break down the syllables.
The matter is that it is very easy to see afi as being analyzed as a single; mind you that its analogue hafta in very many English dialects also practically functions as a single word and not two separate words have and to.
Tiffany wrote:
Of course the accent can take some getting used, but isn't that true of all languages?
The case of Jamaican Creole is a special case, in that it exists in a practical continuum of forms with English, even though it itself is strictly speaking a creole and not an English dialect. Consequently, it very easy to see someone talking to a native English-speaker in forms closer to English dialects outside Jamaica even though their home language is not actually English.
Ok, I wasn't really trying to diminish the difference, but they could make it a lot easier for people trying to understand it by giving more easily recognizable breakdowns. That's mostly what I was trying to say.
/fi/ doesn't always mean "to" (it can mean "for" or signal possessive depending on context), but it's reasonable to be aware that it does much of the time. And /af/ always means "have".
/wa mi fi do/
wha = what
mi = I
fi = to
do = do
It means "What am I to do".
To say "I have two apples to give away" you'd say /mi af two apples fi giv way/
/a fi/ does mean something different, but it's always pronounced a bit differently, the "a" stressed more to denote that it's not "af" [have]. Plus it's always followed by a pronoun and it denotes possession /a fi mi son/ "He's my son".
And my personal opinion I already admitted was based on an unfair advantage. I don't expect others to just get it, but I was trying to illustrate that I see a lot of easily understood parallels. But yea, my Italian husband speaks and understands AmE English well, but he can't always understand my Dad (who speaks more Patois more of the time with a heavier accent than my Mom), but I am not sure how much is due to Patois and how much is due to accent. He can't understand other English accents as well either. My mom does speak Patois to him at times too and he seems to understand her. But maybe he's just used to her... Anyway.
Lots of Patois is hard of course - /a/ I readily admit is difficult - it can mean many many things depending on context. And I can't explain why it's there sometimes - it just needs to be there.
The everyday language in Jamaica is called Patois - and you are right, it is not exactly English, but a creole based upon English and their native African language.
Interesting that the term patois is actually used for a non-French creole. Do you know if this designation is neutral or not ? Is its pronunciation close to Fr /patwa/ ?
Interesting that the term patois is actually used for a non-French creole. Do you know if this designation is neutral or not ?
I remember when I was at school, we studied some poems by two Guyanese poets — Grace Nichols and John Agard. The teacher said that the spelling patwa was preferred by English(?)-speaking Caribbean people, but that patois was the more common spelling in Britain. Having said that, she also 'speculated' that the reason why Grace Nichols and John Agard were married was because there probably weren't many poets in Guyana and had therefore had to make do with whomever was there — so I'm not quite sure that I completely trust her judgement.
Sorry! I got a new computer and completely lost my old bookmarks! In addition to being super busy t work, I only recovered them today.
As Benjamin says it is pronounced /patwa/ and that is what they say the speak. Not need for any modifier, just patois. Not sure how you spell it though as I have never seen it written by a speaker of the language.
The point Fab and I are trying to make, is that there really isn't much of a difference between American English and British English.
American black people often speak an uneducated, improper form of English sometimes called "ebonics". Now it's still 100% English, but they tend to speak in a certain way so that they pronounce things a bit differently, and they use improper grammar, along with a limited vocabulary, and make use of unique slang. But we can understand them just fine. They only speak English, but like uneducated persons, which is essentially what the guys in the pubs of Northumbria are doing. When they go to school, they learn proper English, what you would call "Standard English", but at home or in a casual setting, they will revert back to their "ghetto" talk, and use improper grammar such as "us books".
Your linguistically baseless notion that the 2 standards are "Real English" and that the various forms of spoken colloquial English are "just" "improper" and "uneducated" is causing you to miss the point. I grew up in a working class rural Upper Midwestern community and my spoken speech betrays that fact, it is just that such things are invisible in writing because the Standard English used in writing is archaic and formal, nobody except snobbish jerks actually talk like that. I write or type "Dad and I will be walking there" but when talking I say "Me 'n Dad're gonna be walkin dere" (phonetically [mi n dɛəd ɚ gɜ̃ɾə βi wakn deɹ]). That's not "uneducated", that is simply the way I, and most of my peers, usually talk.
So the prime minister of Great Britain can meet with the leaders of the world on international television and speak like this?:
I ain't got no time for they problems all up in dat phat middle east. They gots problems that we can't do nothing about. You know what I be saying?
If a person studying English tried to speak like that, he would be corrected, or recieve a poor grade on his paper for using double negatives, the wrong words etc., and other improper grammar. But why should they recieve a bad score or need to be corrected in the first place, if it is not "improper"? The fact is,[/b]it is improper. There has to be some realistic conventions within a language, some form of a standardized way of communication so that everyone can understand each other. That is the whole purpose of grammar. If people don't follow the established criteria for proper grammar within a language, then they are speaking "improperly".
You are confusing correctness with formality. One doesn't say "I ain't got no time for they problems all up in dat phat middle east. They gots problems that we can't do nothing about. You know what I be saying?" in that situation because it is "wrong", one doesn't say it because it is informal.
Well, I'm afraid you misunderstand. We're not even talking about variations in speech between regions here in the U.S., because there really isn't any difference! The only difference in the way people speak is between ignorant/uneducated ones and those who are literate and educated.
"There is very little REAL variation in American English, it's only differences in education" is circular reasoning.
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Accent and dialect are still distinct. Lots of people speak the same dialect with different accents.
