The American Language

[auld argonian]

Great PBS series: The Story of English...

...made a case for AE and UKE as seperate dialects of the same language.

Also pointed out that he spoken English of Shakespeare's day had many similarities to what we consider Southern USA dialect in terms of pronunciation and inflection.

Must be a book or a website about it somewhere.

Also Robert McNeal (Canadian cum USA American) did a series on Do You Speak American? that was limited to regions of the USA...great stuff.

Best

AA

[Chris Webb]

I think we are confusing 'language' with 'dialect' ... We all speak English, if we didn't you wouldn't understand what you've just read.

Chris Webb

[chasem]

different dialect/slang? yes.

different language? certainly not.

[GlassMan]

Great PBS series: The Story of English...

...made a case for AE and UKE as seperate dialects of the same language.

Also pointed out that he spoken English of Shakespeare's day had many similarities to what we consider Southern USA dialect in terms of pronunciation and inflection.

Must be a book or a website about it somewhere.

Also Robert McNeal (Canadian cum USA American) did a series on Do You Speak American? that was limited to regions of the USA...great stuff.

Best

AA

I remember reading excerpts from a book discussing the similarities between Elizabethan English and the US Southern Dialect. They author was positing that it was actually part of an astounding linguistic conservatism in which aspects of Elizabethan English have simply persisted in the American South while being long since left behind in other parts of the English speaking world. Among the examples given was the use of the double negative. Apparently, using double negatives was a particular favorite of Queen Elizabeth I herself!

Personally, I am of the position that we all speak variants of the English language. Which of those variants should be considered the base tongue is a matter open to discussion. British English would seem to hold a claim as the ancestral home of our mother tongue. But if you base it on simple numbers of speakers, it would actually be the variant of English favored in India!

In a bit of an aside, I feel that Webster did us a disfavor by changing the spellings in American English. The UK English spellings seem far more natural to me, and always have, much to the consternation of my elementary school teachers.

[Pour1Malt]

ai dinnae ken whit yur a' oan aboot...

ai canne uptak hauf o' whit ya 'mericans arr bletherin maist the time...

ya hae me scunnert, confeesed, an jus hamelt trachelt....

cannae ya a' jus dae yur haverin in Scots? :rolleyes:

[porrick]

ai dinnae ken whit yur a' oan aboot...

ai canne uptak hauf o' whit ya 'mericans arr bletherin maist the time...

ya hae me scunnert, confeesed, an jus hamelt trachelt....

cannae ya a' jus dae yur haverin in Scots? :rolleyes:

Hehe, I'll not get into the discussion based on the above.

Just want to let you know I enjoy your use of local tongue, and that you use a number of old Nordic words we still use (or variations thereof) in Norwegian today.

[MacSimoin]

...ai canne uptak hauf o' whit ya 'mericans arr bletherin maist the time...

That's a rather amusing statement, especially since it's coming from an American. :rolleyes:

[Rob Wright]

ai dinnae ken whit yur a' oan aboot...

ai canne uptak hauf o' whit ya 'mericans arr bletherin maist the time...

Try speaking teenager O_O !


Rob

[KiltedKnight]

Who was it that once said when speaking about America and the Uk, I think it might have been General George S. Patton; "We are two nations separated by a common language".

Chris.

[Paul Henry]

think you will find it was George Bernard Shaw, although Oscar Wilde said something simliar a few years earlier.