English spoken around the world

Wrey

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You are correct; but he didn't mention the UK in his initial post.
I can actually distinguish an Irish accent from a Scottish brogue, or an English accent. Don't think I've ever met anyone from Wales so I may just assume they were English.:smile:


And actually I did mention the UK in my OP :redface:
 

simcha

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I agree that there might be fewer differences between the written forms of British English and American English than there once were, but the differences are still apparent. For instance, the syntax (word order) is noticeably different; the significantly higher use of adverbs in British English; the use of word tags (e.g. It's raining, isn't it?) in British English (hardly used in American English); the punctuation. With respect to idiomatic expressions British English is much richer than American English.

I think you need to travel around the USA when you judge the richness of idiom. Idiom varies by region and even city or town here in the USA. One of the ways we Americans can tell each other apart (say the difference between a Midwesterner and a Californian) is by what idiomatic expressions one uses to express ideas. Also it's worth studying the idiom of Urban America. It's very rich and expresses so much that can't be said in other ways. Look at the following site for Urban American Idiom:

Urban Dictionary: Define Your World

And don't sell Canadian English short either. It's not just a mix of British and American English. It's developed its own unique caché that varies by region too. Canada has the influence of its imigrants in the way its verion of English is spoken too. I can most certainly tell the difference between someone from Southern Ontario and someone from Vancouver, BC. It's not just about accent either. And those people in Vancouver, BC sound quite different from the Americans over in Seattle, WA. Just like the people of Toronto sound very different from the Americans of Niagra Falls, NY or Detroit, MI.
 

simcha

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He questioned me on the use of the words thou and thee. He had come under the impression that they were separate pronouns, the former being the formal and the later being the informal. I explained that they were in fact the same word in the nominative and oblique cases respectively. He was also under the impression that these words were in current use. Not being a native speaker, he did not realize that these words represent, in fact, an antique, informal counterpart to the pronoun you and that at one time the pronoun you was considered to be the formal for the second person singular.

Wrey, didn't our usage of you as a polite form of address come from the Norman French polite form of address, "vous?" Vous is both singular and plural in the polite form of usage as was you.

And our singular-familiar form thou comes more from the Germanic Anglo-Saxon nominative second person singular þu? (thu)
 

Wrey

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Wrey, didn't our usage of you as a polite form of adress come from the Norman French polite form of adress, "vous?" Vous is both singular and plural in the polite form of usage as was you.

And our singular-familiar form thou comes more from the Germanic Anglo-Saxon nominative second person singular þu? (thu)

Are you trying to make me fall in love with you?

Yes, this is all correct. In a strange turn of events, the use of thou dropped from favor for a short time (just prior to the colonization of the Americas) and acquired a quaint flavor which, when the word came back into use, caused it to become used in the formal address.
 

simcha

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Are you trying to make me fall in love with you?

LOL, nah, I see you're busy with one guy already. And you're in Puerto Rico. LOL. I'll flirt though. :wink: I'm such a sucker for linguists and linguistics.

Yes, this is all correct. In a strange turn of events, the use of thou dropped from favor for a short time (just prior to the colonization of the Americas) and acquired a quaint flavor which, when the word came back into use, caused it to become used in the formal address.

Yeah, I've always found that fascinating. And, when you look at older versions of the Bible, addressing God as Thou was a more familiar form of address, especially in the time of King James. So theologically, those people were looking at more familiar ways of addressing God and as Thou became formal/polite God became more distant... Hmmm...
 

DC_DEEP

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<...>
He questioned me on the use of the words thou and thee. He had come under the impression that they were separate pronouns, the former being the formal and the later being the informal. I explained that they were in fact the same word in the nominative and oblique cases respectively.
And to throw an additional wrench in the works, you left out two additional forms!
I give this sword to thee.
Henceforth, it is thy sword.
Let no man doubt that this sword is thine.
Thou art its owner!
For instance I can say, No thank you, I do not like rabbit stew in three languages.:smile:
  • Ningún gracias, yo no tienen gusto del guisado del conejo.
  • Aucun merci, je n'aiment pas le ragoût de lapin.
  • Nessun grazie, io non gradiscono lo stufato del coniglio.
I could be mistaken, but I think you actually (in all three of those examples) are saying "None, thank you..." rather than "No, thank you."

Wrey, didn't our usage of you as a polite form of address come from the Norman French polite form of address, "vous?" Vous is both singular and plural in the polite form of usage as was you.

And our singular-familiar form thou comes more from the Germanic Anglo-Saxon nominative second person singular þu? (thu)
Ah, the man used a THORN! I think the conversion of the thorn to th, plus some questionable transcriptions between "y" and "th" have compounded the confusion!
 

Wrey

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And to throw an additional wrench in the works, you left out two additional forms!

I give this sword to thee.
Pronoun is the indirect object and takes the dative case.

Henceforth, it is thy sword.
Pronoun takes the genetive case indicating possession.

Let no man doubt that this sword is thine.
Alternate form for the genetive when the item possessed is not named explicitly. Examples can be found where this form is used when the item possessed is named in the sentence.

Thou art its owner!
Pronoun takes the nominative

Cases provided by the OP.

You make good points. I had a hard enough time just explaining the two forms to the b/f in Spanish. La Real Academia Espa&#241;ola decrees that Spanish is not a case sensitive language. My b/f, as a teacher, takes the words of the Academia as law. I made no headway attempting to show examples in Spanish because he felt that these concepts simply did not apply. I know, I know...:redface:
 

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Ah, the man used a THORN! I think the conversion of the thorn to th, plus some questionable transcriptions between "y" and "th" have compounded the confusion!

You beat me to it! Now if he's got an eth and a yogh up his sleeve I'll be truly blown away. Wyn is fairly easy to approximate with existing characters (p).
 

Wrey

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You beat me to it! Now if he's got an eth and a yogh up his sleeve I'll be truly blown away. Wyn is fairly easy to approximate with existing characters (p).

I continue to be blown away by the academic caliber here at LPSG!

Honestly, I joined a site devoted to large cock. I never expected to be having a discussion concerning archaic letter of the English alphabet.
 

ClaireTalon

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I am often mistaken for being no native english speaker, mostly since I write and speak pretty accent free. I have gotten in touch with a big number of accents in my life, and acquired a bit here and a bit there in the pursuit of getting my Georgia tongue out of me.

Last year I have taken a travel around Europe, which involved a lot of flying, and once again I have been impressed by the clear and precise pronunciation that most traffic controllers there feature, especially in Germany and Switzerland. My significant other is a German immigrant too, but after 20 years in the US, his accent has faded almost completely.

However, I would like to throw in a little question that is not completely on the specific topic, but closely related. Who else on here who has taken a language course feels like his language skills fade once he gets in contact with the language outside the classroom? For my man's sake I have enrolled for a German language course, and he tries my abilities every now and then, but whenever he does, I feel stunned. I stuble over words, I have to try hard to understand him, things like that. I just wonder whether the course has had no effect on me, or whether this has also occurred to others.
 

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I am often mistaken for being no native english speaker, mostly since I write and speak pretty accent free. I have gotten in touch with a big number of accents in my life, and acquired a bit here and a bit there in the pursuit of getting my Georgia tongue out of me.

Last year I have taken a travel around Europe, which involved a lot of flying, and once again I have been impressed by the clear and precise pronunciation that most traffic controllers there feature, especially in Germany and Switzerland. My significant other is a German immigrant too, but after 20 years in the US, his accent has faded almost completely.

However, I would like to throw in a little question that is not completely on the specific topic, but closely related. Who else on here who has taken a language course feels like his language skills fade once he gets in contact with the language outside the classroom? For my man's sake I have enrolled for a German language course, and he tries my abilities every now and then, but whenever he does, I feel stunned. I stuble over words, I have to try hard to understand him, things like that. I just wonder whether the course has had no effect on me, or whether this has also occurred to others.

Yes. That has happened to me. I took Spanish and once I got out into the world, I lost it. I can pick up, but not retain it unless I am conversationally speaking it. I think more people do better when they do it conversationally. I love the diversion Claire as it does kind of tie into this topic. I find that people who learned English as a second language retain and master it easily. When you look at the amount of English language media distributed world wide (Movies, music, television, etc.). It's easy to understand why the rest of the world has such a wonderful mastery so easily.

Now my turn to divert. Do you find that you will find an English speaker in a foreign country a lot easier if you make the attempt to speak the native tongue?

Example: The French tend to speak only French to a tourist unless the tourist makes an effort to first try and communicate in French.

This was my experience. They were actually wonderful when we went. I was totally mangling the language, but they helped me a lot. Still can't speak it to save my life, but love them for teaching me.
 

Wrey

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However, I would like to throw in a little question that is not completely on the specific topic, but closely related. Who else on here who has taken a language course feels like his language skills fade once he gets in contact with the language outside the classroom? For my man's sake I have enrolled for a German language course, and he tries my abilities every now and then, but whenever he does, I feel stunned. I stuble over words, I have to try hard to understand him, things like that. I just wonder whether the course has had no effect on me, or whether this has also occurred to others.


This is a very common feeling. I graduated from the Defense Language Institute, Presidio of Monterey in both Russian and Polish. When i got to the job I was blown away by the difference. Spoken Russian, in the wild, seemed to have no relation to what I had learned in school. Idioms ruled over standard phrasology and pronunciation seemed to be swallowed half of the time. Russian has a complex grammatical system that is highly inflected, and worse, Russians make use of bad grammar just as much as the average American.

Don't feel overwhelmed! I just moved to Puerto Rico and learned that my skills in Spanish, which I once thought of as fluent, are far from it. :wink:
 

Wrey

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Yes. That has happened to me. I took Spanish and once I got out into the world, I lost it. I can pick up, but not retain it unless I am conversationally speaking it. I think more people do better when they do it conversationally. I love the diversion Claire as it does kind of tie into this topic. I find that people who learned English as a second language retain and master it easily. When you look at the amount of English language media distributed world wide (Movies, music, television, etc.). It's easy to understand why the rest of the world has such a wonderful mastery so easily.

Now my turn to divert. Do you find that you will find an English speaker in a foreign country a lot easier if you make the attempt to speak the native tongue?

Example: The French tend to speak only French to a tourist unless the tourist makes an effort to first try and communicate in French.

This was my experience. They were actually wonderful when we went. I was totally mangling the language, but they helped me a lot. Still can't speak it to save my life, but love them for teaching me.

Yes, I found the same to be true when I lived in Berlin. Many of my G.I. friends thought the Germans to be rude and unhelpfull when they were off-base. I never understood how this could be because I thought the Germans were AWEsome!

I took a friend to the Ka-De-Ve, a large department store in Berlin and watched him struggle through finding a pair of jeans he wanted in his size. And, lo and behold, the person helping him was rude! He had made not even the smallest attempt to speak German to her. When I asked for help, in German, just a bit later, the same lady switched to perfect English and was a total doll with me. She had obviously noticed me accent.
 

ClaireTalon

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Yes. That has happened to me. I took Spanish and once I got out into the world, I lost it. I can pick up, but not retain it unless I am conversationally speaking it. I think more people do better when they do it conversationally. My course was intensive level, but not conversational. I thought it would be good for a base, but I feel like I have to translate every single word, think up an answer, and then transfer it word by word back to German. Can be very tiring. I'm better at reading, even though I don't understand every word there too. What makes it difficult is that the German language appears to use less foreign words, which made learning French easy for me.

Now my turn to divert. Do you find that you will find an English speaker in a foreign country a lot easier if you make the attempt to speak the native tongue?

I agree, 100%. And the french are pretty good at playing that game. When I tried to call a waiter in english, I was blissfully ignored, until I tried in French.

When I asked for help, in German, just a bit later, the same lady switched to perfect English and was a total doll with me. She had obviously noticed me accent.
Exactly the same experience.
 

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My course was intensive level, but not conversational. I thought it would be good for a base, but I feel like I have to translate every single word, think up an answer, and then transfer it word by word back to German. Can be very tiring. I'm better at reading, even though I don't understand every word there too. What makes it difficult is that the German language appears to use less foreign words, which made learning French easy for me.

Geez! That must have been a major piece of work to complete, not to mention it would burn you out on the language as it sounds too "clinical". My hats off to you on that one.