Dialects (US)

[icca]

This has been bumping around in my head for a while, but I've only been pushed to write about it today.

Everyone speaks a different dialect, and everyone is fluent in that dialect.* Everyone. Things that sound funny in one dialect, such as what we consider our standard dialect, are not necessarily "ignorant" or "uneducated

Comments

[venefica_aura]

defending Sarah Palin from sexist attacks, even though they did not support her politics (which is honorable and I really praise everyone who stood up for a candidate they did not support in the face of unfair treatment)Oh god, the Palin-bashing was something that made me very uncomfortable throughout most of the election, and other things, to the point where I stayed out of every political argument and got really mad a few times and into some arguments anyway with RL people. I didn't mind the stuff where they disagreed with her poltics--this is fair, this is what you are supposed to do with politicians. But too much of it got dangerously close to classist and sexist overtones that I became really disappointed in people. I mean, how fifth grade was some of that

[icca]

Not tl;dr at all! Especially since I'm hardly ever online anymore so we don't chat on IM!

Yeah, this election was rife with...vitriol against the othered. I also really loved the sexist remarks on Palin that came from her supporters. That was all kinds of messed up. At least I can understand why opponents would want to resort to cheap insults. Whatever. It's over. Thank goodness.

[venefica_aura]

I don't IM so much either, journaling everyday is just something I've made a habit, more for myself than anyone else. Always nice to see a post from you!

[drakonlily]

We were JUST talking about Palin at work and the whole issue of half of her "faults" were pointed out because she was an arguably attractive female. Sad that such sexism happens because of that.

I am really starting to love dialects. I say things like "cat" on occasion and it's hard when I go home and say things like "That cat is talking out the side of his neck" and people are like ... "Talking cats?" XD

the worth of a language

[gibbedman]

As I think about BVE and other dialects, I wonder about what it must have been like to speak English in a Latin world. I think about the crushing pressures of being and Englishman, conquered time and time again by Vikings, Romans, etc. "Why don't you speak a real language?" I'm sure Roman soldiers would say time and time again (to anyone who could understand them

Re: the worth of a language

[ext_101344]

Point of information:

There was no such language as "English" until around about the 9th or 10th Century CE; before that there was the Germanic Anglo-Saxon (which is likely to have been a conglomeration of very different dialects when spoken, too, since the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who spoke it were all different tribes).

Before them, the primary languages in the British Isles were two different dialects of Celtic - "Gaelic" (which is the basis of modern Irish and Scots languages), also known to linguists as "Q-Celtic"; and "British" (which is the basis of modern-day Welsh language), also known as "P-Celtic". These language variations had their own dialect variants stretching across much of Northern Europe.

Re: the worth of a language

[gibbedman]

Isn't it funny that there wasn't an "English" language until right around the time Beowulf was written? Though I can't be sure which was the cause of which, I am sure they are linked. Because though I might not have been exactly accurate about who was conquering England, that's because everybody did, at one time or another. And though the language met by conquering Romans might have been Welsh or British or Celtic/Gaelic, you'd best believe Latin would have been the "prestige language."

[ext_142668]

Generally agree with your points, but I heard several times that Sarah Palin's accent is unusual, even by Alaska standards. It seems like a claim worth digging into, because I'm inclined to believe her syntax to be unique to her, also. (Note the Palinism, also.) It's almost as if she doesn't finish a thought before starting another one. I don't think it's an exemplar of a rebuke of dialects. On the other hand, I suppose it only takes one person to start a dialect.

[reconditarmonia]

I'll second that. Even besides the bit about her total inability to form coherent thoughts - her accent/dialect is not her own. If you watch old news coerage from her tenure as governor and from the gubernatorial race, she doesn't speak the way she did in the 2008 election. It was put on to make her seem "folksy," and I think that opens it up to some poking-fun-at.

[icca]

Interesting! I stand corrected then! Thank you!

[icca]

Thank you for your response