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JimmyCracksCorn
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Macedonia - Sovereign country north of Greece.
Dec 2002
time: 05:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
Outside certain middle-class southern circles, I've never heard anyone actually speak BBC english. |
I know, I was merely providing a contrast to show that homogenization has occured in the UK as well.
quote:
Hell parts and Wales and Scotland (and even Cornwall, although I think now defunct) even have their own languages. So what about the US? |
Well if its not English they're speaking, then its irrelevent to the argument of how diverse English is on our respective landmasses. But if you want to throw other languages into the mix then we've definately got you beat there. There's no way you can compare to us on that front... we're immigrant societies. But this is besides the point.
quote:
Not for the serf or peasant...they stayed put. This extended to the industrial age. |
This is true. Americans have been among the most mobile people on earth... in general. However in the rural areas, people haven't budged in 400 years, and these areas combined make up an area probably 50x larger than the whole UK, so your point is moot as far as mobilization beign a factor.
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JimmyCracksCorn
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Macedonia - Sovereign country north of Greece.
Dec 2002
time: 05:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Starchild
Speer, you have no concept of the British/European concept of travelling. Yes, in theory one can get from one end of England to another in a single day. But people don't. It's not a geographic thing, it's social. London is just over an hour away from me but it might as well be a seven hour flight in terms of mental-distance.
I moved only fourty minutes way from home to go to university yet in British terms, that's quite the move. People simply don't have the same concept of mobility here.
Do you know the saying "To the Americans, a hundred years is a long time, to the British, a hundred miles is a long way"? It's entirely true. |
This isn't just a European phenomenon. New England is the relative size of a postage stamp, and people rarely leave the area. Towns fifteen minutes outside of Boston are considered the sticks or the boondocks, even though by maybe a Texas standard thats still downtown.
Again, I don't believe mobilization is a factor in lingustic diversity anymore. Especially with the advent of radio and TV... you're so small one radio station can pretty much reach all over the country. The fact that you don't move is irrelevent today because you don't have to to hear other influences.
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JimmyCracksCorn
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Macedonia - Sovereign country north of Greece.
Dec 2002
time: 05:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
No, it's likely that differences quickly faded as people got to the colony. |
Based on what? And to which colony? You can't just make assumptions like that...
Anyways, the truth is, English is very standard across the board in every country. This is a reason why I am skeptical that variation is any more profound in the UK than it is in the US. I mean, any reader of English in any country, even the most backwater region of the US or Australia, can understand Chaucer written 600 years ago. In other words, people in the UK can go "OMFG people up north speak SOOOO different!1!!!", but in reality its not that different. Certainly no more different than a New Englander to a Texas, or a Georgian to a Minnesotan.
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Dauphin
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Caught in a tuna net
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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quote:
Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Based on what? And to which colony? You can't just make assumptions like that...
Anyways, the truth is, English is very standard across the board in every country. This is a reason why I am skeptical that variation is any more profound in the UK than it is in the US. I mean, any reader of English in any country, even the most backwater region of the US or Australia, can understand Chaucer written 600 years ago. In other words, people in the UK can go "OMFG people up north speak SOOOO different!1!!!", but in reality its not that different. Certainly no more different than a New Englander to a Texas, or a Georgian to a Minnesotan. |
Not that that proves much, you can't detect accents from the way people write, until they make an obvious phonetically based typo. How do you pronounce Featherstone-Waugh? You may both understand the word as being a town or person's surname, but I bet you wouldn't pronounce it as Fanshaw as its supposed to.
Anyway, there are accents so thick in parts of the country that people are unintelligble to me. Geordies with their "gi-root" for get-out or "yem" for home or 'scallion' for spring onion. And then there's many Americans that have a hard time understanding me. I have to enunciate my words and speak very slowly at times. Its quite amusing.
Not that these prove much, I don't know if you can objectively say one nation has more variety than the other, but I would think that in Britain accents change at faster rate per geographic mile, but then Britain does have a higher population/city density that could explain that.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:22
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scallions are a type of onion...
hmm... if me, japher, and imran, living in completely different parts of the country, all call them scallions, maybe yall brits are right about our linguistic homogenity. it still doesn't make sense in terms of linguistic drift.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:22
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dialect diversity is greater in the eastern US than in the west. You get seriously different dialects from eastern new england to western new england (and a detectable difference between Maine and Boston) to NYC to Philly, to baltimore, to Virginia. theres even a difference between the nascent upcountry southern of Washington county and the Shenandoah, and the beginning of coastal southern down towards Richmond. Once you get out west of the appalachians these tend to blend together into northern, midland, and southern, and west of the great plains they all meld together period. Ive always seen that explained by settlement patterns - the east coast was settled slowly, at a time when transportation from say Boston to Philadelphia was difficult, while the far west was settled recently in a time of relatively fast transportation.
It hardly surprises me that a place where english has been spoken since the early middle ages would have greater dialect diversity than the US.
Note - I continue to find the subtle dialect variations of the DC area interesting - while lots of people are from elsewhere, or were brought up by people from elsewhere and have little accent, among older natives theres still a detectable difference between the Maryland accents of people from PG county, and the southern accents of Alexandria natives, despite a geographic distance of only about 5 to 10 miles.\
edit - by little accent, i of course mean "general American", or among the circles i travel in general american with what must be called a general northeast corridor variation.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:22
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quote:
Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
This is irrelevent when it comes to linguistics. North American English isn't a new language that was spawned in the early 17th century, its a direct continuation of early 17th century English from the British Isles. We have just as much variety as you do because... we came from you. This should be no surprise.
Basically, you can narrow down the lingustic influence on the eastern United States (just the east coast mind you) can be broken down into 4 immigration waves from the United kingdom in the early 17th century. East Anglians went to New England, South of England (London and further south) to Virginia, North Midlands to the Delaware region, and the borderlands (Ireland, Scotland, Northern England) to the frontier and Appalachia. All of the linguistic variety from those regions can be reflected in their respective ending locations in North America (though in 16th and 17th century formats), and thats just the eastern United States. Canada, the Western US and the Caribbean are a whole other story.
Again, no on is denying there's alot of variety in the UK, we're just saying there's just as much here and it would be ignorant to deny that. |
its not that simple. There was heavy London migration to all the middle colonies, from Pennsylvania to Virginia.
There is (IIUC) a common loss of post vocal r in the Boston, New York and New Orleans accents, common to the great seaports AND to Britain, but not to the interior of the US at least - this last attributed to contact between the seaports and Britain. The US has a whole range of submigrations, etc, so that even the eastern US dialect map is not simply a derivative of the UK. Once you get west, the eastern dialects mix and change.
Another complication - the London migration to the middle colonies was NOT native londoners only - London was itself a labor market for most of England, and the indentees from London came from all over England.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:22
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i kind of disagree with this. The Italian influence is great in both cities and many New Yorkers and Philadelphians sound alike... got that classic Italian Rocky sort of talk.
quote:
Po-lice : To protect and Serve. |
same here... Po-leese actually... i know a guy from Wisconsin who goes to my college who also says Po-leese... the only Wisconian i know and he says it so it's 1 for 1 as far as i'm concerned.
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Stoop : Marble steps in front of a Baltimore Row Home. |
this is consistant in NYC and Philly and probably in Detriot and Chicago as well... probably all over the US they're called stoops.
quote:
Youse All : All of you. |
Port Richmond/Kensington area of Philadelphia. South Philadelphians are also known for saying Youse all.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:22
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found on the net
edited
American English Dialects
Why is American English different than British English?
What are there different American dialects?
What are the origins and characteristics of major US dialects?
Preliminary facts:
I. More English dialects are in Britain than in the rest of world put together: over 43 major English dialects in Britain alone
Age-Area Hypothesis: the area inhabited the longest has the most linguistic diversity
II. British English dialect genesis
1. Founder's effect - first Germanic settlers to Britain - the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, already spoke different dialects
2. North and West Britian had the most Celtic substrate
3. North Britain had the most direct Norse (Viking) influence.
4. South England had most direct Norman French influence.
5. Barriers to social mobility led to social stratification of dialects (example: Cockney English of London's working class vs. "The King's English" and BBC's Received Pronunciation).
6. Language drift - British English has changed since colonial times: petrol (gas), fag (cigarette), bloody (damn), etc.
III. General factors in American English dialect genesis
1. Founder's effect - 4 major migrations from different parts of Britian
2. Substrate influence (Dutch, French, African, Native American)
3. Dialect levelling and mixing produces "general American English in the west. Greatest number of dialects are in the US East, as predicted by the Age-Area Hypothesis
4. Shared innovations in American English not found in Britain
Four Major American Dialect AReas
1. New England
Founder's effect-Puritan Migrations (1629-40) from East Anglia
--New England dialect spreads across the Northeast, Maine to Wisconsin.
--Many New England town, city and county names derive from East Anglia.
No significant substrate effect in most of New England
2. Coastal South (Virginia to Florida)
Founder's effect-Cavalier Migrations (1642-1675) from South England
3. New Jersey, Pennsylvania English
Founder's effect - Quaker migrations (1675-1725)
from the Midlands area of England (near Whales), also Holland and Germany
4. Appalachian English
Founder's effect - Scots-Irish migrations (1715-1775), mostly English people from Britain's Celtic fringe (North England, Northern Ireland), some real Celts, too)
Each major dialect of US English has many subdialects (4 major dialect areas contain nearly 30 subdialects)
General American - influence of dialects mixing in the Western US.
MAJOR DIALECTS WITH NON-ENGLISH SUBSTRATE
New York English - Variety of New England with special Dutch substrate.
After 1664 - Dutch-speaking Niew Amsterdam becomes English New York
Most later migrations to New York left little effect on New York English
Exception: Yiddish (form of German spoken by East European Jews)
Black English (1620 to present)
- West African substrate in Southern English
Features from early Southern English into Black English:
Black English probably is decreolized creole
Gullah - the original creole persists in Coastal Georgia.
Cajun (Louisiana) - French substrate in English
(Acacians move to Louisiana after 1707)
BACKWOODS SOUTHERN (TENNESSEE TO TEXAS)
Origins
Appalachian (Scots-Irish) with Native American substrate (probably Cherokee, Choctaw)
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:22
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quote:
Age-Area Hypothesis: the area inhabited the longest has the most linguistic diversity |
how could this be if the area is relatively small and people have continual contact with each other... barriers seperating groups over time lead to linguistic diversity... how could peoples being together for a long time lead to diversity; if anything, quite the opposite.
the Basque region of Spain has been inhabited by Basques for millenia but there is a consistant Basque language. compare to the expansion of the indo-european language across Asia and Europe where up until approx. 2000 BC, Indo-European Europeans spoke a language mutually intelligible with Indo-European Central Asians yet prolonged seperation diversified the languages.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:22
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quote:
look, I grew up in brooklyn, and my dad was from philly (jewish) theres a difference between Philly and NY accent. I can hear it in my OWN speech at different times. Not sure about South Philly. Workoing class Italians in NY generally speak with strong NY accent, no different from Irish and other working class new yorkers. Italian speech patterns may be there, but i dont think theyre dominant. |
look... haha. tough guy... well jewish philadelphians likely talk quite differently. I'm sure you're familiar with the South Philadelphian Italian way of speaking (Rocky, the Philadelphian Italian character in the mini-series Band of Brothers, [there always seems to be a Philly Italian in any WW2 movie] etc.). it's very similiar to NYC Italians.
quote:
new york would be youse, or youse guys, or you guys. Southern would be you all or y'all. Youse all seems middle between these. May well be the same in philly and baltimore - these are I suppose, really subdialects of the same mid-atlantic dialect. |
youse is mostly a 'working-class' white thing in Port Richmond/Kensington/Fishtown. you rarely hear anyone outside of those neighbourhoods saying youse. most use yall.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Albert Speer
how could this be if the area is relatively small and people have continual contact with each other... barriers seperating groups over time lead to linguistic diversity... how could peoples being together for a long time lead to diversity; if anything, quite the opposite.
the Basque region of Spain has been inhabited by Basques for millenia but there is a consistant Basque language. compare to the expansion of the indo-european language across Asia and Europe where up until approx. 2000 BC, Indo-European Europeans spoke a language mutually intelligible with Indo-European Central Asians yet prolonged seperation diversified the languages. |
1. depends on time to diversify.
assuming the new settlers come from the SAME linguistic stock, the longer settlement means more time for drift to occur.
2. Yes, assuming the SAME amount of time, large areas will have more dialect diversity - youd expect more in China than in England say.
3. Contact depends on the state of mobility. In england in the middle ages, most people didnt travel beyond their home village. In the US today ordinary folks travel long distances. Yes youd expect Dialect differences to lessen in england - and i suspect they have (see estuary english) and in the US to increase PERHAPS. But it depends on distance, history etc. Eastern US had high diversity - its a lot of distance from Boston to Savannah, the migration origins were not the same, and travel was difficult when the area was settled. The lower midwest OTOH has similar speech patterns from Ohio to Nebraska - while its a large area, it was settled relatively recently, from similar origins, and in an era of good transportation and high contacts.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:22
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Originally posted by Albert Speer
look... haha. tough guy... well jewish philadelphians likely talk quite differently. I'm sure you're familiar with the South Philadelphian Italian way of speaking (Rocky, the Philadelphian Italian character in the mini-series Band of Brothers, [there always seems to be a Philly Italian in any WW2 movie] etc.). it's very similiar to NYC Italians.
LOTM - my fathers accent, to the extent he retained it, was general philly, of the type of heard from white, gentile,non-italian philadelphians, and had points incommon with Maryland speech.
youse is mostly a 'working-class' white thing in Port Richmond/Kensington/Fishtown. you rarely hear anyone outside of those neighbourhoods saying youse. most use yall.
LOTM - I presume center city yuppies speak general american mostly, and african americans retain southern speech patterns, as many do throughout the urban northeast and midwest.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:22
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LOTM:
you know what i'm talking about when I say the Rocky sort of accent, right? at least to me, it sounds identical to the NYC Italian accents you hear in Mafia movies.
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04-10-2004 00:01
) and driving back.
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