Southern accents, Eastern accents, Northern accents and Ebonics

[RaggedyAnn]

If we talk generationally as well, I totally think yuh right. Sumtimes I have no ideuh what people a' sayin'.

Grammar is my friend, howevah, so I think I'll stick to using it.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by RaggedyAnn

If we talk generationally as well, I totally think yuh right. Sumtimes I have no ideuh what people a' sayin'.

Grammar is my friend, howevah, so I think I'll stick to using it.

I'm not saying it's bad or anything to use it, I just wonder where we're going with it. I know the English language has radically changed in the past....I dunno, I would even say in the past 50 years or so. How does this sort of thing happen? Is it possible to say what our language will be like, let's say 5000 years from now? I mean, I know 5000 years is a long time in the life of any language, like 1000 years ago, English was a language that was so different from our own, it now has to be learned as a foreign language. Like Beowulf for example. In it's original Old English language, it's like wtf? I know the 14th century Middle English of Chauncer's "Cantebury Tales" needs to be updated to make it fully intelligible. Even Shakespears modern English can be hard to understand, and it's only around 400 years old.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

There is indeed a dialect known by various titles, but you can think of it as Network Standard English.

Perhaps the most interesting class I took in college was a dialects class. I remember the professor making the point the first day that there is no such thing as a single "correct" English dialect -- that whatever was expected and understood where you were was "correct," and whatever wasn't was "incorrect." An example: where I grew up, "pin" and "pen" were pronounced the same way (pin). If one were to say "pehn" when needing something with which to write, one might get an "excuse me," or a comeback of "look who's puttin' on airs." (If there was any chance of confusion as to whether one was referring to a pin or a pen, the later was called an "inkpen." )

As for Network Standard English, in Britain it's called Received English.

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

Like Beowulf for example. In it's original Old English language, it's like wtf?

Well, when Beowulf was written, no one knew that William the Conqueror and his fellow Normans would invade England and make French the language of the court. Mix good old Germanic Old English with old French and you get Chaucer's Middle English.

That's what makes it almost futile to try and predict how English will change. It will change based on variables we can't really predict.



Oh, and Dunkin' Donuts' doughnuts are just plain awful.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

That's what makes it almost futile to try and predict how English will change. It will change based on variables we can't really predict.



Oh, and Dunkin' Donuts' doughnuts are just plain awful.

Of course we can't predict how it will change, and quite frankly any changes that do happen, I think will be quite slow. But we can predict change based on history. According to a language historian, (I can't recall the name) but as I can remember I think there were like 180 irregular English verbs from Old, Middle and Modern English, and he estimated their frequency in everyday speech. He found that the less common a verb, the sooner it regularizes. In other words, irregular verbs that get used a lot remain irregular, in fact, the 10 most common English verbs are irregular. Anyway, from the 180 or so verbs that were tracked, around 75 of them have now regularized. So my question is what is to become of the remaining verbs? Look at the past tense verbs, and how some of them have changed gradually over the past 1200 years. Like in Middle English, I know the word helped was holp at one time, and now it's change into a totally different word with the same meaning. History will certainly repeat itself, and English will change as time goes on, it's just a matter of what the words will become.

And Dunkin' Donuts are the best!

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

And Dunkin' Donuts are the best!

Clearly there is no point in trying to reason or have an intelligent discussion with you.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Clearly there is no point in trying to reason or have an intelligent discussion with you.

Well, at least you didn't bring up Krispy Kreme donuts. Yuk!

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

Well, at least you didn't bring up Krispy Kreme donuts. Yuk!

LOL. There's no need to bring them up -- obviously they are far, far superior to Dunkin' Donuts or to any other doughnut out there.

On a scale of 1-10, Krispy Kreme = 20, Dunkin' Donuts = -20.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

Well, at least you didn't bring up Krispy Kreme donuts. Yuk!

[christiangirl]

I grew up only speaking "Proper English." My mother was a teacher and nothing else was acceptable. I was still able to speak the dialect of my area (e.g., "That girl's hella dumb.") without technically stepping outside the perameters of proper grammar and syntax. It wasn't until I got to college that AAVE became a part of my language--going to a black school will do that for you. I also picked up different dialects as I stayed in various places; it all depends on the region of the person I'm speaking with. I use Bay Area vernacular when I'm home, southern vernacular with my college friends. My accent changes with each conversation, too. I had to develop "The Switch" as well, to be able to turn it on and off, depending on who I'm speaking with. I can't use my Virginia vernacular with cousins, they won't understand. As far as my posting on here, I often speak more "properly" in the general forums, but lean more toward AAVE with some southern slang in the Delta forum. I use a lot of my Bay Area slang in other sites I post on. I just all depends.

ETA: I don't like Dunkin' or Krispy. I prefer the local chain, Winchell's. There'll never be anything like it, so I typically don't eat donuts at all until I go home. So there.