Southern accents, Eastern accents, Northern accents and Ebonics

[cheerfulgreek]

I was looking at some recent and old posts on here, and I was noticing the dialogue that was being used. Some of it is hilarious, but some people really do talk like some of the posts we read. greekchat even has it's own translator (DS) (lol). While it was very funny reading the translations, there really are definitions of some of the English words we're using today that we didn't use 100 years ago. I got a PM recently and the member who PMd me used the term "bitchassness" in conversation. I never heard of that term before. I asked what it meant and the member PMd me an actual definition from the internet. Then some of the words that are used in the South vs the North, East and West are totally different from one another. o.k. I use some slang here and there, but now it's getting to the point where I just don't understand some of the words that are being used today.

After reading a lot of the posts on here and having conversations with some of the people I know, eventually or so it seems, it's certain to me that more new words will form, meanings will migrate, and obsolete words will die out.

[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.

[Tom Earp]

Congratulations, I think you may have figured out the real problems on a web site and some people on it?

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by Tom Earp

Congratulations, I think you may have figured out the real problems on a web site and some people on it?

Tom, I don't think it's a real problem, I just don't know a lot of the meanings of some of the words. Don't you use some slang? I'm sure you do.

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

I was looking at some recent and old posts on here, and I was noticing the dialogue that was being used. Some of it is hilarious, but some people really do talk like some of the posts we read. greekchat even has it's own ebonics translator (DS) (lol). While it was very funny reading the translations, there really are definitions of some of the English words we're using today that we didn't use 100 years ago. I got a PM recently and the member who PMd me used the term "bitchassness" in conversation. I never heard of that term before. I asked what it meant and the member PMd me an actual definition from the internet. Then some of the words that are used in the South vs the North, East and West are totally different from one another. o.k. I use some slang here and there, but now it's getting to the point where I just don't understand some of the words that are being used today.

After reading a lot of the posts on here and having conversations with some of the people I know, eventually or so it seems, it's certain to me that more new words will form, meanings will migrate, and obsolete words will die out.

I don't think you know what Ebonics is.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

I don't think you know what Ebonics is.

No, I don't, but I know it's a real part of the English language that wasn't at one time in use.

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

No, I don't, but I know it's a real part of the English language that wasn't at one time in use.

At the risk of oversimplifying the definition, let's just say you really mean "urban" slang. Ebonics and African American Vernacular English are more so about linguistics, pronunciation, and structure than about the actual words used.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

At the risk of oversimplifying the definition, let's just say you really mean "urban" slang. Ebonics and African American Vernacular English are more so about linguistics, pronunciation, and structure than about the actual words used.

So they're not the same? I don't think anything is wrong with it, nor do I think anything is wrong with the different words being used in different parts of the United States. I just wonder how it changed to what it is now. I have my opinions of where I think it will go, but I'm interested in hearing others.

[SWTXBelle]

What you are talking about is really linguistics - which is fascinating. Language is never static. I think that media saturation and technological advances means it can do so at a faster rate than before, certainly. And some types of slang and colloquial speech are no longer geographically limited in the way it was before. So, a catchphrase on a television show can sweep the country almost overnight.
On what I consider a positive note, linguists have been surprised at the entrenched nature of regional accents and speech. There was a theory that tv would erase such differences. But it hasn't happened.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

So they're not the same? I don't think anything is wrong with it, nor do I think anything is wrong with the different words being used in different parts of the United States. I just wonder how it changed to what it is now. I have my opinions of where I think it will go, but I'm interested in hearing others.

Yeah but when you throw Ebonics in the title and joke about having a resident Ebonics translator, it appears to make light of it based on faulty information.

[preciousjeni]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

At the risk of oversimplifying the definition, let's just say you really mean "urban" slang. Ebonics and African American Vernacular English are more so about linguistics, pronunciation, and structure than about the actual words used.

I am really late to this here party but...word.