Lingua Frankie

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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby Mick Harper » 4:05 pm

Now you've lost me completely. I understand that I live in London and you in the country. Are you saying we speak different languages, ought to speak different languages, used to speak different languages or what?
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby TisILeclerc » 4:21 pm

Bah gum lad tha's got me reet moithered.
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby Mick Harper » 4:49 pm

Yes, well done, Tissie! As I pointed out with Italy -- and it is true for Norway and indeed every long-settled country in the world -- there are regional variations of the same language but these are difficult to write down using an alphabet because they are made up of endlessly varying 'vernacular' sounds.

At some point, in Italy in the thirteenth century or thereabouts, one of these dialects (Florentine Tuscan) is simplified and polished up so that the local literary alphabet (Latin) can be used to express it with sufficient fidelity that people who speak/understand Florentine can always guess what word is meant even though it doesn't map very accurately to the actual Latin letters. Gradually people who speak Florentine start simplifying and polishing the spoken form either to show they are literate or because they wish to be taken for being literate. After several hundred years both spoken and written Florentine are not only virtually the same but map almost perfectly onto the alphabet originally chosen (in their case, the Latin one).

Since this is a difficult and arduous job, but vernacular writing is exceptionally useful, all the other people that speak other dialects that are near enough to Florentine make the jump. Gradually and especially if there are educational, cultural and political agendas about, this simplified Florentine is learned by anyone who wants to be literate in a wider and wider circle. They may well continue speaking their own dialect, it's a matter for them.

When the distance is truly great the job may be done all over again (I think Sard has, maybe Sicilian) but Florentine is immensely more useful. So useful that it makes sense to bring one's children up speaking this 'national' dialect. Though for equally strong reasons, many people also bring up their chidlren to speak (but alas not write) their local dialect as well. (For dialect read language, depending on various not always objective considerations).

However it is always possible, by using various well-known conventions and because everybody knows what they mean, for anyone to write, usually for comic effect, in one of these local dialects.
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby Boreades » 11:54 pm

Hmm, seems like lots of words, but with a very high noise/signal ratio.
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby Mick Harper » 1:53 am

I'll illustrate why you can't alphabetise a vernacular dialect.
The cat sat on the mat

This is RP English. Both the's are the same, both are glissaded in speech to th'cat and th'mat. In Tyke dialect (traditionally, I don't know if it is still the case) the second 'the' disappears and becomes on't mat. However this cannot be done at the start of a sentence because t'cat not only sounds ugly but it is ambiguous -- the listener may hear Tercat, a loose forward who played for Hunslet.

So the dialect goes into reverse and emphasises the full 'the' by adding a post-vocalic R at the end, making a long therr which when added to cat makes a pleasing dip in the inflection. So how do you write the in Tyke? And so on ad infinitum. One of the points about regional dialects is that they are actually designed to be, after a fashion, poetically expressive. RP English cannot do that. It is too simple, too phonetic, too standardised. But it does allow everyone to understand (and write to) everybody else.
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby TisILeclerc » 2:07 pm

Tom this is the best article ever! i'm 17 and from Bradfrod researching for an English project and you have no idea how useful everyone's been! just so you know- all you Southerners- we don't say "in t'pub", the 't' is silent! So stop with the rediculous jokes about our glottal stops! Gods on coun'ry so we mus be reet!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/voi ... ects.shtml

BBC finally discovers Yorkshire. The above quote is quite correct.

The cat sat on the mat becomes

Cat sat on mat. Afoor ah kicked it like.

There is just the tantalising hint of an unvoiced 't' in there. But certainly no 'ter'. Possibly pronounced from the back of the tongue or the middle with a hint of new mown hay.

Here's a touch of Yorkshire grammar for those lost souls interested in such matters. In spite of the fact that they have spelled Middlesbrough wrong it's fairly accurate. But it must be noted that the North Riding is very different from the West Riding. That god forsaken place is too close to Lancashire or Derbyshire to be taken seriously.

And country dialects are quite different from what is heard in towns.

http://www.yorkshiredialect.com/grammar.htm

Hannah Hauxwell has a very distinctive accent. And nowt like Bradford or Sheffield.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4XNv0QGwdA
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby TisILeclerc » 3:22 pm

And although Yorkshire may be God's own country it's not parochial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLYpKGVBUg

Some people prefer to say god's own county but why belittle yerself eh?
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby Boreades » 3:44 pm

We'll have to book Mick a VIP Yorkshire Airlines flight (Alan Bennett class).

They don't publicise the fact, but you can get VIP flights from RAF Northolt (via the Central Line tube).

The special TME VIP discount code is EhOopALr8

You have to make your own arrangements to get into the First Class section of the tube train.
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby TisILeclerc » 4:07 pm

Although Yorkshire Airlines is the way to travel for the upwardly mobile or static Yorkshire ancestors had to do it all by foot or piggyback.

Here's a map of Europe and beyond according to Y dna through the ages. And it's worth noting the emerald isle lot were late starters.

Although they did make up for it and claimed to be here first to boot. Ochone ochone.

http://www.abroadintheyard.com/maps-of- ... and-y-dna/
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Re: Lingua Frankie

Postby Bmblbzzz » 12:52 pm

There was a post on Language Log some time ago about the dysjunct between reading and writing in various versions of Chinese. Basically, everyone who speaks Chinese can read Mandarin; but according to whether they speak Mandarin, Cantonese or another Chinese dialect/language, they will read different words, with the same meaning. China's centralised government has succeeded over centuries in unifying the written script but not the language. One of the problems of such a "top-down" script is that it doesn't react well to linguistic developments; Chinese is constantly producing new words like any living language but there is no way of writing them; if you write them phonetically using the closest Mandarin ideogram, they will mean something different to speakers of other variants of Chinese.

The languages of South India are totally unrelated to Hindi. Walk around a South Indian town and you'll probably see several languages used on signs, adverts, shops, etc: the state language eg Kannada or Malayalam, often a more local language such as Coorgi (which will use the same script), and English. You might see Hindi as well, particularly on road signs. If there are cinema posters (and there will be), you'll see something written in Latin script that's not English; it's Latin Hindi. People have no trouble following the plot and dialogue of a Bollywood movie (it's usually not too demanding anyway... ) but they can't read Hindi, so the posters transliterate the title, slogans etc into Latin script. Similarly during the Raj, there were publications, especially those for the army, using Roman Hindi, Roman Tamil, etc, aimed at (English) army officers etc.
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