Rare Dialects

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Mon Feb 23 21:42:58 UTC 2009


A funny thing is that when *you* are the one who isn't understood, as
was the case with me when I first went to Los Angeles, it's impossible
to tell what it is about your speech that makes it hard to understand.

Once, a guy that I was giving a lift to asked me whether I noticed
anything strange about the way that he talked.

Yes. You sound like a West Indian.

Mon, I don't understand! Everybody tells me that. But I talk the same
as everybody else!

Not hardly, as we say in the 'hood. Based on my own earlier experience
of having people in Los Angeles continually ask me what it was that I
had said, however, the poor guy had my complete sympathy. You do feel,
in such cases, that there's absolutely nothing about your idiolect
that's in any way so distinct from the local dialect that people
simply have no idea what you're saying or think that you're some kind
of foreigner, especially when you understand them perfectly, because
to your ear, you and they are speaking exactly the same dialect. But,
nevertheless, they react as though you were speaking some foreign
tongue that they've never heard before.

-Wilson

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Rare Dialects
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 11:46 AM -0500 2/23/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Many of us remember the best episode of the otherwise blah "Story of
>>English" on PBS many years ago.
>
> OT query:  I still use SoE in class for the
> "Mother Tongue" hour ("Program 2"), in which
> McNeil depicts the early history from the Angles
> and Saxons through the Viking invasions (with the
> conversation in the Danelaw between a Saxon and a
> Viking about the selling of a horse, or hros as
> the case may be) and the Norman invasion, to
> Chaucer and Caxton and the beginning of the vowel
> shift.  I find it useful, if somewhat dated (to
> judge from the increase in student giggles over
> the years at certain parts).  Is there a good
> substitute?  (The pronunciations of Old and
> Middle English texts and mock conversations along
> the way, and a fragment of the colorful
> performance of "Mankind" (that's [man'kInd], not
> [maen'kaind]) strike me as particularly helpful
> for illustrating the effect of the changes the
> language has undergone.)
>
> LH
>
>>The old Chesapeake dialect sounded
>>relatively unintelligible to me, though I assume it would not be too hard to
>>get used to after a day or so.
>>
>>The Gullah dialect may be/ have been the least intelligible to outsiders.
>>Inner-city and deep-south "basilects" are pretty hard for outsiders too.
>>
>>Of course we're only talking about English in the U.S.
>>
>>JL
>>On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:27 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  -----------------------
>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>>  Subject:      Re: Rare Dialects
>>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  Unitelligible dialects? absolutely.  I attended a talent show at a local
>>>  college with my parents and wife.  The MC was a black man and much of the
>>>  audience was black.  He must have been funny because they were having a
>>>  ball.  Meanwhile we kept looking at each other wondering what he was saying.
>>>   I will never forget it.
>>>
>>>  It happened in England as well.  I had to avoid this fellow member of a
>>>  society I belong to because I couldn't understand a word he was saying.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>  see truespel.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  ----------------------------------------
>>>  > Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:11:41 -0500
>>>  > From: djmetevia at CHARTERMI.NET
>>>  > Subject: Rare Dialects
>>>  > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>  >
>>>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  -----------------------
>>>  > Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>  > Poster: David Metevia
>>>  > Subject: Rare Dialects
>>>  >
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  >
>>>  > An interesting article in the LA Times yesterday:
>>>  >
>>>  > http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-interpret21-2009feb21,0,5139254.story
>>>  >
>>>  > This man could communicate easily in his home town and even somewhat
>>>  > outside of that as he knows some Spanish. However, it is a big culture
>>>  > shock to be in California.
>>>  >
>>>  > Are there examples in the US of AmE dialects so isolated from the
>>>  > mainstream that most of us would have difficulty communicating?
>>>  >
>>>  > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>  _________________________________________________________________
>>>  Windows Live  Hotmail(R) more than just e-mail.
>>>
>>>
>>>http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_hm_justgotbetter_howitworks_022009
>>>
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list