Change and What Remains

petegray petegray at btinternet.com
Fri Oct 15 19:52:12 UTC 1999


Lars said:
>two sligthly different versions of the same language or dialect
> may apparently exist side by side.

This is not a surprise to English speakers in the West Midlands.   Some of
us use subjunctives ("If I were king...) and others do not, some of us
distinguish witch and which and others do not, and on a bus you can hear
"you am", "you are", "you be" and even "you bist".   I am sure there are
other variations as well.   Some of this variety is due to importations of
speakers of foreign dialects (e.g. Jamaicans or New Zealanders), but
certainly not all.   It used to be claimed that the dialect changed every
two or three miles in this area.

Peter



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