Grammatical mistakes

[John Dingley]

Hi,

>"do Finns make grammatical errors?"  The instructors seemed visibly lost
>in answering the question,  their first inclination was to say, "no they
>don't" -- yet an answer like that seemed positively silly.

Yes, this is silly. Finnish has an idealized standard called the
"kirjakieli" (= "literary language"), which educated Finns can speak
and which is taught to foreigners. All Finns, to a greater or lesser
degree, will use the "puhekieli" (= "spoken colloquial language"),
which can differ vastly from the "kirjakieli". Add to this mix the
regional dialects which are still very much in evidence and you
can see that the situation obtaining in Finland is not unlike, say,
that obtaining in the Czech Republic with its spisovná and hovorovâ/
obecná, just to quote one example.

John

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 10:43 AM, George Kalbouss <kalbouss at mac.com> wrote:

>        This question stems from frustrating experiences I've had with
> people
> in the Columbus area whose grammar is positively atrocious.  I'm not
> speaking
> of word mispronunciation or spelling mistakes.  I'm speaking of people who
> seem
> totally incapable of forming a past tense (i.e. "we wuz here," "I seen it
> yesterday,"
> "he has came here,"), as well as other variances from the norm.  There
> should
> be no excuse for this, for the most part the speakers are from the working
> class,
> but are virtually all high school graduates.
>
>        The question I have is this:  "do Russians make grammatical errors?"
>  When
> I think of all the interactions I have had with Russians, both in Russia
> and emigres
> in the US,  I cannot recall ever encountering one who made a grammatical
> error.
> (I'm excluding so-called "heritage speakers,"  persons of other ethnic
> backgrounds
> for whom Russian is a second language, or people who mispronounce words).
>     When
> I think about the various dialogues I've read in Russian literature and
> drama,  I can recall many
> instances of "dialect" Russian which was usually expressed with alternate
> pronunciations,
> but not really errors in grammar.
>
>        A few years back, I was taking a seminar in the Finnish language in
> Finland.
> After going through practicums in incredible rules of grammar,
>  declensions, exceptions, etc.,
> one of the participants in the group asked the instructors the same
> question, i.e.,
> "do Finns make grammatical errors?"  The instructors seemed visibly lost in
> answering
> the question,  their first inclination was to say, "no they don't" -- yet
> an answer like
> that seemed positively silly.
>
>        If I am right (or leaning in that direction),  what is it about
> English that seems to invite
> people into making these mistakes when Russian and Finnish (and other
> languages)
> where there are many more rules and variances, for people to speak
> correctly?  Perhaps
> at least we can agree that errors in grammar seem to abound more with
> native English speakers
> than they do with native Russian speakers.
>
>        I'd appreciate any musings on this subject!
>
> George Kalbouss
> Assoc Prof (Emeritus)
> The Ohio State University
>
>
>
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