Rare Dialects
Herb Stahlke
hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM
Mon Feb 23 22:37:39 UTC 2009
One subject that's been absent from this thread is the ambiguity in
the use of "dialect" in the article that started the thread. It
wasn't clear whether the author was assuming a Weinreichian definition
of language and dialect or was using "dialect" more subtly. The
different Mixe dialects he referred to were apparently mutually
unintelligible. Were they dialects because the author knew little
about the languages of Mexico and so all exotic languages are dialects
or were they dialects because, perhaps, culturally their speakers view
the other communities as closely related? The article wasn't clear on
this point, but I did get a sense of "those people down there speak
dialects and we speak a language."
Herb
On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: Rare Dialects
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list