Analyze my dialect

[Starchild]

Speer, you have no concept of the British/European concept of travelling. Yes, in theory one can get from one end of England to another in a single day. But people don't. It's not a geographic thing, it's social. London is just over an hour away from me but it might as well be a seven hour flight in terms of mental-distance.

I moved only fourty minutes way from home to go to university yet in British terms, that's quite the move. People simply don't have the same concept of mobility here.

Do you know the saying "To the Americans, a hundred years is a long time, to the British, a hundred miles is a long way"? It's entirely true.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed


Outside certain middle-class southern circles, I've never heard anyone actually speak BBC english.

I know, I was merely providing a contrast to show that homogenization has occured in the UK as well.

Hell parts and Wales and Scotland (and even Cornwall, although I think now defunct) even have their own languages. So what about the US?

Well if its not English they're speaking, then its irrelevent to the argument of how diverse English is on our respective landmasses. But if you want to throw other languages into the mix then we've definately got you beat there. There's no way you can compare to us on that front... we're immigrant societies. But this is besides the point.

Not for the serf or peasant...they stayed put. This extended to the industrial age.

This is true. Americans have been among the most mobile people on earth... in general. However in the rural areas, people haven't budged in 400 years, and these areas combined make up an area probably 50x larger than the whole UK, so your point is moot as far as mobilization beign a factor.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Starchild
Speer, you have no concept of the British/European concept of travelling. Yes, in theory one can get from one end of England to another in a single day. But people don't. It's not a geographic thing, it's social. London is just over an hour away from me but it might as well be a seven hour flight in terms of mental-distance.

I moved only fourty minutes way from home to go to university yet in British terms, that's quite the move. People simply don't have the same concept of mobility here.

Do you know the saying "To the Americans, a hundred years is a long time, to the British, a hundred miles is a long way"? It's entirely true.

This isn't just a European phenomenon. New England is the relative size of a postage stamp, and people rarely leave the area. Towns fifteen minutes outside of Boston are considered the sticks or the boondocks, even though by maybe a Texas standard thats still downtown.

Again, I don't believe mobilization is a factor in lingustic diversity anymore. Especially with the advent of radio and TV... you're so small one radio station can pretty much reach all over the country. The fact that you don't move is irrelevent today because you don't have to to hear other influences.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
This isn't just a European phenomenon. New England is the relative size of a postage stamp, and people rarely leave the area. Towns fifteen minutes outside of Boston are considered the sticks or the boondocks, even though by maybe a Texas standard thats still downtown.

Sounds like Dartford, so provincial yet 20 miles from the centre of London

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
England was more homogenous than France and King James actively attempted to standardize the English language so it is likely that Englishmen were speaking a mutually intelligible form of English as far back as the late 17th century...

No, it's likely that differences quickly faded as people got to the colony.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


No, it's likely that differences quickly faded as people got to the colony.

Based on what? And to which colony? You can't just make assumptions like that...

Anyways, the truth is, English is very standard across the board in every country. This is a reason why I am skeptical that variation is any more profound in the UK than it is in the US. I mean, any reader of English in any country, even the most backwater region of the US or Australia, can understand Chaucer written 600 years ago. In other words, people in the UK can go "OMFG people up north speak SOOOO different!1!!!", but in reality its not that different. Certainly no more different than a New Englander to a Texas, or a Georgian to a Minnesotan.

[Odin]

Brits think 100 miles is a long way?

[Provost Harrison]

Yes and no, but mainly as an artifact of the price of transport/fuel over here. In terms of driving, In the past I thought nothing of driving to Manchester (100 miles from Hull) having a night out with the lads (on the soft drinks of course ) and driving back.

[Traianvs]

in dutch

-weet he wa, ksal nkier o' u mulle klo''en want die mulle vajoen es mi te hroet, et goed versteun ja?

-wete wa, kzal is oep a bakkes kloppe want die klep van aa is moa viel te groeat, hedde da goe verston joa?

good flemish version: weet ge wat, ik zal een keer op uw gezicht kloppen want die mond van u is mij te groot, hebt ge het goed verstaan ja?

=> It's so bad in here that I don't understand someone that lives just 150 kms away from me, unless they make a good effort of talking and pronouncing the letters.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Trajanus
in dutch

-weet he wa, ksal nkier o' u mulle klo''en want die mulle vajoen es mi te hroet, et goed versteun ja?

-wete wa, kzal is oep a bakkes kloppe want die klep van aa is moa viel te groeat, hedde da goe verston joa?

good flemish version: weet ge wat, ik zal een keer op uw gezicht kloppen want die mond van u is mij te groot, hebt ge het goed verstaan ja?

=> It's so bad in here that I don't understand someone that lives just 150 kms away from me, unless they make a good effort of talking and pronouncing the letters.

Now thats true lingustic diversity.. we have it relatively easy in English, as I was saying.

What does that mean in English, by the way?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn


Based on what? And to which colony? You can't just make assumptions like that...

Anyways, the truth is, English is very standard across the board in every country. This is a reason why I am skeptical that variation is any more profound in the UK than it is in the US. I mean, any reader of English in any country, even the most backwater region of the US or Australia, can understand Chaucer written 600 years ago. In other words, people in the UK can go "OMFG people up north speak SOOOO different!1!!!", but in reality its not that different. Certainly no more different than a New Englander to a Texas, or a Georgian to a Minnesotan.

Not that that proves much, you can't detect accents from the way people write, until they make an obvious phonetically based typo. How do you pronounce Featherstone-Waugh? You may both understand the word as being a town or person's surname, but I bet you wouldn't pronounce it as Fanshaw as its supposed to.

Anyway, there are accents so thick in parts of the country that people are unintelligble to me. Geordies with their "gi-root" for get-out or "yem" for home or 'scallion' for spring onion. And then there's many Americans that have a hard time understanding me. I have to enunciate my words and speak very slowly at times. Its quite amusing.

Not that these prove much, I don't know if you can objectively say one nation has more variety than the other, but I would think that in Britain accents change at faster rate per geographic mile, but then Britain does have a higher population/city density that could explain that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

'scallion' for spring onion

I don't think that's a result of an accent . We kind of call them scallions here as well.

[Dauphin]

The Geordie/Georgia link reveals itself.

[Dauphin]

Interestingly, looking at the dictionary it says that scallion and onion have the same root (linguistically, no pun intended), so in a sense it is still the development of an accent that created two distinct words.

[Japher]

a scallion is a new onion is a green onion

didn't the word soccer derive itself from a british accent?