Chirac warns of 'catastrophe' of world 'choked' by US values

[Sandman]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Asked and answered! As nationalism became a dominent ideology in Europe, the ruling classes decided that the nation's needed a single language, rather than a different dialect every twenty miles. In nearly every European country, efforts were underway in the 18th and 19th Century to standardize the national language.

And this didn't happen in America because ...?

In any case, it's not dialects - it's accents. Accents were never standardised by the ruling classes, given that regional accents strongly persist even today.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DanS


"Emerged" in America? This is a funny way of putting it.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Who cares if it only survives becuase of subsidies.

Don't worry, it doesn't.

[JohnT]

Not according to Spiffor's account. It wouldn't be viable if it weren't for government action, so...

[Fake Boris]

Actually, it became truly popular after the government took action to regulate radio broadcast of music. The masses are flocking to their favorite French rap.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Sandman
Who 'deliberately' changed the accent? . . . The upper classes?

Asked and answered! As nationalism became a dominent ideology in Europe, the ruling classes decided that the nation's needed a single language, rather than a different dialect every twenty miles. In nearly every European country, efforts were underway in the 18th and 19th Century to standardize the national language.

So England (and presumably Scotland and Wales too) went from a nation of different accents every 20 miles to a nation of different accent every 20 miles. And that was a deliberate action performed by the upper classes. Well done to them, must have been one hell of a task acheiving that.

[DinoDoc]

/me chokes Dauphin with US values

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I trust you mean Americans changed their accent? After all it was they who were trying to assert their independence?

Not at all. The English deliberately started changing their accent after the Revolution (maybe it started early 19th century) because they didn't like sounding like Americans

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sandman
Right. So whilst words and grammatical structures have changed, disappeared or emerged, the accent has stayed the same? This strikes me as rather unlikely.

The accent, while it HAS changed, has been relatively constant.

As for 'the English' changing their accent after the American Revolution, that seems downright nonsense. Who 'deliberately' changed the accent? The government? The upper classes? The ordinary people?

The upper classes.

[DanS]

@ Dinodoc

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Actually, it became truly popular after the government took action to regulate radio broadcast of music. The masses are flocking to their favorite French rap.

Which is what I said.

Law of unintended consequences: in an effort to "save" French culture, the French end up showing how derivative it is.

[Fake Boris]

I assumed that you used the term "viable" in the way that it was subsisting thanks to the subsidies. According to Spiffor there are no subsidies but rather a law about a certain % of French music that must be respected in broadcasts.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The accent, while it HAS changed, has been relatively constant.

The upper classes.

The evidence you have provided so far has been pretty insubstantial. The use of 'ain't', syllable-based reading and some minister's opinion on the linguistic diversity. These don't add up to much, and I'm going to need a lot more to even begin to consider this a 'historical fact'. What other scholars agree with Boorstin, for starters? Are there any that disagree?

Given the upper classes were involved, I assume that there's loads of written sources available documenting the linguistic angst of the English aristocrats. Care to provide some?

Oh, and how did the English upper classes even know what Americans sounded like, given the limited state of communications of the time? Did they quiz veterans and merchants on how Americans spoke, and then began 'deliberately' altering their accents to avoid the terrible crime of sounding 'American'? Even though from their point of view their accent was English?

Where did the English accent(s) come from? Were they just invented one day? Was they adopted from elsewhere? Did they just 'evolve' out of the English upper classes 'deliberate' desire to not sound American?

No reply to my point about the Pitcairn islanders? Their accent is said to be 'Olde English', and yet nobody has commented on them sounding like Southerners.

[Dauphin]

This needs treatment

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Not at all. The English deliberately started changing their accent after the Revolution (maybe it started early 19th century) because they didn't like sounding like Americans

Is that why people like Webster deliberately started making American English different through things such as his brand new dictionary of new spellings?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
When Spiffor mentions all of the good things that subsidization has brought initially, I say that's great, as far as it goes. But over time, I expect this protection from competition to be stifling to good, vibrant art.

This is an actual risk, and we are suffering from it right now. Most youth-radios now broadcast the latest idol as French young artists. I suppose French idols would have emerged law or no law (there are similar idols in Germany), but the idols indeed get broadcasted in place of creative music