Re: Yiddish, Ladino, and Code Switching

On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Barry Garcia wrote:

>dnsulani@inter.net.il writes:
>>    Another example is (Asian) Indian TV. We get Indian
>>broadcasts on our TV. On the popular programs
>>(sitcoms, game shows, etc.) they speak a mixture of
>>an Indian lang (I don't know which) and English. They
>>switch back and forth quite freely and nobody seems to
>>be bothered by it. (By English, I mean not only words,
>>but phrases and whole sentences!)
>
>Here where I live, we get satelite news programs from around the world
>(The show that broadcasts these programs is called "Scola", and they have
>Tagalog, Russia, German (Deutsche Welle TV), Spanish, Iranian, Korean and
>Taiwanese news programs) . Anyway, i tune into the Tagalog news program
>sometimes (actually more of a morning talk show) called "Alas Singko Y
>Medya" (Tagalogized from the Spanish for 5:30 am, a las cinco y media),
>and the news people on that show frequently switch from Tagalog to
>English.  Like Dan's example of Indian TV, the reporters on "Alas Singko Y
>Medya" do use whole phrases and sentences also.
>
I was watching some Philippine news broadcast a couple of weeks back.
They were doing a segment on some kind of strike or protest with
people (the protesters) clogging the streets. During the in the street
interview, people switched from what I assume is Tagalog to English or
sometimes Spanish rather freely.  The news announcers and interviewers
never did this, though.

Padraic.