> > The dialects from South Carolina are closer to being a seperate
> > language than are the ones from West Virginia. :)
>
>I would never consider any of the American spoken varieties to be any
>thing approaching separate languages, not even some of the more
Nor would I when being serious. After I inquired if English was his father's
native languagem Robert and I wer being sarcastic about the accents which we
heard while growing up.
>I'm almost willing to say Appalachian English is a
>misnomer. Call it Apalachian Scots. *g* Subtitles
>are a real help.
I've read, and even heard referenced on TV, that there is an Appalachian
variation which is (was?) considered a "true dialect" (I've no idea which
criteria were used), being more like Elizabethan English.
>But then there's Gullah and Hoitoid they really are
>jibberish without subtitles. Now if I spent any
Gullah is considered a West African creole.
>significant time around them they'd probably become
>understandable pretty quickly but as someone who
>hasn't spent time around those dialects they are HARD
>to get much of anything out of. It's much easier to
I've often wondered about this. I've certainly not heard all the variations
within American English, but have yet personally to encounter one which was
unintelligable after I had some minimal exposure to it.
I have however met both northerners (e.g. from New York and Chicago) and
southerners (e.g. from Atlanta and New Orleans) who publicly acclaimed that
each others' speech was fully unintelligable.
>understand the Sichuan Mandarin two of my co-workers
>(sisters) speak to each other at the office.
I know a bit of Mandarin but nothing of Sichuan; but when I first began
studying German, I was surprised how unintelligable my teachers found even
one shift of stress in polysyllabic words. I can't remember a specific real
example, but it was similar to saying [ar\"bait@n] instead of ["ar\bait@n]
in _Wo arbeiten Sie?_.
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