Re: dialectal diversity in English

En réponse à Adam Walker :

>While I agreee that dialects in England do show even
>wider/wilder variation than American dialects, some
>American dialects rate pretty low for mutual
>intelligiblity with my dialect.  I speak Dallas
>dialect which is much closer to "General American"
>than what most people think of when they think Texas
>dialects.  Cajun English can get pretty dicey and
>thats just one state over.  Ozark English has been
>analyzed as ergative.  Some of those Appalachian
>dialects are well nigh incomprehensible to me.  I'm
>almost willing to say Appalachian English is a
>misnomer.  Call it Apalachian Scots. *g*  Subtitles
>are a real help.
Three days ago I was watching a report on the Dutch TV where a few Dutch
people were interviewed. On Dutch and Flemish TV people speaking Dutch
dialects are usually subtitled. Often I find it a waste of time and money:
the "dialect" they speak is completely understandable for me, differing
from the standard by some different choices of words and some pronunciation
changes. But in this case the subtitles were really necessary: those people
(Dutch and not Flemish) spoke a dialect so different from the standard that
I was unable to make out even a single word of what they were saying, and
my friend, who understand pretty much every dialect of the Netherlands and
Flanders and understands even Fries, could not understand them either
without the subtitles!

Dialects are a strange thing: even in a country as small as the Netherlands
without barriers of communication, people manage to have enough dialectical
differences that they reach unintelligibility!

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

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