Re: CHAT: This or that that.

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> >> I also tend to pick up whatever pronunciation those
> >> around me use, and not only in English, which can be kind
> >> of embarrassing at times, actually.
> >
> > My feeling is that I cannot exactly go about *educating*
> > those people.
>
> Did I say you should? I think you misunderstood me totally.
Oh sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you said that at all. I just
wanted to say what I felt, no intention of any disagreement.

> I only said that if you first use one accent when you meet
> people, then suddenly or gradually start aping their accent
> it's embarrassing for me. I do this when I go to different
> German-speaking parts too, or even in Denmark and Norway!
> It's not *their* accent which is embarrassing, but *my*
> failure to maintain the integrity of my own accent(s) in
> different languages.
I feel a little different from you here. I was brought up by a well-
meaning mother who stripped me of much of the local accent. Luckily I
couldn't avoid picking up some of it from friends and relatives, but
for many years my language has been frightfully mixed up with Bokmål,
without much integrity at all. Neither do I have any integrity with
my school English as opposed to the *real* english of the Englishmen
I meet. My language is kind of an empty shell without much flavour to
it. Which is part of the reason why I so easily pick up flavours from
elsewhere I guess.

Luckily it caused me to wake up a little when I moved to Sunnfjord 5
years ago. Here the dialect has a pretty strong flavour, too strong
even for comprehension sometimes. And so different and yet so alike
to my southeastern one that I don't pick it up just right away. Early
on I fancied learning it, but more recently I have reflected the
local pride of my neighbours in an attempt to restore some of the
integrity of my own speech instead. There are elements that I know
well because I grew up with them, but that I have never used, like
the masc.def.pl in -ane or the participles in -andes for example. It
takes some getting used to. Maybe I will become a whole person some
time...;-)

Another thing that's struck me in the process in fact is the amount
of features that we have in common after all and that are alien to
Bokmål. I think there is no escape from the conclusion that Bokmål is
nothing but Danish with a Norwegian accent and thus rather inadequate
as a writing system for Norwegian.

LEF