Re: USAGE: YAEPT:Re: Shavian: was Re: USAGE: Con-graphies

On 12/06/06, daniel prohaska <danielprohaska@...> wrote:

> English - monolithic?! My foot! ;-) Have you ever heard any of the
> traditional dialects spoken in England? I can only give you examples from
> Lancashire. I agree with you that the language of the younger generation has
> been somewhat levelled, in grammar and vocabulary more so than in phonology.
> But there are still a few younger speakers that use traditional dialect or
> at least code switch back and forth between dialect and a form modified
> towards the regional standard.
Umm... Half of those don't look terribly different from standard
English. Sometimes, the orthography differs; but the pronunciation is
well within reason, such as:

> <We used t'ha t'wauk t'eawr work.>
> [wI jY:st a? wO:k t&:r w8k]
> "We used to have to walk to (our) work."
Or with "Australian" (somewhat Broad of course; and not phonemic; but
not as bad as it could be):
[wIi ju\:st@ r\ &ft@ wo:k t@ w &: w2:k]

Other times, the "translation" is gratuitously different, such as:

> <That's t'ro:d heaw t'throw t'money away.>
> [Da?s ro:d &:? Tro: ?'mUne @'we:]
> "That's how you end up waisting money."
[D&ts &:  j@ fr\3u\ j@ mani j @w&i]

Which is perfectly legitimate and something I've heard my olders and
betters warn me against.

Also, this one in particular I'm not sure if I'd notice it was any
more different than the pronunciation diffs:

> <One of his mates is cume.>
> [wOn @v Iz me:ts Iz kUm]
> "one of his mates has come"
[wan @ r\ Iz m&its @s k_ham].

Not saying there aren't any differences; but again, the extent of the
difference seems exaggerated. A lot of it is just the effect of
retaining a second-person singular that Standard English has lost, and
phonetic process regarding "the"/this pronoun&case. As well, the
orthography seems designed to exaggerate the differences, with things
like "wauk" for Std English "walk" (but intended pronounciation of
"wauk") or "bin" for Std English "been" (but Americans say /bIn/
anyway, even when stressed, and don't bother re-spelling it). Where
does this orthography come from? Do locals use it much, nowadays, or
is it a rival of an oldfashioned thing?

--
Tristan.

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