Re: Back to the Future (was: I'm back, sort of)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Brown" <ray.brown@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 7:12 AM
Subject: Back to the Future (was: I'm back, sort of)


> On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, at 06:47 , Joe wrote:
>
> [snip]
> > 'Future English' is everywhere.  I know future English will be at least
a
> > slightly synthetic language, with forms for at least negatives ( I
dunno,
> >  I
> > ain't).
>
> Future?
>
> "ain't" had been the mark of upper class aristo English for a few
> centuries;
> it retreated among "the lower orders" because of the pretensions of the
> 19th century bourgeoisie, but never disappeared.  Indeed, in rural
dialects
> of england it remained and, in the south at least, was (and probably still
> is)
> pronounced /Ent/ - a fact Tolkien used in tLotR in Treebeard's pun:
> "..there are Ents and things that look like Ents but ain't, as you might
> say."
That's /En?/, in my dialect.  And I didn't know it used to be upper class
speak.  Interesting

And I am English, by the way.

> Sorry, "ain't" ain't future English - 'tis centuries old.
True, perhaps, but it did manage to restrict itself to 'the working class'.
I think it will proliferate again.

> Dunno how old "dunno" is, but it was certainly already in common currency
> this side of the Pond 50 years ago or more.
I am on this side of the pond, I think.  Providing you're English.  But
anyway, it's not standard English.  I think Standard English lags about a
century behind spoken English, roughly.

As well as this, I think /n=/ will become standard English for 'and'.  It's
not like anyone really says /&nd/ anymore.

> Ray
> ===============================================
> http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
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