Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1

Hey.

A few years ago I was teaching service courses in introductory
linguistics for public school teachers who wanted/needed an
endorsement to teach English as a second language. One of my students
was from southern Utah, where there are a lot of Paiute indians. After
finding out that I work professionally with languages of the family
(Numic, Uto-Aztecan), he mentioned that a common expression around his
home (he grew up on a ranch with Paiute ranch hands) was 'kwichup'. He
was sure that it was an Indian word, but he didn't know what it meant.
I told him that the word means 'shit', which prompted a good chuckle
from the class. He had no idea that he'd been using a "dirty word" all
of his life.

In my own home, I was very conversant with some of the milder curses
in Dutch, and have kept the practice of using them so as not to offend
others with more delicate sensibilities. Also, in some parts of the
US, it is not uncommon to hear verbs like 'come with', as in "I'm
walking to the store; anyone want to come with?" My impression that
this is more related to German 'mitkommen' and its Germanic cognates
than an authentic English usage. I also have this usage.

Dirk

On 7/17/06, Sai Emrys <sai@...> wrote:
> One thing that's relatively unusual about my speech (in English) is
> that I use the Japanese sentence-ending particle 'ne'. It's useful; it
> expresses something in a way that makes English more complete. Another
> example - I use the Russian 'nu?' (again, when speaking English).
>
> Aside from common loanwords & creolization - i.e. more on the
> grammatical end, or uncommon loanwords - what have you found to cross
> from the other languages you know or have created, into your ordinary
> speech / writing / thought?
>
>  - Sai
>

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