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Re: CHAT: silly names, prepositions

From:D Tse <exponent@...>
Date:Monday, March 19, 2001, 5:48
> > > CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes: > >Now that makes me curious...does anybody else apply the syntactical rules > >of their mother tongue to others they speak at an almost mother tongue > >level? (I mean like, someone who is Canadian or American born but whose > >first language is not English or French). > > Probably not as good an example of yours, but i'll often hear my father > say things like "close the light", which is something quite common that > other Filipinos will do (my father is American born, and even though he > spoke english growing up, and really only listening to my grandmother and > father speak, he picked up their speech habits). My grandmother does the > same also. >
Curious...a similar expression in Cantonese "to turn on a light" translates to "open the light" which is a source of hilarity for those who are speaking English but thinking in another language Imperative