Re: CHAT EU and accents

Barbara Barrett wrote:

>>Joe Jotted;
>>...... However, I'd really prefer to keep
>>the European Union's multilingualism.  It entertains me.
>>
>>
>
>Barbara Babbles;
>Indeed, and the habit of declaring dialects "languages" which means member
>authorities *must* produce duplicate versions of their legislation in the
>dialect (although oddly the EU itself isn't obliged to do so).
>
>The EU officially recognized the dialect I used in school, Ulster-Scots, as
>a language, and now everything done by the government in Northern Ireland
>has to have an Ulster-Scots version too.
>
>
>
You're a native Scots speaker?  How cool.

>This has spawned Ulster-Scots/English dictionaries, an Ulster-Scots Society,
>and even an official "translator" (a legal obligation under EU law) at
>Stormont.
>
>Hilarity ensues because Ulster-Scots advocates and promoters are not
>generally Ulster-Scots speakers, and not only get a bit tongue-tied but are
>*inventing* words or constructing awkward phrases for modern things (this is
>true of the official translator, the only applicant for the job, who
>admitted that to "translate" he just imagined everything in a Ballymeana
>accent!)  whereas the speaker who grew up with Ulster-Scots sees nothing
>wrong with using English words for things Ulster-Scots doesn't cover (which
>is basically everything invented after 1850).
>
>Ulster-Scots speakers are on the whole rather bewildered by it all because
>we can all code-switch between Ulster-Scots and English, and it is truly
>weird to see Ulster-Scots
>in written form, or to hear it spoken by someone with a "Queens" accent (as
>in Queens University Belfast accent ;-)). Besides, Ulster-Scots is mutually
>intelligible with standard English, well for the most part unless the accent
>is very "thick", and more so with Hibernian English.
>
>
True, but it's got an army and a navy, as the saying goes.  Or at least,
it did, once.  Well, Scots from Scotland did.  But really, are Scots and
English any more similar than, say, Norwegian and Swedish?

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