I heard that in a few hundred years that people in New York and say... LA will be probably be speaking different languages, because the accents are so different. Anyone care to give some thoughts on this?
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06-10-02, 02:16 AM
mahal
I think that the media has more influence on us than our local cultures. My opinion is that in the same time the world will speak English because of CNN, BBC and Baywatch.

I also think that people from Washington state will rule the world because we're so cool. big grin

06-11-02, 05:52 PM
Godess of the Garden
Baywatch has words!?!

06-11-02, 06:58 PM
referenth
Even if New York Language, Los Angeles Language, and others in between were mutually unintelligible, there would still be a geographical continuum of intelligibility. For example, people in Kansas might still understand New Yorkers but not understand Los Angelinos. People in Washington would understand LA, and maybe Colorado, but not NY or Kansas.

That's how it works with languages like German and Italian—and to a lesser extent British English—that had more regional isolation before standardization, not the great western migration and dialect mixing that the U.S. and Canada experienced.

It also depends on what you mean by language. China has several languages but we often call them all "Chinese" because it's one country with one writing system (which actually only writes Mandarin).

Lastly, I just think it's interesting that many people in LA/Southern Cal. have lower vowels, so they don't even talk the same as San Franciscans in the same state, a 45-minute plane ride/6-hr drive away! Listen for "ih" to "eh" (milk, mElk) or "eh" to "a" (test, tAst like "clAssic").

06-11-02, 07:05 PM
kittypal
Why do we even have accents, I understand having say a Chinesse accent or Latin, but why mid-west or southern?

06-11-02, 08:12 PM
referenth
Language is always changing, but not in the same way and not at the same rate in all places. As I said above, Southern California front vowels are becoming lower/further back than they were. This is not happening in Northern California.

As for accents (and dialect words, grammar) such as Midwest, it's complicated. You had immigrants from various parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Holland, all speaking various English dialects, German dialects, etc. from their own countries.

Then they intermixed and spread to various parts of the U.S., and intermixed more. The leveling that happened as people moved westward made for fewer differences among dialects. People who stayed on the eastern seaboard retained more distinctions.

The dialects continue to grow and change. New words and grammatical forms come up that only catch on locally. Sounds are always changing.

Hope that helps.

06-11-02, 08:19 PM
referenth
I should add—so I will!—that it's controversial how much influence African languages and pidgins had on Southern American English. Some linguists think dialect forms are simply from certain dialects of England, not from any African influence.
American Dialect Links

06-12-02, 03:33 AM
Ewood27
I agree with Mahal (except about Washington rule!). Nationwide TV and communications will tend to level out regional accents/dialects/variations and keep them intelligible. This is what happened in England when communications improved in the 19th Century, so that now people with regional accents can be understood by others - unless of course they set out not to be!

At the same time Hollywood movies and US TV exports will keep spreading a universally-understandable version of English. We already have many Americanisms in British English, while the British-born equivalents would be less well understood across the 'Pond'.

06-12-02, 04:10 PM
Wordsmth
Actually, the commonly accepted thought is that, with the commonality of news media, we'll lose our regional accents and mostly speak with a near-Midwestern accent.

For languages to evolve, generally you need them to grow in isolation (as Latin evolved into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and French, for instance). If you take the speakers of a language (Yiddish, for instance) and put them in a culture where they or their children will speak the dominant language, then the first language is likely to fall into disuse.

06-12-02, 05:08 PM
referenth

quote:Originally posted by Wordsmth:
Actually, the commonly accepted thought is that, with the commonality of news media, we'll lose our regional accents and mostly speak with a near-Midwestern accent.



I can't argue that that's "a commonly accepted thought," Wordsmith, but it's too simple.

1) There's covert prestige (e.g., S. California surfer talk, "nay-oh way," or gangsta rap styles that come along) or local prestige (regionalisms) for certain ways of speaking. People naturally fall into in-group and out-group distinctions, and language is a big part of that.

2) Not everyone in the mass media sounds the same. CBS news anchor Dan Rather still has a Texas accent, ABC's Peter Jennings has his Canadian "aboat," and there are plenty of movies and TV shows with real or fake regional accents.

The great disparities may disappear, but as long as people feel group identity for a place (Southerner, Bostonian, Northumbrian), there will be patterned differences in the way people speak.

06-13-02, 07:18 PM
ateo

quote:Originally posted by Lungbutter:
I heard that in a few hundred years that people in New York and say... LA will be probably be speaking different languages, because the accents are so different. Anyone care to give some thoughts on this?



Linguistic experts predict that in the next century there will only be two languages spoken in the world. English and Spanish.

06-18-02, 12:31 PM
Texan-In-Exile
Referenth is right about accents and dialects. But I also believe climate has its influence. One morning when I was young, I was very cold and trying to talk. I sounded like I was from 'way up north! (I was in Texas, 'tho' then I didn't have much of any accent.) That's when I came to that realization. Think about it - It's so hot in the South, you don't want to do anything fast, including pronounce! roll eyes

07-16-02, 06:06 PM
doñadiana
For Ateo: I was interested in your comment about there being only two languages: English and Spanish. Perhaps there will be only one: Spanglish.
A book has been published by Ilan Stavans: Gentleman de Triste Figura (Don Quixote de la Mancha translated into spanglish.

07-16-02, 07:00 PM
DorianGreyed
Wordsmith- We in the Mid-West have no accent. It is the rest of you who do.

07-17-02, 10:42 PM
anguilla
Referenth:

As a Los Angelino cool for 22 years, I have not noticed the vowel changes you describe. Really. Since I'm not a native, I generally notice such subtleties.

Just a comment...P.S. Everything else in this discussion is terrifically interesting. Thanx to all.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,