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A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

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Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#81

Post by swarnie_ »

jdietrich wrote: post #79
ilamont wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie "Hot Fuzz" played up variations in regional accents in England. There's a scene (1) where the London cop (Simon Pegg) has to use two rural cops in order to interpret the dialect of an old farmer. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun-LZvOTdw

That scene is only a slight exaggeration. Rural West Country accents can be almost totally unintelligible to users of standard English. https://youtu.be/WjTIFkWJctY?t=40s

Its amazing how diverse the accent can be in such a tiny part of the world. Its extremely easy to tell if someone is from Bristol, Gloucester, Swindon or Salisbury immediately.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#82

Post by corpMaverick »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

It is nonsensical to me.

Latino is a Spanish short cut for Latinoamericano or Latinoamericana. The anglicized version would be Latinamerican or just Latin. So they add the gender, Latino or Latina, and then renege it using Latinx. Why adding the gender in the first place?

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#83

Post by wambotron »

mieseratte wrote: post #45
enriquto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

An American would refer to them as Canadian, French-Canadian, or Québécois if you're feeling fancy. We also have the term Hispanic to refer to folks from Latin America though I'm not quite sure what the underlying difference is.

Hispanic refers to Spanish-influenced cultures, not all of South America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_America

I think that's why it's largely considered Latin America instead of Hispanic America.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#84

Post by spraak »

swarnie_ wrote: post #81
jdietrich wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That scene is only a slight exaggeration. Rural West Country accents can be almost totally unintelligible to users of standard English. https://youtu.be/WjTIFkWJctY?t=40s

Its amazing how diverse the accent can be in such a tiny part of the world. Its extremely easy to tell if someone is from Bristol, Gloucester, Swindon or Salisbury immediately.

Yeah I've always wondered why that has happened in Britain but not so much in the US in that people on different ends of the country can often sound not too dissimilar,

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#85

Post by mc32 »

acct1771 wrote: post #70
mc32 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the adjective for the Roman "Latin" in Spanish also "Latino"? Do they get confused by this?

Yeah, I don't think that's the part that's confusing them.

And it shouldn’t confuse us either, as far as I can tell.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#86

Post by jdietrich »

arethuza wrote: post #27
baxtr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isolation is probably an important factor for the development of an accent

I grew up in a small fishing village in the north of Scotland - an area notorious for its very strong accents (to the point of some documentaries filmed locally having to be subtitled in English!). However, people who lived on farms spoke with a noticeably different accent (at least to the ears of locals) - even though they might be physically on a kilometer or two from the nearest village. NB This was in the 70s - I…

Communication technology has undoubtedly had an effect on the Scots language, but I think that education is a far bigger factor. For generations, children have been taught exclusively in English and chastised for using Scots. Like Welsh and Cornish, Scots was a victim of linguistic imperialism.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#87

Post by ilamont »

jdietrich wrote: post #79
ilamont wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie "Hot Fuzz" played up variations in regional accents in England. There's a scene (1) where the London cop (Simon Pegg) has to use two rural cops in order to interpret the dialect of an old farmer. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun-LZvOTdw

That scene is only a slight exaggeration. Rural West Country accents can be almost totally unintelligible to users of standard English. https://youtu.be/WjTIFkWJctY?t=40s

Wow. There's a linked video of farmers from Kerry, Ireland as well. I can't understand the first one, the second just barely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsUvcjk8J5c

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#88

Post by astura »

mieseratte wrote: post #45
enriquto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

An American would refer to them as Canadian, French-Canadian, or Québécois if you're feeling fancy. We also have the term Hispanic to refer to folks from Latin America though I'm not quite sure what the underlying difference is.

Hispanic means "of Spain," it refers to the people/cultures that have their roots in the cultural influence/imperialism of Spain.

Latino/Latina means "of Latin America" (actually I think it's an abbreviation of the Spanish or Portuguese translation of "Latin American") and refers to people whose ancestors are from Latin America.

So an American whose ancestors came from Spain would be Hispanic but not Latina and an American whose ancestors came from Brazil would be Latina but not Hispanic. Someone whose ancestors came from Mexico would be both Hispanic and Latina.

Like most broad, potentially emotionally charged, cultural labels many people don't agree with this labeling and/or may self identify differently. Especially those who don't have a strong cultural or linguistical ties to where their ancestors are from.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#89

Post by spraak »

astura wrote: post #53
leetcrew wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it disallows an English speaker to refer to a person in a gender unspecified way it's really not that hard to use singular "they". we already do it naturally in instances like "someone left their coat here. i hope they don't need it today." it only gets confusing when you try to talk about a gender unspecified member of a group and the group at the same time. you can certainly debate whether you should have to adju…

Singular "they" sometimes gets a bad rap (less so in the last couple years) but it's been part of the English language since the time thorn (Þ) was an English letter. It's appeared in well known written works by respected authors, such as this usage by Shakespeare: "There's not a man I meet but doth salute me as if I were their well-acquainted friend" - A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3 As you point out, even peopl…

Thanks for sharing this! I really felt like it must be older and more common than critics claim.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#90

Post by eezurr »

skywhopper wrote: post #50
toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

Try googling "why latinx" and reading up on it. It's deeper than just gender-neutrality, and it's not just about being "sensical". Some here will dismiss it because there are political aspects to the choice. But I assume most people who comment on Hacker News under self-determined pseudonyms can respect the desire and the right of people to come up with labels for referring to themselves that make sense to them, what…

I've read the first two results on google and it appears it's strictly related to gender-neutrality. As far as respecting the desires and rights of people who come up with labels for (more than) themselves... I can't.

Someone demanding me to blanket treat an entire culture is dehumanizing every interaction with a person from that culture (and it makes each interaction tainted with ideology). I also can't respect someone who thinks they have the right to speak for an "identity" that crosses many cultures and national boarders, or contains millions of people. [1]

Let's reverse the roles. Would you feel comfortable if a white activist (assuming you are white) you do not know, who has never spoken to you before, and comes from a different country or background than you, is demanding the country/world to treat or label you a specific way? What if it was a male? Or female? Or Catholic or atheist? Democratic or republican? Blue collared or white collared? Has children, or doesn't? [1]

[1][1] A single word can be heavily loaded from a political or justice oriented ideology, and cause people to subconsciously distance themselves from people they interact with due to subconsciously projecting that ideology.

/rant.

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