Funny ... I thought I was seeing Welsh but perhaps with too many vowels!
Is English a “creole Language”?
131–140 of 166 posts
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once upon a time I was walking with a friend around Amsterdam and a man walked up to me and asked me where something was (a nearby restaurant), I answered in English with directions and he thanked me, then a moment later this exchange happened: - Wait! You can speak Netherlands? - No. Sorry. - But you can! I am speaking it! - No you're not! You're speaking English! He just blinked and walked off, probably assuming I…
Very much reminds me of a Kids in the Hall skit from ages ago. Two guys are at a party, one says "hello", the other says -- in perfect English -- "Sorry I don't understand you, I don't speak English. please don't beat me up." The first guy assumes it's a joke and plays along until he gets annoyed at the perfect accent and responses ("no really, I don't understand what you're saying, nor what I'm saying, I've just pra…
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Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a kid my boychoir hosted a choir from Estonia (this was before the fall of the Iron Curtain, so this was a big deal), and I remember when I was trying to help out back-stage at their concert and one of the Estonian boys needed help, but the only thing he could say was "I don't speak English", in a perfect midwestern accent (the Estonian choir director had drilled his entire choir on that one phrase). The c…
Prior to a trip to Poland I listen to some language tapes and learn how to say "I don't understand Polish" in polish (something like "nya rezumium popolski"). Almost everybody understood English and finally when I ran into somebody who didn't and used that Polish phrase, I realized I could have just said in English "I don't understand Polish" and it actually would have been clearer communication.
I don’t understand why it would have been clearer to use a language they didn’t understand. Actually a lot of comments under this article aren’t making a lot of sense. A lot of claims of of paradox where I don’t see it.
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which 'aspect' is supposed to be missing in Germanic language verbs? Because I can say those three example forms (aspect tenses?) in both Swedish and German without any limitation.
I think the parent was specifically referring to "I was playing", which in German would not be expressed using only forms of the verb. You would have to use an adverb, as in "ich spielte gerade ". Or you could noun the verb: "ich war am Spielen".
Nit: isn’t “playing” itself “nouning the verb” via a gerund / participle construct?
I actually am not sure of the subtleties on this grammatical point.
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Here's my opinion: English is the result of a simplification of grammar caused by Old Norse and Old English crashing into each other with the same words but different grammar; then the French forced French usage in commerce, so most people started using a ton of French words with this English grammar. That last part sounds exactly like a creole. Grandparent's point is that you're stretching the meaning of the term t…
They definitely did think English was not a language worth engaging with. Even literate people in England barely thought of English as a language worth studying -- they wrote everything in Latin. Certainly the Norman conquerers only bothered to learn the minimum amount of English they had to to talk to the locals. That's why there are so many French words in English. I think the status of a "creole" language is sort…
>They definitely did think English was not a language worth engaging with. Even literate people in England barely thought of English as a language worth studying -- they wrote everything in Latin.
This... the point of the matter is that no one thought English was not a language in its own right. Not which landed aristocrat or educated clergymen wrote in English for other non-English speakers, which was the point of writing in Ecclesiastical Latin.
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#136It's closer to Dutch or German. I had no issue understanding transit signage in Amsterdam. The difficult words are calques and idioms that don't directly translate, i.e. opponthoud . Exit is uitgang , literally an "outgoing". Entrance is ingang , ingoing.
This is very much debatable. Only around one in four English words is Germanic in origin, whereas half of English words are Latinic or Romanic. [1] Some properties of English's grammar are also more similar to Romance languages than Germanic ones. For example, whereas Germanic languages only mark tense on verbs, English verbs (like Spanish verbs) are marked with aspect in addition to tense: there is a distinction bet…
> But it's a much more interesting problem to figure out why it's not considered a Romance language than you imply.
the language backbone is still Germanic
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
My personal definition of “word” is “a unit of semantic meaning”. Don’t ask me to define that. Are numbers words? Are abbreviations words? Can a words contain other words? Can the same sentence have a different number of words when spoken versus written? Yes to all, and more.
> Are numbers words? Are abbreviations words? Not the interesting part, I think. Is the English un- a word? Before you reflexively say no, consider that it has a specific meaning even though it never appears on its own and never receives word stress. Is the French je a word? Before you reflexively say yes, consider that it never appears on its own and never receives word stress even though it has a specific meaning.…
> Is the French je a word? Before you reflexively say yes, consider that it never appears on its own and never receives word stress even though it has a specific meaning.
And? That doesn't change what the word "word" mean. Even in french, where "word" is "mot". There's no rule saying that a word has to be able to appear on its own to be named a "word".
More specifically "je" is defined, by linguists, in french, as a "mot grammatical".
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mot_grammatical
Maybe what you're after is the difference between a "mot grammatical" and a "mot lexical"? But both are "mots" (words).
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#138It's closer to Dutch or German. I had no issue understanding transit signage in Amsterdam. The difficult words are calques and idioms that don't directly translate, i.e. opponthoud . Exit is uitgang , literally an "outgoing". Entrance is ingang , ingoing.
You can barely order food or drinks in Dutch in Amsterdam. Pancake house, server doesn’t speak Dutch. Local pub, server doesn’t speak Dutch. I don’t think that would happen in London or New York. You go to the pub or NY diner and they can’t speak English
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#139It's closer to Dutch or German. I had no issue understanding transit signage in Amsterdam. The difficult words are calques and idioms that don't directly translate, i.e. opponthoud . Exit is uitgang , literally an "outgoing". Entrance is ingang , ingoing.
Once upon a time I was walking with a friend around Amsterdam and a man walked up to me and asked me where something was (a nearby restaurant), I answered in English with directions and he thanked me, then a moment later this exchange happened: - Wait! You can speak Netherlands? - No. Sorry. - But you can! I am speaking it! - No you're not! You're speaking English! He just blinked and walked off, probably assuming I…
When watching German films with subtitles, I will sporadically understand phrases. When it happens it doesn't sound like German; it's some very strange English dialect. Ich habe das gestern Abend gesungen. I have that yester evening a-sung.
Re: Is English a “creole Language”?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/spelling-reform.h... If so it is equally badly spelled German.
German is badly spelt German. Damn High German consonant shift. (E.g.compare ship, schip, Schip, skib, skip vs. Schiff, or day, dag, Dag, dag, vs. Tag etc. - we'd have a far neater, gradual Germanic transition around the North Sea if Low German had "won".
The book "fom winde ferfeelt" is basically a book-length version of the joke, written by a brazilian who was frustrated with the inconsistency in the rules of the German language.