The English of England.

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shri420
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The English of England.

Postby shri420 » 2005-08-17, 9:46

Lets face it there is only one true English and that’s the English of England.

All the other English variations are quite simply colonial dialects. If you want to learn English why not learn the English way? Why not learn English spellings?

If later you decide you want to sound like an American. You simply have to practice
speaking with a large potato in your mouth (that usually does the trick)!

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Postby Travis B. » 2005-08-17, 10:37

To be a bit of a pedant, modern North American English is not descended from modern English English, but rather both are equally descended from the English dialects of the seventeenth century, going off on their own separate ways from thereon. The only real exception to such is that many attributes of various southern English dialects did get transferred to many coastal NAE dialects, due to such attributes being prestigious at the time, and such coastal NAE dialects being under more influence of English English dialects than more inland NAE dialects. Thusly, neither is "more correct" or "more pure", and furthermore one must consider that NAE dialects often preserve historical English English features and words which have been lost today in many modern English English dialects, such as rhoticness, the use of words such as "gotten" and "fall" (as in the season), the productive use of the past and present subjunctive, and so on.
Last edited by Travis B. on 2005-08-17, 15:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The

Postby senatortombstone » 2005-08-17, 11:23

shri420 wrote:Lets face it there is only one true English and that’s the English of England.

All the other English variations are quite simply colonial dialects. If you want to learn English why not learn the English way? Why not learn English spellings?

If later you decide you want to sound like an American. You simply have to practice
speaking with a large potato in your mouth (that usually does the trick)!


LOL! Sorry pal, but US English is the one true English. Americans are known for taking something good and making it better. Take Mexican and Chinese food for example.

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Postby alois » 2005-08-17, 12:44

Poor you.. actually, everyone knows Jamaican is the only true English. All other varieties are but degenerated versions of it.

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Re: The

Postby ZombiekE » 2005-08-17, 13:08

shri420 wrote:Lets face it there is only one true English and that’s the English of England.

All the other English variations are quite simply colonial dialects. If you want to learn English why not learn the English way? Why not learn English spellings?

If later you decide you want to sound like an American. You simply have to practice speaking with a large potato in your mouth (that usually does the trick)!


Well, I like English from England better, but that's a personal choice and probably influenced because I live in Europe, America would mean a long travel to me. It also depends on the other person. If the other person has an American accent, I just change pronunciation and words to make it easier.

However, I think this guy didn't really mean to hurt any NA speaker (although I must admit his message sounded quite rude), I think he only wanted to encourage those who are learning English as a Second Language to consider learning English and specially to those who live in Europe. American English has become too important and let's admit it, it's a bit weird when you have England really near.

Also, if you use NA English, people here think you are pretending "you want to be American or something" (it adds some political matters too) and if you use English from England, it's more "neutral" because people see it as if it were "default English" for those who learn it as a foreign language.

The problem is that you watch foreign series, music and other media, and all of it is NAE, that can cause some conflict if you're learning BE at school and then speak NAE.

However, I don't know if this guy did it on purpose, but he used "practice" as a verb, and that's US spelling, I think.
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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-08-17, 15:37

Hefestos wrote:Poor you.. actually, everyone knows Jamaican is the only true English. All other varieties are but degenerated versions of it.

And I who thought English was a conlang…
português do Brasil (pt-BR)British English (en-GB) galego (gl) português (pt) •• العربية (ar) български (bg) Cymraeg (cy) Deutsch (de)  r n km.t (egy) español rioplatense (es-AR) 日本語 (ja) 한국어 (ko) lingua Latina (la) ••• Esperanto (eo) (grc) français (fr) (hi) magyar (hu) italiano (it) polski (pl) Türkçe (tr) 普通話 (zh-CN)

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Postby ZombiekE » 2005-08-17, 17:15

Daniel wrote:But it's easier to understand Scottish English pronunciation. Why?

English does not distinguish between "w" and "wh" so that "Wales/wails" sounds the same as "whales".

Therefore, learn Scottish English! :twisted:


How do both words sound in Scottish English? :o
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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-08-17, 17:40

ZombiekE wrote:
Daniel wrote:But it's easier to understand Scottish English pronunciation. Why?

English does not distinguish between "w" and "wh" so that "Wales/wails" sounds the same as "whales".

Therefore, learn Scottish English! :twisted:

How do both words sound in Scottish English? :o

/weɪlz/ versus /hweɪlz/
português do Brasil (pt-BR)British English (en-GB) galego (gl) português (pt) •• العربية (ar) български (bg) Cymraeg (cy) Deutsch (de)  r n km.t (egy) español rioplatense (es-AR) 日本語 (ja) 한국어 (ko) lingua Latina (la) ••• Esperanto (eo) (grc) français (fr) (hi) magyar (hu) italiano (it) polski (pl) Türkçe (tr) 普通話 (zh-CN)

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Postby reflexsilver86 » 2005-08-17, 17:52

This was nothing more than flame bait. I remember from the short time I spent at Antimoon, people would pull this garbage every so often to get a huge response.

If the only true English is that of England, I'm assuming you mean to refer to the one dialect of British English known as Received Pronunciation, which is just one of many, many dialects of British English.

To say that one dialect is better than another is ill-conceived and ignorant, and doesn't really warrant further discussion. The reason the Received Pronunciation dialect is so widely acclaimed (and I'll admit I prefer if over Yorkshire or Cockney, for example) is because it is has been viewed over time as the dialect of the "educated and the powerful" This is the same in the United States with Standard American English (SAE)

If the Queen and everyone else spoke Cockney, then everyone would be thinking Cockney was the best. That's just how it works.

I think you're being too generous, Zombiek, the guy meant to offend speakers of American English. I personally wasn't offended because I think it's absolutely ridiculous in the first place, and if you're going to attack speakers of American English for not sticking to the lines of British English, you can also attack every other native English speaker born outside England because the neither the Canadians, nor the Australians, just to name a few, speak British English, let alone RP.

And if anything is to point out this guy is just someone trying to make waves, as you pointed out, Zombiek, he wrote "practice." Any true Brit would write "practise" ;-)
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Postby reflexsilver86 » 2005-08-17, 18:01

Hefestos wrote:Poor you.. actually, everyone knows Jamaican is the only true English. All other varieties are but degenerated versions of it.


LOL I totally overlooked this. :mrgreen:

My stepdad, who's from Jamaica, would most assuredly agree with you, mon. :wink:
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Postby allemaalmeezinge » 2005-08-17, 19:35

I'd love to hear the Queen speaking Cockney! :lol:

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Re: The

Postby Stan » 2005-08-17, 20:16

Mägog wrote:
shri420 wrote:Lets face it there is only one true English and that’s the English of England.

All the other English variations are quite simply colonial dialects. If you want to learn English why not learn the English way? Why not learn English spellings?

If later you decide you want to sound like an American. You simply have to practice
speaking with a large potato in your mouth (that usually does the trick)!


LOL! Sorry pal, but US English is the one true English. Americans are known for taking something good and making it better. Take Mexican and Chinese food for example.


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Postby Psi-Lord » 2005-08-17, 20:44

A conlang with dialects… English is really weird.
português do Brasil (pt-BR)British English (en-GB) galego (gl) português (pt) •• العربية (ar) български (bg) Cymraeg (cy) Deutsch (de)  r n km.t (egy) español rioplatense (es-AR) 日本語 (ja) 한국어 (ko) lingua Latina (la) ••• Esperanto (eo) (grc) français (fr) (hi) magyar (hu) italiano (it) polski (pl) Türkçe (tr) 普通話 (zh-CN)

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Postby Kirk » 2005-08-17, 20:53

reflexsilver86 wrote:This was nothing more than flame bait. I remember from the short time I spent at Antimoon, people would pull this garbage every so often to get a huge response.


Exactly. This was nothing but flame bait so I didn't respond to it. Posters like that aren't interested in reasoned discussions about language.

Psi-Lord wrote:A conlang with dialects… English is really weird.


:D English is my favorite con-lang!
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Postby MikeL » 2005-08-17, 21:31

Why bother replying to trolls like this?
It just encourages them...

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Re: The

Postby Travis B. » 2005-08-17, 21:35

Stancel wrote:
Mägog wrote:
shri420 wrote:Lets face it there is only one true English and that’s the English of England.

All the other English variations are quite simply colonial dialects. If you want to learn English why not learn the English way? Why not learn English spellings?

If later you decide you want to sound like an American. You simply have to practice
speaking with a large potato in your mouth (that usually does the trick)!


LOL! Sorry pal, but US English is the one true English. Americans are known for taking something good and making it better. Take Mexican and Chinese food for example.


You're both wrong.


Somehow I can't imagine how one can truly believe that Mägog was being serious there. And as for shri420, they were an obvious troll to start with, but sometimes it is just fun to get into arguments with painfully obvious trolls in the first place. Trolls themselves can actually be fun to mess with; on the other hand, flooders and their ilk are just plain evil (and no fun at all) and ought to be wiped clean from the face of the Earth.
secretGeek on CodingHorror wrote:Type inference is not a gateway drug to more dynamically typed languages.

Rather "var" is a gateway drug toward "real" type inferencing, of which var is but a tiny cigarette to the greater crack mountain!

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Postby Travis B. » 2005-08-17, 21:40

svenska84 wrote:
Psi-Lord wrote:A conlang with dialects… English is really weird.


:D English is my favorite con-lang!


Well, English started out as a rather typical "old" West Germanic language, and then became a rather mutant Anglo-Frisian language, through being thoroughly exposed to Old Norse first and Old Norman French second. However, the point at which it started to actually become a conlang was when British grammarians started to for some reason think that English should operate like Latin, and then began just arbitrarily dictating "rules" of how one should "speak correctly" for such.
secretGeek on CodingHorror wrote:Type inference is not a gateway drug to more dynamically typed languages.

Rather "var" is a gateway drug toward "real" type inferencing, of which var is but a tiny cigarette to the greater crack mountain!

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Postby ZombiekE » 2005-08-17, 22:19

reflexsilver86 wrote:I think you're being too generous, Zombiek, the guy meant to offend speakers of American English.


Well, this subjects are a bti distressing, specially if you are a speaker of the "not recommended language", that's why I gave him some credit.

By the way, I agree, English is a conlang, all those books about English houses and the Queen of England are lies. They made me believe I travelled to the UK two years ago, actually, I was still in northern Spain.

:cry: liars :cry: give me my money back :cry:
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Postby Kirk » 2005-08-17, 22:45

Travis B. wrote:
svenska84 wrote:
Psi-Lord wrote:A conlang with dialects… English is really weird.


:D English is my favorite con-lang!


Well, English started out as a rather typical "old" West Germanic language, and then became a rather mutant Anglo-Frisian language, through being thoroughly exposed to Old Norse first and Old Norman French second. However, the point at which it started to actually become a conlang was when British grammarians started to for some reason think that English should operate like Latin, and then began just arbitrarily dictating "rules" of how one should "speak correctly" for such.


It should be mentioned American prescriptivists got into the game as well and are unfortunately still in it.

ZombiekE wrote:By the way, I agree, English is a conlang, all those books about English houses and the Queen of England are lies. They made me believe I travelled to the UK two years ago, actually, I was still in northern Spain.


Hehe, yes, few know the real truth--that English was invented in 1264 by a Martian named John Q. English. It was a bit presumptuous of him to name the language after his last name, but he still did a pretty good job, especially for a Martian :D
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I eat prescriptivists for breakfast.

maɪ nemz kʰɜ˞kʰ n̩ aɪ laɪk̚ fɨˈnɛ̞ɾɪ̞ks

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Postby Travis B. » 2005-08-17, 23:24

svenska84 wrote:
Travis B. wrote:
svenska84 wrote:
Psi-Lord wrote:A conlang with dialects… English is really weird.


:D English is my favorite con-lang!


Well, English started out as a rather typical "old" West Germanic language, and then became a rather mutant Anglo-Frisian language, through being thoroughly exposed to Old Norse first and Old Norman French second. However, the point at which it started to actually become a conlang was when British grammarians started to for some reason think that English should operate like Latin, and then began just arbitrarily dictating "rules" of how one should "speak correctly" for such.


It should be mentioned American prescriptivists got into the game as well and are unfortunately still in it.


Tis true, but it's just that it was the British grammarians who started the whole mess. And yes, unfortunately, their American counterparts still continue such to this day, even though the grammarians' influence is not what it used to be.
secretGeek on CodingHorror wrote:Type inference is not a gateway drug to more dynamically typed languages.

Rather "var" is a gateway drug toward "real" type inferencing, of which var is but a tiny cigarette to the greater crack mountain!


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