The Language (and travel) Thread

[Carol the Dabbler]

There is indeed an "official" orthography in German-speaking countries.... Of course, that's a lot easier when only a handful of countries are affected, I can't even begin to imagine the effort this would take for English.

 

In the case of English, it may not be so much the number of countries as the lack of historical precedent. Certain "rules" are taught in grammar classes, of course, but they are nothing official -- just traditional guidelines, really. I can't imagine that anyone proposing an official scheme for the US would even be taken seriously, let alone get much support.

 

How many countries have German as a primary language?  I don't even know how to define English-speaking countries.  Of course there are the obvious ones like the United Kingdom (is that one country or three?), the US, (most of) Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.  But there are also a number of small / island nations, plus many countries where English is an official (but non-native) language.

 

... in German, a standard language is quite necessary for understanding. To the best of my knowledge, any given native English speaker will understand any other native English speaker, maybe with difficulties, but they'll be able to converse even speaking their native dialects.

In most cases they'd be able to converse, yes, but sometimes only because they can both shift into "television" English to one degree or another. If you introduce a farmer from the backwoods of Maine to a farmer from the backwoods of Georgia, they should be able to settle on some common vocabulary, but I'm not at all sure they'd understand each other's everyday accents.  I suspect the situation would be even more difficult with two people from isolated rural areas or small islands at opposite ends of the UK.  Or we could introduce that Georgia farmer to someone from an island off northern Scotland....

 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Take an English speaker from the UK with a thick Scottish Brogue and an American from East Tennessee (thickest southern drawl I've heard has been from that area) and listen to them communicate.  It could be an interesting study.  When I worked at a customer service call center about an hour from where I live, I had a guy call in with a thick Scottish Brogue.  It took a little bit to get through the accent but I could figure it out.

[Carol the Dabbler]

The first accent I ever had trouble understanding was also Scottish.  I had lived my entire life in Indiana at that point, and this fellow had just arrived from Scotland.  He told me what part of the country he was from, but I'd never heard of it (so not one of the big cities) and don't recall what it was.  We did manage to communicate, but we spent large portions of our conversation asking for repeats or rephrasings.

 

The accent I have the most difficulty with is from India.  Once I understand a few words in a row, I'm OK for a while, but then if I lose a word or two, it takes me a while to get back into it.  My comprehension generally runs around 75%.  I think it has something to do with the rhythm, which is far different from any other type of English I've heard.

 

Apparently the confusion is mutual.  An Indian friend told me that when he was accepted to a college in the US, he started watching American movies every day so he'd be able to understand the people he met here.

 

[Caya]

 

How many countries have German as a primary language?

 

Countries, as such, well, depends on who's counting. Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein for sure, and then there's also Luxembourg, whose inhabitants speak a German dialect that is officially called Luxembourgish and considered their own language. Officially recognized German-speaking communities are in Belgium (Gemeinschaft, who are sorta-independent), Italy (South Tyroleans) and Romania (Siebenbürgen), though the latter have mostly left for German and Austria and their community and language in Romania is now considered endangered afiak. There are German-speaking language islands both in North and South America due to immigration, but none that I would know of that have any kind of official status and saying in the Council for German Orthography (yep, that's a thing).

[T.o.b.y]

I love accents. I have a lot of colleagues from Eastern Europe, and when they speak German, it sounds like a different and much more charming language. Most German dialects I don't like, however - except for the one around where I live, which has Danish and English elements and is unfortunately not much spoken any more. Sometimes I meet old country folks who still speak it, and I can understand them pretty well, but can't answer in their language, I have to reply in regular standard German (which is called "Hochdeutsch").

 

With English, I am fond of almost all variations. I love a Scottish or Irish accent, I like all forms of British English I have ever heard (including Cockney), I'm fond of really broad American as well as the Canadian accent, and everything in between. English is just a lovely language, and it's wonderful that there are so many different ways of speaking it.

[J.P.]

I remember I was in love with Billy Boyd's accent.

 

But dialects are a nightmare for someone who learns the language. I was learning German quite away from where my parents lived and this meant a difference in dialect. At some point I realized I can understand my teacher (which mean - understand every word without the need to guess) and was so happy about it, unless I went to visit my parents. Someone asked me something on the train and I didn't get a single word.

 

That's what was so frustrating about the meeting with Arwel J. The guy who has most interesting stories to say, and you have to guess every second word.

 

Now, when there is nothing interesting on the telly, I let Sky News running. Just to make my brain more accustomed to the sound.

[Caya]

Dialects can be fun though. One of the weirdest experiences in my life occurred when, just married, I had already become more familiar with Western German dialects but not quite fluent yet. I was helping my grandparents install their new satellite receiver and sorting through the channels (you get hundreds of channels via ASTRA in Europe, most of them in languages you don't understand and/or encoded anyway) when I stumbled upon an unfamiliar channel where people were having a round of talks. The weird thing was, I understood the basic gist of what they were saying, but I had no idea which language that was, which is quite the disconcerting effect . Took me a minute till I realized that this was a channel from Luxembourg and they were speaking Luxembourgish, which was close enough to the Rhine Franconian dialect my in-laws were speaking that I was able to grasp most of it :D.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... I stumbled upon an unfamiliar channel where people were having a round of talks. The weird thing was, I understood the basic gist of what they were saying, but I had no idea which language that was, which is quite the disconcerting effect . Took me a minute till I realized that this was a channel from Luxembourg and they were speaking Luxembourgish, which was close enough to the Rhine Franconian dialect my in-laws were speaking that I was able to grasp most of it :D.

 

I once had a vaguely similar experience in south-eastern Massachusetts.  I was looking for music on the radio, and happened upon a man speaking an unfamiliar language that I thought might be Russian.

 

In the midst of this unintelligible talk, the man mentioned a date.  It took me a moment to realize why I'd recognized it as a date, specifically as a year.  This was back in the late 60's, and I was familiar with the sound of a year in spoken Spanish -- literally, one thousand nine hundred sixty and eight -- it had a very distinctive rhythm.  And the man on the radio had said something that sounded suspiciously like that, though the language didn't sound at all like Spanish to me.

 

Another moment later, I realized that he had to be speaking Portuguese!  There's a large Portuguese-American population in that area, largely the descendents of Portuguese sailors.  I had seen written Portuguese before, and had been able to read some of it because of the similarity to Spanish, but I had never heard it spoken until then.

 

[Arcadia]

I probably shouldn't admit this because it's embarrassing ... but I grew up on the West Coast, and when my Tennessee cousins came for a visit, I couldn't understand a word they said. They could understand accent-neutral little ol' me fine, though, which is why it was so embarrassing. I remember being almost in tears over it, especially after my Mom said "But that's the same accent I have..."  (In my own defense, I was 9, and my Mom hadn't lived in Tennessee for nearly twenty years at that point... )

 

 

Oh, and I understand most Indian accents just fine, probably because my brother had loads of Indian friends. It's all a matter of what you're used to, eh?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Your cousins understood you because you lived on the West Coast and therefore had a "television accent."  (I assume they had television in Tennessee?  :P )

 

[Arcadia]

That's what I've always assumed, yeh. Didn't make it any less embarrassing (this was family!) :D

 

[Inge l-w]

Dear Caya and TOBY, are we talking Plattddeutsch? I can barely understand the Switzerisch equivalent, and don't even mention Bayerisch! I usually find myself asking the same question three times to get the gist of the answer! Thank God I learnt the Scots accent from Mr Scott, blessed be his soul for a Canadian!

Irish I picked up from Mark from Belfast at work and, of course, Janine and Moriarty. But I have also had a South African trainer, a Canadian best friend and an Aussie colleague!

[Caya]

Dear Inge, guess that depends on the relative distance to one's own language origins ;) - I have little trouble with Bavarians, a bit more so with the Swiss, and a lot with Saxon speakers or those from the greater Berlin area . As for English, most people are blessedly patient with non-native speakers, so I have encountered little trouble there so far.

[Inge l-w]

Dear Caya, as I found out first-hand, I could understand the gist of Flemish (Belgium) but could make neither heads nor tails of Dutch! Bremen and Bremerhaven are islands of normalcy in the chaos of Niedersachsen, and I think I have already recounted the story of the friend from Hamburg who needed half an hour to make his Freiburg landlady understand what he wanted!

But I do love the Scots accent, for which I must place the blame squarely on Sean Connery, Billy Connolly and James Doohan ( technically a Canadian), much more than the Irish lilt, despite Pierce Brosnan and Andrew Scott. And each of the English (sort of) speaking regions, apparently has a different stress on the word "bloke", and as for Afro-Caribbean English, I use deductive reasoning!

[Caya]

Oooooh, Billy Connolly! Him working together with Mike Batt was my teenage dreams come true .

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

From the "Where is everybody from?" thread:
 

That doesn't stop some Americans from having a secret inferiority complex, though.  ;)

 

Which ones?!?!?!? I don't think I've ever met an American with an inferiority complex in my life! KIDDING, KIDDING!!!!! (I'm sure there must be one or two... :P )

 
I was specifically (though not explicitly, sorry!) referring to the secret, unspoken concern that British English might really be the correct version.  Just look at how we word formal invitations, for example -- "The honour of your presence...."

[T.o.b.y]

It was definitely the case in German schools a few decades back that only British English was taught and considered acceptable. If I were older, I might have gotten into some trouble for my American accent, spelling and vocabulary. Fortunately, by my time, things had changed. We were asked to choose one version and stick with it. You could write your papers with British spelling or American, for example, but you had to be consistent about it.

 

My English teacher was amazing in that he could do both accents perfectly as well as a fairly good Australian one. He was a wonderful person... I remember sitting there as a little girl thinking "when I grow up, I want to marry someone like that". Not that I had a crush on him or anything, it just struck me that he was a fine example of what a man should be like (not just because of the accents, of course). :lol:

[Arcadia]

From the "Where is everybody from?" thread:

That doesn't stop some Americans from having a secret inferiority complex, though.  ;)

 

Which ones?!?!?!? I don't think I've ever met an American with an inferiority complex in my life! KIDDING, KIDDING!!!!! (I'm sure there must be one or two... :P )

 

I was specifically (though not explicitly, sorry!) referring to the secret, unspoken concern that British English might really be the correct version.  Just look at how we word formal invitations, for example -- "The honour of your presence...."

 

Errrrr..... apparently I've never received a formal invitation....

[Carol the Dabbler]

Last I noticed, the engraved kind, such as a traditional wedding invitation, still spelled "honor" with a "u," and back when I was still paying attention to etiquette books, that was considered the proper spelling in that context.  But I see that Miss Manners now considers "honor" to be "equally correctly and more suitably for Americans."  Hurray!

 

[sittything]

 

From the "Where is everybody from?" thread:

That doesn't stop some Americans from having a secret inferiority complex, though.  ;)

 

Which ones?!?!?!? I don't think I've ever met an American with an inferiority complex in my life! KIDDING, KIDDING!!!!! (I'm sure there must be one or two... :P )

 

I was specifically (though not explicitly, sorry!) referring to the secret, unspoken concern that British English might really be the correct version.  Just look at how we word formal invitations, for example -- "The honour of your presence...."

 

Errrrr..... apparently I've never received a formal invitation....

 

 

I'm fairly certain that if my wedding invites even had they word "honor" on them, it wasn't spelled "honour."  

 

[Inge l-w]

Remember our little discussion about Lestrade? Well, it's three to one now: Jeremy Brett, Sir John Gielgud and Christopher Plummer pronounce it Le-Streid. Only Benedict seems to go for the French pronunciation of the word. I was listening to the BBC Radio series, The Second Stain, and there it was again, as the announcer said that Sir Ralph Richardson was Dr JAMES Watson. Not ACD's fault, but all the same...

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe the announcer had been reading "The Man With the Twisted Lip"?  ;)

 

[T.o.b.y]

 

Yes, there is an Elsinore Castle, and Elsingborg nearby, and Schleswig-Holstein was at the time part of the Kingdom of Daenemark, as was Greenland and Iceland and parts of Ireland, and why do I continue to be surprised that Americans are not taught geography at school? Or is it something everyone deletes, like the Solar system? ^_^

The funniest incident occurred when a friend of the family and an eminent economics professor at the University of Illinois (Urbana) who had received his Ph.D at Berkley, no less, asked if Munich was in Bavaria or Bavaria in Munich. Every time the question comes up in family conversations, everyone cracks up. SORRY!

 

Well, even I know that Bavaria is some sort of region, and Munich is a city -- though I must admit I don't know whether that city is in that region.

 

Of course Americans are taught geography, but (at least when I was in school) that was only in grade school; in high school we got history, which of course includes some geography, but not as such.  In both cases, the lessons were more about memorizing stuff than they were about actually learning anything.  And of course we don't recall everything that we were once able to regurgitate for a test.  Also, most people are better at some things than they are at others -- even a PhD doesn't imply that one knows everything.  I suspect all of this may be true of Europeans as well, especially as regards non-European geography.

 

Oh my god, ask me about Eastern Europe. Or don't, unless you really like hearing "haven't got a clue". Or most parts of Africa - or anywhere, really, where I've never personally been. It's embarrassing, because I had quite a lot of Geography at school. There was a giant world map in our classroom, with no words on it, and the teacher would start each lesson by picking a student at random and saying "show me..." whatever obscure city, river, region or whole country he could think of. It was a fun game, and we all loved that map. But either I deleted most of my geographical knowledge when i graduated, or I never retained it to begin with, because it's all gone. Poof...

 

These days, I get lost inside my own town.

 

Btw, Carol, Munich is the capitol of Bavaria, and Bavaria is one of Germany's 16 states. That's right, we have states too.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... I had quite a lot of Geography at school. There was a giant world map in our classroom, with no words on it, and the teacher would start each lesson by picking a student at random and saying "show me..." whatever obscure city, river, region or whole country he could think of. It was a fun game, and we all loved that map. But either I deleted most of my geographical knowledge when i graduated, or I never retained it to begin with, because it's all gone.

Maybe what you actually learned is that Poland is orange and Egypt is green. You might still do quite well at pointing out things on that map!

[T.o.b.y]

 

... I had quite a lot of Geography at school. There was a giant world map in our classroom, with no words on it, and the teacher would start each lesson by picking a student at random and saying "show me..." whatever obscure city, river, region or whole country he could think of. It was a fun game, and we all loved that map. But either I deleted most of my geographical knowledge when i graduated, or I never retained it to begin with, because it's all gone.

Maybe what you actually learned is that Poland is orange and Egypt is green. You might still do quite well at pointing out things on that map!

 

 

Don't know, it wasn't one of those that has the countries in color. It looked like a world version of streetview.