Re: Estuary English - how serious?


""Per Rønne"" <per@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> skrev i en meddelelse
news:1h4v4jb.1xzhu9d6nmbd6N%per@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Ted Schuerzinger <fedya@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Somebody claiming to be per@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Per Rønne)
>> wrote in
>> news:1h4ueza.sa6ugw1dx84rlN%per@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>>
>> > In grade 10 of the middle school, before entering our
>> > 3-year Sixth Form
>> > College, my English teacher tried to learn me to say
>> > "colour" - in vain.
>>
>> Your sentence should read "teach me", not "learn me".
>
> Of course;-(. An elementary error.
>
>> (Apologies, but that's one of the errors which *really*
>> grates on my
>> nerves....)
>
> Yes, and in Denmark we only have one word. Etymologically,
> the Danish
> words "en lærer" {noun} and "at lære" {verb} are the same
> as English "a
> learner" and "to learn". But the noun means "a teacher"
> and the verb
> both "to learn" and "to teach". Peadagogues have even
> introduced the
> artificial word "en lørner" from English "a learner", but
> of course most
> ordinary people don't know this word.

This, Per, was ages ago - it was in fact my professor who
introduced this word. Today to learn is "at lære SIG noget"
equal to the english to learn - and learning is now in at
least in educational terminology "læring" - "en lørner" does
not exist any more. We have also had a peculiar person who
tried to introduce a difference between "levevilkår" and
"levekår" equal to english "conditions of life", but it has
never been in a official Danish dictionary, so we Danes do
not really accept new words at the same speed as the English
do.

We can se from the history of the English language that the
English have been more than willingly to adopt foreign
words than Danish. That is probably the reason why the
English language has spread wide over quicker than any other
language in the world (and of course together with the
imperialistic expansion as well :-( ) and Danish who had it
imperialistic period mostly during the Viking era just gave
up their own language when they settled down in England and
became "Englishmen" -

So the issue here is that Danish seem to be a very
conservative language in contrast to English, even if some
people are afraid of the English influence on the Danish
language today.

As we speak some professores at the university are very
afraid of the notion that English should take over Danish
tongue and simply erase the language from the earth.
Fortunately most professors think that this will not be the
case at all.

Some nations (e.g. Iceland and Quebeck in Candada) are so
afraid of loosing the power of the language that they had
forbidden or simply give jail to people who do not consider
the Icelandic or the French language in the two countries
mentioned above.

In Canada people can go to jail if they not in newpapers and
in signs at the stores accept that French is equal to
English and if the shops are not translating English names
into French, they will be fined.

In Iceland it was forbidden to use any foreign word at all.
A institution of language purists had only the job to
investigate and translate any foreign word into Icelandic.
E.g. the word telephone is in Icelandic "semi" which mean "a
long thread" and even in Denmark in the 1920th we had
purists who tried to translate an automobile into a "self
mover" - etc. But the Danish tongue seem to be not easy to
learn, but strong, though, so I do not see any danger here.

So what is best? The English language which is not so
conservative and willingly as it seems accept foreign words
and transform them into an English the English people can
pronounce or a conservative language which does not too
willingly accept foreign words and moreover let the foreign
words reamin for themselves so everybody knows that the word
is foreign or the way they do in e.g. Canada in Quebeck to
punish people who do not consider French?

--
ahw



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: I need help explaining basic linguistic concepts to a lay person
    ... >>> be Danish still means to be Danish. ... >> I think you are aware of the original meanings because you are a German ... English language. ... When you speak a language No.1, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Leodhasach & Hearasch - Gaelic help please
    ... course our own traditional language is even more neglected than Gaelic is. ... who speak English soon get the gist of it. ... is someone who truly appreciates Scottish culture in that you won't find ...
    (soc.culture.scottish)
  • the tomasites , english and the filipino
    ... And they came to teach English as part of the "policy of attraction" ... a Filipino is deemed illiterate even ... Even a secondary Spanish school like Colegio de San Juan de Letrán ... wrote a textbook to teach the English language as early as 1902. ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
  • Re: the tomasites , english and the filipino
    ... this change was documented in books written in English or other ... European languages not Tagalog or any other of the Filipino dialects. ... second language, unfortunately it seems that we did not use these ... Even a secondary Spanish school like Colegio de San Juan de Letrán ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
  • Re: OT: Six out of 10 young Americans cannot find Iraq on a map
    ... Language became a political and an emotional issue as early as the ... proposed English Language Amendment, ... Despite the myth that German had once come close to replacing English ... The story of the German Vote is occasionally trotted out by ...
    (alt.guitar.amps)
Loading