Re: Ping Larry Jaques

"Morris Dovey" <mrdovey@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:hdhe4v$jtn$1@xxxxxxxxxxx
basilisk wrote:
"diggerop" <toobusy@themoment> wrote in message news:U7adnSbpMYab-GbXnZ2dnUVZ_jadnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

No problem at all. It's almost as if we are bilingual, with a
language we understand among ourselves, (almost with the makings of
a dialect,) which can prove confusing for others, along with
speaking straightforward English. (It really is dying out though
and I suspect, some of our unique Aussie character with it.)

Almost like my Scottish and Irish forebears, who spoke who spoke
good English but would lapse into a local dialect among family and
friends. I can still remember an occasion when I was very young and
I'd broken some ornament in my old Scottish grandmother's dining
room. I thought I was in for a tongue lashing or worse, but she
merely said 'Och laddie, dinnae fash yoursel" which loosley meant
"that's all right son, no need to be upset over it."

I had a visitor from Scotland by last Saturday, I think he must have
laid the dialect on thick just for my confusion and his amusement,
when it came down to business, I noticed most of the incomprehensible
bits dissappeared and we communicated just fine. I will say that I
enjoyed listening even if I couldn't make out a lot of the
references.

My widowed grandmother brought her four kids to the US from Edinburgh during the depression. She worked in Chicago as a nurse and worked hard to lose all trace of her "burr". After a few years she returned to visit her sister in Ayr for two weeks, during which time she re-acquired her accent fully and maintained it carefully for the next sixty-some years. :)

I have to laugh /with/ her. I was born in Georgia, and when I moved to northern Indiana and started school, the kids made fun of how I "tawk'd" and, according to my mother, it took less than week for me to lose all trace of my drawl.

Fast forward to late fifties - I returned to to the Atlanta area to spend a school Christmas vacation with the folks who'd been next door neighbors when I'd been an ankle-biter. They'd set up blind dates for every evening leading up to a big New Year's dance - for which I was expected to ask one of the young ladies to accompany me (I felt like I'd fallen into a time warp). First date told me I tawkt lahk a damnyankee (lip curled). Second date remarked that I had a trace of yankee accent and asked where I'd picked /that/ up (with an overtone suggesting that perhaps penicillin might help). By the third evening I'd worked the bugs out and everything went smoothly thereafter (I did invite a gorgeous young belle to the dance and had a great time). Just before I returned to school, my "improvement" was recognized with a certificate making me an honorary colonel in the Confederate underground. :)

But for the life of me, I can't speak with a Scottish burr. :-]

So, ye wuid nae say a braw bricht moonlicht nicht, the nicht then?

Kids are amazingly adaptable. We had my father with his trace of Irish accent, and daily use of the Irish way of expression, my Grandmother with her soft Scottish burr, and my mother with her everyday Ausie accent. We had no idea at all that each of them spoke in a different manner. We could understand them, therefore there was no difference to us as kids.

One thing that did click with me in later years was the realisation that I unconciously adopted each of their accents when speaking to them. So that a scottish burr comes naturally to me. Or irish expression.

It happened that the burr stood me in very good stead in learning Bahasa Indonesia. They roll their r's just as the Scots do, something that doesn't come easily to Aussies.

diggerop

.

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