Linguistic question

[ATFFL]

What are the odds of two linguists meeting on a forum this size?

Probably pretty high, considering how popular Tolkien has been in the past few years .

I am thrilled  if people don't ask "How many languages do you speak?" when I tell them linguistics is a hobby.

Eh.  If you study linguistics formally (which I haven't done beyond 101 in college) they make you get fluent in at least one language, and study another in depth.  At UW-Madison, one of them has to be a non-Indo-European language.  So, it's not an entirely unreasonable question.

Anyway, I'm glad to see a fellow linguist here.  At least I won't be boring everyone .

Oh, you don't need to be able to speak the language to study it.  None of my linguistics profs were able to speak another language fleuntly, but they were some of the top people in the field.  They had a working knowledge of more than one language, jus tlike I do (German).  I was required to demonstrate a deep knowledge of the structure of a third language (Klingon).  My knowledge of both has faded.

What I could tell you at the time, and possibly still could, was the development of language from proto-IndoEuropean to the modern languages in Europe.  I also know a few theories on where we are going.

[bgwah]

I don't like how American dialects are slowly dying because we have TV and music and stuff so easily spread now. The TV reporter accent is taking over.

Even if the current dialects survive, I can't see any new dialects arising. I suppose the SW could get some influence from Spanish though.

The West isn't old enough to have developed (m)any accents.

[Platypus]

Australia is losing its accent a bit too. Especially old terms like cobbler and mate, although mate is making a bit of a comeback.

O)ne this that I have noticed that I really really really hate is that when Australian children, 5-6 or so, are impersonaiting someone, even another Australian, they ALWAYS do it in an american accent!

Maybe not always but at least more often then not. I think it is because when they usally impersonate something from TV it was from an american how, and they've brought that into real life situations...

The second one is singing in an american accent, which also usually strikes the little kids the hardest.

I study English Language (Linguistics, phonetics, language acquisition and history, etc.) at school, so this is quite interesting to me

I was SHOCKED AND APPALLED that 32% of Pennsylvanians pronounce Mary, Merry and marry the same way; and even more SNAed that less then half a percent of americans call runners runners. I knew it wasn't the primary term, but less then half a percent?

The worst was the fact that you don't have a word in your vocab for the area of grass between the sidewalk (which we call footpath) and the road. It's called a nature strip, people! ARGH! That wasn't even an option! And I mean, what the f**k is a BERM!?!?


*takes a few deep breaths*


a full analysis of the report will be forthcoming

[Platypus]

1. aunt.

     a."ah" (9.62%)
     b. "ant" (75.15%)
     c. "caught" (2.77%)

we say ArNdT (I'm using non-character phonetics, i hope you can understand), which probably fits closest to A. But ANT IS WROMG! WRONG I TELL YOU! We hardly ever say Aunt anyway, Aunty is almost universally used,even in a formal manner.

And it's mUm not mOm!... At least the northeast says aunt properly

4. caramel.

     a. with 2 syllables ("car-ml") (38.02%)
     b. with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") (37.66%)
     c. I use both interchangeably (17.26%)

We say Ca-Ram-ml. there is no way to avoid the second syllable, and we add a sort of demie-syllable at the end. car-ml sounds absolutely stupid and insane and i'm glad thats at least the south and east coast seems to have escaped the phen-NOM-eh-non.

9. crayon
     a. as in "man" (1 syllable, "cran") (14.13%)
     b. [ej] (2 syllables, "cray-ahn") (48.64%)
     c. [ej] (2 syllables, "cray-awn", where the second syllable rhymes with "dawn") (34.53%)
     d. [aw] (I pronounce this the same as "crown") (1.46%)

OK, those D people need some serious education, but the rest of "y'all" aren't that great either . It's CrAy-On. there is a distinct O. It is certainly not Cran, that is a shortnened nickname for a disgusting fruit juice. Cray-ahn is almost as bad; I see no A or any cray fishers called Anne. The only somewhat acceptable one is Car-awn because at least you're trying to have a second-rate american O sound

13. the last vowel in "handkerchief"
     a. [i:] as in "see" (19.96%)
     b. as in "sit" (78.23%)

It's a handkerchief, as in, Han-kuh-chEef.

It has a silent d, obviously () and utilises the word chief like the word cheif is meant to be used. I don't hear anyone saying Chiff Sitting Bull! I'd be interested to see the canadian pronunciation of this word, actually.

This one pissed me bad.

I said that I was annoyed with 32% of Pennsylvanians? Its worse at a national level:


15. How do you pronounce Mary/merry/marry?
     a. all 3 are the same (56.88%)
     b. all 3 are different (17.34%)
     c. Mary and merry are the same; marry is different (8.97%)
     d. merry and marry are the same; Mary is different (0.96%)
     e. Mary and marry are the same; merry is different (15.84%)


Ok. It's MAR-ry for Mary; Mah-re for for marry, and meh-re for merry. Thats it; simply, different, easy...sorta. Well, easier then having the same pronunciation for three words!

28. Do you pronounce "cot" and "caught" the same?
     a. different (60.93%)
     b. same (39.07%)

OMFG, BOOT CAMP TIME. cot and caught are TOTALLY different; anyone who says them the same deserve retraining

26. route (as in, "the route from one place to another")
     a. rhymes with "hoot" (29.99%)
     b. rhymes with "out" (19.72%)
     c. I can pronounce it either way interchangeably (30.42%)
     d. I say it like "hoot" for the noun and like "out" for the verb. (15.97%)
     e. I say it like "out" for the noun and like "hoot" for the verb. (2.50%)

root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root,
and no i don't have one thing on my mind root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root, root!!!!!!!!!!!

ARGH!

More to come if I feel you deserve it, bloody yanks




(btw, this whole post is in frustracted jest, and my multiple grammatical and spelling errors must excused, when I get angrily excited i do that a bit)

[Lunar]

Hah, I say:

"ant"
"car-ml"
"cran"
"handker-chif"
"may-ree, may-ree, may-ree"
"cought=cot"
"r-out"

[Platypus]

Hah, I say:

"ant"
"car-ml"
"cran"
"handker-chif"
"may-ree, may-ree, may-ree"
"cought=cot"
"r-out"

UI suggest you run; you might not like to play knifey-knifey-spooney-knifey-kniefey-knifey

[DA]

Some other words around here

Yall = you all
Nair = never (ex I nair dun that before)
Dun = done (see above)


Many many many more that i can't think of off hand.

dja = did ya' (or more properly, "have you")
yuns = you'uns ("You ones" I guess)

Non-Southern:
Nom sain = Do you know what I am saying?

more to follow

[DA]

Some people in the midwest and the south tend to drop the "g" from words ending in ing. So "going fishing" becomes "goin fishin".  Also some folks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have what sounds like a Canadian accent eh.

Doesn't everyone drop the g in casual speech? I hear that on tv too.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

All across Britain, there are wonderful remnants of older stages of the Great Vowel Shift (700 years ago, our long vowels were pronounced roughly the way they were pronounced in modern Italian).  The long I, which used to be pronounce "ee," moved to uh-ee, then to ah-ee (and in Southern US speech, "ah").  What you actually hear in West Country is the middle stage, which was probably how Shakespeare pronounced the vowel.  Canadians also pronounce this vowel this way before voicesless consonants (p, t, k, etc), as part of a feature known as "Canadian Raising."

True.
Some accents in the U.K are very old, especially the Northern ones, which developed independently (before the Industrial Revolution, people travelling further south than Cleveland would say that they were "goin' inta England") from the rest of the Island. Interestingly enough, there's still a noticable Scandinavian influence in most accents up here.

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McKellen's accent is interesting, as he's from Wigan and like most theatre actors of his generation he was pretty much forced to adopt RP... you get the odd fragment of his original accent every now and again.

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Scouse is very strange; the mix of thick South Lancastrian with a slight North Welsh (more notable in the Wirral than in Liverpool) and a massive Irish influence... in some of the Irish districts of Liverpool it's very hard to understand what people are saying.

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Listening to old BBC recordings is most amusing

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I thought, for some reason, that it was NC, but maybe it was VA, come to think of it.  Linguists almost universally agree that it is a relic accent of 18th Century English.  There is a phenomenon in which transplanted languages tend to be conservative, and small, isolated communities speaking transplanted languages tend to be even more conservative.

Perhaps the weirdest dialects in the U.K are the "Clee Hills Group" in Southern Shropshire... in the case of the Titterstone Clee it's basically a mixture of most dialects in the U.K mixed with isolation... and some of the dialects on the Brown Clee... defy description...
Basically another language.

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New England was settled (initially) by a mix of people from East Anglia, the West Country and Yorkshire (I think the West Midlands as well though I'm not sure) while the Appalachians were settled by an even more ecclectic mix: North East and Cumberland (because of the enclosures) Ulster Scots, Scottish Uplands... and probably more Yorkshiremen... I think a lot might of come from the East Midlands as well (not sure).

[??????????]

The south was settled mainly by Welsh and Scots/Irish. Some historians have even speculated as that being the reason for so much conflict between the north and the south.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The south was settled mainly by Welsh and Scots/Irish. Some historians have even speculated as that being the reason for so much conflict between the north and the south.

Edwards, Davies/Davis, Jones, Hughes, Griffiths, Richards, Harris, Lewis and Thomas are all Welsh surnames.

The problem with tracking the number of people in the U.S with Welsh ancestory is because (with the obvious exception of the Anthracite Region in Pennsylvania where a lot of miners settled in the late C19th) most have been in the U.S so long that they've forgotten where their families came from originally.
Most of the people who put "United States" on the census thingy (almost all people putting that on the form are from the Deep South or Appalachia) probably have Welsh or Northern English ancestory.

[??????????]

The south was settled mainly by Welsh and Scots/Irish. Some historians have even speculated as that being the reason for so much conflict between the north and the south.

Edwards, Davies/Davis, Jones, Hughes, Griffiths, Richards, Harris, Lewis and Thomas are all Welsh surnames.

The problem with tracking the number of people in the U.S with Welsh ancestory is because (with the obvious exception of the Anthracite Region in Pennsylvania where a lot of miners settled in the late C19th) most have been in the U.S so long that they've forgotten where their families came from originally.
Most of the people who put "United States" on the census thingy (almost all people putting that on the form are from the Deep South or Appalachia) probably have Welsh or Northern English ancestory.

All those last names are common in the deep south.

My wifes family includes

Jones, Smiths, Hodges

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The south was settled mainly by Welsh and Scots/Irish. Some historians have even speculated as that being the reason for so much conflict between the north and the south.

Edwards, Davies/Davis, Jones, Hughes, Griffiths, Richards, Harris, Lewis and Thomas are all Welsh surnames.

The problem with tracking the number of people in the U.S with Welsh ancestory is because (with the obvious exception of the Anthracite Region in Pennsylvania where a lot of miners settled in the late C19th) most have been in the U.S so long that they've forgotten where their families came from originally.
Most of the people who put "United States" on the census thingy (almost all people putting that on the form are from the Deep South or Appalachia) probably have Welsh or Northern English ancestory.

All those last names are common in the deep south.

My wifes family includes

Jones, Smiths, Hodges

Hodges is Welsh as well, Smith is an English name but's fairly common in Wales.

[??????????]

The south was settled mainly by Welsh and Scots/Irish. Some historians have even speculated as that being the reason for so much conflict between the north and the south.

Edwards, Davies/Davis, Jones, Hughes, Griffiths, Richards, Harris, Lewis and Thomas are all Welsh surnames.

The problem with tracking the number of people in the U.S with Welsh ancestory is because (with the obvious exception of the Anthracite Region in Pennsylvania where a lot of miners settled in the late C19th) most have been in the U.S so long that they've forgotten where their families came from originally.
Most of the people who put "United States" on the census thingy (almost all people putting that on the form are from the Deep South or Appalachia) probably have Welsh or Northern English ancestory.

All those last names are common in the deep south.

My wifes family includes

Jones, Smiths, Hodges

Hodges is Welsh as well

Yes, her family has lived in the deep south since right after Jamestown and they are Welsh/Scot/Irish and Black Irish (I'm sure you know what that is).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Black Irish (I'm sure you know what that is).

There are several different theories (Spanish or North African seem the most common ideas), but it's to do with people getting shipwrecked of the West Coast of Ireland, interbreeding with the native population and resulting in Irish people with dark features.

[??????????]

Black Irish (I'm sure you know what that is).

There are several different theories (Spanish or North African seem the most common ideas), but it's to do with people getting shipwrecked of the West Coast of Ireland, interbreeding with the native population and resulting in Irish people with dark features.

Yep. That's why my wife is...she is darker skinned but 90% Irish and all the Spanish people around here think she is spanish. She had dark hair and brown eyes. Her clan was from county Fermanaugh and also from Scotland (not sure where).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some more Welsh surnames (WARNING, not all of Welsh origin) :

Williams, Pritchard, Bevan, Bowen, Morgan, Lloyd, Meredith, Vaughan, Adams, Bateman, Bebb (inc. Bibb, Babb, Bebbes etc.), Bonner, Charles, Conway, Craddock, Crowther, Daniel/s, Evans, Ellis, Francis, Gough, Haines, Herbert, Hopkins, Humphreys, Howells, Jefferys, John, Matthews, Michael, Morris, Owen, Peters, Phillips, Powell, Price, Prosser, Pierce, Pugh, Rees, Rogers, Smith, Stevens, Walters, Watts

There are loads more derived from first names...
And in addition to all that, there's a lot of Biblical names in Wales... and a lot of varients with "son" on the end (eg: Jefferson, Johnson, Stevenson).

Out of interest heres some "Border Reiver" (ie: Scottish Uplands, Cumberland, North East) names:

Armstrong, Beattie, Bell, Burns, Carleton, Carlisle, Charlton, Collingwood, Cuthbert, Davison, Dixon, Dodd, Douglas, Dunne, Elliot, Fenwick, Forster, Graham, Gray, Hall, Henderson, Hume, Irvine, Irving, Johnstone, Kerr, Little, Lowther, Maxwell, Milburn, Musgrove, Nixon, Noble, Oliver, Potts, Radcliffe, Robson, Routledge, Rutherford, Scott, Selby, Simpson, Taylor, Trotter, Turnbull, Wake, Watson, Wilson, Young

[??????????]

I have seen all those names around here Al. Is the name "Barefoot" English, Welsh or what?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I have seen all those names around here Al. Is the name "Barefoot" English, Welsh or what?

I think it's a varient of the old Borders name "Barfoot"

[??????????]

I have seen all those names around here Al. Is the name "Barefoot" English, Welsh or what?

I think it's a varient of the old Borders name "Barfoot"

Although it's not English you would have fun researching my last name. A LOT of European history behind it and not very common.

Also my wifes maiden name was Maguire. She has found a few different variations behind it :

McGuire
MacGuire

Her scots family were McQueens, I don't know where in Scotland they were from.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I have seen all those names around here Al. Is the name "Barefoot" English, Welsh or what?

I think it's a varient of the old Borders name "Barfoot"

Although it's not English you would have fun researching my last name. A LOT of European history behind it and not very common.

Also my wifes maiden name was Maguire. She has found a few different variations behind it :

McGuire
MacGuire

Her scots family were McQueens, I don't know where in Scotland they were from.

Names are interesting
Any amusing place names you can think of?
The following British ones are all genuine:

Pity Me
Shellow Bowells
River Piddle

A fairly common American place name that never fails to amuse me is Glendale; "Glen" is a Scottish word for Valley... and "Dale" is a Northern English dialect word for... Valley

[??????????]

I have seen all those names around here Al. Is the name "Barefoot" English, Welsh or what?

I think it's a varient of the old Borders name "Barfoot"

Although it's not English you would have fun researching my last name. A LOT of European history behind it and not very common.

Also my wifes maiden name was Maguire. She has found a few different variations behind it :

McGuire
MacGuire

Her scots family were McQueens, I don't know where in Scotland they were from.

Names are interesting
Any amusing place names you can think of?
The following British ones are all genuine:

Pity Me
Shellow Bowells
River Piddle

A fairly common American place name that never fails to amuse me is Glendale; "Glen" is a Scottish word for Valley... and "Dale" is a Northern English dialect word for... Valley

Some interesting place names we have around here.

Imokalee
Thonotassa
Ocala
My towns original name "Hickapucksassa"
Okechobee
Ft. Lonesome
Hee Haw Junction
Ybor City

Some ones from Penns.

Bird in Hand
Intercourse

My last name is "Wallnofer" any research would help. I think some famous doctor in London has my last name.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some interesting place names we have around here.

Imokalee
Thonotassa
Ocala
My towns original name "Hickapucksassa"
Okechobee
Ft. Lonesome
Hee Haw Junction
Ybor City

Some ones from Penns.

Bird in Hand
Intercourse

My last name is "Wallnofer" any research would help. I think some famous doctor in London has my last name.

I like Hee Haw Junction

I found this site, BTW www.wallnofer.it

[??????????]

To bad I can't read either language. Although we do have a fascinating history linked to the Hapsburgs.