Brit Speak and Dying Language...

Discussion in 'The NAAFI Bar' started by Rocketeer, Aug 19, 2005.

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  1. read an interesting piece on the loss of language diversity in the world.. apparently every two weeks or so, somewhere in the world an elderly man or woman with full command of a particular language dies, leaving the world bereft of knowledge of arcane matters or particular point of view.. Boffins predict that by the year 2100, 2,500 languages will have disappeared, and our capacity to understand our world will be lessened.

    languages like: Guguyimadjir - spoken in Queensland, Australia which has no words for left or right - people orient themselves by compass point relating to sun/moon, etc..instead of seeing the world in relation to ourselves, they see a bigger picture..

    or Piratapuyo - from the Brazilian Amazon where the verb is first and the subject comes last in sentences..
    or Piraha, also from Brazil which has no words for colours and only has words for ' one ' , ' two ' and ' many '...instead it uses descriptive phrases to illustrate what a particular colour is..only 200 people left who can speak this ..

    but, on an upbeat note and to commend the Brits for filling the void, as it were, of dying languages with newspeak...comes the study that shows Britain has, over the past 50 years, created and maintained dialects and sub-languages in a flowering of linguistic variation..

    for example there are 480 different expressions for ' cold ' including:
    Foonert [ Ayrshire ] chemmed [ Sheffield ] shrammed [ West Country ] taters [ East Anglia ] nithering [ the North ]..and this doesn't even cover ChavSpeak or subgroup languages such as ArmySpeak, BusinessSpeak, TVTalk or the mulitlingual polyglot of urban London..

    So next time a pasty chugger in a griege pelmet bumps into you on the street whilst sqawking on her handy.. think Clockwork orange and chill...its all copacetic innit?
  2. Youre mad you are!
  3. Could you translate that last paragraph into English?
  4. Goku:

    not up on Chav are you?

    pasty = pale
    chugger = charity mugger [ panhandler for a cause ]
    greige = grey/beige
    pelmet = micro mini skirt
    squawking on a handy = talking on a cell phone

    simp, innit?
  5. The sooner all foreign languages die out the better pleased I'll be. And that goes for a lot of foreigners, too.

    I really couldn't care less about some benighted peasant grunt-speak disappearing from the world, cultural essence or not.

    And don't get me started on the amount of money we waste on keeping Welsh going ...
  6. Ah, Vasco...
    then the universal language is to be Gaelic..given that Esperanto didn't cut it...

    or were you referring to English as be spoke by Uhmurricans, or those from the Indies [ east or west ] or perhaps the purest form of the King's as she is spoke at Aberdeen University?

    Put A Yorkshireman, a Cockney and a Scot in the same pub and you'd need those little earphones like they have at the UN to get a pint ordered from the Aussie behind the taps...
  7. Too true! I once shared a house with two girls: one from Edinburgh, the other from Liverpool and I'm from the border of London & Kent. It took us a month to stop asking the others to repeat what they'd just said. The oddest one for me was that the girl from Liverpool kept saying something to me by way of greeting & I couldn't work out what it was. It turned out that she was using that cultural institution that is EastEnders as her guide and was copying Pete Beale by saying "Awwwwight Tweacle". Not only am I not a Cockney, but I donât have a speech impediment, so that made as much sense to me as Flemish! :roll: :lol:
  8. OldSnowy

    OldSnowy LE Moderator Book Reviewer

    The reason these laguages are dying out is because they are cr@p. I mean, what sort of language has no words for Left Right, Left Right? Rubbish at drill, they'd be.

    And what about no word for three? How do they teach Footdrill? "Call out the time - One, two, many, One. Complete Cr@p.

    Sensible though the one with the verb first, though :)
  9. To quote someone else on this board..." I like lager..."
  10. Beer can - what a Rasta has for breakfast...!! 8O
  11. I remember working with a bloke from Aberdeen. I'm pretty au fait with most regional accents, but this cnut? I couldn't understand a bloody work he said. He sounded like that Russ Abbot character.. Jimmy. I kept asking him to slow down so I could make out what he was jibbering on about. Thankfully, he was a complete knobber and I managed to get rid of him - only to be replaced by a Geordie who said nothing much other than "aaah, fcukin' reet." I now have a driver who is a Rhodie (ex-RLI) and I can only just understand him. A child of the Empire. Marvellous (sniff sniff).
  12. J_D

    J_D LE

    So no comment on the lack of U's and re's in american?
  13. British regional accents and dialects should be maintained at all costs, if for no other reason than it completely befuddles Americans. Having said that, spams seem to be invariably impressed by how many euphamisms for 'drunk' we have. I think it's like eskimos having hundreds of words for snow.
  14. Auld-Yin

    Auld-Yin LE Reviewer Book Reviewer Reviews Editor

    Ahh, Furry Boot City - lovely place.