Calling Matt H

[C Moore]

Yeah.....that IS surprising. The USA is huge, and has lots of areas that were fairly isolated for decades.
As you say, I do not think there is any English Speaking district of the USA that I would not be able to communicate with the people that live there.

[matt h]

Because of the birth of the USA vs the birth of nationalism and birth of broadcast media, you won't get the "entirely incomprehensible" effect you get in Germany. Had the US had a thousand years without broadcast, public schools, or a national government first? yeah, probably would've.


The thing that's extra-screwy with Germany is that a lot of the "nothern dialects" aren't actually Northern Dialects of High German (Hochdeutsch), but rather dialects of Low German (plattdeutsch) that were, for socio-economic/political reasons, pulled into "German". These dialects trace their history back to Old Saxon, typically, one of the ancestors of English instead of Old High German. They're kind of like two fraternal twins trying to look a *lot* alike but aren't identical twins, let alone actually the same person.

Bavarian is way, way high High German.


A big issue that a lot of Americans can't quite intuit is that there's a pretty big difference between dialect and accent. We tend to think they're the same thing. I'm gonna simplify this to a generally, though not completely, accurate explanation here.

Accents are just how individual sounds are formed. So the difference in how a Texan and a Down Easter (one from the coast of Maine. No, they're not "Mainers" or "Mainiacs") would say "car" or "about."

It becomes a *dialect* issue when, in addition to just the phonological side of things being varied, you start getting lexical differences (pop vs soda vs tonic vs coke is one of the few American English has), and you start getting structural grammatical differences. Offhand, I can't recall any examples of those in American English but I know a few exist.

Whereas, as Bob had recalled of his grandfather, the entire sentence structure changing and putting verbs in new locations, or saying "five and twenty" instead of "twenty-five" are examples of dialectal differences in English.

Believe it or not, the issue of mutual-intelligibility is a bit of an issue when classifying different languages not as different dialects, but rather languages. This was sort of the case for talking about the Scandinavian languages (those descended from Old Norse, including Icelandic, Norse, Swedish, and Danish, to name the big ones). Even in their current Modern form, there's a very high degree of mutual intelligibility between those languages, to the point where they can almost be viewed as different dialects. (almost...)

I think that's a big part of the reason why the Scandinavians all "hate" each other. The "hate" of course being mostly good-natured jokes at the expense of others. It's pretty easy to say "oh, they sound like we do... just with extra stupidity."

[C Moore]

Again...Interesting.
And yeah Matt...I kind of thought Accent and Dialect were the same. But your explanation makes the difference pretty clear.
And yeah.....Maps are just imaginary lines that do not really exist. So those lines went all over the place in the last 500-1000 years.
If California were to get gobbled up by a part of Mexico with a heavy "Indian" predominance...those of us speaking English would eventually be in the minority. 200 years later, the Aztec/Spanish people would be wondering WTF language I was speaking.
Something like that anyway.
A lot can happen in a 500 year period.

[TUBEDUDE]

I thought Mexifornia had been gobbled up. My last trip to San Diego reinforced that impression.

[C Moore]

I thought Mexifornia had been gobbled up. My last trip to San Diego reinforced that impression.

You are correct. If trends hold.....I would say it is not too long before the predominant language of California...The USA most likely.....is going to be Spanish, or maybe some type of Mandarin/Cantonese.?
There are many times when I am in a store, and THAT employee is speaking to a random customer in Spanish.
Nothing lats forever.

[Leo_Gnardo]

I thought Mexifornia had been gobbled up. My last trip to San Diego reinforced that impression.

You are correct. If trends hold.....I would say it is not too long before the predominant language of California...The USA most likely.....is going to be Spanish, or maybe some type of Mandarin/Cantonese.?
There are many times when I am in a store, and THAT employee is speaking to a random customer in Spanish.
Nothing lats forever.

Let's not forget, California WAS Mexico. The border moved in what, 1848, along with Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, & Utah too. English is the "new" language in California, along with the asian imports.