This is very peculiar to me for a lot of different reasons, maybe because in my mind I have this idea about how I think languages work, and then there's actually a real way that languages actually work, and I'm just not privy to it. But that's something that I've always wondered and thought about. Hopefully, you all can help me out with the answer
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:26
I think this question needs to be answered by someone who's a linguist and also someone who's like a speech pathologist. There's like a twopart here. One is almost anatomical and one is sort of more cultural or more anthropological. I'm going to put my feelers out and find out if I know anybody who can answer this
If we were to take individuals from, from, like, let's just say a handful of countries that were colonized or heavily influenced by the Brits, South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Some of those accents definitely can hearken back. And we do hear distinct facets of the British accent, but they've also become something of their own
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Charlie Floyd
@damonnomad · 4:59
And I don't know if it's because people from Australia or those of your opinions from Australia share the same language group as the folks from the UK that I can't differentiate in my hearing and the kind of the same thing with at least the European folks from South Africa when they speak English, I can kind of tell in my head it translates to British. These are English folks
How much was influenced from its origin and how much of it was affected in its destination or continued even over time? Because I'm sure that the English of the US is not the same as it was. We know. Right. Even 100 years ago, let alone when it was colonized. It's fascinating. It's like it's alive in some way
Charlie Floyd
@damonnomad · 4:38
She talked about how in order to keep peace during enslavement the different groups of people who were mixed up, a lot of them belong to the same not only language group but cultural superstructure. And that meant that not all of them could share the same language, but they're understood what the showing of the tongue meant and kind of like if you go to a different country, maybe showing the bottom of feet, you may lose your life. It's like that level type thing
Charlie Floyd
@damonnomad · 4:34
And so she was saying that that cultural value could also be found in the linguistics of that language family, because what is absent in that language family are pronunciations where the tongue passes the teeth, such as in words like think, breath, and lemon, depending on how you pronounce it
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 4:48
So the first thing I thought of was I had the good fortune to be able to take a linguistics class when I was in school, and I didn't major in that or anything, but I was really interested in it as an English major and a writer, just understanding where the history of how we use language and also how a lot of these things are currently being studied