delfinnium: (Default)
Drel ([personal profile] delfinnium) wrote in [community profile] forkedtongues 2012-03-08 12:04 pm (UTC)

This is AWESOME!

I know that I make a lot of sweeping generalisations and such, because I don't actually know the full history of English language development and growth - it is fascinating to realise how US-English has more ancient and older linguistic bitties than UK-English. Language shifts ftw!

I also went and randomly read up the wikipedia article about Cockney, because you know, dialects and stuff, which meant that Cockney and other similar English dialects were probably MORE likely to be actual English dialects, unlike say, Singlish or Manglish or other creoles would be, since they are derived from English (mainly) and not necessarily in a different country with different language-structures imported from a different language.

Or something. And even THEN, Cockney and other dialects were considered low-class, working class, and undesireable, and supposedly it is only recently that the broadcasting media in England allowed/broadcast more English-dialects instead of only RP.

I think the idea that English because it is SO flexible (and... uh, drives kids and non-native speakers crazy) and has so many damn exceptions to everything... is because it used to be a creole.

It's kind of annoying that our politicians act like that Singlish will 'corrupt' our standard English, when they should just come up with a way of teaching English without having to try and stamp out OUR growing language.

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