Post: #26

On the east coast of Canada where French and English mix a lot, a language came about over the past couple hundred of years called Chiac, its pretty funny and anyone who speaks English and French will be able to understand it but I could never speak it because I don't know when to use English or not, plus its pretty useless. Its spoken primarily in the province of New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province (Quebec is French only), which unsurprisingly, has the highest rate of illiteracy in the country!

Quote:The roots and base of Chiac are Acadian French, a spoken French often tinged with nautical terms (e.g. haler, embarquer), reflecting the historical importance of the sea to the local economy. Chiac also contains some older French words (e.g., bailler, quérir, hucher, gosier) which are now deemed archaic by the Académie Française, as well as aboriginal-derived terms, notably from Mi'kmaq, evident in words such as matues, meaning 'porcupine'. Chiac uses primarily French syntax with French-English vocabulary and phrase forms (see below). It is often deprecated by both French and English speakers as an ill-conceived hybrid language — either "bad" French or "bad" English

Examples of Chiac:

"J'vai parker mon car dans le driveway là." (I'm going to park my car in that driveway.)

"C'é pretty right on man, mon truck handle dans les trails." (It's really fun, my truck handles well off-road.)

"Check ça out, pi call-moi back." (Gather some information and let me know what's going on.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiac

Post: #27

(09-09-2016 11:46 AM)scotian Wrote:  On the east coast of Canada where French and English mix a lot, a language came about over the past couple hundred of years called Chiac, its pretty funny and anyone who speaks English and French will be able to understand it but I could never speak it because I don't know when to use English or not, plus its pretty useless. Its spoken primarily in the province of New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province (Quebec is French only), which unsurprisingly, has the highest rate of illiteracy in the country!

Quote:The roots and base of Chiac are Acadian French, a spoken French often tinged with nautical terms (e.g. haler, embarquer), reflecting the historical importance of the sea to the local economy. Chiac also contains some older French words (e.g., bailler, quérir, hucher, gosier) which are now deemed archaic by the Académie Française, as well as aboriginal-derived terms, notably from Mi'kmaq, evident in words such as matues, meaning 'porcupine'. Chiac uses primarily French syntax with French-English vocabulary and phrase forms (see below). It is often deprecated by both French and English speakers as an ill-conceived hybrid language — either "bad" French or "bad" English

Examples of Chiac:

"J'vai parker mon car dans le driveway là." (I'm going to park my car in that driveway.)

"C'é pretty right on man, mon truck handle dans les trails." (It's really fun, my truck handles well off-road.)

"Check ça out, pi call-moi back." (Gather some information and let me know what's going on.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiac

My great grandpa speaks Cajun French and he can't read or write either. Funny how every time people want to mix French and English into a new language they just stop becoming literate.

Post: #28

The Power of Babel is an excellent book written by an ethno-linguist by the name of John McWhorter.
In it he explains the birth and death of languages and why the majority of languages spoken now will be deader than Latin in a century.
Expect English, Spanish, Russian and Mandarin to expand and thrive and watch the rest die.

Post: #29

(09-09-2016 12:19 PM)AboveAverageJoe Wrote:  The Power of Babel is an excellent book written by an ethno-linguist by the name of John McWhorter.
In it he explains the birth and death of languages and why the majority of languages spoken now will be deader than Latin in a century.
Expect English, Spanish, Russian and Mandarin to expand and thrive and watch the rest die.

Good book. As a linguist, he explains why Ebonics is not merely English badly spoken and why Shakespeare should be taught in translation. John McWhorter is that rare academic who thinks for himself. He has some interesting debates/discussions on YouTube with another dissident black intellectual, Glenn Loury. Other good writers about language/linguistics for the general public: Steven Pinker, David Crystal.

Post: #30

(09-09-2016 11:32 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

(09-08-2016 10:52 PM)godzilla Wrote:  Interesting post. Catalan is indeed thriving.

Is it true than many Catalans prefer speaking English with foreigners rather than Spanish, for reasons of regional pride?

Yes, if they know English. But if not, they're not going to let their pride get in the way of some tourist euros so they will speak Spanish.

Post: #31

(09-08-2016 06:13 PM)4profit Wrote:  

(09-01-2016 11:47 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

We have a lot of you guys out here in Chicago. I don't get along well with most of them, but the ones I do get along with end up being very good friends.

I was born in Chicago as well. It's a common Assyrian hub and until recently is where our Assyrian Apostolic Catholic Church of the East was headquartered. It moved back to Iraq recently when the Patriarch passed away last year.

Assyrians are a mixed bag. The culture is very defensive and proud since we have been persecuted in the middle east for the last 1300 years and still managed to survive (mostly for being Christian and refusing to lose our language.)

We do assimilate pretty well into the cultures we migrate to. There are large diasporas in the US/Australia/Sweden and a few other places. The ones that tend to cause issues were heavily Arabized under Saddam's rule and migrated in the last 20 or so years. The ones coming from Iran tend to be "higher class" in a sense because they have a larger Persian influence and Iran has been a more prosperous country.

Post: #32

(09-09-2016 11:32 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

(09-08-2016 10:52 PM)godzilla Wrote:  Interesting post. Catalan is indeed thriving.

Is it true than many Catalans prefer speaking English with foreigners rather than Spanish, for reasons of regional pride?

I'm not sure about regional pride, but it isn't true. Not everyone speaks Catalan but everyone is fluent in Spanish. I didn't speak anything but Spanish with locals.

Post: #33

(09-01-2016 10:06 AM)amity Wrote:  @britchard Interesting topic. I speak Irish quite well (or Gaelic as it's mostly called outside of Ireland).
I used to be fluent and probably could get back to fluency if I spent a month back in the 'Gaeltacht' (the parts of Ireland where Irish is the first language, mostly in remote parts of the West, SW and NW).
Most Irish people can speak a few basic phrases but not much beyond that.
The amount of people who can speak Irish well or fluently, is probably only about 5% of the nation.
The language has gotten a boost in the last couple of decades as it now has a national channel dedicated to it (TG4) and a national radio station (RnaG).
Interestingly there's a dynamic going on in Ireland in the last decade especially where some Irish parents are seeking out Irish language schools to send their kids to, partly because the standard is usually quite good in these schools, but also because these schools are usually quite monocultural, with almost exclusively white Irish kids of mostly Catholic or at least Christian heritage going there, as opposed to the Diversity that's become quite present in primary and second level education in Ireland in the past ten to fifteen years particularly.
As a former teacher myself, I can confirm that it's easier to teach a class of kids who are predominantly from the same culture and possessing the same native language as you.
It's better for the kids too, in an educational sense anyway.
I'm sure if you got any teacher to speak honestly about it, he or she would confirm the same.
One last factor is there's a 'cool' factor to saying you went to an Irish speaking school or that your kids are attending one.
A lot of the wealthy classes in Ireland send their kids to these schools.
All of the above means this language is not dying out anytime soon despite the fact that practically nobody outside the island speaks it.

The same is true of french language schools outside of Quebec in Canada. Rich parents send their kids there because they are better schools and the student body is more uniform. The by product is that the kids also learn french, which is a meal ticket to a tits out cushy federal government job in Canada later on in life.

Post: #34

(09-01-2016 10:06 AM)amity Wrote:  @britchard Interesting topic. I speak Irish quite well (or Gaelic as it's mostly called outside of Ireland).

Cute faux documentary about a Chinese guy who accidentally learns Irish.

Post: #35

(09-09-2016 06:14 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  

(09-08-2016 06:13 PM)4profit Wrote:  

(09-01-2016 11:47 PM)fiasco360 Wrote:  I speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

We have a lot of you guys out here in Chicago. I don't get along well with most of them, but the ones I do get along with end up being very good friends.

I was born in Chicago as well. It's a common Assyrian hub and until recently is where our Assyrian Apostolic Catholic Church of the East was headquartered. It moved back to Iraq recently when the Patriarch passed away last year.

Assyrians are a mixed bag. The culture is very defensive and proud since we have been persecuted in the middle east for the last 1300 years and still managed to survive (mostly for being Christian and refusing to lose our language.)

We do assimilate pretty well into the cultures we migrate to. There are large diasporas in the US/Australia/Sweden and a few other places. The ones that tend to cause issues were heavily Arabized under Saddam's rule and migrated in the last 20 or so years. The ones coming from Iran tend to be "higher class" in a sense because they have a larger Persian influence and Iran has been a more prosperous country.

What you say rings true. I've noticed that Iraqi Assyrians are the most "tribal", whereas the ones I get along with well are from Syria and Lebanon. I would disagree with your statement that Assyrians assimilate well because I see 1st and 2nd generation Assyrians clustering into groups.

Post: #36

The beautiful 'pan fo'r nos yn hir'

Post: #37

One time I was checking on german language resources and stumbled upon a forum where athread told a popular thoery that ran about the origin of the southern german swabians -who have a reputation for being pennypichers- and their infamously inteligible "Dialekt schwäbisch".
The tale tells that the reason is that the swabians were originally scottsmen who were such extreme misers that even the rest of the scottmen -who also have a reputation for being tight with their money- banished them and so they eventually settled down in what is now central southern germany...

Post: #38

Quebec French is pretty much grammatically and in written form, identical to French from France. However, we still use a lot of words from old French when we talk (or derived from old languages such as Norman)...for exemple, chaussures (shoes) in French are Souliers in Quebec. Garocher (to throw) is not a word used in French, but we use it in QUebec, it comes from Norman where a lot of our ancestors are from. We still use a lot of expressions from old French. Being cut off from France, French has pretty much remained in the same form it was in the late 18th-19th century. French people also mentionned that we sing when we talk and that we have a more nasal accent.

It is a dialect though and not a minority language, we are over 7,000,000 Quebecers. I would classify Quebecer as similar dialect to what Austrian German is to Hochdeutsch (High german).