bayswater wrote:Amazing to thing that this was probably all English 200 years ago.
[permit me to indulge in a momentary detour, inspired by language]
My father's mother grew up in Hazard, Kentucky. There, the people used to speak a dialect that had not been around since the first settlers came across on the Mayflower. Because they were isolated from the rest of the colonies by mountains, they didn't get much interaction with the outside world, and their dialect just deepened. When some linguist "discovered" them, he was amazed to be hearing a living archive of old English. My grandmother had a southern accent, but it was unlike any I'd ever heard. The women "purr" in their voices. When my daughter and I went to Hazard, we stopped at a Subway Sandwich place, and within 5 minutes I'd heard 2 women who sounded just like my grandmother!
And speaking of dialects, Brazil's language is Portuguese, and yet the VAST majority of Portuguese speakers are Brazilian. Portugal is barely a memory of another time in another land, whose principal export to the world will probably be remembered as its language, which someday will simply be called "Brazilian." (It's already called Brazilian Portuguese.)
Then there's Chinese, whose dialects are so diverse that many Chinese speak to other Chinese from neighboring regions in English! I don't think China would ever let English become the primary language, and yet (from what I've heard) most Chinese can speak at least a little of it.
Language is one of the most interesting things on the planet. I could study it for a lifetime.
Pardon the detour. Continue talking about Network Connections. Sorry!
Shooshie
