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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   37167 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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SAE is not merely a shibboleth. Keeping language variation small enough that mutual intelligibility is largely maintained is an important practical goal.

It's totally a shibboleth. I speak 'redneck English' and can easily understand both Ebonics and standard American English(and can speak either) a bit more easily than the Queen's English and whatever the hell Marianne Williamson speaks(and can't really speak either of those), and understand both of those with less effort than blue collar Hispanic ESOL(where it'd be 50/50 on whether it's easier to switch to Spanish), and understand that a bit more easily than Chinglish, which I in turn find easier to understand than something like Dutch(which I can, haltingly, string together a few sentences in).

Now the signal "I am literate" is a valuable one to exist and we don't have to pretend it isn't. That someone finished society's basic educational expectations is important information, and choosing to share or not share that information is an important contextual signal. A black who speaks Ebonics in a job interview is sending a signal and that signal is 'I'm either uneducated or don't give a shit'.

'redneck English'

I was about to ask you a question under the impression that you meant the dialect(s) spoken in Appalachia, and then remembered that you live in Texas, not in my neck of the woods. Rednecks are everywhere!

Anyway I mostly agree with you. Dialectal variation in American English is shockingly small, certainly compared to e.g. the variation in Great Britain. Aside from maybe AA(V)E, which does seem to have some unusual grammatical constructions, pretty much all varieties of American English are easily mutually intelligible if you are willing to try. (For what it's worth, though I grew up in Appalachian Virginia, my parents are highly educated transplants. My brain seems to produce exclusively SAE even though I have no trouble understanding the Appalachian dialect/accent.)

Southern American English is likely considerably closer to AAVE than Midland or Mid-Atlantic, so no surprise you can understand it better than many other white Americans. And most Southerners seem to code-switch to something less distinctively southern when talking to Northerners.

Yes, in a formal register I speak something closer to SAE than my usual red dirt dialect. "I" instead of "aaah" but I keep the guttural R and the WH sound.

“Guttural R”, as in French or German? Can you give an example word?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_approximant#Voiced_velar_bunched_approximant

When I say agree and argue it sounds like I'm saying the standard American English R and a modern Greek gamma or Arabic GH at the same time. It's not a gargle like the Parisians use. Clear sounds like 'klee-a-growl' said by an auctioneer. Raise and red sound a bit closer to the SAE counterparts but rude and rub don't.

Languages naturally diverge over time. To counteract this, you need some kind of central coordination to act as a centripetal force. I don't trust any group to police language in a way that doesn't betray their own parochial biases. And, in particular, I don't trust the people who today have the power to police Proper English not to mangle it even more than they already have as a display of raw power.

It's better to let individuals use language in whatever way that's most useful to them. Those who want to participate in the broader consolidated market can naturally learn to code switch to the dialect they need to.

To be clear, I don't think you have any obligation to try to communicate with people using dialects that are grating.

Languages naturally diverge over time.

And this is generally bad, as it makes communication more difficult.

I don't trust any group to police language in a way that doesn't betray their own parochial biases.

Indeed. And some of those groups (like the woke, and AAVE speakers demanding other blacks not "talk white") are going to try. So the other groups better try too, or they're just going to get wiped off the language map.

I think we've arrived at the reason why so many hegemonic empires choose a prestige dialect with few or no native speakers- Latin, Mandarin, Koine, etc.

So the other groups better try too, or they're just going to get wiped off the language map.

Your claim is that SAE is in danger of being wiped off the language map?

Your claim is that SAE is in danger of being wiped off the language map?

Not "Standard American English", the living dialect. But the version spoken today, yes.

Yeah, I guarantee that all dialects spoken today will be unrecognizable in a few hundred years except for those fortunate languages who are already dead, that being the only real way for a language to endure unchanged.

Shakespearean English is recognizable today. And I'm talking about dialect, not accent. And I'm not talking about a few hundred years, but a few decades. Your post is just a smokescreen.

Nuh uh, your post is just a smokescreen!

Shakespearean English is recognizably and intelligibly English but the meaning of many words have shifted and many words have fallen out of favor. This process will continue over the next decades and the next centuries if English is fortunate enough to endure.

I realize that changes to the English language until you were born are based and trad and everything after is soy and degenerate, but there is literally (I am using the original form) no escaping this process for any living language.

It makes communication between groups more difficult. But it makes communication inside the group and communication of who is in the group easier. Which of those is more useful or valuable is largely dependent on what you're valuing and circumstances.

If everyone in the world spoke perfect English only then communication would be easier. But we would certainly have lost something of value I think.

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