Controversial Opinion 3: There's no right way to speak English.
[quote]But English isn’t just influential in the world; it’s completely influenced by every place it goes and changed by the people who use it, sometimes immutably. Both locally inflected new words and lingual blends that may be unintelligible to people who only speak Britain’s Standard English have been added to the versions of English taught in global schools. These versions are then used by vast numbers of non-native speakers separated by thousands of miles. Not only are all the versions part of the same mother tongue, but they developed at very different times; some over hundreds of years, others in response to more recent exposure to pop culture.
The differences between Standard English and other types of English are described as categories: pidgins, creoles, or dialects, often called varieties. While a variety is usually similar to the standard version of a language, a pidgin is a rough mix of lingual influences, used by people of different native tongues who need a common language to communicate. A creole is a more complex mixture, often spoken and developed over generations.
While word choice can differentiate one variety from another (speakers of Australian English call for a “caretaker” to clean a spill, while an American would call for a “janitor”), spotting the difference between creoles and varieties can be tricky, and linguists themselves don’t always agree.[/quote]
[quote]When adults from varied lingual backgrounds need to learn a second language in order to communicate with one another, a lingual trend similar to the spread of Valley Girl speech begins. New language speakers take influence from their native tongues when forming sentences in the new language; if this need continues, the mix might evolve further. Singaporean English is similar to British English, but the creole Singlish draws heavily from the sentence structure and sounds of Malay and Mandarin, which are more common first languages in Singapore; “I don’t want it” becomes “dowan”; ”what is the time right now?” becomes “now what time?”[/quote]
[b]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-theres-no-right-way-to-speak-english[/b]
The differences between Standard English and other types of English are described as categories: pidgins, creoles, or dialects, often called varieties. While a variety is usually similar to the standard version of a language, a pidgin is a rough mix of lingual influences, used by people of different native tongues who need a common language to communicate. A creole is a more complex mixture, often spoken and developed over generations.
While word choice can differentiate one variety from another (speakers of Australian English call for a “caretaker” to clean a spill, while an American would call for a “janitor”), spotting the difference between creoles and varieties can be tricky, and linguists themselves don’t always agree.[/quote]
[quote]When adults from varied lingual backgrounds need to learn a second language in order to communicate with one another, a lingual trend similar to the spread of Valley Girl speech begins. New language speakers take influence from their native tongues when forming sentences in the new language; if this need continues, the mix might evolve further. Singaporean English is similar to British English, but the creole Singlish draws heavily from the sentence structure and sounds of Malay and Mandarin, which are more common first languages in Singapore; “I don’t want it” becomes “dowan”; ”what is the time right now?” becomes “now what time?”[/quote]
[b]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-theres-no-right-way-to-speak-english[/b]
36-40, F
