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Why do people feel the need to criticize dialects?

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Dark Espeon

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Just answer the question, eh? Why do you think that is? I mean, what is wrong with "not speaking right" ?

See, I speak this dialect of Spanish, and people from the region I lived in (in Cuba, the eastern part), have always been made fun of because of the way we speak. For example, where a normal Spanish speaker would say "Español" (Spanish for Spanish), we'd say "Epañol", and where they'd say "Verdad" (Spanish for Truth), we'd say "Verdá". Yeah, we "eat" the letter S at the end of words, and the letter D as well. So we're always made fun of. Even a Mexican friend of mine thought I spoke like that because I happen to know French and well, he thought I made it up. Also an American friend of mine hates it when I speak like that -he learned standard Latin American Spanish at school- so he finds my Spanish quite ugly whereas I find it quite nice :-D. Lucky for him I can speak standard Spanish. :-p

I've also heard of some Americans who make fun of Southern people cause of their accent/way of speaking. And the French of France do the same with the Canadian (Québecois) French -they speak different.

I fail to see what is wrong with a dialect or a way of speaking that differs from the standard. Sure, it might improper at times, but why is it considered vulgar or uneducated/uncivilized? Native Spanish speakers and other native romance languages speakers seem to forget that Spanish and all Romance languages came from a vulgar language itself -vulgar latin- and it eventually became the nice languages they are today.

English native speakers seem to make less fun of their fellow English speakers than the Spanish or the French speakers, but it still seems to me they make fun of them and their way of speaking. Maybe even more so than I think.

(Oooh, and I've also noticed that native speakers make fun of immigrant speakers who also speak the language -for example, in this essay I read, a Korean-Canadian woman was regarded as "less Korean" because she was born in Canada and "didn't speak Korean with enough accent to be a true Korean" so she was kinda looked down upon when she went to Korea). Kind off topic, but I don't feel that's right ~.~;;

And, of course, native speakers ALWAYS make fun of immigrants who are not native speakers because of their accent. (I used to hate my Spanish accent when speaking English because I had to say everything twice in order for teachers and people to understand, but now I kinda have gotten over it and my English teacher encouraged me to keep my accent when speaking English -she finds it beautiful o.o;;)

Anyways, I think rather than make fun of other people who speak a dialect of the same language, their ways of speaking should be appreciated, and who knows, someday that dialect could become a language. And that native speakers should not mock immigrants and non-native speakers of whatever language they speak >>.

For example, I absolutely LOVE the way that Argetinian people speak Spanish. It almost sounds Italian-ish :ksmile:. And people from Andalusia (souther region of Spain) speak a lovely Spanish IMO. And English people sound cute too when they speak Spanish. Mainly cause (I think/In my opinion) they usually don't put the accent on the right place of the word or just say some letters in funny/cute ways ^o^. Besides, they just sound different =P. Which is cool.

However, by no means should that encourage people to spell like crap. Speaking and writing are different things. In my opinion, speak how you want, but when you grab a pen and paper, try your best to write standard and spell correctly. Because everyone can understand the standard form of a language. And typing like "U r stupid" isn't cute at all. In fact, it is disrespectful to the language, and it can get confused to the reader/person you're writing to/chatting with.
 
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Southern and black dialects are bastardized versions of American English, which itself is a bastardized form of English English. If you speak that way, you're speaking a lazy dialect, plain and simple.
 
Southern and black dialects are bastardized versions of American English, which itself is a bastardized form of English English. If you speak that way, you're speaking a lazy dialect, plain and simple.

When a language arrives to a new land, it becomes modified, and is transformed by the people and/or the already-existing languages. It does so too when it is taken by a group of people. So there is nothing wrong with the American English or the Southern American English nor the way black people and rappers speak. It's natural.
 
Dark Espeon said:
When a language arrives to a new land, it becomes modified, and is transformed by the people and/or the already-existing languages. It does so too when it is taken by a group of people. So there is nothing wrong with the American English or the Southern American English nor the way black people and rappers speak. It's natural.
It's "natural" because the areas that speak in those dialects are less educated, and they *are* lazy dialects, as they ignore syllables and sounds, and create compound words.

The impression of a dialect gives the true nature of the group or region that speaks it.
 
Hmm, what can we tell from English then...

1. Loss of morphological gender - PIE had masculine, feminine and neuter - modern English only has semantic gender.
2. Loss of all cases except the genitive. [Pronouns have preserved more.]
3. Loss of all conjugation except singular present, plural present and preterite. [Strong verbs and irregular verbs have preserved more.]
4. Loss of productive ablaut / strong verb conjugation.
5. Loss of productive umlaut.
6. 70%+ vocabulary borrowed from French, Latin, Greek, and other non-Germanic languages.
6a. Much of the borrowed French, Latin and Greek vocabulary already had Germanic equivalents.

Hmm. So, English is a dialect of Germanic spoken by people who are too dumb to use proper declension and conjugation and who have a fetish for other people's words and culture.
 
Language change is a natural process. When one group becomes split from another group, it tends to change in a different way. (This is happening less now because developments in technology has brought people closer together.)

Expanding on Zhen's point, English English used to have very negative connotations, being a rough, wild language compared to the French of the nobles and the Latin of the church. Then came the formation of Parliament, and the nobles began to care more about the people and English beame their language as well. It then developed to have the nostalgia that affects the people who complain today.

To quote Professor Jean Aitchison, "The only true lazy speech is drunken speech." "Ommisions enable speech to be speeded up...Faster speech involves more words per minute, and can't be classified 'laziness'" Easy speech shows a preference for sounds produced fairly forward in the mouth. "But this is rubbish. Sounds move back in the mouth, as well as forwards. One that has moved back is the increasingly common pronunciation of bu'er. But "Be'y 'ad a bi of bi'er bu'er" requires considerable more musclular tension than the older "Betty had a bit of bitter butter" and can't be regarded as a lazy development."
 
Hmm, "speeded up"? More heresy! "to speed up" is a strong verb! The preterite is "sped up"! :-D

Language change is unstoppable and unavoidable.* A pity it takes a while for linguistic richness to redevelop.

*: Except where languages are dead. Corpses don't change, dead languages don't evolve.
 
Zhen Lin said:
*: Except where languages are dead. Corpses don't change, dead languages don't evolve.


Doesn't a corpse decompose? Which would mean that the corpse does change? :ksmile: Lol.

I find it funny that Americans today will make fun of someone for speaking Proper English (English English), and words with no meaning "YO, YO, YO. Homie G-Dog What Be Up?" are used almost thousands to millions of times a day. Grr, Stupid "Gangsta" rappers and their slang!
 
I speak with a really extreme southern accent, so I know how you feel.

I've always been in the habit of writing in proper english, but as far as speaking goes, because of my dialact it's natural for me to use improper verb tenses and double negatives, such as "we ain't got no milk."

My old friend Rob was the first person from the internet that I talked to on the phone on a regular basis, and he mentioned to me how suprised he was that I didn't speak properly, even though I obviously knew correct english since I wrote it on the internet. He basically said it made me sound stupid, so I spent a long time training myself to actually speak in proper english, though I do still have an extreme accent. Now at least when I'm around internet people in real life or on the phone, I use proper sentences, but when I talk to people from where I grew up, I'll often slip back into "don't got no."
 
Dialect is something of a badge of membership. Some will speak it proudly, not afraid to show that they are from an area. Others will speak it only amongst their in-group who they know to speak the same dialect. Some will refuse to speak it at all, even with their in-group.
 
People like to feel like they're superior. I'm from Indiana, and the common image of us is as hicks, which is a huge misconception, since we've got lots of science-y businesses. (Little drug company called Lilly. Ever heard of it?) Now I'll admit, part of the stereotype does come from the fact that we're stuck in the middle of the Midwest, but I think it also has to do with the dialect, you know, the whole "farmer" thing. Like right now. I mean, "Hoosier" in any other part of the country refers to an uneducated idiot. (Which is why I perfer the term "Indianan")

Really, just because you've got a dialect does not mean that you're stupid. I don't know *why* it is that people are under the impression that unless you speak the Queen's English, you're an uneducated slob, but I guess that's people for you.

(I have no clue what I was just ranting about... just ranting, I suppose.)
 
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