(October 10, 2015 at 6:38 pm)MTL Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 5:40 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: Je suis allé au Canada il y a longtemps quand vous n'aviez pas besoin de passeport. S'il vous plaît excuser mon Français. Ce n'est pas natif, mais j'aime les langues de toutes sortes.

 Je suis étudiant Français, moi-même.

vous prenez une classe ou étudier indépendamment ?

(October 10, 2015 at 6:47 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 6:25 pm)MTL Wrote: You are absolutely right.  No arguments.  I was painting in rather broad strokes to get my point across about Anglos and Francos, in Canada, today.
I could go into the entire history of New France, Creole, Acadien/Cajun,
....and even Huguenots...but we'd be here, awhile 

EDIT:  I sincerely hope I didn't offend you with my generalization.  I know the story of the Acadiens and the Mi'kmaq; I know the story of New France and the British Colonies and Québec....I actually have Huguenot ancestry, myself, and THAT's a whole nother story, too.

No! I'm delighted that you know about us at all. Most people just sweep us in with the other Canadian French, and we're nothing like them. In fact, we were often disinclined to get along with them at all, especially early on, because we had fled the fighting around La Rochelle on the west coast of France, and disdained all things of the nobility and the old empire. It's why we stayed so isolated until the 18th century (1710) thrust itself upon us, as the French and British both took interest in the region because the Brits built Halifax (and its harbor) as a fairly major naval base in the region.

If you have not read them, and you'd like to know more about our history and culture, I recommend the following three books, in order of recommendation:

The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765-1803 by Carl A. Brasseaux (which, despite the title, also contains the origins in l'Acadie.)

A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland by John Mack Faragher

The Cajuns: Americanization of a People by Shane K. Bernard

(As a bonus book, if you want something more cultural and more fun, try Gumbo Ya-ya: Folk Tales of Louisiana, edited by Saxon, Dreyer, and Tallant. "Ya-ya", or "aya", comes from an Afro-Caribbean word for rice, and forms the second half of the word Jambalaya, jambon + a la + aya, or roughly "ham-and-rice".)

Rock, you are a walking encyclopedia of Cajon history. Because of you, I will never confuse Cajuns and Creoles.

(October 10, 2015 at 8:59 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 6:38 pm)MTL Wrote:  Je suis étudiant Français, moi-même.

vous prenez une classe ou étudier indépendamment ?

Indépendamment.

(October 10, 2015 at 6:20 pm)MTL Wrote:

---

(October 10, 2015 at 4:55 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Two things:  It is quite different when one mangles one's own language and when one mangles someone else's.  This is not entirely dissimilar to the fact that a black person can call a black person a "nigger" without it being the same as a white person calling a black person a "nigger."  Or a Jew can tell Jewish jokes that nonJews would be well-advised to not tell.

As a non-native speaker of French, I would personally not try to innovate the French language much, and, the vast majority of the time, would try to conform to the proper standards, insofar as I reasonably can.  Of course, you are free to offend the French as much as you wish to do.

I will readily agree that mangling your own language is a different proposition from mangling someone else's.

As far as my being "free to offend the French as much as (I) wish to do"....I wish to do no such thing, and I think I spelled that out when I said that I try to specifically use accents as much as possible out of sensitivity to French Canadian feelings.

My good friend in France overlooks my lack of use of typed accents because of the keyboard difficulty, he just laughs at me and he knows I love French, besides, we speak it, on video, rather than just typing it, much of the time.

Quote:The fact that American English is different from British English does not make either wrong.  Both have evolved since America was started.  And according to scholarly research, in some ways, the British have altered the language more than the Americans have

Again, I don't disagree with that.  The same is true, yet again, for Québec French.  It is, in many ways, closer to "Old French" than the french that is spoken in France, today, because the speakers of Colonial french were, in large measure, isolated from France after emigrating to the New World, and the french spoken in France, today, evolved along different lines.

Quote:Languages evolve, and when they are evolving in relatively isolated areas, they tend to diverge.  Modern communication is helping to reunite languages, as Americans are both influenced by British TV and films, and the British are influenced by American TV and films.  And, of course, there is also such mutual influence with Australia, New Zealand, Canada (which, being close to the U.S., is and has been more like the U.S. than the others tend to be), and other places where English is spoken, which communicate with each other in the modern world

You're kind of preaching to the choir, here, Pyrrho.

I will be the first to defend the "living" nature of languages as they evolve; I have done so, repeatedly.

---

I think your response is due to the fact that I utilized the term "bastardized"
which sounds like it has a negative connotation;

---

but I'm merely acknowledging that bastardization of language DOES occur;
I am not necessarily saying it is entirely a bad thing.

Bastardizing a language is part of what makes it a "living" language.

Now, I DO dislike to see literacy, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension being lost, as language evolves;
I wish it could be said that ALL linguistic evolution occured without something being sacrificed, along the way.

But the mere fact of evolution of different dialects does NOT make a language invalid, to me.

I've posted this video, before, I will re-post it to make my point,
it is a husband and wife couple who play music together at a francophone festival in Missouri.

He is Missouri French, himself, by birth,
she is not, but she studied Standard French for years before meeting him,
and she had to open her mind to the differences between the french she had studied,
versus the french she heard her husband and his family, speaking,
and realize the legitimacy of the french of his dialect:





So, that being said, I must object to this part of your reply:

Quote:The idea that Americans have bastardized the English language is just silly propaganda that has more to do with bitterness over losing the colonies than it has truth to it.

bold, mine.

If you want to argue the legitimacy of American English vs British English....fine.  I'll acknowledge that.

If you want to argue that the Brits bastardize their own language....fine.  I've acknowledged that, too.

But that part of your reply (above) was an OPINION, and is entirely a matter of perspective.

The Americans HAVE bastardized the English language.

It didn't bastardize itself.

And I'm okay with it.

I bastardize the English language, myself, all the time, and not always on purpose.

But at least I own it.

I would never suggest that the idea that the bastardization of English
of which I myself, am guilty,
is nothing more than mere "propaganda" born of someone else's bitterness.

---

You have indeed hit upon the word that is the source of our apparent disagreement.  I believe you are misusing the word "bastardize."

Here is Oxford:

Quote:bastardize

verb
[WITH OBJECT]
1(often as adjective bastardized) Corrupt or debase(a language, art form, etc.), typically by adding new elements:a strange, bastardized form of French

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

Their example is rather fitting for our discussion, but unimportant to my point.  To "bastardize" something is not merely to change it.  The word itself conveys also a judgement about the change.  It means that the change is making the thing worse.

So, it sounds like it has a negative connotation because it is saying that the change is negative.

Notice, the word "evolve" is quite different:

Quote:evolve

verb
1Develop gradually:[NO OBJECT]: the company has evolved into a major chemical manufacturerthe Gothic style evolved from the Romanesque[WITH OBJECT]: each school must evolve its own way of working

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

Here there is the concept of change, but notice there is no negative judgement about the change.  In fact, if anything, there is a suggestion of improvement rather than the idea that the thing is being debased.


So when you say that a language is "bastardized," you are not merely saying that it is changed.  You are also suggesting that the change is for the worse, not the better, nor even neutral.

My objection is to the idea that a change in language must be for the worse.  But that is what you are saying when you say that the language is bastardized.  I think from the context of your post that you mean merely that it changes, rather than that it changes for the worse.  In which case, you mean something other than that the language is bastardized.


Applying this to my previous post, when I stated that it is a silly claim that Americans have bastardized English, I mean that it is silly to suppose that current British English is the source and current American English is a bastardization (i.e., a change for the worse) of that "pure" form.  It is factually wrong in the sense that both have gradually changed from a common source (a common ancestor, to keep with the evolutionary metaphor), and modern British English has changed from that common source in some ways that modern American English has not.  So if a change from the original is a "bastardization" (which I object to for the reasons above), then modern British English has been bastardized, in some respects, more than modern American English has been bastardized.  But, of course, the nonjudgmental fact is, both are derived from a common source, and their paths diverged.  But, we again are at the conclusion that it is just false to claim that British English is inherently correct and American English is wrong insofar as it differs from modern British English.  Both are different from what they were when America was first settled by British people.

Quoth Shaw, "The English and the Americans are two peoples separated by a common language."

(October 10, 2015 at 10:43 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 6:20 pm)MTL Wrote:

---

I will readily agree that mangling your own language is a different proposition from mangling someone else's.

As far as my being "free to offend the French as much as (I) wish to do"....I wish to do no such thing, and I think I spelled that out when I said that I try to specifically use accents as much as possible out of sensitivity to French Canadian feelings.

My good friend in France overlooks my lack of use of typed accents because of the keyboard difficulty, he just laughs at me and he knows I love French, besides, we speak it, on video, rather than just typing it, much of the time.


Again, I don't disagree with that.  The same is true, yet again, for Québec French.  It is, in many ways, closer to "Old French" than the french that is spoken in France, today, because the speakers of Colonial french were, in large measure, isolated from France after emigrating to the New World, and the french spoken in France, today, evolved along different lines.


You're kind of preaching to the choir, here, Pyrrho.

I will be the first to defend the "living" nature of languages as they evolve; I have done so, repeatedly.

---

I think your response is due to the fact that I utilized the term "bastardized"
which sounds like it has a negative connotation;

---

but I'm merely acknowledging that bastardization of language DOES occur;
I am not necessarily saying it is entirely a bad thing.

Bastardizing a language is part of what makes it a "living" language.

Now, I DO dislike to see literacy, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension being lost, as language evolves;
I wish it could be said that ALL linguistic evolution occured without something being sacrificed, along the way.

But the mere fact of evolution of different dialects does NOT make a language invalid, to me.

I've posted this video, before, I will re-post it to make my point,
it is a husband and wife couple who play music together at a francophone festival in Missouri.

He is Missouri French, himself, by birth,
she is not, but she studied Standard French for years before meeting him,
and she had to open her mind to the differences between the french she had studied,
versus the french she heard her husband and his family, speaking,
and realize the legitimacy of the french of his dialect:





So, that being said, I must object to this part of your reply:


bold, mine.

If you want to argue the legitimacy of American English vs British English....fine.  I'll acknowledge that.

If you want to argue that the Brits bastardize their own language....fine.  I've acknowledged that, too.

But that part of your reply (above) was an OPINION, and is entirely a matter of perspective.

The Americans HAVE bastardized the English language.

It didn't bastardize itself.

And I'm okay with it.

I bastardize the English language, myself, all the time, and not always on purpose.

But at least I own it.

I would never suggest that the idea that the bastardization of English
of which I myself, am guilty,
is nothing more than mere "propaganda" born of someone else's bitterness.

---

You have indeed hit upon the word that is the source of our apparent disagreement.  I believe you are misusing the word "bastardize."

Here is Oxford:

Quote:bastardize

verb
[WITH OBJECT]
1(often as adjective bastardized) Corrupt or debase(a language, art form, etc.), typically by adding new elements:a strange, bastardized form of French

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

Their example is rather fitting for our discussion, but unimportant to my point.  To "bastardize" something is not merely to change it.  The word itself conveys also a judgement about the change.  It means that the change is making the thing worse.

So, it sounds like it has a negative connotation because it is saying that the change is negative.

Notice, the word "evolve" is quite different:

Quote:evolve

verb
1Develop gradually:[NO OBJECT]: the company has evolved into a major chemical manufacturerthe Gothic style evolved from the Romanesque[WITH OBJECT]: each school must evolve its own way of working

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

Here there is the concept of change, but notice there is no negative judgement about the change.  In fact, if anything, there is a suggestion of improvement rather than the idea that the thing is being debased.


So when you say that a language is "bastardized," you are not merely saying that it is changed.  You are also suggesting that the change is for the worse, not the better, nor even neutral.

My objection is to the idea that a change in language must be for the worse.  But that is what you are saying when you say that the language is bastardized.  I think from the context of your post that you mean merely that it changes, rather than that it changes for the worse.  In which case, you mean something other than that the language is bastardized.


Applying this to my previous post, when I stated that it is a silly claim that Americans have bastardized English, I mean that it is silly to suppose that current British English is the source and current American English is a bastardization (i.e., a change for the worse) of that "pure" form.  It is factually wrong in the sense that both have gradually changed from a common source (a common ancestor, to keep with the evolutionary metaphor), and modern British English has changed from that common source in some ways that modern American English has not.  So if a change from the original is a "bastardization" (which I object to for the reasons above), then modern British English has been bastardized, in some respects, more than modern American English has been bastardized.  But, of course, the nonjudgmental fact is, both are derived from a common source, and their paths diverged.  But, we again are at the conclusion that it is just false to claim that British English is inherently correct and American English is wrong insofar as it differs from modern British English.  Both are different from what they were when America was first settled by British people.

Then I stand by my use of the term bastardized, Pyrrho.

To my mind, both Old French and Old English were more disciplined than the French and English of today.

Especially given technology...texting is, as I previously observed, reducing entire sentences down to a few letters.

I previously mentioned that I observed that the loss of literacy and vocabulary
is lamentable, even if I celebrate the evolution of various dialects at the same time.

I find it amusing and useful when new terms find their way into our language,
for instance, "bling" is a comparatively new, slang term
but is no less expressive for being slang.

When someone says "kick him to the curb" they certainly succeed in conveying a clear mental image,
even though it isn't exactly Shakespeare.

So I would posit that it is possible for a language to evolve, and degrade, at the same time.

The bastardization of a language can still be part of its evolution;
language is subject to entropy, just like all things.

Humanity, after all, will probably evolve themselves right into extinction.

However, I meant what I conveyed earlier:

while I lament the general decline of literacy and the inevitable collateral losses that occur in language as it evolves,
I still celebrate different dialects and consider them legitimate, living language;

regardless of whether it happens in America, Canada, the UK, or in cyberspace.

(October 10, 2015 at 9:14 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 6:47 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: No! I'm delighted that you know about us at all. Most people just sweep us in with the other Canadian French, and we're nothing like them. In fact, we were often disinclined to get along with them at all, especially early on, because we had fled the fighting around La Rochelle on the west coast of France, and disdained all things of the nobility and the old empire. It's why we stayed so isolated until the 18th century (1710) thrust itself upon us, as the French and British both took interest in the region because the Brits built Halifax (and its harbor) as a fairly major naval base in the region.

If you have not read them, and you'd like to know more about our history and culture, I recommend the following three books, in order of recommendation:

The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765-1803 by Carl A. Brasseaux (which, despite the title, also contains the origins in l'Acadie.)

A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland by John Mack Faragher

The Cajuns: Americanization of a People by Shane K. Bernard

(As a bonus book, if you want something more cultural and more fun, try Gumbo Ya-ya: Folk Tales of Louisiana, edited by Saxon, Dreyer, and Tallant. "Ya-ya", or "aya", comes from an Afro-Caribbean word for rice, and forms the second half of the word Jambalaya, jambon + a la + aya, or roughly "ham-and-rice".)

Rock, you are a walking encyclopedia of Cajon history. Because of you, I will never confuse Cajuns and Creoles.

I find it fascinating, but wouldn't call myself an encyclopedia. I just happen to own those four books and have them sitting here next to my desk. They were recommended by Dr. Brasseaux (a friend of my mom's), one of the premier Cajun historians in the state. Thought I'd pass along the recommendations.

(October 11, 2015 at 12:41 am)MTL Wrote: When someone says "kick him to the curb" they certainly succeed in conveying a clear mental image,
even though it isn't exactly Shakespeare.

I dunno, it sounds very much like Shakespeare, to me. He was always making up turns of phrase like that. 

One of my favorite Shakespearean inventions is the term "elbow-room".

He invented lots of badass and still-used phrases.

I don't make a fetish of traditional terms myself. We are taught that the classics are high art, but if you look at the writing, oftentimes it is far outside the bounds of what was considered at the time good writing -- Hemingway with his run-on sentences, Chaucer with his bawdy punnery, and so forth. The spoken language is only different in that it evolves faster than the written language, but that evolution is entirely natural, because humans use language to describe their experiences, and their experiences change with the eras.

I'm not fond of American shorthand -- "thru", "nu", text-speak, and so on -- but I think that is probably a result of it being evolved from the language as I learnt it, rather than the language itself being debased. Simply because something is old doesn't mean it's better, and simply because something is new, that doesn't mean it is intrinsically inferior. Repurposing words, shortening their length, introducing slang into the "proper" lexicon ("ain't" got your teacher's opprobrium when I was a child, but it's in the OED now) -- that's all fine with me, because at the root of it, language is a tool, and a tool is only as survivable as it is adaptable.

I write that as a lifelong lover of the language.

(October 11, 2015 at 1:29 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(October 11, 2015 at 12:41 am)MTL Wrote: When someone says "kick him to the curb" they certainly succeed in conveying a clear mental image,
even though it isn't exactly Shakespeare.

I dunno, it sounds very much like Shakespeare, to me. He was always making up turns of phrase like that. 

One of my favorite Shakespearean inventions is the term "elbow-room".

He invented lots of badass and still-used phrases.

Mazactly!

(October 11, 2015 at 1:42 am)Parkers Tan Wrote: I don't make a fetish of traditional terms myself. We are taught that the classics are high art, but if you look at the writing, oftentimes it is far outside the bounds of what was considered at the time good writing -- Hemingway with his run-on sentences, Chaucer with his bawdy punnery, and so forth. The spoken language is only different in that it evolves faster than the written language, but that evolution is entirely natural, because humans use language to describe their experiences, and their experiences change with the eras.

I'm not fond of American shorthand -- "thru", "nu", text-speak, and so on -- but I think that is probably a result of it being evolved from the language as I learnt it, rather than the language itself being debased. Simply because something is old doesn't mean it's better, and simply because something is new, that doesn't mean it is intrinsically inferior. Repurposing words, shortening their length, introducing slang into the "proper" lexicon ("ain't" got your teacher's opprobrium when I was a child, but it's in the OED now) -- that's all fine with me, because at the root of it, language is a tool, and a tool is only as survivable as it is adaptable.

I write that as a lifelong lover of the language.

I refuse to give up my use of the perfectly-good second person plural contraction, "y'all". I don't care who thinks it makes me sound like a stupid Southerner.