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RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to El Frijolito)
quote:
On Japanese "pitch accent" see:
高低アクセント
Apparently it exists in Kagoshima as well. See: "Handbook of Japanese Phonetics and Phonology," ed. Haruo Kubozono, section 4.4., "Dialectal Differences."
The book is apparently overreaching. I did an in depth inquiry with good Kagoshimians around me and they all said there is no such thing as pitch accent to determine a words definition.
They said it is possible that a particular person might have that as an affectation, but that there is no accent or pitch that changes the meaning of a word. They all said Japanese is Japanese and that there might be regional accents, but they don't change word meanings.
Example in Osaka hashi might have a tiny stress and a shortening on the end of the word that seems like a pitch change, but really it is too subtle to make much about. They also said there is no way in hell that that is a definition modifier.
Words that are different and special regional words for nouns are common, especially things like animals and plants. And well known nick names of things, or a species of fish might have four names each regional, Arakabu in Kagoshima is Gashira in Osaka ben and Kasago in Tokyo etc. But pitch accent gets a resounding thumbs down from the educated locals/
Just curious about the 9mm because one of my customers hates Hillary Clintons guts, is a fluent Japanese speaker, and plays flamenco. You seemed to fit the profile until you deny you own a 9mm.
I like Hillary Clinton always have, and hate guns mostly, speak gramatically screwed up Japanese, which amuses them to no end. But the customer 9mm-san and I get along pretty well. In fact he is the only person I really trust who carries a weapon. He is a former police weapons range instructor so know he won't accidentally shoot himself or me, and he carries his everyday gun in a square canvas bag that looks like a kid lunch box with a strap. This is reassuring because he does not think he is Seripco, or Kojack, or Dirty Harry like most deluded fools to carry in public with a body holster ready play out some scene from a movie. ------------------------------------------------------------
For Japanese, accentual minimal pair sets like háshi 'chopstick', hashí 'bridge', and unaccented hashi 'edge' illustrate this point, cf. also sets like ínochi 'life', kokóro 'heart', atamá 'head', and unaccented karada 'body'.4 Not all pitch accent languages allow unaccented words. Besides Japanese, they are permitted, for example, in Irakw, Somali (both Cushitic), and Northern Bizkaian Basque
According to native speakers this is pure unadulterated bovine droppings. Hashi is Hashi and context determines definition, when in doubt ask which the speaker means.
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
According to native speakers this is pure unadulterated bovine droppings. Hashi is Hashi and context determines definition, when in doubt ask which the speaker means.
This, of course, makes sense. I cited the hashi and kaki examples as that is what we were told in Nihongo 101 many many years ago. It happens to be one of the few things I remember, partly because it is so absurd to think that the context could leave room for confusion between chopsticks and a bridge, but they probably just tell students that because it's so hirarious.
Of course Norman French had a strong influence upon English. The altar tomb of one of my ancestors contains an English motto, claimed by some to have been given to the family by Edward the Confessor. There are two serious problems with this claim. One is that said ancestor although claiming Danish and Saxon ancestry, and no doubt fluent in English, would have spoken Anglo-French at home and at Court. The other is that the motto contains the word "servaunt," clearly Anglo-French, presumably unknown to King Edward, or very little used by him. Edward would undoubtedly have used the Old English equivalent--or Latin for the whole thing.
Winston Churchill gave fairly long radio speeches in his idiosyncratic version of French to encourage occupied France during WW II. Someone said, "He even believes that he speaks French." But I doubt that he learned it at home.
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
quote:
Winston Churchill gave fairly long radio speeches in his idiosyncratic version of French to encourage occupied France during WW II. Someone said, "He even believes that he speaks French." But I doubt that he learned it at home.
The DeGaulles' also had their own idiosyncratic version of English. This story is most likely apocryphal and I've heard variations of it with McMillan instead of Churchill but anyone who's ever heard a French person trying to speak English will get it:
After the Second World War, the Churchills and de Gaulles have dinner together. Churchill asks the First Lady of France what she is looking forward to, now that the war is over. She quickly answers: “Well, I think what we are all looking for is a penis, yes, the world needs ‘a penis’!” After an embarrassed pause, Churchill replies: “I think, Madame, it is pronounced happiness.”
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RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Piwin)
At age 16 (1954) I worked in the Base Exchange at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC during the summer. My usual post was in the sporting goods department, but on Saturdays I sold beer. It seemed to be legal for someone as young as I to sell beer on the military base.
I would open up at 8:30 in the morning in a fair sized room stacked to the ceiling with cases of beer. We would usually be sold out by around 2:30 PM. Apparently we had the best prices in the city, and a good selection.
One day the wife of the First Secretary of the French Embassy appeared, nicely dressed and accompanied by her uniformed chauffeur. She said she was buying beer for an Embassy picnic. You stood in line, ordered and paid me at the cash register. The beer was hauled down from the stacks by burly airmen. The First Secretary's wife produced a scrap of paper with a list. She asked for several cases of one of the most popular brands.
"I am sorry, ma'am, but we are sold out of that brand."
"Well then, xx cases of brand yy, please."
"Sorry, we are out of that as well."
She had already attracted attention by her clothes and her chauffeur, but now she was holding up the line.
After a few more requests, going down her list of preferred brands, and further denials, she finally exclaimed, in somewhat accented English, "Well then f*ck it! What brands do you have?"
I managed to keep a straight face, but it brought the house down among those in line behind her.
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
Brilliant!
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RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to estebanana)
My Japanese girlfriend had a Masters degree in English Literature from Cal Berkeley by age 20. Her younger sister took a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, a Masters in Business and a PhD in Psychology from the same school. Their mother was the first woman to earn a PhD from Tokyo University. No lack of scholastic aptitude in that family...
But both girls bitched about having to "learn the damned kanji" at school in Japan, before they moved to the USA.
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
On the issue of American vs British English, I dug up an old C-SPAN video the other day (the caller that starts at 1:04:41)
"No I've never taught, I'm afraid, in Peru, Sir". Between Critchfields's quizzical look and Hitchens's smile, the whole thing cracks me up. He even got Brian Lamb to crack a smile. Priceless.
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From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Piwin)
The noted classical guitarist Julian Bream is from the South Bank in London. He said in a video that after he was at the Royal College of Music for a while, he was called into the office of the Head, who said, "Bream, we must do something about the way you speak." To my ear, Bream's version of the posh accent is almost parody.
Did the Queen herself take elocution lessons at some point? I thought I heard quite a difference in the way she talked at about the time she attended a state dinner in Washington. There were so many guests that instead of eating in the State Dining Room, a tent was set up on the South Lawn of the White House. Of course the press was not permitted inside, since the Queen must never be photographed eating.
But somewhere around that time I thought her accent changed a bit. Afterward I could often make out much of what she was saying.
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From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
Thanks, Paul. Citizens of the U.K. will have heard the Queen on a more regular basis than I have. Hearing her only every few years I would have heard a greater shift in accent than someone who heard her every few months.
For those who didn't read the BBC article, their opinion is that the Queen did not take elocution lessons. They believe her shift in accent is due to coming in contact with a wider circle than she would have in her youth. According to the BBC, linguists say that whenever we converse with someone, we make slight shifts in our speech to more closely approximate their accent.
As an Air Force brat I certainly had the experience of meeting childhood friends after their family had been stationed for a few years in a different area, or a different English speaking country, and hearing them with an entirely new accent.
I have three grand-nieces who were born in Scotland and spent much of their early life there. In adulthood their accents have diverged. The one who lives in Washington, DC and works for BBC America is indistinguishable from a U.S. native when she appears on television. She sounded purely American before she started in television, having attended university in the USA. The one who still lives in Scotland sounds distinctly Scottish. Their mother, born and raised in Texas, even sounds a wee bit Scottish at times, though it has been years since she lived there.
I lived in many places growing up. Many people say I "have no accent," meaning I speak standard American. Most Texans either consciously or unconsciously recognize my accent as one of several in Texas. As evidence of this diversity, do you remember the striking contrast between Lyndon Johnson's heavy small town Hill Country accent, and the deep East Texas aristocratic accent of his wife Lady Bird, with her leisurely diphthongs where Lyndon put shorter harsh vowels?
It always puzzled me that Lyndon, so adept at being all things to all people, retained the strong linguistic marks of his poverty stricken and culturally isolated childhood.
We used to tease my grandfather, saying he spoke three languages, though his Spanish was rudimentary enough not to count. He was the last of a long succession in our family of graduates of the College of William and Mary, the alma mater of Jefferson, Monroe, et al. He also spoke standard American, and South Texas English, shifting seamlessly according to the company present. We loved to hear him tell stories in his Tidewater Virginia accent.
When I took my teenage son and daughter to Virginia thirty years ago to meet some of their cousins, my daughter remarked that it was the only place other than England where she had heard three different accents from white people born and raised within five miles of one another. The cousins all spoke with one accent, the lady at the Suffolk County courthouse spoke with another, and the man at the gas station spoke with a third.
But among some younger family members in Virginia these days, their speech differs as much from their grandfathers' as David Cameron's does from the Queen's.
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
quote:
According to the BBC, linguists say that whenever we converse with someone, we make slight shifts in our speech to more closely approximate their accent.
It was a very interesting article. Thanks Paul. I get the feeling this effect is further accentuated when learning a foreign language. Having lived in various regions of Spain, I've picked up the strong "s" from Salamanca and the regions bordering Portugal (almost a "sh" sound), the Andalusian ceceo and omission of certain consonants and the Madrid tendency of switching d with z at the end of a word. It all makes for a rather confusing mix for the Spanish people. Though arguably they seem to have less trouble with it than with a thick French accent (though of course I have some of that too!). God forbid I make things evern worse by going to Argentina and coming back saying guitasha instead of guitarra.
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RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Piwin)
How about that first BBC broadcast, eh?
One of the Mitford sisters (I forget which one) told the story of how, when she was introduced to someone else, that lady exclaimed “Oh, you have one of those pre-War voices! How wonderful!”
She didn't know whether to feel complimented or insulted.
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
“Oh, you have one of those pre-War voices! How wonderful!”
Not so much on the accent but on vocabulary, it reminded me of this: Having grown up in Europe with little exposure to English outside of my family, I gleaned most of my vocabulary from books. When I finally got to school in an English speaking country, one of my teachers told me:" Your English is Victorian at best, biblical at worst". In that specific case, I knew it wasn't a compliment.
RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to El Kiko)
Pretty close, just more subtle. Take the same words and sprinkle them throughout a normal English conversation and you nailed it. Playeth me some shreds on thyne axe.
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RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Piwin)
quote:
Playeth me some shreds on thyne axe.
...on thyne halberd?
Bill
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RE: How many languages do you speak?? (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
One of the Mitford sisters (I forget which one) told the story of how, when she was introduced to someone else, that lady exclaimed “Oh, you have one of those pre-War voices! How wonderful!”
She didn't know whether to feel complimented or insulted.
If I may mention this in view of the English laguage´s cousin German: I would fancy it as a compliment.
Even in the province of Standard German (Niedersachsen) colloqial has developed into such a mumble that me is yearning for the clear and well pronounced language that was still intact until the sixties.
When seeing examples like an old TV-serial called "Tadellöser & Wolff" (dealing with a family´s times during and after WWII) I just melt away listening to the good old speech melody and emphasis. Similar with a lovely serial from ~ 15 years ago that dealt with rural folks in the German north of the 19th century. Wonderfully made with great attention to detail, and the language a pleasure to listen too; though that be another kind of speech than the "Tadellöser & Wolff" example.
Anyway, I imagine the lady in your example aiming at a similar circumstance like with the contemporary development in Germany.
There was much better pronounciation and differenciation in place. Just ask any speech pathologist of your choice about status quo and tendency.
Tha´nkth f´r list´n.
Ruphus
PS:
Having said that; there also exists the diametrally opposed example, commonly engaged by yuppie wannabes across the country. An exaggerated disgustingly stiff and piercing pronounciation that conveys merely show-off and arrogance.
It has no ressemblance to the clearness of the default / unpretentious language from decades ago.
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