Diablo

I can see where you'r getting at.
Yes I understand that basic of knowledge, but I wonder how the affect of different cultures affected people like that.
I wonder how languages can affect people? I wonder how languages affected the peoples brain?

ScottJ

Ok, I thought this thread was about accents...so is the question now how regional differences in the same language affect people psychologically?

sarab

Hi Diablo, here are some links to other threads that you might enjoy that deal more or less with what you are getting at:

http://www.english-spanish-translato...ice-versa.html

http://www.english-spanish-translato...filosofia.html

http://www.english-spanish-translato...8-chomsky.html

mvictoria

Very interesting links Sara!

I've always wondered if people in the US had a kind of "British" accent 300 years ago. :-)


Hehe!! good one!

aleCcowaN

American didn't lost their British accent, they had some accent three centuries ago and that accent evolved to what is nowadays. In my little experience the difference between Canadian and USA's accents from Newfoundland to California are nowhere near as great as the different regional accents one can hear in Great Britain.

As in Latin America, the accent of a new country is developed departing from a mix of accents of the settlers and the adaptation aboriginal people can do with the new language and their own accent. With New England settlers there was little contact with aboriginal population, but many settlers came from Holland, Germany and France, where their Christian view was regarded harmful. Even English settlers used to belong to persecuted churches. The population of the colonies in the 172 years prior to independence included Irish white slaves, German protestants expelled from Catholic and Orthodox regions in Europe, and even Highlanders who didn't speak English but dared to back the wrong person during the Cromwell era and the Stuart restoration. There was even Dutch, Swedish, French and Spanish colonies, later absorbed in what happen to be USA and Canada. There was little contact with American aboriginals, but they brought African slaves that were about 20% of population in 1776. They forgot their African languages but contribute with their particular accent to the language pot.

151 years later, after a period (1800-1840) where British immigration was considered "Gastarbeiter" and lowest class, the Second War of Independence, and 32 millions inmigrants, when British, American and Canadian heard talkies in 1927, they felt like hearing a foreign language (Once I was watching a movie on TV and reading the Spanish subtitles, and I thought during 10 minutes that the movie was Polish or something similar because of the plot, how people looked and the sound of their talking, but I started to understand isolated words and I realized they were workers from York)

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Si razona el caballo ¡se acabó la equitación! - césaR brutO

carlam

Hmm... that could be a really interesting topic, ScottJ! Were you being forreal of sar..sar...sarcastic?

emilyb

wow, all of these are interesting. thanks for the links!!!

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Emily B

carlam

I know! Nice reminders.