DailyDirt: You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Dead languages don't change and evolve. It's the languages that people speak the most that develop new words and new dialects. In the past, it's been difficult to track the evolution of language, but with more and more wiretapped phonecalls digital voice recordings available for analysis, linguists are in a better position to study how languages are changing. Here are just a few interesting links on language dialects. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: chinese, dialects, english, language, linguists, literacy, mandarin, phonemica, speaking, voices
Companies: indiegogo


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2013 @ 5:09pm

    I disagree modern literacy is creating new dialects, put a physicist and a chemical engineer in the same room and they will not be able to communicate.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Miff (profile), 26 Jun 2013 @ 6:46pm

    Yeah, but now that we live in the error of grammar nazis calling out every minor "error", English is not going to evolve even in the minor ways it still could.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Ferel (profile), 26 Jun 2013 @ 7:40pm

      Re: [screaming internally]

      but now that we live in the error of grammar nazis...

      (must... resist... urge... to correct... with 'era'...)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      McCrea (profile), 26 Jun 2013 @ 9:13pm

      Re:

      "Yea" shouldn't have an "h". (etc.)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous, 27 Jun 2013 @ 3:20pm

        Re: Re:

        "Yea" is pronounced "yay". "Yeah" is a different word and pronounced differently. Yea verily!

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          McCrea (profile), 28 Jun 2013 @ 1:30am

          Re: Re: Re:

          You are incorrect

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous, 28 Jun 2013 @ 2:39pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            How so? You make a statement like, "You are incorrect", but give no details. Until you point out HOW I'm incorrect, I'm going to assume that you are a liar.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              McCrea (profile), 29 Jun 2013 @ 3:51am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

              Don't play sillily. "Assume good faith" is the rule. You didn't really say anything more than I was wrong, either.

              I did check a few dictionaries for you. Alas, they were different than they were 35 years ago; I have no evidence for my case. When we researched this in school, as instructed, generally "yeah" was not listed, or was listed as slang. Moreover, "Yea" had the secondary pronunciation which we are speaking about.

              Offhand, I don't know how to prove the past to you, unless I find a suitable 1970 dictionary, and you happen to have a sister. You can either believe me or not. Hence, why I gave no reason that doesn't change anything.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      John Fenderson (profile), 27 Jun 2013 @ 11:03am

      Re:

      Nobody takes grammar nazis seriously, so I don't think they'd have any effect.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2013 @ 7:55pm

    Nice.

    On the Katz link in the Dialect Survey Map : 1st question
    "How to you say aunt?"

    option: "I have the same vowel in "ah", "caught", and "aunt".

    The Electric Company - still paying off decades later. Awesome.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Allen (profile), 27 Jun 2013 @ 5:31am

    barriers that prevent various English dialects from becoming their own languages

    Is it lack of Geographical Isolation? or is it that teh interwebs (and ok the Plain old Telephone Service before that) have made Geographic Isolation != total isolation?

    But he leaves off two other factors:

    1) USAian entertainment syndicated at prices below those that local producers can compete with. Whether you call this cultural pollution (bay watch) or cultural enrichment (some example I can't think of right now)you can't deny that US TV and cinema are globally pervasive.

    2) The two most globally dominate countries of the last few centuries were Britain and (at least for the time being) the US. Which means that English is The lingua franca.

    Who knows? in 100 years the international lingua franca might be Chinese and condescending arseholes will be using English instead of Latin to say things like lingua franca.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    RyanNerd (profile), 27 Jun 2013 @ 5:50am

    Navajo

    My friend who is a Navajo once told me that most dinner conversations in Navajo homes are usually arguments about the meanings of different words.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous, 27 Jun 2013 @ 2:16pm

    I've never heard anyone say "tomahto" in my life (unless as a joke). Seriously, who talks like that?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.