On Jun 3, 2012 7:23 AM, "Deepa Mohan" <apeedna...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that whether "native tongues" survive or not, English itself, as it gets spoken globally, will acquire local overtones, and fracture into as many dialects, as there arelanguages now.....I can already say that the language spoken by the Geordies, the Cockneys, Singaporeans, Bengalis, and so on, are all very different from each other, and as proof that every thought I think has been thunk before (and better expressed)..... Alan Jay Lerner said famously, in "My Fair Lady", that they haven't used English in America for years. Definitely true, I adore Singlish, and am amused at Afrikaans words sneaking into South African English (lekker, braai). Indian English has a distinctive vocabulary that some Indians I've talked to have been surprised that I considered "non-standard" like "prepone" and "avail" as a synonym for "to make available" In Uganda and Rwanda the pronunciation has shifted in ways I find charming but that are completely different from other shifts I've heard. -- Charles
