10. Is American English better?

Talk in a course on Variation in English

Category:

Education

Tags:

• humanities
• language
• English
• variation

[Rozelyn23]

Very interesting concepts.

[theone1087]

So the dialect that vulgarized its "standard" of the same language is the "proper" form@AnthionyPym? Furthermore I thought the UK produced great logicians circa Bertrand Russell. Obviously those days are gone, you made a total irrelevant point about slang such as "got'em," and misappropriating that to English settlers. How is this the case if we're judging both dialects by their "STANDARDS" meaning GAE and RP? I'll apologize for George W. Bush and Sarah Palin if you are on RP? lol

[theone1087]

As if any teacher instructing a course in Received Pronunciation or General American English will teach "got'em." (GAE) is superior, given the "standard" American form is more discernible than (RP). GAE is closer to Classical Latin and Greek from Noah Webster extricating English from the British Crown's attempts to bastardize the language with French which is an official Vulgar Latin language since it's a romance language and any language descended from Latin but not Latin is thus; Vulgate.

[muteland]

@MadMAn12gauge First what do you mean with "you brits say it" the person here is from Australia.

English is not my first language of course but I'm not agree with you about people from States speak more clear, because for me is the oposite thing, I understand better an Londoner or a Kiwi or and Aussi than a person from the States. If the language is like music, I feel absolutely more identifying with brits, and southern english sound!

[kobrajesusreturns]

which is better? Just say it.

[EngIishContingent]

what is better?

[jaegerhund]

In the case of color vs colour, honor vs honour, center vs centre and the like, I have found through some simple research that color, honor and center (and other similar words) are older forms, closer to the Latin root then the French influenced alternatives. It seems to me that the French did some "subverting" of English through conquest ,and it is not obvious to me how the older forms can be ruinous. I suppose some think the French speak and spell English better. Is my research correct ?

[Interculturality]

True enough. There is more variation in Britain than in the US, and the differences between UK varieties are more numerous than those between RP and AmEng.

The problem has more to do with institutionalization. The Americans have their dictionaries and standards; most of the UK varieties are considered non-standard.

The answer to the initial quetion: Every variety is the best one for its own speakers.

[bruckner66]

Bollocks. It's only an drawling accent with a couple of subverted spellings. There's more difference between different regions within the UK. What a non discussion.

[MadMAn12gauge]

the only way language is like music is that many songs you can hardly tell what the lyrics are in some cases...Now i dont know about you but when i am trying to pay attention to people talking i want to be able to understand exactly what they say!

in music i might only care about the instruments if the lyrics suck or i just cant really tell what is said...That is the only relation to how music and language are similar, but when people talk, i hope you want to be able to understand what they say