Wednesday, 17 January 2018

English as she is spoken

What I listened to

I thought that this very short TED Talk, "3 ways to speak English", was fun. In the embedded video, I've turned on English subtitles because she is speaking in poetry, and the language is difficult. In fact, you might like to change to the subtitles to Thai the second time you listen. (Try it in English first.)  
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What it says

The speaker, Jamila Lyiscott, mixes up three versions of English commonly used in the United States to show how flexible English is. The three different versions of English she uses in this piece of poetry are the ones she speaks: at home with her family, on the street with friends, and in class at university. 

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My response 

This is the first time I've embedded a TED Talk in a blog post. It wasn't as hard as I had thought it might be. The "Share" button on the TED Talk automatically creates the code to add to the blog. The messy bit is that you have to use the buttons at the top right to switch from "Compose" to "HTML" mode to paste the code into the right place in your post, and then switch back to "Compose" mode to see that it looks OK and continue writing. If it had got all messed up, I would have deleted and tried again. If you "get" 50% of her talk without using Thai subtitles, I think you're doing very well.

I enjoyed Jamila's passionate poem, but the language really is difficult, so if you have trouble following it all, don't worry. I almost decided against using her talk, but she also makes an important point about languages: there is no single correct version. What is correct is always what a group of users actually do. And this is a good thing. It means languages can freely evolve, and different groups, such as young people or academics, can make their own version to use. I see the same in Facebook, where some of my Thai friends write Thai in a way that would not be OK in a classroom, but which is perfectly correct, and definitely appropriate, for Facebook. And when I'm back in Australia, I sometimes have to ask my young nieces and nephews to explain what they've said: that's how different their version of English is from any that I use.

And the title? That's an example of how my Italian ancestors used to speak the English.

How many versions of Thai (or your native language) do you use? How different are the various versions of your first language?

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