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#5844 09/01/00 09:48 PM
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Here in NZ, that is certainly true, at least of words like "colour".

Do you mean that in NZ both forms of the word are acceptable for everybody or just newcomers? I know I've always been taught UK English spelling in school and teachers always took marks off if I spelled it "color."

Can't reach me here? E-mail me duskydreamer@icqmail.com or ICQ me 71367484.

#5845 09/01/00 10:40 PM
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Do you mean that in NZ both forms of the word are acceptable for everybody or just newcomers? I know I've always been taught UK English spelling in school and teachers always took marks off if I spelled it "color."

I'm thirty-two, and like you, when I went to school, "color" would have been marked as wrong. Now, though, it is accepted as an alternative, particularly at our primary, or elementary, level. "Colour" is still taught, but if a child spells it "color", they are unlikely to be marked down for so doing, although they may be advised that it is not considered standard spelling in New Zealand.



#5846 09/02/00 12:15 PM
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>. I was hoping that people could come here with their English version/dialect problems

Well, sure; and I will add my twopenno'th below; but the name of this game seems to be lateral thinking (says he, with even less mileage on his posting-clock than Max) and this is one of the most attractive features of awad, surely? I'm not sure if it is because resppondents to this board are all of galactic intellect or because we mostly have the concentration spans of the average gnat, but who cares anyway? It's stimulating, it's fun, it's good to meet fellow-maniacs and I've heard a rumour that the first one to post 5,000 gets a fortnight's holiday in Scunthorpe. (I guess Scunthorpe, England, is similar to Scranton, USA, if what I've geard is correct)

As to the vagaries of the English Language: my sister-in-law teaches ESL in Canada, where they have immigrants from all over the world. Those who come in from the Carribean (Ex-British West Indies islands, that is) insist that they do not need to learn English as a Second Language and get quite upset about it, claiming, with complete justice, that they already speak English. However, their fashion of speech and pronunciation, together with their idiosyncratic idioms, leads to mutual incomprehensibility between them and their hosts. There was no doubt that they needed a conversion course.

The problem has been solved diplomatically by calling the course for Caribbeans, "English as a Second Dialect."

Interestingly, in British towns where there is a large Caribbean population, many of the residents from both communities are bi-lingual (bi-dialectical?? maybe not!)
My children and their friends, West Indian and European, would speak as easily in Jamaican patois as with a Northampton accent, when they were young, depending on whose house they were playing in at the time. Adults tended not to use the accent of the other communtiy, but understood it readily enough most of the time.


#5847 09/02/00 12:30 PM
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Interestingly, in British towns where there is a large Caribbean population, many of the residents from both communities are bi-lingual (bi-dialectical?? maybe not!)

bi-patoisal, perhaps? The facility that children have for linguistic flexibility is one of the traits I most envy them for. Note the raffish, devil-may-care, prepositional end to the preceding sentence. Here in NZ, with the resurgence of Maori, including total immersion schools (in which English is not used or taught at all) from ages two through ten, it is now once again possible to meet eight and nine year olds born and raised here for whom English is very distinctly their second language.


#5848 09/03/00 08:58 AM
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>Here in NZ, with the resurgence of Maori, including total immersion schools (in which English is not used or taught at all) from ages two through ten, it is now once again possible to meet eight and nine year olds born and raised here for whom English is very distinctly their second language.<

I always understood that this was very much what happened with Hebrew, which had become a universally 'second' language (like Latin much earlier?) until the establishment of the State of Israel.

I have to admire the commitment of both the Israelis and the Maoris in getting their languages back to life - especially when I think of the other countries where similar afforts don't seem to be generating the same results. (Someone will probably correct / enlighten me, but I've always had the impression that Gaelis was struggling to retain its hold in most of Ireland.)




#5849 09/03/00 01:53 PM
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>>there is even a campaign underway to adopt US spelling as standard here

good luck in your fight, max.
in australia it's too late. newspapers use american spelling, and there is no "Labour" party anymore.


#5850 09/03/00 07:33 PM
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good luck in your fight, max.
in australia it's too late. newspapers use american spelling, and there is no "Labour" party anymore.


Commiserations. I think the cause of orthographical conservatism got a boost here in NZ this week, thanks to coverage of a campaign launched to try to completely phoneticise English. A group of parents, all native English speakers, have complained that their their poor little Johnnies and Joanies can't see why head isn't spelled hed. So, these parents have begun a campaign to eliminate all "supererogatory" letters. I wil ring u on the telefone and let u no how wel the campane suxeeds. I think the ridicule this campaign attracted will help maintain the status quo for a while.


#5851 09/04/00 08:53 AM
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<in australia it's too late. newspapers use american spelling, and there is no "Labour" party anymore.>

Not sure I agree with the first part of this statement William. Certainly the proportion of people using US spelling is much higher than say the UK, but I think eg the Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review still use colour, labour (small L), etc. As do most "educated" writers in Aus. Oh look, a sentence without a verb.



#5852 09/04/00 01:34 PM
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well, the foot's in the door.


#5853 09/05/00 05:20 PM
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>Gaeli(c) was struggling to retain its hold in most of Ireland.)

Bridget:

Unless things have changed very dramatically, the hold of Gaelic on Ireland is a bit on the tenuous side. When I was there ten years ago, there were certain areas of the country (a pretty distinct minority of it too) where there were tax breaks given to people who spoke Gaelic. Conemarra was one of these "gaeltechte", and my apologies in advance because I don't think that's spelled right. Also, applicants for public jobs got preference points if they had a certain level of fluency in Gaelic. I'm not certain if that was throughout the country or only in the gaeltechte.

I spent a month touring Ireland by bicycle, and only once did I run into anyone who claimed not to speak any English, and that was in a small town in Galway. I didn't believe the fellow, but I certainly wasn't going to test my belief by making references to his English parentage, just in case he _could_ understand me!

The Dublin Times has a web site that publishes a part of it's on-line paper in Gaelic, but it is only a very small part. They're going to keep Gaelic alive, but definitely not well, in my opinion. It's just too difficult a language.



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