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French diglossia- thoughts for discussion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4464 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 25 of 38 03 April 2015 at 1:21am | IP Logged | ||
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A good read:
Syntactic variation and diglossia in French http://usir.salford.ac.uk/17553/1/2011-09_Syntactic_variatio n_and_diglossia_in_French.pdf Edited by Medulin on 03 April 2015 at 1:22am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7001 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 26 of 38 03 April 2015 at 2:28am | IP Logged | ||
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In formal writing, proper grammar is still expected in English if one wants to be taken seriously by all
educated speakers/readers. E.G. a resume or cover letter will probably be relegated to the "circular file" (wastebasket) for substandard spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors. It makes sense. Someone who either doesn't know what's right, isn't careful enough to proofread, or is too lazy to find out, isn't desireable in many positions. Having said that, this is an interesting discussion. One thing that I like about knowing formal language, whether spoken or written, is that it helps make litterature from 200 years ago still comprehensible, at least in English. It also seems to help with French and Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4464 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 27 of 38 03 April 2015 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
But many old(er) H-forms like It is I. She's no better than I. I shall. It looks as if it were going to rain. To whom do you wish to speak? If we had arrived earlier, we should have witnessed the riot. I recommend you to book your flight earlier. I wish I were.* I wish it were I. Was he wrong? I knew he had been wrong. are no longer required (even though you can find them in the grammar book my father used when he started learning English, in 1960). A style can be polite and formal yet contemporary without marked features that scream ''antiquated'', ''dated'' or ''archaic''. If US/UK were Brazil, there would be language professors-turned-radio stars** correcting everyone by saying things like: ''You are to say It is I and not It's me, only rednecks say It''s me. ''Don't say I wish I was, it's plain ugly and only trailer trash uses it''. '' You are to say I shall, If you say I will I shall not understand you''. etc. Children in US/UK are not required to know verbal forms of obsolete pronouns like ''thou makest'', yet in Brazil they are ''tortured'' by having to learn by heart things like ''vós pondes'' and other things that have been archaic for 300 years or more. PONDES sounds to Brazilians the same way MAKEST does to Americans. * I wish I was is indeed more common in contemporary written English than I wish I were: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=I+wish+I+were% 2CI+wish+I+was&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoot hing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CI%20wish%20I%20were%3B%2Cc0 %3B.t1%3B%2CI%20wish%20I%20was%3B%2Cc0 (** Pasquale, Sacconi and the lot) Edited by Medulin on 03 April 2015 at 1:33pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4698 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 28 of 38 21 April 2015 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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French is definitely not disglossic. You would have a better understanding of Haitian
Creole as a French speaker, with Kreyol considered a separate language, than a Moroccan and an Iraqi would have of understanding each other. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4464 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 29 of 38 22 April 2015 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
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By definition,
Diglossia is not necessarily about regional differences but the ones between the spoken and the written form, for example Kannada speakers from Mysore and Bangalore understand each other perfectly fine while speaking their respective Low varieties, the same is true of Swiss people from let's say Basel and Zurich (Kannada and Swiss German are diglossic languages even though people understand all L variants with ease). Only when a diglossic language is spread across large territory you get the regional difference factor. The sociolinguistic situation in Vatican was practically a diglossic one until 100 years ago (Latin was used in writing, Italian in speech) and by that time, Pope's state had already been shrunk to a few blocks of Rome. Do French people enjoy watching Quebec sitcoms? Do they understand them with ease? Do they consider it ''proper'' French? Edited by Medulin on 22 April 2015 at 4:58am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3638 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 30 of 38 22 April 2015 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
1. Quebec sitcoms are not broadcasted on french tv. 2. Yes, no problem (at least for me) 3. Nope, all that is not parisian is not proper :) (kidding, but almost true) Honestly, the quebec accent is too strong to be broadcasted on french tv, even if the quebec french is very similar to the metropolitan french, apart from the colloquial expressions that can be decyphered more or less intuitively. When singers from Quebec come and sing in France, they erase their accent to be sellable. Edited by Arnaud25 on 22 April 2015 at 9:11pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6393 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 31 of 38 22 April 2015 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | ||
Hmm but what about all the avoidance of Serbianisms? And I've certainly seen some materials for natives on how to speak good/correct Croatian. Monolingual English speakers also often think it's a very difficult language. As for Finnish, I disagree about calling it diglossic. It simply isn't considered impolite to speak colloquially in many situations that require a more formal register in other countries. (long shot, but now I wonder if this is a trait of the Finnish society rather than the language... like, does this also apply to Finland Swedish too?) Edited by Serpent on 22 April 2015 at 10:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4685 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 32 of 38 22 April 2015 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | ||
In the US our language was constantly corrected by teachers. We obviously talked wrong where I grew up, as our teachers as I heard these non-stop for years: Ain't ain't a word. Never a preposition end a sentence with. Can I have some water? I don't know, can you? Oh, you mean may I. Newspaper columnists will do essays on proper grammar, Eats, Shoots & Leaves was a best seller, and I see plenty of grammar police on Facebook. 
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