I’ve got a step brother, born and raised here but to displaced persons from Eastern Europe that came over after the war. So he grew up speaking the language. Some years back while he was still young, he visited the old country. He could talk fine with other people his age there, but they told him “you speak like an old man.” He was speaking a “stuck in time” version of the language.
This is what happens to communities that have a wave of immigration, especially when it comes to refugee populations.
They are a snapshot of their culture in that period and it mostly stays stuck in time, especially with regards to language.
Meanwhile, a couple of decades on, the country’s language has continued to develop and change as all languages do but the migrant language remains basically as it was.
My understanding is that prior to radio the uk had like 300 mutually unintelligible “dialects” of “english” and it was bbc broadcasts that turned English English in to something resembling a single language. And we ended up with the “received pronunciation” dialect or something. Like if Americans settled on Mid-Atlantic as the correct way to talk.
Imagine a beautiful world where Americans adopted a universal accent from 1930s gangster movies and everyone went around saying “now see” and “you’ll never take me alive, copper.”
No, they have simply developed in a different direction that is in some ways more conservative and in some ways more innovative. It’s not a really a good comparison to a single generation of an immigrant family.
Especially with the wild differences in French Canadian communities. Acadians are different from Quebecois who are different from Franco-[Province], a language somewhat unites them but not much else (and even then the French spoken differs strongly in each group)
Which creates an interesting divide in those particular immigrant communities in the US, as often the communities built around the displaced persons that came over in the late 40’s/early 50’s and the ones that came over post-Cold War do not intermingle.
I’ve got a step brother, born and raised here but to displaced persons from Eastern Europe that came over after the war. So he grew up speaking the language. Some years back while he was still young, he visited the old country. He could talk fine with other people his age there, but they told him “you speak like an old man.” He was speaking a “stuck in time” version of the language.
This is what happens to communities that have a wave of immigration, especially when it comes to refugee populations.
They are a snapshot of their culture in that period and it mostly stays stuck in time, especially with regards to language.
Meanwhile, a couple of decades on, the country’s language has continued to develop and change as all languages do but the migrant language remains basically as it was.
French Canadians are a good example of this, since the split was 300 years ago
Isn’t there a thing that Bostonians sound more like old English than the English?
Yeah i read that too, where the accent we yanks associate with British today grew from an upper-class affectation that developed after the war?
My understanding is that prior to radio the uk had like 300 mutually unintelligible “dialects” of “english” and it was bbc broadcasts that turned English English in to something resembling a single language. And we ended up with the “received pronunciation” dialect or something. Like if Americans settled on Mid-Atlantic as the correct way to talk.
Imagine a beautiful world where Americans adopted a universal accent from 1930s gangster movies and everyone went around saying “now see” and “you’ll never take me alive, copper.”
Maybe a few decades ago. Idk how much of the old dialect is still around. Try looking up “boston brahmin dialect”
No, they have simply developed in a different direction that is in some ways more conservative and in some ways more innovative. It’s not a really a good comparison to a single generation of an immigrant family.
Especially with the wild differences in French Canadian communities. Acadians are different from Quebecois who are different from Franco-[Province], a language somewhat unites them but not much else (and even then the French spoken differs strongly in each group)
Which creates an interesting divide in those particular immigrant communities in the US, as often the communities built around the displaced persons that came over in the late 40’s/early 50’s and the ones that came over post-Cold War do not intermingle.
Same thing happened to my missus
She talks like an old man?
Only to me
kinda worried this will be me lol