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[Mr. Palau]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSRC6-XgSHo and portuguese? what does european portuguese sounds to foreigners?

Sounds like a mixture of Italian and Spanish.

[Starver]

My dad long ago told me of a colleague of his, at the time, who had complained that his father (native of India) was a "very uneducated man", because he would switch amongst the dozens of languages and dialects he knew[1] whenever he wrote his son letters...

It is(/was) also said that the greatest linguists in the world are the street-market vendors in various middle-eastern tourist hot-spots, who might not have a full knowledge of each language, but could barter, make deals in, argue and generally uphold(/invent) the fine virtues of their wares in many, many different languages, according to who they were badgering.


[1] I don't know how he dealt with grammar.  Others I know who are thoroughly bilingual (e.g. schooled in Wales) have said (or been said of) that they never switched languages inadvertently, once starting a sentence, even though they might switch to the other for the next one (or not).  To that extent, I suspect Code Talking is more of a Loanword scenario than that Wiki page tries to suggest (at brief reading, at least).  Either that, or commonly/compatibly-syntactic languages are more likely to be used in conjunction.  And maybe that's the situation that my Dad's colleague's father was communicating within...

[RedKing]

At least within dialectual code-switching, it's done mostly for stylistic nuance or humorous purposes (e.g. responding to a long-winded complex statement with something like, "Dang, he done used ALL the ten-cent words!" as a mild admonishment against overly complicated speech)

But from my experience, it goes beyond just loanwords. I've been known to pepper my speech with Mandarin words when talking with Chinese friends, if only because sometimes a Mandarin term is more concise and accurate than an English equivalent. Those aren't really loanwords, because they're not in use in English. Think of the stereotypically American Jewish use of English interspersed with Yiddish words and short phrases. Many of those become loanwords after sufficient exposure and their adoption by non-Jews (e.g. schmuck, oy vey, schmaltz, chutzpah, etc.) , but they didn't start off that way. Come to think of it, code-switching is probably the mechanism by which loanwords enter a language in the first place.

[Mr. Palau]

Hey RedKing,我的汉语老师 is from Shanghai, aswell. So I was just wondering how many years of learning chinese it takes to get to the point were you sound like you have shainghai accent?

[RedKing]

Hey RedKing,我的汉语老师 is from Shanghai, aswell. So I was just wondering how many years of learning chinese it takes to get to the point were you sound like you have shainghai accent?

It's more to do with vocabulary and intonation choices. For instance, asking where something is in Mandarin (Beijing standard dialect) is "zai nar", even though it's written "zai na". For most Mandarin speakers outside of Beijing, the "r" is there but not particularly strong. For a Beijing native, it's really pronounced, and nasalized so that it sounds (to me) like a stereotypical New Jersey accent.

In Shanghai, they tend to say "zai nali", which is much softer to the ear. So it's a difference in pronunciation, but also vocabulary, because nali uses different characters from na(r). I'd liken it to the difference between "Whereabouts are you located?" and "Where you at?" (with the Shanghai version being the more formal version).

Because I learned and heard and used zai nali first (and because the Beijing final -r thing grates on my nerves), I tend to use that form rather than "standard" (i.e. Beijing) Mandarin. So in that respect, if that's all a bystander had to go on, they might assume I learned Mandarin in Shanghai. But then other vocabulary and whatnot, I'll sound more northern. I suppose instead of saying Shanghai accent, it'd be more of a Shanghai dialect (word choices and grammar more than individual pronunciations). But I don't want to say dialect because that implies I speak Wu, which is the local "Shanghainese dialect", which is essentially a seperate language.

It's complicated. >_<

[Vattic]

Sad to say he missed the two accents I'm most familiar with: Derbyshire and Bristol, not too bad, though.

It's a shame, I love my accent and the way I pronounce most words. If everyone spoke with a Derbyshire accent, England and the world would be a much safer place.

I don't have a Derbyshire accent myself. Both my parents were from there and much of my extended family are between there and Yorkshire. While my parents have mostly lost the accent I still associate it with family from long summers at my Nan's house.

'ey up duck .

[Glyndŵr]

I'm a native English speaker, and I'm very proud of the sort of English that I speak. However, my thoughts on English tend to be quite negative because I'm usually thinking of how English is gradually becoming assimilated with languages across the world, causing language death as more and more people use English words and begin to think in English, not their native languages. Otherwise, I think English is a highly unusual, valuable and versatile language.

It is odd though, I find that when I try to speak the Gaelic it feels more natural than my English, perhaps Gaelic and the Celtic languages feel more natural and flow more easily because of their grammatical structures, phonology etc. The Gaelic feels a lot more... I don't know, it just feels right when you speak it. My English can feel quite artificial sometimes. When I try to speak German or Broad Scots, I have the same problem.

[RedKing]

Spoiler: On the humble glottal stop in English (click to show/hide)

[Glyndŵr]

Spoiler: On the humble glottal stop in English (click to show/hide)

My English is littered with that. We use it for everything like the cockneys - a bi' of bu''er. Ha". Sack of ta''ies. To''y scones. Spo''er. The Germans use it too, don't they? In words like "Monaten" - "Mona'en". Is it a Germanic language feature?

[Aqizzar]

Spoiler: On the humble glottal stop in English (click to show/hide)

I can see where the idea is coming from, but I actually pronounce my T's a bit heavily.  I'm definitely closer to saying them like D's than just them altogether.

Cockney Batman is definitely a new one.

[Ancre]

Code-switching ! This is such a fun thing to do.

I don't exactly know how it works, or even if it works the same way for everyone. I usually switch between languages when I bump into a word - either I don't exactly know how to say it in one language (sometimes simply because it doesn't exist in that one) or the other language have a word that is more precise. Sometimes I do it because the grammar of one of the languages have something I'd like to use. Or just because I am tired of one language and want to use the other one.

It is also very relaxing. In France I rarely had the chance to use english (for some reason, my dad almost never speak english with his kids) and I could miss speaking it sometimes. Using both languages at once in a discussion is what feels the most natural for me. I wonder if other bilingual people feel the same.

[Skyrunner]

Yes, I have that a lot. I speak a bunch of Korean, then there is a term that has just the word in English. I use it if I'm with people who understand both

[Starver]

At what point does Code Switching switch to becoming Poirot Speak, though?  Retreating out of a learned language to the native language for the easy words...

(I won't link to the TV Tropes page...  Those who want to will find a way there anyway.  See you in a couple of weeks!)

[RedKing]

Hard to say. Some of the Spanglish I've heard, they literally switch back and forth multiple times in the same sentence. There's no obvious rhyme or reason to when you switch back and forth, but you can tell when it feels natural versus forced (like most of the Poirot Speak examples). Example conversation:

I have a good friend who is half-German and we're both moderately fluent in German. I was over at her house helping with her two toddlers, and one of the exchanges went something like this.

Her: Can you grab me a spoon out of the kitchen?
Me: Was ist das? (my hearing isn't too good, so I couldn't make out what she said)
Her: Spoon. Kitchen, bitte.
Me: Ahh, spoon. Jawohl.
*fumbling around in kitchen*
Me: Which drawer? Konne nicht spoon gefunden.
Her: Left of the dishwasher.
Me: Ahh, got it. Hier ist.
Her: Danke.
Me: Bitte.

One thing I noticed is that the subject of the whole thing (the spoon) stayed in English, which I suspect is because it's a hell of a lot easier to say (and remember) that der Löffel. Most of the German bits were short abstract phrases rather than concrete vocabulary. In most cases, the German phrases were shorter than the English (hier ist instead of here it is, danke instead of thank you, etc.) And between the two of us, it's sort of evolved that was ist das? means "Sorry, I couldn't hear you clearly, can you repeat that?" whereas asking "Huh?" or "What was that?" is more ambiguous in English.

[MonkeyHead]

Heh, my kids have a hard time of it. They are both bilingual, and being young technically still learning both English and Welsh. I am first language English with Welsh as a learned second, and thier mother is first language Welsh with English as a learned second. To the credit of my kids they switch seamlessly between both depending despite the very different sentence forms.