English VS American?

Question

I say we speak a BASTARDIZED version of English. "American" if you will.

"Abdula and Chan got into the Volkswagon, Drove up the El Camino, to the Teriyaki hut next to the pizza place on Stanislaus Boulevard" How many languages are in that?

Opinions?

THIS question arose out of immigration debates where people are saying ENGLISH should be the 'National Language". My thought is they would have to strip our vocabulary of most of these "none english" words.

Spanish, french, italian, etc "romance languages" share a common ancestor LATIN. They are Dialects of the latin ROOT.

BUZZ wrong, but thank you for playing!!

Answer 1

The entire English language is bastardized, both the British and the American versions, and has been so for centuries. It's basically a Germanic structure with French words superimposed and shaken up with a bit of every other language we've ever come across. The Brits do plenty of their own borrowing, too. I'm pretty sure they'd know what an American was talking about if we mentioned kimonos or tacos or sushi or curry or a million other things. Just be thankful you're a native speaker and aren't saddled with the well-nigh impossible task of learning our twisted language as an adult.

Answer 2

We do not speak a "bastardized" version of anything, thank you very much. :)

American Standard English (ASE) has just as many linguistic properties as English, with adopted words from a variety of languages, including Arabic, Spanish, German (mostly German, as English is a Germanic language), French, Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese, Italian, Latin, Yiddish ... the list goes on.

Other languages also have adopted words as well. For example, any word in the Italian language that ends in a consonant have foreign roots, such as "il computer." Likewise, the word "pizza" to Americans is completely different than "pizza" in Italy. Lexicons morph! It happens.

Languages and the studies of languages change sometimes drastically over time, which is why we have so many dialects of countless languages that have roots in so many OTHER languages. Why can a person who speaks Spanish understand the basic idea of conversations in Italian and Portuguese without knowing the languages? Are they all bastardized versions of each other? No, they all have distinct linguistic properties.

Check out a book called "Do You Speak American?" The author's name escapes me right now, but it's a great read, especially if you have an interest in things like this. :)

Answer 3

Languages constantly borrow from each other. Basically all languages have words from other languages in them. Your opinion goes a little further by implying that this is somehow bad, that this somehow makes the language worse.

Actually, if you go back into the history of English, it has always been a combination of languages. Anglo-Saxon (a Germanic language) and Norman French (a Latinate language) basically combined to make English hundreds of years ago. So we have always had Latin and German root words in our language. But you'll find that all languages borrow words from other languages... it's simply a way for us to get words that we didn't get before. Did you know, for example, that the word "alcohol" came from Arabic?

By the way, if you are trying to say that American English does this in comparison to British English, again, you'll find that British English has many borrowings, of words such as "vindaloo"... check it out!

Answer 4

What you describe is NOT a question of AmE vs BrE. Those are just corrupted spellings arising from the spoken/colloquial language and from the lack of education of most youths today. Colour vs color = BrE vs AmE Tough vs Tuff = Bad grammar. Hope I have helped. Keep writing things the way you learned them in school, you will make a difference among the hordes of mis-spellers out there :)

Answer 5

Lots. One of the glories of the English language is that it has happily stolen words from almost every language spoken on the planet. In the process, sometimes the spelling has been Anglicized, sometimes the pronunciation, sometimes both, and sometimes neither -- to the unending confusion of anyone trying to learn to speak it. GBS, I believe, came up with this: the word is GHOTI, with GH as in laugh, O as in women, and TI as in action. Figure out the word.

Answer 6

9 languages?

Answer 7

Looks like 8 languages.....bettyk

Answer 8

Good point. I say 7.

You could include even more by adding the "Pho" restaurant next to the pizza place.

Answer 9

LOL that is more languages in a mouthful...dang lol but I agree 100%with ya on this....lol

Answer 10

I am in total agreement. I've been stating the same for years.