Will regional dialects disappear?
15 10 08 - 03:24A quarter of Britons thought the Cornish word for tourists -- "emmets" -- came from Spain or Greece, with a fifth of respondents thinking the Yorkshire term for a silly person - "a daft ha-porth" -- was a Danish or Polish phrase.
"The diversity of regional dialects in the UK should be celebrated but this research shows that they're teetering on the brink of extinction," said professor Paul Kerswill of Lancaster University.
"Britons should be encouraged to experience the rich diversity of accents and language in their own country to help keep the idiosyncrasies of the English language alive."
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There is an underlying assumption here that indigenous Brits have a long-term future and should avoid losing our dialects to the influx of foreign influences. If Brits or any other Europeans are to have a future, one important way to help this would certainly be to rediscover and embrace national culture. The first requirement for group survival must be a keen sense of identity. The plea expressed by Professor Kerswill would make no sense if he meant that those with British nationality, but whose ancestry is foreign, should be encouraged to celebrate the diverse English dialects. These people bring in their own dialects. The spread of Jamaican patois in the south of England is unsettling. Many English whites sound as though they were born in the Caribbean. It is likely that they have taken on this accent as an affectation, and that it is some kind of fashion which goes with their preference for black culture and physical gestures, swaggering gait, etc. But it is very pervasive and spreading fast beyond London.
In some London boroughs, for instance, it has taken over from Cockney, the prevailing accent for generations, as inner-city white youths pick up the speech patterns of their black and Asian classmates. More than four out of ten London residents are now from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The Jafaican name, conveying the idea of 'fake Jamaican', was coined on the streets rather than in the research rooms. The academics prefer 'multicultural English'. But the message is constant.
"People are beginning to sound the same regardless of their colour or ethnic background," said Sue Fox, of London University's Queen Mary College, who is studying the phenomenon.
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Immigration into the UK continues at a frightening pace, with England's population growing at its fastest rate ever.
The forecasts show that there is likely to be a continuing increase in population density, with an estimated 574 people for every square kilometre by 2081.
Dominic Grieve, the Tories' shadow Home Secretary, added: "This is yet more evidence why the country needs a proper population strategy that takes into account the impact of immigration and population growth not just on the economy but on the ability of public services to cope, as well as social cohesion."
England is now the most crowded major country in Europe after overtaking the Netherlands earlier this year.
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The non ethnically European segment becomes ever more concentrated in the younger generations, with a fifth of all schoolchildren being from ethnic minorities.
If any Brits wish to learn more about their own traditional regional dialects they can expect no encouragement from the state, which is more concerned with accomodating up to 35 different languages from all over the world in any one school.
An influx of migrants means up to 35 different languages are spoken in individual Bournemouth primary schools.
One in 10 pupils at Malmesbury Park Primary School cannot speak English and a further 15 per cent have needed extra help to learn the language in the past.
The picture is the same at St Michael’s Primary in the town centre, the area most affected by the culture change.
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One school is proud to have found what Headteacher Damien Jordan happily touts as the perfect solution to the difficulty in communicating with children speaking in so many tongues: sign language.
Staff and pupils at a primary school where the children speak 26 languages have turned to sign language to ease their communication problems.
Lithuanian, Polish, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Mandarin, Wolof and Shona are among the mother tongues of the 55 pupils at Fairlight primary school in Brighton for whom English is not their first language.
Now all the school's 300 children - and their teachers - are learning to finger-spell words in British sign language and communicate their emotions and feelings using the signing system Makaton. Since the start of the new term assemblies have begun with a signed "good morning"
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This Alice in Wonderland approach certainly stops the English speaking children having an academic advantage, by reducing all the children to the same state of incomprehension until they have learned signing.
These are the lengths our obsessed state apparatchiks are going to in attempts to eliminate English culture and identity. Only by chosing themselves apart from all of this can any group maintain national traditions.
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