"Dirk Bruere at Neopax" wrote in
:


"Derrick Parfitt" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 08:17:25 +1200, Nik
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 09:17:37 -0400, Scout
wrote:

Actually France (as in William the Conqueror) is responsible for
mangling English, at least for causing the head on collision of
French-Latin and German, which resulted in English.
Don't blame the Brits, their only sin was losing a war to the
French in 1066.
Scout

Scout, actually they were French-speaking Normans.



Scott Lowther wrote:

For REAL English-mangling, you've got to leave it to the Brits.
Of course, that's far from the worst... I've seen some Scots on
TV who sounded like they were speaking something entirely
different from English.

Whomever posted the immediately above is obviously ignorant of the
Gaelic language background of Scotland.

Nik,
They were commenting on the relative intelligibility of English
spoken by some people in Scotland.

The English spoken in Scotland derives many of its pronunciations,
some of its syntax, and a few of its words from the early Northumbian
English dialect of the middle ages that was spoken by the most
populous regions of Scotland. This dialect was referred to as Scots
or Lallans (lowlands) up to the period of Robert Burns and was, of
course, quite distinct from Scottish Gaelic, which is a different
language entirely.

Just about everybody in the world who speaks English speaks
south-eastern England English with its accompanying syntax and
language structure (including the overwhelming majority of people in
Scotland) with local pronunciations and some slang words.

The "kebab vikings" on the webpage spoke common modern English,
except for a some slang words and a very heavy Glaswegian ( I
suspect) accent.

In any event, there is a common saying that the best English is
actually spoken in Inverness...

That's funny.


What's even funnier, and almost certainly true, is that the best
English is spoken in India.

Certainly better than your's Eh Djirkie?

Bertie