🚀 go-pugleaf

"Comm" <no@spam.com> wrote:
>What the hey?  See in.
>
>"Bob LeChevalier" <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote in message 
>news:koqdg11r0oiuiajksgl98ue8d12rli7ukd@4ax.com...
>> "Comm" <no@spam.com> wrote:
>>>"Bob LeChevalier" <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote in message
>>>news:ro5ef1dtm1sanutvfp9vcmol1321a9q2mm@4ax.com...
>>>>>The problem with that is that by the time about a year goes by for 
>>>>>anyone
>>>>>to
>>>>>learn "first year ebonics" the language of ebonics will have 
>>>>>significantly
>>>>>CHANGED.
>>>>
>>>> As I said, nobody is learning "first year ebonics", since nobody is
>>>> teaching it.
>>>
>>>I haven't read the entire LONGwinded thread, heh.  Just saw this post from
>>>you.  I know nobody's teaching it.  But how could anyone teach a language
>>>that changes so fast?
>>
>> Who is teaching the language?
>
>I have no idea IF it's being taught.

No one has yet posted information about an Ebonic program that was
intended to "teach the language".  The idea is to inform the
*teachers* as to what the differences between Black English Vernacular
and the academic standard language, so that the *teachers* can
understand what the students are saying and when an error might be due
to the nonstandard language rather than failure to understand the
concepts, in which case the job of the teacher is *different*.  When a
foreigner makes a mistake, the teacher likely will recognize the
difference between a conceptual misunderstanding and a language error,
but that is far less likely with a native speaker, especially one
speaking a dialect that is so much derided.  The teachers also tend to
have the same misconceptions about the nature of the differences as
the racists who post obviously phony "ebonics talk".


>>If you understood what an Ebonics
>> program was, you wouldn't ask such a silly question, since no one in
>> fact teaches "a language that changes so fast".
>
>I didn't ask a damned question.  I was commenting on teaching ANY KIND of 
>language (ebonics as an eg) that changes very fast.  It's not possible.

All languages change fast on the surface and very slowly underneath.
Ebonics has not changed all that much.

>> But as another form of answer, the language known as "Latin" evolved
>> over a thousand years, and the church Latin spoken today is quite
>> different from any form that was spoken in the Roman Republic or
>> Empire.
>
>Yup, I know that, that used to be my example when people bitched about "bad 
>language."  Once upon a time, Spanish, French, Italian and a few others were 
>BAD LATIN.  Now they are LANGUAGES.  What tends to keep languages in stasis 
>long enough to be able to teach them, is when they are written languages 
>with some rule book on grammar.  Like English has.

English has continued to change at pretty much the same rate as it did
before there were rule books.  The only thing that has really
standardized is spelling.  The thing that causes rapid language change
that is more significant is when a new power takes over that speaks a
different language, as when the French Normans ruled England.  That
prompted the rather dramatic change from Old English to Middle
English, but even that took a couple hundred years.

Middle English changing to modern English also took a hundred years or
more, and much of the change was a change in pronunciation called the
Great Sound Shift that affected German as well as English.  No one is
quite sure why it took place.  But if you take a Middle English text
and write with modern spellings, the text will likely be quite
understandable.

>In case you didn't 
>notice, not too many god damned English words are SPELLED the way they're 
>pronounced 

But spelling is not a particularly important part of language, and it
has NOTHING to do with the spoken language.

lojbab
-- 
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org