French + English = Globish

[HarryT]

I think personally that any language which needs to be "protected" by the government has a problem. One of the strengths of English (and the same is true of German, too) has been its willingness to freely "absorb" words from other languages in circumstances where new words are required. Trying to legally ban people from using words like "le weekend" is an exercise that's doomed to failure.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I'm just longing to see how VR would translate Globish, especially given that it forbids humour.

Bah! A pox on any language that forbids humour. Let's steal it, dress it up in pepperpot clothes, call it Mrs Anti-Gibbon, use it to discuss tea, budgies and philosophy, make it walk silly and then send it off to Paris via North Malden and Iceland to explain itself to Sartre. That'll teach it to laugh a bit.

Which reminds me, trying to undermine the amorphous, absorbent language called "English"...I'm thinking of a Pratchett quote...ahh, here it is:

"No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpock. Well *technically* they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops."


Cheers,
Marc

[Gaurnim]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

...I'm a bâtard (which I think is a word they nicked from the English).

I don't think so, as this word is also present in italian (bastardo).
To me, this speaks more of a latin origin, and so of the english nicking the word from either latin, french or italian.
I'd say they took it from the french based on the so friendly common history.
After all, insults are one of the first things one learns in a foreign language, especially your ennemy's.

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by Gaurnim

I don't think so, as this word is also present in italian (bastardo).
To me, this speaks more of a latin origin, and so of the english nicking the word from either latin, french or italian.
I'd say they took it from the french based on the so friendly common history.
After all, insults are one of the first things one learns in a foreign language, especially your ennemy's.

I think it has a Germanic root, not a Latin one.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

ha HA !!! it is a cunning ploy of the académie to turn the tables !! we will now bastardise english into oblivion, so that french can rise again as the most beautiful and poetic language in the world !



but seriously, it really does drive me crazy when, for example, the french women working at the french agency in france tell me to please use "boollette poynz" (bullet points) on the list in that document i'm designing for them. i want to shout at them (in french, of course) "for god's sake, they're called puces !!!! you sound like a bunch of pretentious morons !!!!"

it also drives me crazy when i see big companies with french branches sending over american executives in high-level positions who don't even make a pretense of learning to speak french, and oblige the entire damned company of french employees in france to speak english to accomodate them. in a way they can't complain about globish ; they've really asked for it.

on the other hand, it also drives me crazy when i hear english spoken / written by native anglophones who are apparently practically illiterate and have no idea what punctuation is.

i guess i'm sort of a purist, regardless the language.

vive l'éloquence !

How about the spelling??? If the académie want to take over English, they'd better learn phonetic spelling.....

[HarryT]

It appears that the origin is disputed. The Online Etymology Dictionary says:

bastard
1223, "illegitimate child," from O.Fr., "child of a nobleman by a woman other than his wife," probably from fils de bast "packsaddle son," meaning a child conceived on an improvised bed (saddles often doubled as beds while traveling), with pejorative ending -art. Alternate possibly is that the word is from P.Gmc. *banstiz "barn," equally suggestive of low origin. Not always regarded as a stigma; the Conqueror is referred to in state documents as "William the Bastard." Figurative sense is from 1552; use as a vulgar term of abuse for a man is attested from 1830. Bastardize "debase" is from 1587.

[YGG-]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

Ain't that sexist? Why should a pencil have a gender, or a banana?

Don't be obvious!

If I tell you "Sister Sun & brother Moon", how does that sound? (it's that way in German)...

[Gaurnim]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It appears that the origin is disputed.

Well, then it's simpler this way

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It appears that the origin is disputed. The Online Etymology Dictionary says:

bastard
1223, "illegitimate child," from O.Fr., "child of a nobleman by a woman other than his wife," probably from fils de bast "packsaddle son," meaning a child conceived on an improvised bed (saddles often doubled as beds while traveling), with pejorative ending -art. Alternate possibly is that the word is from P.Gmc. *banstiz "barn," equally suggestive of low origin. Not always regarded as a stigma; the Conqueror is referred to in state documents as "William the Bastard." Figurative sense is from 1552; use as a vulgar term of abuse for a man is attested from 1830. Bastardize "debase" is from 1587.

So the word "bastard" is itself a bastard? That makes sense.

[Sparrow]

Miles Kington invented Franglais for us Brits who are (through no fault of our own) incapable of learning to speak foreign.

It's a melange (dunno the French for that ) - of English and French.

Like a phrase book, each of his "lessons" covered a particular situation:

A man is accused of driving his car "avec toute la finesse d'un Rangers fan"
A door-to-door seller assures his customers "je ne suis pas un nutter religieux"

Another useful phrase is 'OK, OK je ne suis pas deaf .'

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

It's a melange (dunno the French for that ) '

[astra]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

It is an offense to thine ears to hear the utterance of the doggerel modern "english" from the wretched masses!

Thou shalt henceforth use only the true Elizabethan Olde English, forswearing the usage of such common dirty toungues, as those spewed by the peasants on the filthy continent, and of course, the accursed colonies.

I proclaimeth it!

I like it

Long time ago, when I played a computer game, part of which was based on Middle Earth, there was a guild of Morgul Mages and they used to talk to their apprentices and to outsiders like that. I remember it gave me quite a headache but lately, I was converted and used to like it

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Miles Kington invented Franglais for us Brits who are (through no fault of our own) incapable of learning to speak foreign.

It's a melange (dunno the French for that ) - of English and French.

Like a phrase book, each of his "lessons" covered a particular situation:

A man is accused of driving his car "avec toute la finesse d'un Rangers fan"
A door-to-door seller assures his customers "je ne suis pas un nutter religieux"

Another useful phrase is 'OK, OK je ne suis pas deaf .'

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Well, with only 1,500 words with which to work, at least it would be easy to learn. I assume it would have no verb tenses, and probably is a bit like a crippled Esperanto.

It's a little hard to be linguistically bigoted here. Even in Atlanta, loads of the billboards are in Spanish, not to mention Austin where if you aren't bilingual, you are toast.

So much Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese .... hell, you name it ... has invaded the English language. Every time a new immigrant group moves in, a whole new slang starts seeping in.

Eventually, there will be some sort of global language, maybe not for several more decades, but the world is getting too small for it not to happen. I'm basically lazy, so I'd rather it be some form of English if only so that I don't have to learn another language.

To paraphrase Sir Terry:

The English language has never been conquered. Well,, that's not exactly true. English has always welcomed new commerce and opens its gate wide to conquering phonemes. They just march right in and take ove, only to find in a few weeks that they have become yet another fthnic group with its own grafitti and no longer own their own horses.

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

Bah! A pox on any language that forbids humour. Let's steal it, dress it up in pepperpot clothes, call it Mrs Anti-Gibbon, use it to discuss tea, budgies and philosophy, make it walk silly and then send it off to Paris via North Malden and Iceland to explain itself to Sartre. That'll teach it to laugh a bit.

Which reminds me, trying to undermine the amorphous, absorbent language called "English"...I'm thinking of a Pratchett quote...ahh, here it is:

"No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpock. Well *technically* they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops."


Cheers,
Marc

Oops.