201 - Dialect
Nov. 22nd, 2015 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captain_slinkyThis one had me up all night trying to wrap my head around this, and of course The Internet is no help because I use Bing (shut up, Bing promised things would be different this time), I turn to the rest of you.
How does Regional Dialect happen?
What is it about The South that makes people say "Y'all", besides the fact that everyone else is doing it? How did that start, and how did it spread in to being that EVERYONE who lives there talks that way? It had to start with one person, didn't it? And even if it DID start with one person and then spread to millions, how did it then STOP before hitting the rest of the country?
The short answer is that we talk the way we talk because we are surrounded by people who talk that way... but how did we get surrounded by people who talk that way? How does it know where to stop? How many people talking that way does it take to make it an infectious regional dialect? There are supposedly so many legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the California, New Mexico and Arizona area of the country, why hasn't their dialect taken over in those places?
Like I said, I can't even begin to wrap my head around this. It's making my head hurt :(
How does Regional Dialect happen?
What is it about The South that makes people say "Y'all", besides the fact that everyone else is doing it? How did that start, and how did it spread in to being that EVERYONE who lives there talks that way? It had to start with one person, didn't it? And even if it DID start with one person and then spread to millions, how did it then STOP before hitting the rest of the country?
The short answer is that we talk the way we talk because we are surrounded by people who talk that way... but how did we get surrounded by people who talk that way? How does it know where to stop? How many people talking that way does it take to make it an infectious regional dialect? There are supposedly so many legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the California, New Mexico and Arizona area of the country, why hasn't their dialect taken over in those places?
Like I said, I can't even begin to wrap my head around this. It's making my head hurt :(
