Well...compared to consonants there certainly is a shortage of vowels...LOL But then we no longer speak Ubyx which has only 2 vowels...
ive been to Newcastle, you guys cant hassle americans as long as you allow that kind of language!! lol
lol! I find it too complicated. I have read some theories that tai-kadai has some common links with south sea island languages. Several Western scholars have presented suggestive evidence that TaiKadai is related to or a branch of the Austronesian language family. There are a number of possible cognates in the core vocabulary. Among proponents, there is yet no agreement as to whether they are a sister group to Austronesian in a family called Austro-Tai, a backmigration from Taiwan to the mainland, or a later migration from the Philippines to Hainan during the Austronesian expansion. The Austric proposal suggests a link between Austronesian and the Austroasiatic languages. Echoing part of Benedict's conception of Austric, who added TaiKadai and HmongMien to the proposal, Kosaka (2002) argued specifically for a MiaoDai family.[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai–Kadai_languages
From my understanding, Miao and Dai are from different linguistic groups and are unrelated. Tai (or Dai as it is in China) is a Tai-Kadai language, while Miao is related to Hmong-Mien/Yao which are a strain of Sino-Tibetan. I believe Tai-Kadai is also non Sinitic.
Ha! I know-it's totally unintelligible! Here's a Cockney-you might understand him better! I love this guy: (contains profanity). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUdaPNXC_68
I guess you didn't figure my thread might be tongue-in-cheek? Don't take it personally; I'm not besmirching anyone-just having a little fun.
Yes, it's called Received Pronunciation, and seems to have evolved from the Home Counties around London; notably the southern and south western ones, like Surrey (the part with the money), and Kent (also the monied bits). The Royals have speech patterns and a way of pronunciation all their own; forrid (forehead), and orf (off) for example. Nobody else I know speaks the 'Queen's English'! Then you've got Northern Ireland; "How, now, brown cow" turns into 'hi, ny, brine kye'. Extraordinary language, English. An unpleasant aspect of all the varieties of accent, is how one is perceived according to how one speaks. For instance Cockney is associated with working-class East London; but there's nothing to stop that person from acquiring a more 'cultured' accent. Doesn't change the person though. And that's the problem; our diversity in a huge range of regional accents in such a small, confined island, has encouraged a sort of national judgementalism.
Th 1950s dialects are interesting, so many words are gone now. http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects/021M-C0908X0058XX-0600V1
Lieutenant is actually a French word. From what I read some time ago, has roots from the Old French 'leuf'.
There's quite a few differences in American English and British English. The Brits pronounce the "T" more distincly (which is good). For example Americans often use a "D" sound for the "T." Bedder instead of better; Wriding instead of Writing, etc. (It can be confusing.) Americans say raddeling instead of rat-ling; in rattling there's no "el" in there, and the "T's" shouldn't be pronouced as "D's". So the Brits are correct. Also, it seems that in British, the period, question marks, etc. are usually placed after quotation marks -- ... the house". as opposed to ... the house." And it seems that in American writing (especially journalists) use a lot of brackets, e.g., [It] was a dark and stormy night in the [valley], when [he] arrived. English is not my natural language, so I never have been able to figure out what those brackets mean, their use seems silly to me. [ ] [ ] [ ] pfft!
Northern Irish or more properly Norn Eyne Can make I found five pounds on the ground in Ardoyne town all rhyme into Oi Foind Foive Poind on the Groin in Ardoin toin
In Old French the word lieu (meaning placed) Was spelled Leuf and the Normans took that pronounciation to England
To be fair, English (whether US or UK) is not a very beautiful language. It is not a very phonetic language either and the spelling is just atrocious. Most Muricans and Brits do not care to learn another language, simply because they already get the world language from birth. The most f-ed up word in American English has to be "literally", I pronounce it in a more British manner with a defined 'T' whereas Americans pronounce it sort of like "lirari" or "lidrari" or something like that. An awful word I find very difficult to pronounce.
Being born with English privilege, it does make it less urgent for someone to learn another language. And if they choose to do so, which one? For the entire non English speaking world, that's an easy answer, you study English since it provides the most bang for your buck. But if you're already are an English speaker, your options are multiple and less urgent.
The rivalries between the British and Americans originated in the American Revolutionary War and they reject each other culturally, including English pronunciation and spelling, and so on. It's very offensive to speak American English openly in Britain and you need to switch to a British accent, which I managed to do while studying in Cambridge. Sometimes I feel embarrassed to sound like President Trump when I speak English casually but it's my natural accent.
Another reason for the difference between British and American is the general isolation of America after the Revolutionary War. Both forms of English evolved along different paths, even within 200 years. I believe Spanish has a huge influence on America English also, which isn't the case with British English.