
Five languages that came from English - hvo
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160811-how-english-gave-birth-to-surprising-new-languages
======
jmadsen
A curious side note - hardly a language or even dialect, really - is the
effect that having a large number of immigrants from one country can have on a
region's language.

For example, in my own eastern Wisconsin, a large part of "Wisconsin-ese" is
nothing more than German translated directly into English. So many people
settled Eastern Wisconsin from Germany at the same time that their efforts to
learn English all had the same mistakes, and became our local "pidgen".

For example -

\- to soften an imperative in German, add "mal" \- short for "einmal" (once)
\- there is only one word for borrow or lend - "leihen".

And so "Leih mir ein dollar mal" is "Could you lend me a dollar?" in English,
but,

"Borrow me a dollar once"

in Wisconsin "accent". Many other small examples of this.

~~~
hnal943
yep, another example of this is when Wisconsinites talk about visiting
someone. "Let's go to Jeremy's house" becomes "Let's go by Jeremy", which is
correct in German.

~~~
ghaff
Though "Let's swing by Jeremy's" would be AFAIK pretty common across the US--
although I suppose in that case there's a [house/place] implied by the
possessive.

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petr_tik
In general, there are 2 ways to classify something as a language instead of a
dialect:

1\. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy [0]

2\. Easier test is mutual intelligibility – dialects of one language are
mutually intelligible – US English speakers chat and understand with the Brits
(even when they can hear the extra ‘u’s in colour). Neither US English nor UK
English speakers understand or can produce intelligible German.

0 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy)

~~~
lordnacho
Mutually intelligible is not an exact thing. From my own experience:

A native speaker of Danish, I was able to speak with my Norwegian housemate.
It worked OK, but not great, and not for anything technical (like science and
finance, where the Germanic words are very different to the English).

With my Swedish friends however, it was harder. Not sure why, since Sweden is
visible from Denmark but Norway is a bit further away. Also, I found the TV
Series "The Bridge / Broen" quite unlikely. Swedes and Danes don't talk that
easily together, and certainly not with slang. The scenario of the cops from
opposite sides of the bridge working together could still work, but mostly in
writing. Also, the cadence is very different. Swedish is melodic. Danish is
grunty.

Of course I have had no instruction in Swedish or Norwegian, but it wouldn't
be hard, based on friends who have moved.

German is not mutually intelligible with Danish. But it is. I went to a
handful of German classes, and it dawned on me that changing a few things
around makes High German pretty much like old Danish, like what you'd hear in
old black-and-white movies from around the war. These days Danish has a lot of
English in it, and something about the way sentences are put together makes
old movies seem very... old. But once you have a simple map in your mind,
Danish appears to be German with some substitutions and simplified grammar. I
can read the paper in German now, despite having had just those few lessons.

Swiss German, now there's a weird one. The sounds are different. I suppose I'm
twice removed from it, but even native Germans I know will produce the WTF
face when they hear a Swiss German. Words and grammar are similar, but
different enough to be recognisably so by a foreigner like myself. But I
suppose it's like Swedish and Danish.

Apropos the article, Singlish I found quite interesting. To me it's just
English with sprinkled Chinese, and I think most English speaking people will
not have a problem understanding it without instruction. One useful addition:
English doesn't make much use of the modal particle, so it makes sense that
Cantonese "la" is heard all over the place.

~~~
hencq
When I learned Norwegian, my teacher used to joke that all of Scandinavia
spoke Norwegian. It's just that the Swedes were pronouncing things wrong and
the Danish couldn't spell it correctly.

~~~
soperj
and she just left out Finland because it didn't make any sense.

~~~
eCa
Finland is not usually considered to be a part of Scandinavia, though.

~~~
soperj
[http://images.google.com/search?q=scandinavia](http://images.google.com/search?q=scandinavia)
Every image in googles image search says you're wrong.

~~~
wutbrodo
Eyeballing Google Image Search? What an absolutely absurd way of figuring out
what Scandinavia is. First of all, "every image" isn't even close to true, as
many of them clearly highlight Finland (and Iceland) in different colors and
many of them include non-Scandinavian countries for context (like Poland and
the Baltics). If you actually click on any of those links, they don't "say
he's wrong". From one of the first result's webpage (Wikipedia):

> The term Scandinavia always includes the mainlands of the three kingdoms of
> Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Norwegian dependencies, including Svalbard and
> Jan Mayen, are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Danish
> Greenland. However, the Danish Faroe Islands are sometimes included, as
> sometimes are Iceland and Finland

Finnish isn't even remotely related to the Scandinavian languages. If you're
going to be needlessly pedantic and contrarian, at least put a little more
effort in it than glancing at Google Images.

~~~
soperj
blah blah blah. Finnish is related to Scandinavian languages because it is a
Scandinavian language. There are even similar words like appelsiini vs apelsin
for Orange, in Finnish/Swedish respectively.

~~~
int_19h
That's... not how languages are grouped together. Russian has the word
"apelsin", meaning the same thing - is it a Scandinavian language also?

Finland is associated with Scandinavia by virtue of being dominated by actual
Scandinavian countries (notably, Sweden) for so long, which influenced the
culture. But it's not Scandinavian per se, any more so than, say, Georgia is
Eastern Slavic. Ditto the language - influenced, yes; belonging to the same
group, not at all.

~~~
soperj
I speak Finnish. Well aware.

------
mariodiana
I found this video of a woman reciting the opening to Genesis in Tok Pisin,
and it struck me as really interesting. The repetition in the verses is likely
what's key to this, but if at first upon hearing it you're bewildered, about
halfway through you realize that you can understand what she's saying.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laTpd2ofjKg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laTpd2ofjKg)

The history behind the language is interesting, too. Interacting with English
speakers created a language that unified a geographic area that was rich in
individual languages with no common tongue.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin#Development_of_Tok_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin#Development_of_Tok_Pisin)

~~~
kqr
> if at first upon hearing it you're bewildered, about halfway through you
> realize that you can understand what she's saying.

As a non-native English speaker, this is basically my experience watching some
movies (where the characters speak with regional dialects). The first 10
minutes I feel like the actors are mumbling and then after 20 or so minutes I
have no problem keeping up anymore.

Also what it feels like when someone with an accent is holding a lecture at my
university.

~~~
pavel_lishin
It took me longer for British accents to become intelligible; I think it took
about a season of Top Gear before I no longer had to rewind certain portions
or listen very actively to understand what was being said.

------
thomasfoster96
These five languages didn't 'come' or evolve solely from English - rather they
are all English-based creoles[0]. Many of them are grammatically quite
different to English, but they've all had heavy influences from other
languages as well.

On the other hand, French, Romanian and Portuguese aren't Latin-based creoles
- they're separate languages which have evolved from Latin (although you could
make the argument that Portuguese and French are two ends of a dialect
continuum[1]).

Really, the relationship between Tok Pisin and English is very different to
the relationship between French and Latin. English hasn't had the time and
geographical spread to diverge into different languages that Latin has had.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-
based_creole_languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-
based_creole_languages) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum#Romance_lang...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum#Romance_languages)

~~~
spraak
Yeah, the article title (premise?) is flawed in that way. Otherwise an
interesting overview of a few languages I'd never heard of

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lucasnemeth
Shelta, is a language spoke by the Irish travellers, came from Irish and
English. It is pretty interesting :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelta)

~~~
abritinthebay
huh, interesting that linguists would call it something totally different from
what speakers call it (always called some variation of "travellers cant" from
the speakers I've known).

~~~
lucasnemeth
Yes, I have no idea why...

------
jcbeard
How about all computer languages? They're largely subject to grammar
constraints (e.g. LR, etc.), but they're quite subject to creolization and
almost all the widely used ones are derived from english, nerd slang, slang
tech terms, short tech terms, and shit that early programmers made up to
express themselves. I've been wanting to do a study on the evolution,
understanding, and psychology of programming languages (even wrote a blog post
awhile back about it) but i haven't gotten around to it.

~~~
Dutchie
Computer languages are only very superficially similar to English. Like a
whale is superficially similar to a fish. The syntax of ALL computer languages
is completely unlike English. Computer languages don't have the phonology or
morphology of English either (they don't have any phonology or morphology).

~~~
jcbeard
morphology I'm not so sure. looking at the evolution of keywords seems to
suggest that the morphology is there. phonology, I'd have agreed with you a
few years ago after I finished a minor in slavic linquistics, but now after
seeing how people verbally communicate programming concepts over the last
decade and how that communication has impacted language design itself...I'm
not so sure. In either event, the structure of the english language has
heavily impacted the design of languages used to program computers. Not so
drastic a difference as whale to fish, more whale to dolphin.

~~~
int_19h
As an aside, I wonder if anyone has studied how learning an English-based (at
least wrt keywords and such) programming language before learning English
affects the latter.

From personal experience (I am a native Russian speaker), I have a feeling
that it does, to some extent. To this day, for me, the primary meaning words
like "loop" and "string" is that of programming - the first mental association
with "string" is text, not an actual string, for example. Surely this has got
to change perspective somewhat.

This also has an interesting side effect, in that code doesn't look like
mutilated English - it just naturally reads and feels like, well, code. This
is not the case when I'm reading a program that uses keywords in my native
language (e.g. the 1C language - [http://www.asd-
dnepr.com/images/v8/two_variants_of_embedded_...](http://www.asd-
dnepr.com/images/v8/two_variants_of_embedded_language.gif)) - those just look
weird as hell, and very awkward/funny. I have often asked myself if that's
what C and Python look like to native English speakers; and if so, then what
difference does it make in how we code.

~~~
sundarurfriend
> To this day, for me, the primary meaning words like "loop" and "string" is
> that of programming

In my case (another non-native English speaker), I had come across 'a piece of
string' and such before encountering programming, and so that's the immediate
association string brings to mind. 'Loop', however, I hadn't come across
before I learnt programming, so it's very strongly associated with that sense
in my mind, even though now I know the "other" meaning.

> This is not the case when I'm reading a program that uses keywords in my
> native language [...] - those just look weird as hell, and very
> awkward/funny. I have often asked myself if that's what C and Python look
> like to native English speakers; and if so, then what difference does it
> make in how we code.

Yep, I too wondered the same thing after finding a programming language in my
native language ([https://github.com/Ezhil-Language-Foundation/Ezhil-
Lang](https://github.com/Ezhil-Language-Foundation/Ezhil-Lang)), and seeing
how even keywords that are meant to sound natural for their usage get bent
awkwardly out of shape by the thousand different contexts we use them in.

------
anotherevan
Having lived in Papua New Guinea twice while growing up, I have a certain
fondness for the language Tok Pisin. I can’t really speak much of it, but I
can understand a fair bit.

You’ve got to love a language where “gras” means “hair”, “bagarap” means
pretty much the same thing if you say it out loud in English, and while
expressing how full your tummy is after a good meal you accidentally say
you’re pregnant[1].

It’s charmingly idiosyncratic to an English ear.

And there’s even an edition of Wikipedia in Tok Pisin:
[https://tpi.wikipedia.org/](https://tpi.wikipedia.org/)

[1] True story. My dad did this and all the locals fell on the ground
laughing.

[2] Brief blog post I wrote in 2009 which is the source for this comment:
[http://www.michevan.id.au/content/wikipedia-really-does-
have...](http://www.michevan.id.au/content/wikipedia-really-does-have-page-
just-about-everything/)

[3] Another blog post about the Vanuatuian cousin, Bislama:
[http://www.michevan.id.au/content/by-any-other-
name/](http://www.michevan.id.au/content/by-any-other-name/)

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linkmotif
Really neat. Especially the idea that:

"English may come to have a global standard that is not exactly what is spoken
in any local culture"

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acjacobson
As others have mentioned, many of the examples in this article are creoles. A
non-creole example of language descended from English (or rather Middle
English) is Scots, which has its own dialectical variations that vary in
intelligibility with Modern English.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language)

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mmanfrin
Gullah is a neat language. I came across a website that had a Gullah
translation of the bible -- at first glance it looks unintelligible, but when
you read it out loud it makes complete sense (as a native english speaker):

[http://www.gullahbible.com/e-GullahNT/index.htm](http://www.gullahbible.com/e-GullahNT/index.htm)

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clw8
Creoles are fascinating. If we can assume that modern language came about with
modern humans some 50,000 years ago, I wonder how many modern languages are
creoles of extinct languages?

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kazinator
There are, of course, other languages that came from English. One that comes
to mind is Bislama, a dominant language spoken in Vanuatu.

------
saynsedit
Also Hawaiian Pidgin (not a literal pidgin).

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junto
Out of interest, is American English considered a dialect of British English?

~~~
jdavis703
No, they are both dialects of English.

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hellofunk
Take this article with a grain of salt. Their description of Singlish is
enough to disqualify the accuracy of the rest of the piece. Singlish is not a
unique or separate langauage, or even an actual language. Comparing Singlish
to English is no different than comparing Cockney to English. I don't think
the different dialects of English within the U.K. are all considered separate
languages, and therefore Singlish should not be either. An American English
speaker will likely have much better chance of understanding a Singaporean
than understanding some of the U.K. dialects.

~~~
snaily
Most Singaporeans still have a concept of "proper" English, and can code
switch across the creole continuum, but interestingly the acrolect ("variation
most associated with refinement") is basically standard UK or US English -
though not everyone can get there. As a comparison, the closest similarity I
can think of in terms of having a similar English creole continuum is Jamaican
patois.

I doubt most native English speakers (despite my best wishes, I certainly
can't) could decipher the Singlish basilect ("least refined") - the cadence is
syllable-timed, the vocabulary is part Hokkien, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay,
grammar is nonstandard and a substantial part of emotion is conveyed through
particle suffixes (the stereotypical Singlish "lah" is emphasis).

~~~
bane
Here's an example of some of the continuum
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmXRJiMkKpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmXRJiMkKpI)

and some more (from a film)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo4ufPKTq0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo4ufPKTq0E)

and an explanation
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC8nM75AqUk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC8nM75AqUk)

~~~
schoen
> Here's an example of some of the continuum
> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmXRJiMkKpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmXRJiMkKpI)

Wow, that accent shift is _really_ striking.

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mkadlec
What about Canadian? ;)

