How your idiolect differs from the standard language
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 1:39 pm
The last posts in the Scandinavian topic inspired me to create this one.
I suppose not all of us speak our native tounges the way they are spoken according to the standard.
It would be interesting to see what kind of orthography you would find appealing to use for the dialect that you speak, and to see how your dialects differ from the standard language.
For example, I am from Sweden, and I speak a pretty strange idiolect, if you would compare it to the standard Swedish dialect (rikssvenska), and I really hate the Swedish orthography, so whenever I transcribe my dialect, I use an orthography that's either more like the Norwegian one, or the Faroese one. I also try to stick to etymology, since I don't like when languages have phonetical orthographies. Especially not Scandinavian ones, since we have a long tradition.
So, say you're French, but speak an idiolect that differs a bit. You might not like the French orthography, and you might feel better about applying an orthography more similar to, say, Spanish, when transcribing your dialect, and might prefer spelling the name of French as fransés, rather than français.
Shortly put, show how your idiolect would differ from the standard language, and come up with a little orthography for it, that doesn't throw etymology away and just goes for the phonetical approach. Just try to be descriptive, since everyone obviously does not speak your native tounge or knows of its grammar.
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So, I obviously will have to go first, since it's convenient to do so right away, in the first post.
Like I said, I speak a Swedish (or simply Scandinavian, since I really consider Danish, Norwegian and Swedish dialects varieties of a single language) variety, so I'll compare it to Swedish and other Northern Languages.
I'll start of with a little bit about the grammar. Standard Swedish and Danish have two genders; neuter and common. The common gender is a gender that contains all of the words that used to be masculine or feminine, merged into a single gender. Norwegian Bokmål allows a distinction of three genders, Norwegian Nynorsk forces it, and Icelandic and Faroese have retained all three genders as well. So has my the dialect on which my idiolect is based (and a lot of other dialects).
Here are some examples, in standard Swedish/Danish:
Neuter: hus (house), hår (hair), hjärta/hjerte (heart)
Common: bil (car), arm, hamn/havn (haven/harbour), tunga/tunge (tounge)
The neuter ones are neuter in all of the languages (hus/hús, hår/hár, hjärta/hjerte/hjarta), while only bil/bíll and arm/armur are masculine and only hamn/havn/höfn and tunga/tunge are feminine in the languages that have the larger distinction, including my dialect.
So, in Standard Swedish, Danish and optionally in Norwegian Bokmål, bil and bok (book, femine/common) would be treated the same, while in the languages and dialects with the larger distinction, they would be inflected differently, since they are of different genders in those. In Danish, though, words that were originally masculine usually get the plural ending -e, while words that were originally feminine, usually get the plural ending -er.
I'll stick to the Norwegian-based orthography for my idiolect at the moment, and bil and bok would be spelled the same as in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian (although bok is bog in Danish). Here are some examples:
English: car, the car, cars, the cars
Swedish: bil, bilen, bilar, bilarna
Bokmål: bil, bilen, biler, bilene
Nynorsk: bil, bilen, bilar, bilane
Danish: bil, bilen, biler, bilerne
My idiolect: bil, bilen, bilar, bilarne
So, they are all very similar, but they all have some difference. For this word, the only difference occurs in the plural form (and the definite plural form is different in all of the varieties).
Then we have bok:
English: book, the book, books, the books
Swedish: bok, boken, böcker, böckerna
Bokmål: bok, boken/boka, bøker, bøkene
Nynorsk: bok, boka, bøker, bøkene
Danish: bog, bogen, bøger, bøgerne
My idiolect: bok, boka, bøker, bøkerna
Let's also compare the neuter word hus:
English: house, the house, houses, the houses
Swedish: hus, huset, hus, husen
Bokmål: hus, huset, hus, husene/husa
Nynorsk: hus, huset, hus, husa/husi
Danish: hus, huset, hus, husene
My idiolect: hus, huset, hus, husa
Then, of course, my dialect has preserved the case distinction better than the Standard Scandinavian Languages. I'll stick to comparing to Swedish at the moment. Here are two inflection tables for hus, in Standard Swedish, and my idiolect:
Swedish:
My dialect
The -t and the -n- in the singular definite forms are all silent, though. This spelling is for etymology; the nominative, accusative and dative singular definite forms are all pronounced "huse", and the genitive one is pronounces "huses". The plural, definite dative form may also be pronounced with the n silent ("huse"/"husa").
Accusative and nominative are usually pretty much alike, but here is an example of the masculine noun bil, where the plural forms are slightly different in the accusative:
The orthography doesn't fully represent the pronunciation here either; bilen is pronounced biln, and bilarne is pronounced bilare.
Compared to the Standard Swedish:
Then, finally, we have the feminine noun bok:
Same thing here; bøkerna is pronounced bøkera.
Standard Swedish:
Some endings are treated differently. Masculine noun måne (moon):
Feminine noun gjenta (girl):
Unlike in Standard Swedish, I inflect verbs for person and number.
Here is an example with the regular verb hoppa (to jump):
The final -de and -du are silent, but -adu tends to be pronounced -au (separate), while -ade is always -a.
Another common pattern, with the word frjusa (Standard Swedish frysa; to freeze) as example:
A third example with irregular liggja (Standard Swedish ligga; to lie [on a bed, for example]):
And then a word with a more interesting different from Standard Swedish, is taka (Standard Swedish taga/ta; to take):
Compared to Standard Swedish:
The verb hava (Standard Swedish hava or ha; to have) is similar in the present tense:
The spelling of the preterite forms are very much there for consistency and etymology; they're both pronounced /hɔ/.
I'm to lazy to continue at the moment, but I'll do so later. Let me see examples of differences in your own idiolects, compared to the standard and languages close to yours, or older forms.
I suppose not all of us speak our native tounges the way they are spoken according to the standard.
It would be interesting to see what kind of orthography you would find appealing to use for the dialect that you speak, and to see how your dialects differ from the standard language.
For example, I am from Sweden, and I speak a pretty strange idiolect, if you would compare it to the standard Swedish dialect (rikssvenska), and I really hate the Swedish orthography, so whenever I transcribe my dialect, I use an orthography that's either more like the Norwegian one, or the Faroese one. I also try to stick to etymology, since I don't like when languages have phonetical orthographies. Especially not Scandinavian ones, since we have a long tradition.
So, say you're French, but speak an idiolect that differs a bit. You might not like the French orthography, and you might feel better about applying an orthography more similar to, say, Spanish, when transcribing your dialect, and might prefer spelling the name of French as fransés, rather than français.
Shortly put, show how your idiolect would differ from the standard language, and come up with a little orthography for it, that doesn't throw etymology away and just goes for the phonetical approach. Just try to be descriptive, since everyone obviously does not speak your native tounge or knows of its grammar.
----------------------------------
So, I obviously will have to go first, since it's convenient to do so right away, in the first post.
Like I said, I speak a Swedish (or simply Scandinavian, since I really consider Danish, Norwegian and Swedish dialects varieties of a single language) variety, so I'll compare it to Swedish and other Northern Languages.
I'll start of with a little bit about the grammar. Standard Swedish and Danish have two genders; neuter and common. The common gender is a gender that contains all of the words that used to be masculine or feminine, merged into a single gender. Norwegian Bokmål allows a distinction of three genders, Norwegian Nynorsk forces it, and Icelandic and Faroese have retained all three genders as well. So has my the dialect on which my idiolect is based (and a lot of other dialects).
Here are some examples, in standard Swedish/Danish:
Neuter: hus (house), hår (hair), hjärta/hjerte (heart)
Common: bil (car), arm, hamn/havn (haven/harbour), tunga/tunge (tounge)
The neuter ones are neuter in all of the languages (hus/hús, hår/hár, hjärta/hjerte/hjarta), while only bil/bíll and arm/armur are masculine and only hamn/havn/höfn and tunga/tunge are feminine in the languages that have the larger distinction, including my dialect.
So, in Standard Swedish, Danish and optionally in Norwegian Bokmål, bil and bok (book, femine/common) would be treated the same, while in the languages and dialects with the larger distinction, they would be inflected differently, since they are of different genders in those. In Danish, though, words that were originally masculine usually get the plural ending -e, while words that were originally feminine, usually get the plural ending -er.
I'll stick to the Norwegian-based orthography for my idiolect at the moment, and bil and bok would be spelled the same as in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian (although bok is bog in Danish). Here are some examples:
English: car, the car, cars, the cars
Swedish: bil, bilen, bilar, bilarna
Bokmål: bil, bilen, biler, bilene
Nynorsk: bil, bilen, bilar, bilane
Danish: bil, bilen, biler, bilerne
My idiolect: bil, bilen, bilar, bilarne
So, they are all very similar, but they all have some difference. For this word, the only difference occurs in the plural form (and the definite plural form is different in all of the varieties).
Then we have bok:
English: book, the book, books, the books
Swedish: bok, boken, böcker, böckerna
Bokmål: bok, boken/boka, bøker, bøkene
Nynorsk: bok, boka, bøker, bøkene
Danish: bog, bogen, bøger, bøgerne
My idiolect: bok, boka, bøker, bøkerna
Let's also compare the neuter word hus:
English: house, the house, houses, the houses
Swedish: hus, huset, hus, husen
Bokmål: hus, huset, hus, husene/husa
Nynorsk: hus, huset, hus, husa/husi
Danish: hus, huset, hus, husene
My idiolect: hus, huset, hus, husa
Then, of course, my dialect has preserved the case distinction better than the Standard Scandinavian Languages. I'll stick to comparing to Swedish at the moment. Here are two inflection tables for hus, in Standard Swedish, and my idiolect:
Swedish:
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | hus | huset | hus | husen |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | hus | husets | hus | husens |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | hus | huset | hus | husa |
+------+ | | | |
| acc. | | | | |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| dat. | huse | husene | huse | husene |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | huss | husens | huss | husas |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Accusative and nominative are usually pretty much alike, but here is an example of the masculine noun bil, where the plural forms are slightly different in the accusative:
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | bil | bilen | bilar | bilarne |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| acc. | bil | bilen | bila | bilana |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| dat. | bile | bilene | bile | bilene |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | bils | bilens | bilas | bilannas |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Compared to the Standard Swedish:
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | bil | bilen | bilar | bilarna |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | bils | bilens | bilars | bilarnas |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | bok | boka | bøker | bøkerna |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| acc. | bok | boka | bøker | bøkerna |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| dat. | bok | boka | bøke | bøkene |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | boks | bokas | bøkes | bøkannas |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Standard Swedish:
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | bok | boken | böcker | böckerna |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | boks | bokens | böckers | böckernas |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | måne | månen | månar | månarne |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| acc. | måna | månan | måna | månana |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| dat. | måna | månane | måne | månene |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | måna | månans | månas | månannas |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Code: Select all
+------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| | singular | plural |
| +------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| nom. | gjenta | gjenta | gjentur | gjenturna |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| acc. | gjente | gjenta | gjentur | gjenturna |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| dat. | gjente | gjenta | gjente | gjentene |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| gen. | gjente | gjentas | gjentas | gjentannas |
+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Here is an example with the regular verb hoppa (to jump):
Code: Select all
+----------+---------+-----------+
| | present | preterite |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| 1p sing. | hoppa | hoppade |
+----------+---------+ |
| 2p sing. | hoppar | |
+----------+ | |
| 3p sing. | | |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| plur. | hoppa | hoppadu |
+----------+---------+-----------+
Another common pattern, with the word frjusa (Standard Swedish frysa; to freeze) as example:
Code: Select all
+----------+---------+-----------+
| | present | preterite |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| 1p sing. | frys | fraus |
+----------+---------+ |
| 2p sing. | frys/ | |
+----------+ fryser | |
| 3p sing. | | |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| plur. | frjusa | frusu |
+----------+---------+-----------+
Code: Select all
+----------+---------+-----------+
| | present | preterite |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| 1p sing. | ligg | lå |
+----------+---------+ |
| 2p sing. | ligg/ | |
+----------+ ligger | |
| 3p sing. | | |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| plur. | liggja | lågu |
+----------+---------+-----------+
Code: Select all
+----------+---------+-----------+
| | present | preterite |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| 1p sing. | tek | tok |
+----------+---------+ |
| 2p sing. | tek/ | |
+----------+ teker | |
| 3p sing. | | |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| plur. | taku | toku |
+----------+---------+-----------+
Code: Select all
+----------+---------+-----------+
| | present | preterite |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| 1p sing. | ta(ge)r | tog |
+----------+---------+-----------+
Code: Select all
+----------+---------+-----------+
| | present | preterite |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| 1p sing. | hev | havde |
+----------+---------+ |
| 2p sing. | hev/ | |
+----------+ hever | |
| 3p sing. | | |
+----------+---------+-----------+
| plur. | havu | havdu |
+----------+---------+-----------+
I'm to lazy to continue at the moment, but I'll do so later. Let me see examples of differences in your own idiolects, compared to the standard and languages close to yours, or older forms.