Irish language in the Black Country

I listened to a 10-minute online talk about the Irish language in the Black Country. The Black Country is an area in the West Midlands, adjoining Birmingham to the west. The talk The Irish Language in the Victorian Black Country (Gaeilge sa Tír Dhubh Victeoiriach) is by Simon Briercliffe, a doctoral student at Birmingham University…… Continue reading Irish language in the Black Country

Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian

I have just read a paper describing 16 differences between Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian. The description was in a paper that looked for the border between language varieties separated by each difference. The paper also looked at whether those borders match national borders and how close the varieties are to each other. The authors…… Continue reading Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian

Different accent or bad diction?

I’ve written before about confusion about the term dropping your g’s. The Time columnist Claire Foges waded into this debate on 20 September. Her article argues that people can improve their life chances by learning to speak and write what she calls Standard English. I agree with her on that. But her comments show some…… Continue reading Different accent or bad diction?

Please yous

Phonetic spelling of ‘use’. Written by someone from Liverpool? (In Liverpool, some people say yous as a plural of you.)