Harry Potter read by Jim Dale

Travis   Mon Aug 22, 2005 4:46 am GMT
Vytenis, if you don't speak an NAE dialect yourself, you do have to remember that dialect continua often look far more homogenous from without than from within. Seemingly minor little differences are far more noticable when one is actually used to specific forms within a given dialect continuum; hence why North American English, for the most part, sounds pretty much just the same to people who aren't English-speaking North Americans, and yet people from Chicago, just about an hour and a half or so south of Milwaukee at average freeway speeds, apparently think that the English spoken in the Milwaukee area "sounds weird". And that's just over a very small section of the NAE dialect continuum. On the other hand, there are cases where dialect variation is glaringly obvious as soon as one is exposed to much at all beyond a formal standard language, such as in the case of German or Italian, but often in cases like that much of the main reason why such may be thought of at all as a single language is because of having a single shared standard literary language.
Vytenis   Mon Aug 22, 2005 12:32 pm GMT
Yes, but still I believe the dialectal differences within the US are smaller than those within Britain...
Uriel   Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:18 am GMT
I agree, Vytenis.
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:06 am GMT
It would be difficult to find a country with such a variety of accents and dialects in such a small, compact area as the British Isles. I include the island of Ireland here as it is part of the group of a total of 405 islands, some very tiny indeed, that make up the Republic of Ireland and Bill Bryson's Small Island.

This geographical area is not much more than a third of the size of the US State of Texas. How many accent variations are there in TX? Several other US States are larger in area as well..one beig Montana which has half the population of Greater Birmingham.


Today is 23 August 2005 and exactly 700 years ago our great Scottish hero Sir William Wallace - aka Braveheart - was brutally murdered by the English in London...on 23 August 1305. "Treason" - Scottish patriotism taken as treason - a patriot fighting his ground against invaders from the South taking by storm what was then essentially a foreign country.

Braveheart - In Memoriam

http://www.williamwallaceta.com/page2.html


OK we are all friends now (except on the Rugby pitch).

To all the English out there - thanks for your £11billion pa subsidies.

To all those "guilty" American tourists out there - Scotland is NOT NOT NOT part of England! "Oh last year we went to England and visited Edinburgh (usually pronounced "Edinburrow") Pass that on to Fox News! please!! Grrrrrr! If they only knew how f*****g irritating that is. Apart from that: Hi! :-)
Damian   Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:14 am GMT
In case anyone asks for the relevance of my above post and the title of this thread...... J K Rowling thought up and wrote most of the HP stories here in Edinburgh and she now lives not far from here in Perthshire (or is it Stirling?) not sure without checking it out... just the other side of the Firth of Forth somewhere. Anyway, that's the reason.

I have a St Andrew cross (Saltaire) flag flying from my bedroom window and lots of us have wee ones on our desks in the office.
Candy   Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:35 am GMT
William Wallace - aka Braveheart - was brutally murdered by the English in London>>

What, ALL of them? Or do you only mean that he was executed (or murdered) on the orders of the King?

Scottish patriotism taken as treason - a patriot fighting his ground against invaders>>

Don't get carried away with this. Do you honestly think that 'patriotism' is an appropriate concept for 700 years ago? It was far, far more complicated than that. The film 'Braveheart' is a Hollywood movie, not a documentary. Most of the events in that film are demonstrably not true, most notoriously the 'prima noctae' (sp?) and the French princess who gets pregnant by Gibson, uhm, Wallace. She was in fact 9 years old in 1305 and in France. Damian, please check your history before posting anti-English crap like this. There's enough of that on this forum already.
Damian: you have be 0wned   Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:56 am GMT
Travis   Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:06 am GMT
Candy, for starters, since when did Damian make any reference whatsoever to the events in Braveheart the movie? Yes, one may be able to criticize ascribing the events of the Anglo-Scottish Wars as being related to patriotism at all, as at times it was more like a civil war involving feudal politics with intervention by the English on the behalf of one of the parties involved, at least in the First Anglo-Scottish War, but Damian still did not say anything with respect to the historicity or lack thereof of the events in the movie Braveheart whatsoever.
Candy   Wed Aug 24, 2005 11:53 am GMT
Travis, to think that Wallace was fighting for 'Scottish patriotism' comes straight from 'Braveheart' and the industry that's grown up around it, whether that's what Damian specifically referred to or not.
Second, it was intervention by the English KING, not 'the English'.
Third, I don't know what nationality you are, but I'm just so sick of the anti-Englishness of some Scots (and I'm not referring to Damian here). The last time I was in Scotland was not long after 'Braveheart' had come out. One person spat at me in the street when he heard my English accent, and another told me 'you English murdered Wallace and now I know why we hate you'.
Fourth, Damian and I have made up on another thread!
Damian in peaceful Scotla   Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:50 pm GMT
Now then you two......it's not worth scrapping over whether I said this, that or the other...! Kiss and make up now and have a piece of dundee cake my mum made.

Aye...CANDY and I are the best of mates.....actually the film Braveheart distorted some of the facts so what's new but we won't go there. The main bone of contention here in Scotland was the guy they selected to play Wallace.

True...it was 700 years ago and it's a whole new ballgame now but Wallace is still revered here by many people as Scotland's main hero and patriot and that monument on top of the hill dominating Stirling is regard as a shrine.

Candy, if anyone behaves like that toward you next time you're in Scotland just let me know and I'll sort them out for you! I reckon it was just an overhyped inflamed passion after seeing the film that caused that stupid hostility.

There will always be banter and spats between the English and the Scots and both sides give as good as they get but when the chips are down and if ever a common danger faced us both we'd be as one.

During the World Cup last year when England went as far as they did some Scots said they would support any team playing against England. But believe me, a great many Scots supported England.......but didn't have the bottle to admit it! It was like admitting to some character flaw It's silly really but as I say....it's just a love-hate relationship - you love us and we hate you...or is it the other way round? :-) who cares. You're always welcome here...and we want your dosh.......
Candy   Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:47 pm GMT
Hey Damian. Yeah, 99.5% of all the Scots I've met have been friendly, but unfortunately it's the horrible ones you remember...:(
As you say, we may shout at each other sometimes but we'll never be at war with each other again and it's our friendship that counts, not the occasional idiot (and I'm sure some English people can be just as bloody ignorant towards the Scots when they've got some drink inside them)
Did you have a good time at uni in Leeds? I was at Manchester myself, just over the Pennines!
Uriel   Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:46 pm GMT
You made up? Damn! I was looking forward to some GOOD teeth-gnashing!
Candy   Wed Aug 24, 2005 7:48 pm GMT
Sorry Uriel...Anglo-Scots relations have warmed up considerably!!
(I'm still contemplating doing the teeth-gnashing thing on the other forum though!) ;)
Uriel   Wed Aug 24, 2005 7:58 pm GMT
Excellent....Sander is becoming too tame...
Candy   Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:02 pm GMT
Sander - tame??
Surely not!
Sander, what's happening to you?!