English In Filipinos Colleges And Universities

[Americano]

Here's something interesting to me when talking about English in the Philippines. Standard American English has several rules you must follow for correct English. In the Philippines those rules are either not known or not followed. Here's one example: A noun is the name of a person, place, thing or idea, etc., so a person's name is a noun. This is not always true in the Philippines. A store owner I know is named Earn, which is a verb. I could ask him the question, how much money do you earn Earn and my sentence would be correct.

 

A 1st cousin who lived with us for several months is named Lovely, which is a Adjective. An Adjective is not a noun, is helps describe a noun, such as, you're a lovely lady. Some of the foreigners she was chatting with on line asked her, what is your first name. Every time she told them its Lovely they replied by saying I know you are lovely but what's your real name? I don't believe anyone ever believed that her name is an adjective.

[Thomas]

Steve & Myrlita, on 19 Feb 2014 - 01:53 AM, said: Who was the genius who set up the schools with "Filipino English" in the 1st place? Who ever started this did a good job of holding back the people to uneducated masses. If this had not been done and the standard English had been left in place, who knows for far forward Filipinos could have gone. What a waste just because of Filipino Pride being more important than having a good job. It was part of a nationalism movement that dates back to the Commonwealth period.

The "local nationalism/rehionalism" make it even more complicated. Many Visayans don't want to talk Filipino (="Tagalog"), because it's to close to Tagalog (=Manila local language) and they are irritated at Tagalog got that much higher position than Visayan/Cebuano, although as a local language it was almost as big as Tagalog.

Another example is the introduction of Taglish (Tagalog-English) in the media about 40 years ago.

And many mix them with Cebuano/other local language too, which make translators as Google go nuts answering it means something not understandable  :mocking:    So in some cases I need to translate SAME text from Tagalog, English AND Cebuano and then try to do some "dechiffering" to get an understandable text. It don't became easier by many can't spell...

[JJReyes]

The estimate is about 40% of native born Americans do not speak Standard American English. Examples include Ebonics and Louisiana Creole. There is also a large first generation immigrant population speaking various versions of Pidgin. Linguists claim there are 10 distinctive English dialects spoken in the United States.

[alsuave]

It's true that there are many dialects in the US, but it's been my experience that most Americans can speak standard English when they want to. I have many Hawaiian friends who speak pidgin amongst themselves but have no trouble communicating in Engilsh with others. It's the same with my buddies from the West Indies.

Edited February 19, 2014 by alsuave

[MacBubba]

Assumption has an Antipolo campus for grade school and high school.

 

(Sorry, I was trying to do a selective quote of something posted yesterday.  For some reason, I can't get it to work.)

Edited February 20, 2014 by MacBubba

[Gerald Glatt]

10 wow that is more than I thought JJ.  My definition of standard american englis would be a midwestern accent like Il or Ks, sort of Dan Ratherish .  Having grown up all over this land there are many accents,  it is easy to tell a Georgian from a Carolinian even though they border.  Floridians sound more like Texians then the rest of the south  the western states will stretch the long vowels and cut the constants off, and any one that can easily understand a New Yorker ir New Englander  without great concentration, must live there.  I think of Creole both from La and Haiti as a French dialect.  The US does not have an 'official' language as you know so Spanish may become our second  like French in Canada.  10 JJ mmm  I will check the difference between accent  and dialect mon ami.

  

[JJReyes]

Educators try to make a distinction between "Academic English" as spoken in a classroom and "Street English" which is the language between friends and family members. Television broadcasters and movie script writers were careful to use Standard American English until the early 1980's. Things changed and the line between the two became blurred.

 

Even President Obama is responsible for changes. Growing up in Hawaii, he likes the expression, "You guys." This is wrong even for Hawaiian pidgin. It should be, "You folks." because "guys" refers to a small circle of close friends. Now, reporters are copying him! Even Wolf Blitzer of CNN.

 

Language is continually evolving and new words are added. The grammar and syntax are also changing. The exception are the French who have a language police. The funny story by Anthony Bourdain is someone in Quebec, Canada  used the word, "Pasta" in his restaurant sign. The owner had to remove it because "Pasta" is not a recognized French word.

[Miguk]

Words change meaning and a living language is correct however the speakers choose to use it (grammer nazis notwithstanding).  Bald meant white haired at the beginning of the United States thus the bald eagle as the national bird.

[Americano]

In Alabama "you guys" sounds too gay too us. We still say ya'll which could be translated as you all.

[Gerald Glatt]

Rhat's youse guys, y'all