4 ms·

Received pronunciation

5 points by __ 19y ago

bootload 19y ago
"... the Bantu languages of Africa, the Indo-European group from Eurasia and the Austronesians of the Pacific ..." While it was a good read it had absolutely nothing to do with RP. RP cuts through the Commonwealth nations marking those who speak it, as "English educated". It doesn't matter if you are from Calcutta, or Canberra, Kingston or Kowloon. If you have received RP training you can still be understood. RP or "Received pronunciation" is a technique that provides accentless enunciation of "Standard English". Taught to foreigners (mostly Commonwealth) as an effective means of communication across language barriers. It is most often (mistakenly) associated only with the English upper class , classically trained Shakespearian actors and BBC World service announcers. "... To do so he looked at three well-studied parts of the linguistic family tree: the Bantu languages of Africa, the Indo-European group from Eurasia and the Austronesians of the Pacific. ..." Who are "Austronesians"? Without looking at Dr. Pagels original work [0] I don't know if he used this term but in terms of language, the term "Austronesians" is a nonsense word. In Australia there are over 800 non english langauges. Probably about the same in New Guinea. [1] This is not even including the Indonesia Archipelago which spreads 5000km across 1700 Islands. So to use such a term in a study of languages is a bit far fetched. "... Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel and his colleagues at the University of Reading, UK, used a comparative database of Indo-European languages to trace the words used to express 200 different meanings in 87 different languages ..." In New Scientist I found a better summary of what the study was about. [2] [0] http://www.ams.rdg.ac.uk/Staff/academic/Professor%20Mark%20Pagel.htm http://www.ams.rdg.ac.uk/Staff/academic/Professor%20Mark%20P... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guinea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guinea [2] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12772-language-mutations-affect-leastused-words.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12772-language-mutatio...

5 points by __ 19y ago

"... the Bantu languages of Africa, the Indo-European group from Eurasia and the Austronesians of the Pacific ..." While it was a good read it had absolutely nothing to do with RP. RP cuts through the Commonwealth nations marking those who speak it, as "English educated". It doesn't matter if you are from Calcutta, or Canberra, Kingston or Kowloon. If you have received RP training you can still be understood. RP or "Received pronunciation" is a technique that provides accentless enunciation of "Standard English". Taught to foreigners (mostly Commonwealth) as an effective means of communication across language barriers. It is most often (mistakenly) associated only with the English upper class , classically trained Shakespearian actors and BBC World service announcers. "... To do so he looked at three well-studied parts of the linguistic family tree: the Bantu languages of Africa, the Indo-European group from Eurasia and the Austronesians of the Pacific. ..." Who are "Austronesians"? Without looking at Dr. Pagels original work [0] I don't know if he used this term but in terms of language, the term "Austronesians" is a nonsense word. In Australia there are over 800 non english langauges. Probably about the same in New Guinea. [1] This is not even including the Indonesia Archipelago which spreads 5000km across 1700 Islands. So to use such a term in a study of languages is a bit far fetched. "... Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel and his colleagues at the University of Reading, UK, used a comparative database of Indo-European languages to trace the words used to express 200 different meanings in 87 different languages ..." In New Scientist I found a better summary of what the study was about. [2] [0] http://www.ams.rdg.ac.uk/Staff/academic/Professor%20Mark%20Pagel.htm http://www.ams.rdg.ac.uk/Staff/academic/Professor%20Mark%20P... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guinea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guinea [2] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12772-language-mutations-affect-leastused-words.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12772-language-mutatio...