3 ms·

I find it fascinating how mixing vocabulary and grammatical rules from two different languages can create something which is not understandable by speakers of o

I find it fascinating how mixing vocabulary and grammatical rules from two different languages can create something which is not understandable by speakers of only one of those language, especially when spoken fast. In my circle of friends/family we're all bilingual french/english, so when speaking to eachother we tend to speak with a mix of both while conserving proper British and French prononciation. Sometimes conjugating English verbs in French and vice-versa. A normal sentence would be: "Je book a table et on se voit downtown". In an isolated society it would probably evolve into a creole, but our little pidgin will certainly die with us.

jlg23 7y ago
I do the same when I have to converse in 2 or more languages daily. "On a besoin a room fuer zwei Personen por tres noches!" -- me to the housekeeper in the Dominican Republic (she did not understand it, but we had a good laugh)
- goodcanadian 7y ago
  I love the fact that I can understand that even though I consider myself largely monolingual. The only word I had to look up was zwei though it is clear from context that it is a number.
codetrotter 7y ago
It’d be interesting as well to know if someone from your family and someone from another family who were doing the same kind of thing with English/French would be able to communicate very easily, or if your family and the other family would be combining the languages in each of your sufficiently unique ways that the two families would actually struggle a little to understand the other.
- titanix2 7y ago
  What is sad is the corporate speech in France which looks like this for no reason, because not only people are not really that good in English, but also the used words have French equivalents (e.g. "J’peux pas aller au meeting car j’ai un call avec la team qui bosse en remote"). As I’m living abroad I use a lot of local words in my speech with other French or locals that speak French but most of the time it’s because there is no direct or short equivalent.
jacobush 7y ago
Something similar happens to my Finnish friends growing up in Sweden. When they speak Finnish in Finland, sometimes the response is ?????? They were using too many words clearly imported from Swedish, but with Finnish pronunciation and conjugation in their sentences. (Easily understood by anyone fluent in both Swedish and Finnish.)
United857 7y ago
Yes, this is very widespread amongst multilingual families, it even has a name: code-switching. People do it almost unconsciously in many places where cultures mix (e.g. Singapore where "Singlish" can almost be considered its own language at this point)

jlg23 7y ago

I do the same when I have to converse in 2 or more languages daily. "On a besoin a room fuer zwei Personen por tres noches!" -- me to the housekeeper in the Dominican Republic (she did not understand it, but we had a good laugh)

goodcanadian 7y ago
I love the fact that I can understand that even though I consider myself largely monolingual. The only word I had to look up was zwei though it is clear from context that it is a number.

codetrotter 7y ago

It’d be interesting as well to know if someone from your family and someone from another family who were doing the same kind of thing with English/French would be able to communicate very easily, or if your family and the other family would be combining the languages in each of your sufficiently unique ways that the two families would actually struggle a little to understand the other.

titanix2 7y ago
What is sad is the corporate speech in France which looks like this for no reason, because not only people are not really that good in English, but also the used words have French equivalents (e.g. "J’peux pas aller au meeting car j’ai un call avec la team qui bosse en remote"). As I’m living abroad I use a lot of local words in my speech with other French or locals that speak French but most of the time it’s because there is no direct or short equivalent.

jacobush 7y ago

Something similar happens to my Finnish friends growing up in Sweden. When they speak Finnish in Finland, sometimes the response is ?????? They were using too many words clearly imported from Swedish, but with Finnish pronunciation and conjugation in their sentences. (Easily understood by anyone fluent in both Swedish and Finnish.)

United857 7y ago

Yes, this is very widespread amongst multilingual families, it even has a name: code-switching. People do it almost unconsciously in many places where cultures mix (e.g. Singapore where "Singlish" can almost be considered its own language at this point)