>You are no longer speaking "standard" English unless you live in Wales! http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-802.html http://ask.metafilter.com/68910/Did-Indian-accent-descend-from-Welsh-tutelage Judy Evans, Cardiff, UK ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Wager" <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 1:59 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Outsourcing shinannigans > Julie Krueger wrote: > > > . . . .Hey -- if you live in another country and English is your > > second language, fine by me. But why pretend? > > Recently I was reading an article that said if one defined "standard" > English as "the English that is most commonly spoken," then the Indian > version is currently the "standard" by which we should judge English. > There are FAR more speakers of English that sound like the help desk > person. You are no longer speaking "standard" English. And in 10 years, > neither will the Indians; by then, the way the Chinese speak English > will be the "standard." We've already seen this happen, of course, when > American English supplanted English English, and became the kind of > English that most Indians and Chinese learn. Now it's the Americans turn > to move out of the way of English progress. . . . > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html