On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 10:11 PM, ss <[email protected]> wrote: > . My sister in law from the US was > baby-sitting her niece from England for a while in Bangalore. The little > girl > said "I want woota". So my SiL thought the little girl is aking for a meal > (oota) in Kannada. But the girl said "No not oota. Woota" > > She meant "water" which the Brits pronounce as woota. My SiL from America > thought water was "wa'er" in Americanese. It is, of course wah-tarr for > Indians. >
Saritha Rai has just written something about English being THE language....the link, and my response to it, are at http://deponti.livejournal.com/917833.html I think that whether "native tongues" survive or not, English itself, as it gets spoken globally, will acquire local overtones, and fracture into as many dialects, as there arelanguages now.....I can already say that the language spoken by the Geordies, the Cockneys, Singaporeans, Bengalis, and so on, are all very different from each other, and as proof that every thought I think has been thunk before (and better expressed)..... Alan Jay Lerner said famously, in "My Fair Lady", that they haven't used English in America for years. Deepa.
