# Examples of formal vs. non-formal speech in non-English language? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 21, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670 "2014-07-21T16:28:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/21 "2014-07-21T21:00:13Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > There are a few Vulgar Latin texts, like that woman Egeria who wrote the story of her pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the 4th century. It’s an invaluable text for studying how VL evolved into Romance languages. That woman Egeria! Is this available anywhere online? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/22 "2014-07-21T21:07:31Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > One thing that I have heard, anecdotally, is that the social distinctions in the Japanese language cause grief for a lot of westerners who watch a lot of anime and get exposed to large doses of anime-heroine Japanese that is really only appropriate for young girls. Guy watches lots of anime, assumes he’s picked up enough Japanese, goes to Tokyo, tries to communicate, locals fall over laughing and tell him to stop talking like a 13 year old girl who has been overdosing on sugar all day. I’ve heard that story before, and I think it’s a myth, because a young Western male anime fan is highly unlikely to have limited himself to anime with 13-year-old female protagonists. It’s more likely that he would imitate highly informal male usages, like “kimi” for “you”, that would not be appropriate in addressing a stranger (unless you were threatening him with a weapon, or treating him as a social inferior). ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/23 "2014-07-21T21:16:30Z")
In Francophone Africa, newscasters, professors and those putting on airs take great pride in speaking perfectly Parisian French. Everyone else speaks a version of French with a completely different rhythm, a strong accent (which is thankfully much easier for Americans), slightly different grammar rules and a whole range of new vocabulary ranging from slang to local loan words to uniquely African phrasings. I learned French in Cameroon, and last time I spoke with a French guy he told me “You sound like a leeeetle black boy.” In China, Mandarin (Beijing’s dialect) rules, with Cantonese taking second place. But nearly every town has it’s own dialect, which can become almost unintelligible with Mandarin. My town switched two of the tones, pronounced many of the continents differently (Hu Jintao was Fu Jintao to us), dropped some letters shifted the vowels and used unique vocabulary. Having spent some time learning Mandarin, I was dumbfounded to arrive and discover even learn I couldn’t even do basic tasks. Local dialects have some hometown pride to them, but definitely are looked down on. I was constantly asked why I was bothering to learn local language-- despite the fact that I had very little need to speak with people from Beijing. and every need in the world to speak to taxi drivers, market ladies and waitstaff, who mostly didn’t speak Manadrin. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/24 "2014-07-21T21:25:41Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > I hope this doesn’t cross into GD territory, but … hmmm… how can I say this politely? Many people who are accustomed to standard English look down upon [Ebonics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African_American_Vernacular_English). But that’s only an example. It is probably true of any language used by a particular group. In fact, I would offer the phrase “grammar nazis” as evidence that precise grammar carries a stigma among people who speak less formally. Dialects and sociolects are one thing; it would be pointless to decry the use of Ebonics in contemporary R&B lyrics, or of what Tom Wolfe called “Fuck Patois” among college fraternities (keep in mind this was a fictional setting). But the language being mangled by educated professionals–mind you, professionals at writing and speaking, who are using it in official or public contexts is what goads many purists to the posting of acerbic comments on websites. For instance, three-vowel strong verbs like drink/drank/drunk seem to be going the way of the dodo, as even educated speakers seem increasingly incapable of understanding when to use each of the three forms, so it’s now becoming “drink”/“drank”/“have drank”. I see and hear “have came”, “have ran”, and “have ate”, a good deal; the last one by the presenter in an NPR segment. When I was coming up, examples like this were kindergarten talk, by the time we were a little older than that, most of us internalized the distinction automatically because that was how the people around us spoke. We expect dialects to be different, but it now seems that there will soon no longer be an expected standard of usage in any context, so the language will be a collection of dialects not particularly caring to search for the standard language. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/25 "2014-07-21T21:27:37Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > That woman Egeria! > > Is this available anywhere online? _Latine_ [http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin\_Vulgar/Texts/Peregrinatio\_Aetheriae.html](http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin_Vulgar/Texts/Peregrinatio_Aetheriae.html) In English [The Pilgrimage of Egeria](http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/26 "2014-07-21T21:28:47Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#): > > Can you give examples of some of these languages? And elaborate on what you mean exactly? I can’t imagine men and women who speak these languages literally can’t communicate with each other (or couldn’t if you’re referring to ancient languages that were like this). Actually, no, I can’t, but I remember reading about it, and I think it might have been in New Guinea. There is a general language that is known to everyone, but a second language, which is known only by men, and there is a taboo against revealing this secret language to women. ---
**Author:** ![newme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e0b2c6/32.png) [@newme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newme)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/27 "2014-07-21T21:29:34Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > That woman Egeria! > > Is this available anywhere online? Here is a small sample, in Latin, of the [_Peregrinatio Aetheriae_](http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin_Vulgar/Texts/Peregrinatio_Aetheriae.html). [English translation here.](http://www.scribd.com/doc/81863661/Peregrinatio-Aetheriae-English) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/28 "2014-07-21T21:38:14Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > There are a few Vulgar Latin texts, like that woman Egeria who wrote the story of her pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the 4th century. It’s an invaluable text for studying how VL evolved into Romance languages. Right, but none from the first century AD, which was the period referenced in the post I responded to. ---
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/29 "2014-07-21T22:13:16Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > In China, Mandarin (Beijing’s dialect) rules, with Cantonese taking second place. But nearly every town has it’s own dialect, which can become almost unintelligible with Mandarin. My town switched two of the tones, pronounced many of the continents differently (Hu Jintao was Fu Jintao to us), dropped some letters shifted the vowels and used unique vocabulary. Having spent some time learning Mandarin, I was dumbfounded to arrive and discover even learn I couldn’t even do basic tasks. > > Local dialects have some hometown pride to them, but definitely are looked down on. I was constantly asked why I was bothering to learn local language-- despite the fact that I had very little need to speak with people from Beijing. and every need in the world to speak to taxi drivers, market ladies and waitstaff, who mostly didn’t speak Manadrin. Calling all of the Han dialects “dialects” is a very political action in China as well. Especially now, when having a ‘language’ is a defining factor for recognized ethnic minorities in China. **even sven** , I learned this kind of distinction for naming Chinese when I was there, does it sound right to you? Zhong guo hua - Han yu - Zhong wen - Pu tong hua - (Insert city/province name) hua The first four terms are typically used to mean Mandarin. The first, though, has it’s broadest meaning include all languages spoken in China, including the ethnic minority languages. Han yu can include Mandarin and also the dialects, like Cantonese or the Shanghai dialect. Zhong wen and Pu tong hua are specifically used to refer to Mandarin only, with Pu Tong Hua (People’s Language) being the more politically correct term. Local Han dialects and minority languages are often referred to using the place name/nationality name - Cantonese is Guangdong Hua, Shanghaiese is Shanghai Hua, etc. This is muddied by the fact that there are also dialects within Cantonese or other province-designated dialects. The names of other countries’ languages seem to loosely follow the following convention - if the name is a transliteration (like Spain - Xi Ban Ya) the language is denoted with Yu. If the country is a “Guo” (or Land, this includes England - Ying Guo, and Germany, De Guo) then the language is denoted either as Wen without the Guo (like Ying Wen - English), or Hua if you use the Guo (like E Guo Hua - Russia). Any clarification or correction on these observations would be appreciated! I agree with even sven’s observation on the Chinese hometown languages. The pride/authenticity/provinciality associations with these languages vary from place to place and are fascinating. I once started a project where I asked people to sing a Mandarin song in their local languages. Still wish I could get a grant to finish it. To address the OP, Mexican Spanish, particularly in the north where my family is from, has incorporated a lot of English loanwords that are not always approved of in formal speech. In Russian, there is a lot of what was called prison language that has become mainstream to a degree. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/30 "2014-07-21T22:13:19Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I can think of a handful of English words which are used mainly by women, at least in my dialect, like “lovely” and “darling”. Yes, but even if they tend to be used more by one gender than the other, I’d say that they have the same meaning regardless who says it. But your point made me think of how sharply this contrasts with the word “girlfriend”. In my experience, women use this to simply mean “a friend who happens to be female”. But men tend it to mean “a friend who I’m friendly with, _because_ she is female, among other reasons.” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/31 "2014-07-21T23:44:56Z")
I used to know a woman from Denmark who married an American and settled there. She had learned English largely from reading Hemingway and her English was rather salty. She had to learn to tone it down in polite company or, especially when applying for a job. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/32 "2014-07-22T06:12:17Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I used to know a woman from Denmark who married an American and settled there. She had learned English largely from reading Hemingway and her English was rather salty. She had to learn to tone it down in polite company or, especially when applying for a job. David Suzuki, noted Canadian biologist and ecologist, did not speak Japanese. He learned a few words from his parents, but had to have an interpreter when he visited Japan. (He mentioned that this completely confused his hosts - they automatically associated ethnic Japanese with “speaks Japanese” and even his translator would forget at times and start talking to him in Japanese). He mentioned looking for the washroom once and used one of the few bits of Japanese he know, only to find out that his grandparents came from fairly lower-class rural peasants so he was essentially asking in a fancy restaurant “where’s the shit-house?”. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/33 "2014-07-22T07:01:24Z")
Afrikaans has a formal/familiar distinction a little similar to the old English “Thou”/“You” or the French “Tu”/“Vu” etc. - the difference is between “U”/“Jou”. But that’s not what the OP was asking, exactly. There’s definitely several _infra dig_ Afrikaans dialects and accents - the Cape Flats “Kaapse Taal” variant is basically the Afrikaans AAVE equivalent, the Namaqualand dialect with its “brei” (use of the uvular _R_) is the social equivalent of a West Country accent (“get orf moi land!”) or a rural Texan drawl, the “breker” language of the old Transvaal miners and mechanics finds its parallel in 50s greasers and Jersey Shore… Formal Afrikaans used to be closer to pure Dutch. Nowadays, it’s just the accent of the TV presenter, just like BBC English/RP and General American. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/34 "2014-07-22T08:05:53Z")
Note that the so-called Chinese “dialects” are no such thing. They are different languages which are mutually unintelligible. One standard count of the Chinese languages is that there are fourteen of them, one of which isn’t spoken in China: [http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/chinese](http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/chinese) An approximate analogy is that the Chinese languages are similar to the Germanic branch of Indo-European: [http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/germanic](http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/germanic) So just as speakers of English, German, Swedish, Dutch, etc. can’t quite understand each other, although they can occasionally with some thought notice resemblances between their languages and guess at the meanings of words, speakers of the various Chinese languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Dungan, etc.) can’t quite understand each other but can see resemblances. I’ve heard recently that there is some suspicion among non-Chinese linguists specializing in Chinese that the Chinese government has been working to downplay the number of different Chinese languages. It may be more like forty or fifty different languages, not fourteen. The official position of the Chinese government is to call the fourteen Chinese languages “dialects,” as though there were only minor differences between so they are mutually intelligible. The linguists are sure this isn’t true. It’s suspected furthermore that if one could actually do a survey of all the rural villages of China, one would find speakers of language varieties which are supposedly a dialect of one of the fourteen Chinese languages but which are actually so different that they should be thought of as separate languages. Please note that when I spoke above of the Chinese languages, I was talking about the fourteen closely related languages we usually call Chinese. More precisely, these are called the Han languages. There are many other languages spoken in China, some related to the Chinese languages and some not related. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/35 "2014-07-22T08:09:16Z")
So are you saying Chinese (let’s say Mandarin, that’s the Beijing lingo, right?) _doesn’t_ have dialects? That a banker and a street vendor would have basically identical idiolects? ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/36 "2014-07-22T08:21:22Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Right, but none from the first century AD, which was the period referenced in the post I responded to. Actually, if you don’t mind me quibbling for a moment (and what are we here for if not to quibble?), there are hundreds of Vulgar Latin texts from the first century AD — but they’re a) mostly quite short, and b) scratched into walls. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/37 "2014-07-22T08:27:08Z")
MrDibble writes: \> So are you saying Chinese (let’s say Mandarin, that’s the Beijing lingo, right?) \> doesn’t have dialects? No, I’m not saying that at all. Mandarin has various regional dialects. It presumably also has dialects based on socioeconomic distinctions or some such. I’m saying that Mandarin is a language, not a dialect of Chinese. Each of the other thirteen Chinese languages has their own regional dialects. It’s just that we shouldn’t refer to Mandarin as a dialect of Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/38 "2014-07-22T14:55:29Z")
Look at Dutch for a good example: the formal language (Ik dank U) and the colloquial one (Dank U wel). ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/39 "2014-07-25T01:58:34Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > _Latine_ [http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin\_Vulgar/Texts/Peregrinatio\_Aetheriae.html](http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin_Vulgar/Texts/Peregrinatio_Aetheriae.html) > In English [The Pilgrimage of Egeria](http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm) Thank you! I tried to find it myself but was only coming up with English translations. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670/40 "2014-07-25T03:49:51Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Of course, there are grammar nazis everywhere. How do you comfort a grammar nazi who is depressed? Hug them, pat them on the back and say, “They’re, there, their”. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-formal-vs-non-formal-speech-in-non-english-language/693670.md?page=1)