Are you saying every single American is culturally the same as every other American? That no American individual has a cultural framework and expression that another American would find “different”? That the local culture in Hawaii is identical to that in Kentucky?
There is an American culture, but it is pluralistic, and therefore various individuals will express different parts of it. I’m not sure why this statement is offensive to you.
Although I’ve been long aware of the Isle of Man, I had to go look up just what was meant by ‘Manx’. I really didn’t think the kitties were forming up their own thieves cant…
You’d better take down that straw man before it catches fire.
Of course I wasn’t saying that.
I was disagreeing with the expressed claim that there is no one American culture, that America is made up of loads of different cultures etc etc.
The local culture differs between Hawaii and Kentucky. The local culture differs between London and the Highlands. The latter doesn’t mean there is no British culture.
pdts
Y’all, can we get back to discussing the Celtic languages and their revival? A misstatement was made about America having an official language. The misstatement was corrected. Let’s not derail the thread.
I’m late to the thread, and rather than hijack I thought I’d start a separate “Ask the Celticist” thread, which see.
One problem with reviving Irish as a viable living language is that there are several dialects that (at least in the past, prior to Irish language radio and television) diverge quite a bit. A Donegal Irish speaker might have some trouble understanding a Kerry speaker, who in turn might have trouble with a Galway or Waterford Irish speaker. There is also a standardised form of Irish that is taught outside the Gaeltachtaí. Even within the limited geographical confines of this island the language varies quite a bit. So when talking about Irish language culture it is worth noting that it isn’t uniform.
If Irish behaves as other languages historically have done, Irish-language radio and television, and Irish-language instruction in school, will tend to create a Standard Irish - probably the dialect of wherever the Irish-speaking economic and intellectual elites that you mentioned upthread live. (Dublin, I assume, but not necessarily.) This especially if the proportion of Irish-speakers who learned the language in school rises in relation to those who learned it at their mother’s knee.
Irish would, I guess, end up like modern Finnish, which was woven together in the 19th century from various dialects. Standard Finnish is the formal language - the dialect of newscasts and speeches - while at home, Finns speak their demotic dialect. German, too, is in the same situation.
If Irish were to be revived, this is what I would expect to see.
I remember hearing something about Welsh translation being outsourced to Argentina, with its anomolously large cymruphone population.
You, put down the sabre, were accusing me of saying America has no culture. I was trying to get through to you that I never said any such thing. I said that America has cultural variations, often expressed through language, even though America has no official language.
Again, which part of that is offensive to you?
(And cut it out with the strawman talk. I am being civil, please return the favour).
When did I accuse you of saying America has no culture?
Please quote.
pdts
Yes by all means derail the thread again.