Twitter and the Languages of London

So, does this mean that we are two countries separated by 9 languages now?

Pardon me Winston.

To quote Henry Higgins:

"Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their Greek."

Maybe I should go back a full century to G.B. Shaw's Pygmalion to ask the pertinent question, why would today be different than the past?

For the first time since I got it I downloaded a ring tone for my too smart phone. Enry Eggins in MFL.

I'll have to have my 13 YO show me how to work the flippin thing.

I have to find out how. I want to make one of an English railway announcer and find how to upload it. If that doesn't work, then one of a steam train starting out.

The rine in Spine sties minely in the pline!

--Eliza

The critical phrase in the article is "based on Twitter use". Don't be fooled into thinking that this might genuinely show "linguistic diversity". There are languages, such as Urdu, which are much more widely spoken than even Spanish and French, but they don't feature on the map. I have spent many years in East, North and West London, so I know a bit of the linguistic diversity that features in these parts. To me, the "Twitter" map is an interesting novelty, and quite a fun idea, but also a rather meaningless mis-representation.

I have not now, nor will I ever Tweet.

Ditto!

The service is called Twitter, not Tweeter. So the messages should be called Twits.

I'm still not going to use it.

Oh, please!

Tweet isn't like..................never mind.........

You must not Tweet, either.

A few days ago I watched a YouTube video of a guy demonstrating some Astronomy software I was interested in. To my ear, the guy sounded exactly like the British actor Michael Caine. (A slightly deeper voice, but seemingly the same accent.) Apparently some other person thought the same thing and said so, in the comments section below the video.

The guy doing the video saw the comment and commented back 'You've just gotta be an American.' So I gather that, to the British guy in the YouTube video, he doesn't think he sounds anything like Michael Caine. Such are the fine points of dialect, where one speaker can recognize minor differences in another's accent.

I know from living in the US South that there is a huge difference between a Mississippi and an Alabama accent, and likewise from an accent in Atlanta vs someone from the southern, rural part of GA. Some people in Northern GA sound like my distant cousins who live in Pennsylvania.

Here's the YouTube video I mentioned. Tell me this guy doesn't sound like Michael Caine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWaKkCUm6c

Hell no! I have a mid-Atlantic accent and I sound more like Michael Caine than that guy. Different parts of the London metropolis.

I know what you mean Usbport! Doug is a real nice guy! I've been through all his videos on stacking and processing! DSS is a great piece of software as long as you get the right version! For planetary I also use Registax!

Its the same in the Scottish Borders where I grew up and still live. Each town/village has its own distictive dialect. The town of Coldstream and village of Cornhill are separated by about 1 mile with a river between, the Coldstream dialect is strongly Scottish and Cornhill is strongly Northumbrian ( north east England). Still it makes for more interesting conversation.

I, as a Londoner, would not understand if I overheard a private conversation between two Glaswegians, or one between two Geordies (Northumbrians), and they wouldn't understand two Cockneys; but we all had modified dialects that allowed us to work and play together with complete understanding.

Absolutely agree there, I had to rapidly modify mine in my first few days at Uni in Edinburgh.

I have many friends from all over the UK and we all have to modify our dialects to understand eachother. Same goes for humour.

I'm off to Northern Ireland to work for a few days next week, should be interesting, I wonder if they all speak like Ian Paisley or Gerry Adams ( surely not!! ).

Worst I heard was a friend at university, born in Scotland but grew up in Newcastle. Few could understand him (I was one of the few, having spent a few years in the NorthEast). It was interesting to see how his accent changed over the course of 4 years.

There is no truth in the rumour that YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are to amalgamate into one new entity called "YouTwitFace".

Very ineresting…more importantly thanks for shpwing the full data and the high proportion of unknowns. Google translate is good but not foolproof

Love the maps in particukar, it is a shame it could not have another map superimposed on it