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Re: "Parallel societies"

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Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> posted:

> On 28/06/26 21:41, occam wrote:
> > On 28/06/2026 13:08, Peter Moylan wrote:
> 
> >> Still, I made some effort to integrate. I worked hard at learning
> >> to speak American.
> >
> > <smile> Would that be white American, or some other variety of AmE?
> 
> Berkeley is a place where you don't often meet a native Californian.

(I thought I had already commented on this, but apparently I forgot to press
post. So I try again. If I did in fact post it, but for reason my computer is
not displaying it, then I apologize for repeating myself.)

In 1968 I went with my fiancée to a party in the house of my boss, at which 
there were about 40 people. Of that 40 there was just one native Californian,
my fiancée, born in Vallejo to parents from Texas and Illinois. For a long
time I thought that my boss was also a native Californian, but no: although 
he came from a family that made a fortune in California during the gold rush
(think Levi-Strauss), he was born in New York.

Of my daughters, the oldest lives in California and was born in Oakland, so
she is a native Californian, but you wouldn't think it to listen to her: she
sounds completely English. The second sounds American, but was born in
Birmingham. THe third sounds completely French when she speaks French, primarily
English when she speaks English, and Chilean when she speaks Spanish. Professor 
Henry Higgins would have a job placing them all by their accents.

> People have migrated there from all over the country, and of course from
> outside the country as well. As a result, there's not a well-defined
> local dialect. It's a mixture of multiple influences, and I guess that[s
> what I learnt to speak. "White American" is as good a description as any.
> 
> The black people in that area speak a rather different dialect. I learnt
> to understand that, but not to speak it.
> 


-- 
athel

Living in Marseilles for 39 years; mainly in England before that,
with long periods in Singapore, California, Chile and Canada 

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"Parallel societies" occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2026-06-27 08:00 +0200
  Re: "Parallel societies" Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-28 11:07 +1000
    Re: "Parallel societies" Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-28 06:11 +0100
      Re: "Parallel societies" Bertel Lund Hansen <rundtosset@lundhansen.dk> - 2026-06-28 10:42 +0200
      Re: "Parallel societies" nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-28 11:01 +0200
      Re: "Parallel societies" Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-28 21:08 +1000
        Re: "Parallel societies" occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2026-06-28 13:41 +0200
          Re: "Parallel societies" Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-29 10:14 +1000
            Re: "Parallel societies" wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) - 2026-06-29 00:55 +0000
            Re: "Parallel societies" athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-06-29 15:04 +0000
        Re: "Parallel societies" Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-28 14:46 +0100
    Re: "Parallel societies" Bertel Lund Hansen <rundtosset@lundhansen.dk> - 2026-06-28 10:40 +0200
      Re: "Parallel societies" liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2026-06-28 15:32 +0100
        Re: "Parallel societies" Bertel Lund Hansen <rundtosset@lundhansen.dk> - 2026-06-28 17:24 +0200

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