Linguae Europaeae

by Camila Martinica Camila Martinica is a senior in Global Studies at The University of Illinois. Camila’s future plans include applying to graduate school. She wrote this blog post in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ in spring 2019. Have you ever been walking down by a beach and noticed the different ways that people communicate with each other? How one group of people can be talking in “American” English while the others speak in “British” English? Or have you noticed how you pick up bits and pieces of a language that you thought you knew, for example Spanish, but in reality what you start hearing is a mixture of two languages and people are just switching from one language, or “code,” to another within the same sentence? This is a phenomenon known as code-switching and I think it makes you feel like you’re in a different world, right? So, now let me ask you to imagine this: You’re in North Africa, walking on the Southern coast of the Mediterranean. You’re at the beach and ove...

by Bryan Lu Bryan Lu was a senior in Computer Science when he wrote this blog post in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ in spring 2019. Source:  Wikimedia Commons When someone asks you to talk with a British accent, what do you sound like? Chances are, you are trying to imitate the sound of BBC News broadcasters or 19th century Victorian era nobility. You might even throw in some cliché phrases like, “Jolly good show, old chap!” or “pip pip, cheerio!” While these phrases certainly are very stereotypically English, the British Isles contain much more diversity in accents and dialects of the English language than most people would realize. Just take a look at this list , for example. There are quite a few varieties within England itself, including one known as Received Pronunciation (or RP), which is the accent you were most likely trying to mimic earlier. Furthermore, there are the kinds of English spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, all of which have their own quirks and ...