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Terri Willard
Joined: Jul 27, 2001
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Gender & Age: Female & 40
Country: Canada
Province/State: Manitoba
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Slang
June 15, 2004 - 01:08 AM
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One of the hardest things about learning a new language is learning the local slang... the words and phrases that are not part of formal language instruction. With the rise of pop culture and youth culture in many parts of the world, slang has grown exponentially.
While many language schools and universities view slang as degenerate language, some are starting to teach it in order to help people fully understand the local culture.
There's a cool article at http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0615/p11s02-legn.html on teaching American slang. It is about a professor in Boston who developed http://www.slangcity.com/
What about your language? Is there a lot of slang? How do people just learning the language pick it up?
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Brian
Joined: Jan 22, 2004
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Re: Slang
June 15, 2004 - 01:53 AM
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If I recall, Florida State University offers a "Street Spanish" course for Criminology and Business majors and related majors. I would like to see more "slang" taught in classes. Anyone know what happened to the Latin language? It was supplanted by "slang" (or "vulgar" languages like: Spanish, French and Italian. Language truly does evolve and is alive. That's why I'm not typing in Eald Engliscgereorde (Old English). Because it doesn't exist anymore! http://www.mun.ca/Ansaxdat/vocab/wordlist.html#o
Rejoyce in the new works and remember the old ones with fondness, I say.
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eva gatwiri
Joined: Jan 12, 2004
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Country: Kenya
Province/State: Nairobi Area
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Sheng - Kenyan Slang
June 28, 2004 - 10:15 AM
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In Kenya, Sheng is actually the unofficial language of Kenya. It has been around for quite some time and has grown from its Kiswahili and English mixture into a new language for the youth. (At one time people were actually pushing for it to become a national language.)
It also fuses words from other ethnic communities to make a truly unique Kenyan language. As with all other slang, it is mainly spoken by the youth. There are a few standard words that even adults understand.
Learning the local slang in Kenya is absolutely necessary because proper English is rarely spoken outside the classroom. If a foreigner is to listen to the slang they would barely understand it even if it's in English sheng because of how intricate it is. However, a foreigner will still be able to communicate in English because it is widely spoken.
The young people who feel too good to talk sheng are quickly classified as "babi", because they feel good like the barbie doll.
check out http://www.afrodome.com/kenya_culture, http://www.g21.net/africa31.html for inside info into Sheng
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Howa
Joined: Sep 9, 2004
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Re: Slang
September 9, 2004 - 07:36 AM
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Cool subject.
Well...I speak more than one language, but for the most part, Arabic is what I find the hardest, but the most intersting of all! It's one of the hardest languages to learn, especially the slang. And the thing is that the slang differs from one Arab country to the other.
There's what is called "formal Arabic" which you could understand. It's wut we read in books, what we hear on the news, etc. That one is the hardest to learn, it's not very close to the slang that we speak..it can be a different language sometimes (u confused ?__?). The slang is also difficult sometimes. But once u get used to it, it'll be easy. Lets say in Jordan for example..their slang is differnt than the one used in Syria, or Kuwait or Egypt, etc. In Morocco, they also speak formal arabic, but their slang is kinda mixed with french. Like most of the things they use have french not arabic names. Therefore, it's really hard for the ppl in other Arab countries to understand wut the Moroccans are saying, until of course, they start speaking the formal arabic. Tunisia, and Algeria...and probably Libya are like Morocco. Their slang is either mixed with another language, like french or spanish, or it's just hard to understand!
Sarsari
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Lim
Joined: Aug 11, 2004
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Country: Malaysia
Province/State: Wilayah Persekutuan
City: Kuala Lumpur
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Caught in Talking!
November 17, 2004 - 03:25 AM
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I love my own slang. In Malaysia, english is not just english, it is Manglish with the combination of Malay and English and Mandarin and some chinese dialect words in a sentence. One certainly has to be a local to actually laugh at the jokes that the slang has given birth to.
However, Malaysians,ourselves still strive to obtain a perfect English. I,personally think it is impossible!!! Americans or any English native speaker themselves could not even get their own English 100% perfectly right.
Anyway, I love Japanese slang too. They have different slangs in different prefecture. There is one that I vividly remember. The Japenese calls mcDonald, Makudo.
Creamy Shirley McSalad
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hobo
Joined: Nov 18, 2004
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Re: Slang
November 19, 2004 - 08:53 AM
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From what I have seen, slang is how language evolves. English, as most languages, has a lot of extraneous words. Plus, the spelling is difficult. Finally, some of the words are unnecessary long. Just to look at my previous sentence as an example.
“Finally, some of the words are unnecessarily long.”
1. We can start by eliminating the extraneous words, such as of, the, and are, to make the sentence shorter, “Finally, some words unnecessarily long”.
2. Lets take a look at the 3 syllable words. Let me substitute some Indonesian words as suitable substitutes: Finally = tros, unnecessarily = no usa (pronounced oo-sah Then we get, “Tros, some words no usa long”.
3. If we let the force the vowels to always sound the same, (no long or short versions). Let A be ah, E be ee, I be eye, and O be oh, and U be oo (as in moon). Then we get the sentence, “Tros, sam wurds no usa long” No we have a perfectly clear and understandable sentence, using Indo-lish.
So, you can see this pigeon English might be slang, but it is much more efficient to speak, write and spell. Yes, it may change the pronunciation slightly, but no worse than American English, British English and Australian English already does. I have no problem with slang entering formal languages.
In fact, some words, such as the Mexican-Spanish word “macho”, is now universally accepted into English because this one word efficiently communicates a whole concept beyond the dictionary definition of stereotypically masculine.
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Martin Tairo
Joined: Aug 18, 2004
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KENYAN MUSIC PROMOTING SLANG
March 29, 2005 - 06:44 AM
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In Kenya, its not hard learning our slang, porpularly known as sheng. This is because most of our young musicians and many radio stations use it as a means of communication. Its a good way that the youth use to promote their feelings. A very recent and effective abstinence campained aimed to the youth has been done in slang. It is titled CHILL meaning ABSTAIN.
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