"Morris Dovey" wrote in message
...
basilisk wrote:
"diggerop" toobusy@themoment wrote in message
...

No problem at all. It's almost as if we are bilingual, with a
language we understand among ourselves, (almost with the makings of
a dialect,) which can prove confusing for others, along with
speaking straightforward English. (It really is dying out though
and I suspect, some of our unique Aussie character with it.)

Almost like my Scottish and Irish forebears, who spoke who spoke
good English but would lapse into a local dialect among family and
friends. I can still remember an occasion when I was very young and
I'd broken some ornament in my old Scottish grandmother's dining
room. I thought I was in for a tongue lashing or worse, but she
merely said 'Och laddie, dinnae fash yoursel" which loosley meant
"that's all right son, no need to be upset over it."

I had a visitor from Scotland by last Saturday, I think he must have
laid the dialect on thick just for my confusion and his amusement,
when it came down to business, I noticed most of the incomprehensible
bits dissappeared and we communicated just fine. I will say that I
enjoyed listening even if I couldn't make out a lot of the
references.

My widowed grandmother brought her four kids to the US from Edinburgh
during the depression. She worked in Chicago as a nurse and worked hard to
lose all trace of her "burr". After a few years she returned to visit her
sister in Ayr for two weeks, during which time she re-acquired her accent
fully and maintained it carefully for the next sixty-some years.

I have to laugh /with/ her. I was born in Georgia, and when I moved to
northern Indiana and started school, the kids made fun of how I "tawk'd"
and, according to my mother, it took less than week for me to lose all
trace of my drawl.

Fast forward to late fifties - I returned to to the Atlanta area to spend
a school Christmas vacation with the folks who'd been next door neighbors
when I'd been an ankle-biter. They'd set up blind dates for every evening
leading up to a big New Year's dance - for which I was expected to ask one
of the young ladies to accompany me (I felt like I'd fallen into a time
warp). First date told me I tawkt lahk a damnyankee (lip curled). Second
date remarked that I had a trace of yankee accent and asked where I'd
picked /that/ up (with an overtone suggesting that perhaps penicillin
might help). By the third evening I'd worked the bugs out and everything
went smoothly thereafter (I did invite a gorgeous young belle to the dance
and had a great time). Just before I returned to school, my "improvement"
was recognized with a certificate making me an honorary colonel in the
Confederate underground.

But for the life of me, I can't speak with a Scottish burr. :-]

So, ye wuid nae say a braw bricht moonlicht nicht, the nicht then?

Kids are amazingly adaptable. We had my father with his trace of Irish
accent, and daily use of the Irish way of expression, my Grandmother with
her soft Scottish burr, and my mother with her everyday Ausie accent. We had
no idea at all that each of them spoke in a different manner. We could
understand them, therefore there was no difference to us as kids.

One thing that did click with me in later years was the realisation that I
unconciously adopted each of their accents when speaking to them. So that a
scottish burr comes naturally to me. Or irish expression.

It happened that the burr stood me in very good stead in learning Bahasa
Indonesia. They roll their r's just as the Scots do, something that doesn't
come easily to Aussies.

diggerop