As I'm a newbie here, I was surprised that most users are from USA....you know America is said to be ignorant to foreign languages especially to such like Czech:wink: So I have a question: what is your native language? (I wanted to make a poll, but there's no such option :? ) There are many americans whose second language is English actually.... Let's start - mine is Русский!!!
I was born in Czechoslovakia (mother tongue) and English is my fifth language -- been livng in the US for the last 47 years... Viktor
Southern American - with influences from all over (only about 27% of adult Floridians are Florida born - I'm one of them). My "English" is probably not at all like Mike's. I also have a lot of Spanish - the neighborhood I have lived in since 1955 is predominantly Hispanic.
My mother tongue is Czech. That is all I spoke until I was 5. When we came to the US, I started school here and English became my primary language outside the home and Czech was spoken at home. I received all my schooling in the US, using English, and have been in the business world with the language. I still speak Czech, but have forgotten a lot since I do not speak it as often since my mother passed away in 1989. That is why I enjoy going to the Czech Embassy in Washington, DC for functions - it provides me with an opportunity to speak Czech.
My mother tongue is Texan. :wink: Okay for real: 1st: English 2nd: French (though very bad at this point) 3rd: Czech
How can a true Celtic speak "real" English? Shouldn't you be a true Angle? :lol: My native language is also English, but the Standard American kind, which nobody thinks is real.
A litttle history lesson Ceit :lol: English is an Anglo-Frisian language brought to Britain in the 5th Century AD by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Norman (an oïl language closely related to French). While modern scholarship considers most of the story to be legendary and politically motivated, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported that around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the Angles to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response came Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms. These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what would be called Old English, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now north-west Germany and the Netherlands. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jórvík). So in welsh : Bore da. Shwd i chi? Neis cwrdd â chi. Beth yw'ch enw chi? O le i chi'n dod? and if we put this into czech. Dobrý den. jak se máš? těší mě. jak se jmenujete? odkud pocházíte? The History of American English The history of American English can be divided into the colonial (1607-1776), the national (1776-1898), and the international (1898-present) periods. During nearly four hundred years of use in North America, the English language changed in small ways in pronunciation and grammar but extensively in vocabulary and in the attitude of its speakers. English settlements along the Atlantic Coast during the seventeenth century provided the foundation for English as a permanent language in the New World. But the English of the American colonies was bound to become distinct from that of the motherland. When people do not talk with one another, they begin to talk differently. The Atlantic Ocean served as an effective barrier to oral communication between the colonists and those who stayed in England, ensuring that their speech would evolve in different directions. So who cannot say your english is not real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what's the definition of mother tongue? my mother speaks french and french was the first language i spoke. but since i mostly grew up in the german part of switzerland, swiss german became my mother tongue that is the language in which i count and dream (as i once read, this is one definition of "mother tongue").