UK v US language difficulties reply to post from MAIN

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" 
<dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:
>
> Cassy:
> 
> You know, what I find really amazing is that people, for whom English 
> is not
> first language (myself included) somehow manage to understand BOTH 
> British
> and American English. (well, not Australian, perhaps ^_~). And being 
> native
> Russian speaker I can understand Ukrainian, Polish or, say, Belarussian
> fairly easily, since the languages are quite close. How come that people
> speaking ONE language have so much difficulties understanding each 
> other?
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> So, I thought I would reply here, since this does not have much to do 
> with the books, but something I find fascinating nevertheless.
> 
> I would agree with you that Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian 
> languages are very close and easy to understand despite some words 
> being different. But I would probably disagree with you that all people 
> can do that.
> 
> I would say that people who grew up in Ukraine and who had to learn 
> Ulrainian certainly had no problem understanding Russian ( and they had 
> to during soviet union times), but I definitely, definitely experienced 
> several situations when people from Russia had no clue what we were 
> talking about in Ukrainian.
> 
> Hey, I have a living example of this here in New York, hehe.
> 
> My brother's best friend is from Saint petersburg. When my brother and 
> myself sometimes start talking in Ukrainian, he has NO freaking clue 
> what we are talking about.
> 
> That is despite at least 80% of vocabulary of both languages being the 
> same indeed.
> 
> So, what I am trying to say is that I have no problem understanding how 
> couple unknown words can completely confuse the meaning of the 
> sentences for some people and make them loose the thread of the 
> conversation.
> 
> I think you and myself have no problem understanding both versions 
> because we in school learned british version ( I am not sure where you 
> live right now), when I came to America, that was really not that much 
> of the problem to substitute some words for anothers.
> 
> I think also we are used to figure out the meaning of the unknown words 
> in  the sentences  just because we have to, you know?
> 
> The fact that I have no problem understanding both versions british and 
> american, does not mean that I do not see new words here and there and 
> no, I do not always keep my dictionary near by now when I read fiction, 
> so I will figure the word out in the context.
> 
> Does that ring true?

Geoff:
I didn't realise that Alla had switched the thread to OTC and replied 
to Cassy off-list to remind her of the well-known quote from George 
Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish playwright:
"Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language".
:-)

I mean, why do I put on trousers and trainers and a jumper (or a 
sweater) when my US counterpart has to put on pants, sneakers 
and a sweater? Mark you I'm already wearing pants before I put 
on trousers......

Funny old thing, language.