Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Frananglais in the news ....

Just got this passed along by somebody, on the emergence of "a new language", frananglais, in Cameroon. I'm saying saying the BBC should actually hire a linguist or anything, but couldn't they maybe find one to talk to about stuff before they publish big articles?

I trust the folks over at Language Log are already working on something about the continuing mistreatment of language and linguistics by the BBC and I sure hope Dennis Baron at Web of Language comments on this one too.

4 comments:

Stumblerette said...

Actually, they use the term "frananglais" in the article. Sounds even more like a smoothie.

Mr. Verb said...

Hmmmmmm, smoothie.

Oh, that's unbelievable ... I had thought about going into the American names for various 'mixed languages' (usually English used by bilinguals with codeswitching and borrowing): Spanglish, Denglish (Deutsch + English), Hmonglish, and so on. Franglais is related to those terms, and I slipped it in without thinking. These terms, naturally, are often discussed by people working on language in these communities in various ways. I've heard enough of them that X-lish seems like a productive pattern.

Stumblerette said...

Why is a schnoddle (schnauzer + poodle) not called a pauzer? Or a labradoodle (labrador + poodle) not a poobrador? Or a cockapoo (cocker spaniel + poodle) not a pockle? (To my ears cockapoo doesn't sound like anything you'd want to cuddle, but that's just me.)

Mr. Verb said...

Yeah, we need a post or two on patterns of blends ...