by Juliet Wilson
I read a number of interesting books about language over the holiday period and started thinking about dialects. Read Write Poem is a community bound together not only by a shared love of poetry but by a shared language.
But how much of our language really is shared? There are some participants for whom English isn’t their first language and those of us who do speak English as our first language are in such different areas of the world that we must have different vocabularies.
Some of us would perhaps claim to speak an identifiable dialect, but even those of us who don’t speak a dialect almost certainly know and use words that are local to the area we live in (or even unique to our family!). These words, if used sparingly can add a wonderful color to English language poetry. (There’s a place too for dialect poetry but that usually requires a standard English translation or at the least a glossary to be fully appreciated by many people.)
So the challenge this week is to do one of the following:
- Use one or a few words from your area in your poem (remember to define the words that other readers may not understand).
- If you speak a dialect, you could share a dialect poem (complete with translation or glossary!).
- If you speak a foreign language you could share a poem in that language complete with an English language translation.
Poem on!
Shall try that with a few Yorkshire farming dialect words. If it works will post it.
That is an awesome prompt. I’m going to try it!
Crafty, me a go dweet!
What’s ‘colour’?
Well Philip, “colour” and “flavour” go together!
See, how I ‘favour’ Juliet!
As long as we are all on our good “behaviour”!
i think that is wonderful idea, as a non native english speaking i find it very hard sometimes to convey my full ideas in english though i do write mostly in english. translating hebrew into english seem as hard. i have nothing specific to put on this week, but have done few translation in my place before, you are wleocme to have a loot.
blessings
dhyan
Combining dialect and pun might be difficult for non-native speakers:
I was in Texas and and passed a home with a Nativity scene outside, but the Three Wise Men were all wearing fireman helmets. So I asked him, “Why are the Three Wise Men wearing fireman helmets?” He replies, “The preacher tells us in church they came from afar to visit baby Jesus.”
(Notes: Last Tuesday, January 6, was El Dia De Reyes. And people today say “firefighter”, not “fireman”.)
That was an interesting prompt and I’ve written a ‘puzzle’ reply.
http://rinklyrimes.blogspot.com
The contributions should be fun to read, but the prompt isn’t resonating for me at this point. However, I’ll see if something comes forward for me.
Hey there Brenda, glad to have you here! Be sure to come back Thursday and post your comment/link on our Get Your Poem On post (it publishes midnight CST).
That way the more people see it!
Rob,
I have been thinking of regional dialect, something from my Texas family, who use words in ways I don’t…
You might also think in terms of the dialect of professions, say musicians, or some other group that has a hidden language.
OK, cool Deb — thanks!
I can look back to my time in Cincinnati to unearth some local dialect/colloquialisms, and combine that with some musicians terms… good idea.
…rob
Here we go:
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2009/01/mule-train-version-by-geoffrey-philp.html