I asked my Tamil pupil to bring a dictionary and she brought Danish-English because she lived in Denmark. Most disconcerting. Like the Japanese living in Wales speaking with Welsh accents.
Yesterday had an interesting conversation about language with other friends.
The Tamil language pre-dates Sanskrit and Tamils say it is the oldest language (at least in India). The Tamils speaking in English say, What I can do for you?
QUESTIONS
In English, we reverse the subject and verb to indicate a question. My Tamil speaker thought that was superfluous and asked why it was necessary if you already have a question word at the start of the sentence.
I admit it is easier in any language, for children and foreigners, just to stick the question word in front of a sentence. I think the Malaysian language does the same.
I tried to justify English. I maintained, "Using two ways of expressing the negative makes the sentence clearer, especially if you only switch on and start listening mid-sentence and miss the first word."
The extra way of showing the sentence is a question is also helpful to listeners when the speaker is on radio or TV with a large audience or when you have an audience of one speaking to foreigners or those hard of hearing.
Yesterday had an interesting conversation about language with other friends.
The Tamil language pre-dates Sanskrit and Tamils say it is the oldest language (at least in India). The Tamils speaking in English say, What I can do for you?
QUESTIONS
In English, we reverse the subject and verb to indicate a question. My Tamil speaker thought that was superfluous and asked why it was necessary if you already have a question word at the start of the sentence.
I admit it is easier in any language, for children and foreigners, just to stick the question word in front of a sentence. I think the Malaysian language does the same.
I tried to justify English. I maintained, "Using two ways of expressing the negative makes the sentence clearer, especially if you only switch on and start listening mid-sentence and miss the first word."
The extra way of showing the sentence is a question is also helpful to listeners when the speaker is on radio or TV with a large audience or when you have an audience of one speaking to foreigners or those hard of hearing.
