Why is American English so prevalent in Thailand?

[Loburt]

"Language dictatorship"??? A good argument somewhat spoiled by a spiteful and uncalled for attack at the end.

Please read the original post at the start of the thread. It is far more spiteful and uncalled for. You reap what you sow.

[condotown]

This perplexes me. English is a global standard, so why do so many schools, colleges and unis in Thailand focus on American English? If you are going to learn the language, why not do it properly? No bastardised spelling, no bizarre grammatical constructions and no weird pronunciation! If you are going to sweat over learning this language, you may as well learn the real language. :twisted:

You are dead wrong! British English has won (With an American Accent).

I'm American by default and I NEVER use the word "elevator" anymore. I can only say "lift".

As a former educational consultant in Thailand, I can say that for each Thai bilingual or international school that embraces a North American curriculum, there are ten that follow the British system of "O" levels and "A" levels, whatever the hell they are.

And what about Oxford born Hugh Laurie, star of the "House" TV series? That guy speaks perfect (American) English. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0491402/bio

I'm wondering if anyone else saw his appearance on Saturday Night Live. That song he sang about solving all of the worlds' problems was brilliant. A true renaissance man.

[farang_subson]

More money passes through American hands, more research papers written with American hands, more deals struck with American handshakes...etc., etc.

If you're trying to educate your child, are you gonna (sic ) opt for a school that follows some anal vision of the "pure", unaltered English, or the English that a large chunk of the world happens to use? (thankfully, I'm simplifying...it's possible to find schools where both are taught)

Kinda ironic...when speaking of "correct" English, America somehow suffers because of its diversity of regions and ethnic backgrounds. But when talking about politics and culture, the Euros so often (often!) speak of us like we're an amorphous mass of Bush-supporting zombies, Britney Spears groupies, and brainwashed fundamentalists.

[garfield]

A post which was tongue-in-cheek and intended to engender comment, debate and even a little fun......has descended into racism, xenophobia, ageism and other 'town halls'

Peace and love y'all

GARFIELD (50/50 IRISH/AMERICAN!!!)

[dannyboy]

There is no need for the apostrophe in errors - it is a simple plural. Not intended to be a grammar debate, but just to ask why so many Thais talk like septics. God bless Her Majesty!

Give me a break ,i was trying to get ready for work...........

[Loburt]

A post which was tongue-in-cheek and intended to engender comment, debate and even a little fun......has descended into racism, xenophobia, ageism and other 'town halls'

And your original post wasn't riddled with racism, xenophobia, ageism, elitism, etc., etc.?

Oh, it was all just a joke, you say? Well, you're about as funny as that guy who played Kramer doing his recent stand up routine.

[Ngairo]

The levy of taxation during the Commonwealth era was the cause of the war. I'm proud to be Thai-American.

It still is...It's just taking America an awful long time to realise that....

But hey...we've ever asked America to be an efficient nation.....go Hilary....waaaaaahaaaa!!!!!

[Manoi]

American English as spoken in the medias, movies, news, etc is the easiest to understand. I work all over Asia with locals. It never fails, when an Eglish, Australian or Scottish superivisor gives instructions to the crew and then walks away, the locals will turn to me and ask what he said. They will confess to not having understood one single word! They understand me, I'm Canadian, talk like a movie star.

All European languages have their roots in the Aryan language as do some Asian languages with a few exceptions.

[grezzzy_greer]

There is no such thing as American English. These are two different things altogether.

"American" is simply a dialect.

English is the original language.

So you either speak English, or you speak a dialect.

Why do you think it is called "English"?

It is prevalent here because of the influence of the media etc. American schools that teach American etc. Sadly there are fewer schools that teach English, but if you can't pronounce the words correctly, it's OK, you can use a dialect if you prefer....

[grezzzy_greer]

As for it being an "anal" vision of the language... it is simply English, and it is correct. Maybe in the land in which your mind lives, there are lot's of Americans making deals and taking over the world, but the reality is different.

Anal languages...hmmm...talking out of ones ar*e...is that what you mean?

Greer

[zeusbheld]

Yes, Yanqui culture is omnipresent, but Britspeak still predominates in India, Sri Lanka, Kenya and other parts - so no excuse.

... and in all the glittering remains of the former empire; looks like the sun set after all, huh?

for the sake of discussion i'll give you the benefit of doubt and allow that indeed american english is being taught more often than british english in thailand, although you haven't supported your claim with anything even remotely reseembling data, just bombast. at first, upon seeing your post(s), i guessed that british english was abandoned because of the arrogance and smugness of rabidly nationalistic brits, but no, that can't be it. brits don't have the market cornered on nationalism and smugness. on the other hand, maybe nationalism and smugness sells? americans don't have the market conrered on nationalism and smugness either, but they (we) sure do export a lot of it.

the reason nobody bothers teaching british english anymore is that the british, as a nation, aren't running anything anymore. not economically, not militarily, not culturally... no wait, there's that pop music thing. and the premiership. judging by all the pickup trucks in bangkok with liverpool/chelski/man u stickers on them, and all the hi-so-wannabe girls with bad fake british accents, the brits do indeed still have a lot of cultural influence. just they'll never keep up with hollywood.

ah yes. there's the real reason: the number one american export is culture, in the form of movies, television, and mediocre pop bands like the eagles.. american movies and media are pervasive.

and no indians don't speak anything like british english, it's a separate dialect from british and equally archaic and charming.

[zeusbheld]

HERE , HERE.....

They should learn the kings english

i mean what is american english ????

the english language was derieved from the Uk , but as the US is such a dominant player in terms of exporting it culture across the world its little wonder countires adopt thier IMO incorrect use of the english language

Miyagi, if your are going to comment on an English language/grammar thread , then by all means do so but make sure your input is correct, especially when you flame someone , as yours is full of spelling and grammatical error's.....

Kool ive taken out my incorrect piece of info but i really did not assume i would be judged on spelling and grammar

in a post where you assert american english is "incorrect"? are you freakin' kidding, or did you just barely tear yourself away from the crack pipe long enough to post?

[zeusbheld]

I have been to Las Filipinas - and you are of course correct. Shame really, I would rather eat adobo than a Big Mac anyday. Maybe a by-product of the American invasion in 1902?

YEP. and re-invasion at the end of world war 2, complete with photo-op.

[zeusbheld]

Now I kow what you're thinking. "How would you say it then??"

Simple really . . .

There are 'cool' words and there are 'nerd' words. Let's just say that prevalent is a nerd word. So I, being an American, would scan my inner dictionary and try to come up with a cool word.

So this forum would be . . .

Why is American English so "popular" in Thailand.

See the difference??

and a possible follow-on forum: why do people who search for 'cool' words to avoid sounding "nerdy' so often end up working at burger king or on jerry springer?

[zeusbheld]

This perplexes me. English is a global standard, so why do so many schools, colleges and unis in Thailand focus on American English? If you are going to learn the language, why not do it properly? No bastardised spelling, no bizarre grammatical constructions and no weird pronunciation! If you are going to sweat over learning this language, you may as well learn the real language. :twisted:

"no bizarre grammatical constructions and no weird pronunciation",

this is a joke right?

I can just imagine a Thai learning American English from the South, Sawadee Khup Khun Y'all Redneck Somchai! Or a New Yorkers English, can you imagine that?. There is no such thing as American English, each of the states pronounces the majority of words so different one would think they were different countries.

actually, there (kind of) is such a thing as standardized american english, as taught in schools and universities. edumacated types (newscasters etc) sound almost identical no matter where they're from.

did you peg me as a new yorker who spend 7 years in north carolina from my accent? doubt it.

[zeusbheld]

The answer is of course incredibly simple...

MICROSOFT...

and we woulda gotten away with it too.... if not for you pesky kids!

[farang_subson]

Grezzy: "there are lot's of Americans making deals and taking over the world".

Please enlighten us ignorant bumpkins with the use of "lot's". How many edits are you going to need?

[zeusbheld]

British English has won (With an American Accent).

I'm American by default and I NEVER use the word "elevator" anymore. I can only say "lift".

YEP i'd never even heard the word "tosspot" before i met brits, let alone used it. or wanker, or **** (although i still cannot pronounce it properly).

give the brits some credit here, never would have occcurred to me to use "*****" to describe the male of the species, but i like it... i like it a lot...

[zeusbheld]

There is no such thing as American English. These are two different things altogether.

"American" is simply a dialect.

call it what you will, there most definitely *is* a standard american english taught at schools and universities. standard pronounciation, standard spelling, regardless of region.

speaking of the media, can you tell where an american news anchor is from by their accent? hint: in most cases, not very likely. there's a reason for that.

[GoldMember]

This perplexes me. English is a global standard, so why do so many schools, colleges and unis in Thailand focus on American English? If you are going to learn the language, why not do it properly? No bastardised spelling, no bizarre grammatical constructions and no weird pronunciation! If you are going to sweat over learning this language, you may as well learn the real language. :twisted:

Have you been to the Philippines?! U will be more surprise . Everything is american not only the language

There seems to be a watershed in asia from which one side looks towards England and Europe for cultural influences and the other side looks towards the USA.I'm not quite sure where that watershed lies,but i guess the region north of Malaysia and Indonesia and north-east of India which includes China,Japan,taiwan,the Phils,South Korea is roughly the area that looks predominantly eastwards.Wall st English rulez....buy ,buy ,buy 8)

[GoldMember]

As for it being an "anal" vision of the language... it is simply English, and it is correct. Maybe in the land in which your mind lives, there are lot's of Americans making deals and taking over the world, but the reality is different.

Anal languages...hmmm...talking out of ones ar*e...is that what you mean?

Greer

I think he means Greek

[khun_lung]

When I used to travel around the world, I would sometimes ask, "Which is easier for you to understand? American English or British English?" and the answer I got was always the same. American English. And when I asked why, the answer was universal. HOLLYWOOD!

[thaibel]

When I used to travel around the world, I would sometimes ask, "Which is easier for you to understand? American English or British English?" and the answer I got was always the same. American English. And when I asked why, the answer was universal. HOLLYWOOD!

It depe,ds probably who and where u asked that, Mike. The older ones, like me, r probably more influenced by the Britts than by the Americans. We were taught British English by our teachers also, that was the standard. We had also more English influence by TV and movies, things have changed since and a lot of younger ppl are infuenced By American culture (Hollywood, rapp ......).

If I look at my program 'microssoft word', I can chose between maybe 15 different kinds of English, from English (UK), English (US) to English (Philippines). The same for my mother language witch is Dutch I can chose between 'standard (the Netherlands) and Dutch (Belgium). They have also their own accent and expressions and sayings. There's always interaction between languages. A language is not a dead thing, but changes always following the time spirit and culture (like music).

I don't understand this discussion. There's nothing as a standard for one language. It'll always changing regarding place and time where it's used.

+++ Could u imagine we would speak English or Dutch (in my case) as 50 or 100 yrs ago?

[Zombiedriven]

British English? There's no such thing. The whole lot comes from elsewhere.

The history of the language can be traced back to the arrival of three Germanic tribes to the British Isles during the 5th Century AD. Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from what is the present day Denmark and northern Germany. The inhabitants of Britain previously spoke a Celtic language. This was quickly displaced. Most of the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak the Celtic Language of Breton today. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin. Their language was called Englisc from which the word, English derives.

An Anglo-Saxon inscription dated between 450 and 480AD is the oldest sample of the English language.

During the next few centuries four dialects of English developed:

* Northumbrian in Northumbria, north of the Humber

* Mercian in the Kingdom of Mercia

* West Saxon in the Kingdom of Wessex

* Kentish in Kent

During the 7th and 8th Centuries, Northumbria's culture and language dominated Britain. The Viking invasions of the 9th Century brought this domination to an end (along with the destruction of Mercia). Only Wessex remained as an independent kingdom. By the 10th Century, the West Saxon dialect became the official language of Britain. Written Old English is mainly known from this period. It was written in an alphabet called Runic, derived from the Scandinavian languages. The Latin Alphabet was brought over from Ireland by Christian missionaries. This has remained the writing system of English.

At this time, the vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo Saxon base with borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse) and Latin. Latin gave English words like street, kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, martyr, candle. The Vikings added many Norse words: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them. Celtic words also survived mainly in place and river names (Devon, Dover, Kent, Trent, Severn, Avon, Thames).

Because the English underclass cooked for the Norman upper class, the words for most domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for the meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison).

The Germanic form of plurals (house, housen; shoe, shoen) was eventually displaced by the French method of making plurals: adding an s (house, houses; shoe, shoes). Only a few words have retained their Germanic plurals: men, oxen, feet, teeth, children.

French also affected spelling so that the cw sound came to be written as qu (eg. cween became queen).

It wasn't till the 14th Century that English became dominant in Britain again. In 1399, King Henry IV became the first king of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English. By the end of the 14th Century, the dialect of London had emerged as the standard dialect of what we now call Middle English. Chaucer wrote in this language.

Modern English began around the 16th Century and, like all languages, is still changing. One change occurred when the th of some verb forms became s (loveth, loves: hath, has). auxiliary verbs also changed (he is risen, he has risen).

The historical influence of language in the British Isles can best be seen in place names and their derivations.

Examples include ac (as in Acton, Oakwood) which is Anglo-Saxon for oak; by (as in Whitby) is Old Norse for farm or village; pwll (as in Liverpool) is Welsh for anchorage; baile (as in Balmoral) is Gaelic for farm or village; ceaster (as in Lancaster) is Latin for fort.

Since the 16th Century, because of the contact that the British had with many peoples from around the world, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, many words have entered the language either directly or indirectly. New words were created at an increasing rate. Shakespeare coined over 1600 words. This process has grown exponentially in the modern era.

Borrowed words include names of animals (giraffe, tiger, zebra), clothing (pyjama, turban, shawl), food (spinach, chocolate, orange), scientific and mathematical terms (algebra, geography, species), drinks (tea, coffee, cider), religious terms (Jesus, Islam, nirvana), sports (checkmate, golf, billiards), vehicles (chariot, car, coach), music and art (piano, theatre, easel), weapons (pistol, trigger, rifle), political and military terms (commando, admiral, parliament), and astronomical names (Saturn, Leo, Uranus).

Languages that have contributed words to English include Latin, Greek, French, German, Arabic, Hindi (from India), Italian, Malay, Dutch, Farsi (from Iran and Afghanistan), Nahuatl (the Aztec language), Sanskrit (from ancient India), Portuguese, Spanish, Tupi (from South America) and Ewe (from Africa).

The list of borrowed words is enormous.

The vocabulary of English is the largest of any language.

Even with all these borrowings the heart of the language remains the Anglo-Saxon of Old English. Only about 5000 or so words from this period have remained unchanged but they include the basic building blocks of the language: household words, parts of the body, common animals, natural elements, most pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs. Grafted onto this basic stock was a wealth of contributions to produce, what many people believe, is the richest of the world's languages.

And from there it has been carried to the furthest corners of the world and has consequently grown and developed further according to circumstance.

http://www.krysstal.com/english.html

If anyone's REALLY interested.

dont you ever sleep???????

[Zombiedriven]

Figured as much PiAnt.