Cultural Offering gives some examples from a BBC site that uses pidgin English.
Some of you know that I am reading at least one Shakespeare play a month. I wonder how The Bard would regard modern English.
Anyway, the rise of tech-speak (u 2 bz?) and the adoption of English as a universal language may produce even more pidgin in the future.
There is a utility to pidgin that's hard to deny. I wish I could speak pidgin Russian or Chinese. The series of books by Benny Lewis on "language hacking" - where you plunge into speaking the language without worrying about perfection - are in that practical mode.
One of many downsides is that a person who can read Shakespeare can usually read pidgin but one who can only read pidgin will have a hell of a time with Shakespeare.
And that would be a loss.
2 comments:
Not only can they not read Shakespeare, they can't read Jefferson. - Bobboccio
Bobbocio,
Reading Jefferson and "Julius Caesar" is good for us all.
Michael
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