Maybe it's a reflection of my circumstances - but this reminds me more of a difference in class than language. I was born to two uneducated parents in a poor, rural coal town in Pennsylvania and then later married a woman whose parents were educated and wealthy and whose family had been at least upper-middle class for generations.
To me, at times, I feel her and I speak different languages, use different words, have different intonation and expressions and idioms - in both behavior as well as language. My 'pensyl-tucky' accent and manners, mostly worn away from living elsewhere, still betrays to other American English speakers that I may be of a 'lesser kind'. I have no idea of the author's background, but her description of it sounds closer to 'lower class' American - one in which persona hasn't been formed by years of restraint, discipline, obedience, and expectation. Whereas, her husband seems more like he would be from a wealthier, urban American family. And, inferring from his families' fleeing Spain during the Marxist revolution, maybe it goes back a bit.
When I travelled to Paris for the first time with my wife and her family, they asked me what I thought. I told them that it seemed more similar to any American city than that American city would seem to where I had grown up. And, they seemed shocked that I would say such a thing. But, having had to fit into their culture (not the other way around), I sometimes feel like a foreigner.
Unfortunately, study [1] shows that children who grow up in less wealthy households, know 18000 fewer words by the time they are 5 than a child that grows up in a wealthy family leaving a very clear disadvantage early on.
I'd be interested in that link if you can recall it.
I would guess, though, that the website was counting different forms of the 'same' word as distinct words - e.g., jump, jumped, jumping is three words rather than one word with several tenses. Obviously counting this way will multiply the same person's vocabulary several times vs the alternate way.
That's interesting. Why would they learn fewer words? Do the less wealthy just talk less? Or, do they learn other words that are then culled from their vocabulary?
There is no way to say this without sounding like an asshole, so I'll just forego trying to sugarcoat it: I can read perezhilton.com without ever having to look up a word. Reading the Economist, I have to look up at least one word every week. Growing up, I never knew a single person reading the Economist or the equivalent; while reading the spatial-and-temporal equivalent of perezhilton.com was though of (by my larger environment, not my nuclear family luckily) as something that was almost intellectual, because hey, it was reading.
(I'm a non-native English speaking currently middle class European from a semi-rural area and from a working class background)
Surely you mean 1800, not 18000. Learning 18000 less would give them a negative vocabulary, as the normal vocabulary size for a 5-year-old is much less than that.
> Maybe it's a reflection of my circumstances - but this reminds me more of a difference in class than language.
I enjoyed the read, but think so, too. Either this or just the difference between European and American. Might be both, since Americas notion of class difference historically seems to be mostly defined by the amount of money one has, due to its protestant history and values (American Dream and so on), while in Europe there are still the old classes (aristocrats, clergy, bourgeoisie and so on), which defined themselves through the things listed as differences in the article.
I am on Oliviers side on almost every point and come from a country, which stereotypically is the exact opposite of France.
A fascinating read, I recently started dating someone who is Hungarian, I'm British (subtype: English, subsubtype: Yorkshireman) and I've really enjoyed the cultural differences between dating someone from my own culture and someone from hers.
Did lead to the the strangest complement I've ever ever received - "You are the least English Englishman I've ever met"
I can tell you that's a very detailed article from someone whom might be struggling learning french but is nonetheless very knowledgeable about french culture and its intricacies.
To me, at times, I feel her and I speak different languages, use different words, have different intonation and expressions and idioms - in both behavior as well as language. My 'pensyl-tucky' accent and manners, mostly worn away from living elsewhere, still betrays to other American English speakers that I may be of a 'lesser kind'. I have no idea of the author's background, but her description of it sounds closer to 'lower class' American - one in which persona hasn't been formed by years of restraint, discipline, obedience, and expectation. Whereas, her husband seems more like he would be from a wealthier, urban American family. And, inferring from his families' fleeing Spain during the Marxist revolution, maybe it goes back a bit.
When I travelled to Paris for the first time with my wife and her family, they asked me what I thought. I told them that it seemed more similar to any American city than that American city would seem to where I had grown up. And, they seemed shocked that I would say such a thing. But, having had to fit into their culture (not the other way around), I sometimes feel like a foreigner.