[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report

[Leslie Till]

Dylan wrote:
> On Tuesday 26 November 2002 13:30, Tethys wrote:
> 
>>Dylan writes:
>>
>>>>I thought that Innit was imported from the Caribbean, but I could be
>>>>wrong.
>>>
>>>You're absolutely right! The ancestral African languages which fed the
>>>formation of the Caribbean Pigins and Creoles have sentence-final question
>>>particles, equivalent to our echo questions:
>>>
>>>He's going to the pub, is (-n't) he?
>>
>>In which case, how do you explain its prevalence among Greeks and
>>Cypriots (and more recently, among the Asian community)?
>>Harry
>>Enfield's Stavros may have been comedy, but what made it work was that
>>we've all seen it before in real life, innit. More recently, Ali G has
>>done exactly the same -- if the community he's parodying didn't really
>>say "innit" after every sentence, it wouldn't work...
>>
>>Tet
> 
> 
> 
> I can't say for Greek (including Cypriots, since they are linguistically 
> similar) but certainly some Asian languages have similar devices, and there 
> is sociolinguistic evidence for 'solidarity' effects etc.
> 
> Dylan
When I was evacuated to South Wales, showing my age now, I couldn't help 
noticing that the locals finished so many of their sentences with
"isn't it".

Les Till


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