As a person who is interested and fascinated by languages , I have always lamented my immigrant parents choosing toronto over montreal as their landing point . By this time I would have been hopefully trilingual . As english is the universal language of commerce and diplomacy , english could well have been my second or third rather than mother tongue .
But honestly how many would trade the complexities and subtleties of english for any other language . It takes a lifetime of immersion to understand American vs Caribbean vs African english for example . So many different contexts.
Here's one that made me smile recently found in an ethnic paper - "Blab it and Grab it". Definately an international play on the spiritual american version , - "Just name it and Claim it".
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Personally I find Afro-Caribbean and African American Vernacular English to be the most fascinating branches of the language. While considered to be vapid and banal by some due to its perceivably simplistic phonetic nuances from American English, it is the root of an entire subculture in not only America, but most of the Caribbean and other places throughout the world. A neat fact: the official Jamaican job listing site is titled “Big Tings A Gwan.”
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