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[paw broon]

One thing that really grates on Scots and Irish, North and South, is non native actors trying and failing miserably to do the varied accents of those countries.  Many actors are very good at copying different accents, David Tenant as The Doctor for instance, but there are some real horrors in old British films.  There's a cringeworthy "Come awa' ben" in the Arthur Askey vehicle, "Back Room Boy".  For decencies sake, I won't mention Mel Gibson.

[Robb_K]

As a Dutchman, and a historian, I rather think that the term, "Yankee" started as a derisive term the long-entrenched Dutch colonists had for their new English colonist neighbours, who came to the former New Netherlands (Hudson Valley, New York, New Jersey, northern Delaware), after The English took over for the final time in 1673. I doubt that a name that Carribbean-based British sailors had for Dutch pirates could have been imported to New York, and be adopted by masses of locals.  Also, The "Jan Kees" (John Cheese) theory makes no sense to me.  "Kees" is not Dutch.  It is Plattdeutsch for "cheese".  Cheese in Dutch is "Kaas".  No Low Saxons were settlers in New Netherlands.  My guess is that the Dutch farmers heard the English mothers call their sons home, and the most common boy's name was "John".  The diminutive was "Johnny".  A rival group of men, wanting to poke fun at their local rivals would use derogatory terms that implied that they were inferior (smaller and weaker).  "Janneke" (Yan-neh-kehh) would have been the best insulting Dutch form of "Little Johnny".  That would be the most likely Dutch word to end up as the English "Yankee", when spoken by Anglophones decades later, who had never heard Dutch spoken.  Later, the English settlers, no longer rivals of The Dutch, used that now non-derogatory term, for ALL the people in New York City, and the former Dutch portions of New York state.

I think this is more likely, though all may have contributed. From wikipedia.

Linguist Jan de Vries notes that there was mention of a pirate named Dutch Yanky in the 17th century.[13] The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1760) contains the passage, "Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky."[14]

Jan Willems (died 1688), also known as Janke or Yankey Willems, was a 17th-century Dutch buccaneer. Based out of Petit-Go?ve,

PS

I doubt that a name that Carribbean-based British sailors had for Dutch pirates could have been imported to New York

You may be unaware that the Royal Navy vessels stationed in the Caribbean patrolled the Eastern Seaboard of of North America. I'd read that Yankee became a common epithet due to the British seamen associating the smugglers and later privateers based in the Northern colonies with the Dutch.
They couldn't have cared less whether the American sailors were of British or Dutch ancestry.
BTW it was British troops stationed in the Caribbean who during the war of 1812 burned Washington DC under orders from the Governor General of Canada.
One good thing about a large navy is the ability to move ships and men vast distances in relatively little time to take their enemies unaware.

No, I was aware of that, and their participation in The War of 1812, but, I didn't connect their patrolling of New England's waters to naming The Dutch Pirates "Yankees", because those Dutch Pirates were almost exclusively based on Carribean islands, and I didn't think any were based in New Netherland.  I had never read that Yankee became a common epithet due to the British seamen associating the smugglers and later privateers based in the Northern colonies with the Dutch.  So, it seems that British colonists started calling Dutch settlers "Yankees", and continued calling New Netherlanders "Yankees", even after that colony was re-named "New York", and flooded with English, and later, British, colonists.

[The Australian Panther]

For decencies sake, I won't mention Mel Gibson 

I doubt very much that Gibson was even trying to play his part with a Scottish accent.
Sometimes in major movies, they just have the leading actors speak in what was known as a 'min-atlantic' accent.

Thinking about his career, I don't think he ever played roles where he used an ethnic accent.

Possibly, originally he may have had to learn his US accent, given that he was bought up in Australia and didn't leave till he was in his 20s. Although you wouldn't credit MAD MAX with an Australian accent, would you?       

[Captain Audio]

No, I was aware of that, and their participation in The War of 1812, but, I didn't connect their patrolling of New England's waters to naming The Dutch Pirates "Yankees", because those Dutch Pirates were almost exclusively based on Carribean islands, and I didn't think any were based in New Netherland.  I had never read that Yankee became a common epithet due to the British seamen associating the smugglers and later privateers based in the Northern colonies with the Dutch.  So, it seems that British colonists started calling Dutch settlers "Yankees", and continued calling New Netherlanders "Yankees", even after that colony was re-named "New York", and flooded with English, and later, British, colonists.

I've noticed that Academics often fail to take into account that people travel, often tens of thousands of miles over a period of years, while simply going about their business. This was even more common for seamen, naval or commercial. Every ship spends time in port cities and sailors have never been shy.
Modern English consists mainly of loan words from practically every language spoken by men.

BTW
I'd seen the term Jankie used in a film ( Jankie Boys) title years ago and wondered if it was related to the term Yankee.
The modern definition for Jankie, based on modern usage, is much the same as that of Tonto, which we have also discussed. A Jankie person is a person who gets drunk and dances around being a fool but believing they are the life of the party.
The word is most likely based on the same "Little Jan" as the term Yankee.

A term I had heard often in the past was "to pig out" meaning to eat like a pig. I was more than a little surprised to find this term was commonly used by Icelandic Vikings, at least in English translations of the Icelandic Sagas.

[The Australian Panther]

Modern English consists mainly of loan words from practically every language spoken by men. 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/English-language

English language, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that is closely related to the Frisian, German, and Dutch (in Belgium called Flemish) languages

The structure of English owes much to Latin and Greek, as is the structure of most Southern European Languages. English also owes much to the Greek Language, and likely going back even earlier, likely has words that go back to Egyptian, Aramaic,Babylon and Abyssinian. There are words in the English Language that originated in every country that people from the UK either visited, settled or traded with.
It's a characteristic of the language that it has a structure that causes it to constantly adapt, change and grow.

  Currently they claim there are 1,005,366 words in the language, after June 10, 2009 having announced the 1,000,000th word. This means that 5,366 words have been added to the language in the past approximately 7.5 years, or about 715 words per year. That?s approximately 2 words per day.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-new-words-are-added-in-English-language-every-year

English is the first choice of foreign language in most other countries of the world, and it is that status that has given it the position of a global lingua franca. It is estimated that about a third of the world?s population, some two billion persons, now use English.

I suggest that it's really a misnomer to continue to call it 'The English Language' It's now a global language and is not in anyway controlled, owned or regulated by the UK.

This is by no means the whole story, but this post is long enough.     

I speak as one with a Post-graduate qualification in TESOL. Teaching English to Speakers of other languages. 

The History of Languages is fascinating and teaches a lot about the world.

Most English speakers now speak a language which is very Americanised, influenced by Radio, Televisiion, Movies, Music and the internet.

Many younger Australians don't remember or use Australianisms that were common 50 years ago. For example, 'Bloke' has pretty much disappeared and has been replaced by 'Guy' and 'Guys' It's  not really English English that's dominating language today, it's American English.
When I set up a new computer, I have to set a language. The two most common choices are American and UK English. I think Office still offers 'Australian English' So, if I can't find that I choose 'UK English', because the conventions are closer to traditional Australian Usage. But since most people, including journalists and academics would be using American English, it doesn't matter much. But I still do it anyway.

Yankee. - during and after WWII 'Yankee' was the universal term applied to anybody from the US, in common Australian usage. Took us a while to work out that Southerners' don't take kindly to being called Yankees.

My speech and writing can be very Americanised, sometimes deliberately. Reading American comics and books contributed to that. I often find American 'popular' expressions very apt and too the point. So, you could say I have a love/hate relationship with US English.

Cheers!   
   

             

[Robb_K]

No, I was aware of that, and their participation in The War of 1812, but, I didn't connect their patrolling of New England's waters to naming The Dutch Pirates "Yankees", because those Dutch Pirates were almost exclusively based on Carribean islands, and I didn't think any were based in New Netherland.  I had never read that Yankee became a common epithet due to the British seamen associating the smugglers and later privateers based in the Northern colonies with the Dutch.  So, it seems that British colonists started calling Dutch settlers "Yankees", and continued calling New Netherlanders "Yankees", even after that colony was re-named "New York", and flooded with English, and later, British, colonists.

I've noticed that Academics often fail to take into account that people travel, often tens of thousands of miles over a period of years, while simply going about their business. This was even more common for seamen, naval or commercial. Every ship spends time in port cities and sailors have never been shy.
Modern English consists mainly of loan words from practically every language spoken by men.

BTW
1)I'd seen the term Jankie used in a film ( Jankie Boys) title years ago and wondered if it was related to the term Yankee.
The modern definition for Jankie, based on modern usage, is much the same as that of Tonto, which we have also discussed. A Jankie person is a person who gets drunk and dances around being a fool but believing they are the life of the party.
The word is most likely based on the same "Little Jan" as the term Yankee.

2)A term I had heard often in the past was "to pig out" meaning to eat like a pig. I was more than a little surprised to find this term was commonly used by Icelandic Vikings, at least in English translations of the Icelandic Sagas.

1)I would guess so. As I stated above, I would think it came from Janneke (Little Johnny), and was said by Dutchmen.  The English "J" spelling for the current "Y" sound ended long before the 1600s.  So, "Jankie" referred to and spelled by Englishmen must have come from Dutch origin. 

2) The saying "He eats like a pig (or horse)!" was an idiomatic phrase in ALL Germanic languages.  They all also had a special single word verb which meant "eating like an animal", which even Old English had (Fressen)(along with modern German(Fressen), Yiddish(Fressen) Old High German (Fressen), some Dutch dialects (vressen) and Frisian, and the Scandinavian (Norse) languages ,including Icelandic(Old Norse) had their own single word for "eating like a ravenous animal).

[paw broon]

"He eats like a pig" is, more was, also used in Scotland.  Horse tends to suggest a huge appetite as in "I could eat a horse"
J in Italian is pronounced Y - Jolly being said, Yolly.  There was a short lived superhero pocket Italian comic of that title. 
https://eurekaddl.monster/edicola/jolly-miniserie-completa-7-volumi-barbieri-1990/

[Captain Audio]

"He eats like a pig" is, more was, also used in Scotland.  Horse tends to suggest a huge appetite as in "I could eat a horse"
J in Italian is pronounced Y - Jolly being said, Yolly.  There was a short lived superhero pocket Italian comic of that title. 
https://eurekaddl.monster/edicola/jolly-miniserie-completa-7-volumi-barbieri-1990/

J was pronounced I in both French and German.

2) The saying "He eats like a pig (or horse)!" was an idiomatic phrase in ALL Germanic languages.

I spoke of the specific term "Pig Out". To "Pig Out" is to eat like a pig.
Perhaps it was a term common to Norway as well as Iceland. The presence of Norwegians in the Northern colonies and Eastern seaboard ports, especially Norwegian slave traders, may have allowed the term to enter American slang.

[paw broon]

J might well have been pronounced I in F. & G. but nowadays it's J, as in June, July, or if we're thinking of superheroes and crime fighters, Les Justiciers
I'm reminded that there was a great pizza restaurant down Leith Walk years ago, called Jolly  (Joker seems the right translation), which everyone, including me, pronounced, jolly, not yolly. 
We don't use the phrase, "pigging out" very much but we do say, He eats like a pig, which is a derogatory comment.

[crashryan]

To slice the ham a bit thinner, in my corner of the USA "pig out" means to eat a huge amount of food, to overeat deliberately and joyfully (or is that yoyfully?), while "eat like a pig" means to eat messily, without good table manners.

[Robb_K]

To slice the ham a bit thinner, in my corner of the USA "pig out" means to eat a huge amount of food, to overeat deliberately and joyfully (or is that yoyfully?), while "eat like a pig" means to eat messily, without good table manners.

The special word for "eats like an animal (beast), "fressen" includes BOTH the attributes of eating messily, AND overeating(eating way too much), and also gobbling down the food as if you had been starving.

[Electricmastro]

They wouldn't starve just to hang around 40 years for scattered roles that wouldn't have enjoyed playing.

So you don't believe that Caucasian actors ever went without and took demeaning low paying work while studying acting and taking work as extras for 25cents a day and a baloney sandwich (actual pay for extras on DW Griffith films) while waiting for that big break?
I remember an actor of the 60's telling of going to an automat and getting the free hot water provided to make instant coffee, He couldn't afford to drink coffee he used the water and free packets of ketchup to make tomato soup which he ate with the free packets of crackers. That was his noon time meal as he spent all his cash on acting lessons.

Chinese Americans had their own thriving theatre, in California at least. They concentrated on traditional Chinese plays much like many popular modern Chinese films. They weren't interested in Shakespeare and to white audiences the convoluted plots were  a mystery and so difficult to follow that it was a chore to sit through them. Same goes for many modern Chinese films which few would watch if not for the CGI chop-socky action scenes.

What does a glass ceiling for leading parts for people of Chinese extraction leading to their not wanting to stay in a field where their only chance for work is in bit parts have to do with whether or not Caucasian-Americans want to stay in that field or not, if they are having a hard time getting work, or good parts.  Those two situations are extremely different, and have no bearing upon each other.

But, I've met many, many Native Americans, Chinese, and African-American people from the 1920s-1940s who told me things WERE the way I described them, and have read many books and articles describing that, and the fact that Chinese, African Americans, and Native Americans had laws restricting what they could do in their lives and the fact that when those minorities had successful businesses that were more successful than Caucasian competitors they were often lynched or otherwise murdered, leads me to believe that the major studios DID have reason to avoid showing hated minority actors in leading roles portraying deeds worthy of respect, for fear of losing maybe 25-35 percent of their potential regular customers.

When enough victims get their blood spilled, it can very much feel like one is hopelessly drowning in it, as if it?s practically impossible to live a happy life worth living.

It can so easily make the path upwards towards a genuinely good society for all people seem like an empty wish, but after much thinking, including how the next generation of children isn?t obligated to grow up into heartless adults, I?ve concluded that no matter how thin and narrow the path is, it still somehow always manages to make its way through, above and beyond towards the warm and bright sun.

[Captain Audio]

I had not known that the Charlie Chan character had appeared in three silent era films. Chan was not the major character in these films, but rather a supporting player.
In each of those films Detective Chan was played by an Asian actor, two were Japanese and one was Korean.

Warner Oland did not require makeup to play the part of Chan. Oland had a distinctive Asian cast to his features. Oland himself said he must have had a Mongol ancestor, though there's no evidence to prove this.
Find a portrait photo of Oland and you will see what I mean.
There were numerous Asian supporting players in those films.

The early film industry in the United States may not have been the exclusive ol' boy club you think it was.

[Robb_K]

I had not known that the Charlie Chan character had appeared in three silent era films. Chan was not the major character in these films, but rather a supporting player.
In each of those films Detective Chan was played by an Asian actor, two were Japanese and one was Korean.

Warner Oland did not require makeup to play the part of Chan. Oland had a distinctive Asian cast to his features. Oland himself said he must have had a Mongol ancestor, though there's no evidence to prove this.
Find a portrait photo of Oland and you will see what I mean.
There were numerous Asian supporting players in those films.

The early film industry in the United States may not have been the exclusive ol' boy club you think it was.

Warner Oland (?land) was a Swede.  It is a LOT more likely that he had Sami blood than Mongol, because The Mongols didn't get anywhere near Sweden, and The Samis are still in northern Sweden, and they come from the mass of Asian peoples who occupied all of Sweden before The Scandinavins (North Germanic peoples) got there.

[Captain Audio]

I had not known that the Charlie Chan character had appeared in three silent era films. Chan was not the major character in these films, but rather a supporting player.
In each of those films Detective Chan was played by an Asian actor, two were Japanese and one was Korean.

Warner Oland did not require makeup to play the part of Chan. Oland had a distinctive Asian cast to his features. Oland himself said he must have had a Mongol ancestor, though there's no evidence to prove this.
Find a portrait photo of Oland and you will see what I mean.
There were numerous Asian supporting players in those films.

The early film industry in the United States may not have been the exclusive ol' boy club you think it was.

Warner Oland (?land) was a Swede.  It is a LOT more likely that he had Sami blood than Mongol, because The Mongols didn't get anywhere near Sweden, and The Samis are still in northern Sweden, and they come from the mass of Asian peoples who occupied all of Sweden before The Scandinavins (North Germanic peoples) got there.

Oland is the one who said he had Mongol blood not I , but I agree Sami is more likely.

Most people are surprised when they discover that until as recently as the 1960s it was widely accepted that the Finns originally came from Mongolia. But the Mongolian ?Origins of the Finns? is a controversial topic in Finland. The Western-looking academic elite have done all that they can to suppress it and academics that still contend that Finns have ?Mongoloid origins? are cast into the wilderness in a ferocious dispute.

      Until very recently, Finns were encouraged to see themselves either as ?eastern? or at least ?between east and west.? It was in the 1790, when Sweden ruled Finland, that German anthropologist J. F. Blumenbach compared Finnish, Sami (the Arctic reindeer herders) and Mongolian skulls and concluded that the Finns were ?mongoloid? and not ?white? like the Swedes or Finland?s Swedish-speaking aristocracy. This was widely accepted and led to the Turanian theory ? that both the Finns and Sami had originally come from the East ? as well as strengthening the view, according to Finland-Swede sociologist Nina af Enehjelm, that Finns were somehow ?other? and even ?inferior.? The ?Mongoloid look? is widely noted in Finland today and, there has been research that has compared Finnish religion and history to that of the Greenlandic and Finnish behaviour patterns to those of the Japanese.

http://www.mongolia-web.com/2085-are-finns-mongolians-europe/

While we are on appearances.
Description of detective Wong by the author of the stories the films were based on

Description
In his story "No Witnesses", Wiley describes Mr. Wong as six feet tall, educated at Yale University and "with the face of a foreign devil-a Yankee".[1] In the stories he is an agent of the United States Treasury Department and lives in San Francisco.

So Karloff fit the role very neatly.
By 1940 Key Luke who had played no. 1 son in the Charley Chan films was cast as Detective Wong in the sixth and last film of the series. The first Chinese to play the leading role in such a film.

PS
The Mongols did get close to the Scandinavian countries by way of Russia. Not that it matters since more than a few Europeans , as anywhere else, were born from adulterous affairs or out of wedlock with no official record of the fathers.

[The Australian Panther]

The Mongols did get close to the Scandinavian countries by way of Russia. Not that it matters since more than a few Europeans , as anywhere else, were born from adulterous affairs or out of wedlock with no official record of the fathers.

Yes. Known historical movements of peoples are one thing, but the unrecorded movements of individuals are another thing entirely. And many individuals ended up in the most unlikely places. These days you can get a DNA test tho, if you really want to find out your real ancestry.   

[Captain Audio]

The Mongols did get close to the Scandinavian countries by way of Russia. Not that it matters since more than a few Europeans , as anywhere else, were born from adulterous affairs or out of wedlock with no official record of the fathers.

Yes. Known historical movements of peoples are one thing, but the unrecorded movements of individuals are another thing entirely. And many individuals ended up in the most unlikely places. These days you can get a DNA test tho, if you really want to find out your real ancestry.

Years ago I ran across a site that displayed Scandinavian ethnic jokes and slurs, all directed towards other Scandinavians. Norwegians considered Danes and Swedes to be the equivalent of Hillbillies and vice versa.
They mentioned that there was only one known ethnic joke directed at the Finns.
"How can you tell difference between a Finn and a Russian ?"
"You can't, but a Finn can at 200 yards over open sights in a driving blizzard."
So in the end the joke was really on the Russians.

I'd just remembered something.
Hitler ordered that the Sami were not to be molested or interfered with in any way by occupying German troops. He apparently had a strong interest in studying these people.
Hitler was also a Tolkien fan, perhaps he shared Tolkien's interest in the Kalevala.

[Andrew999]

The only Swedish joke I know was told to me in Germany (so maybe it's a German joke)

- Why do Swedish girls wear so little?
- Because they're all so incredibly hot!


It perhaps loses a little in translation.......

[Andrew999]

It's quite possible Oland had Mongol (or at least Samoyed) DNA. There were two migratory routes into Scandinavia around 10,000 BC - from the south (Germanic and Indo-Aryan peoples) and from the North-East across the Arctic plane. Hunter-gatherers from Siberia took this route, most settled in Norway - many were russet-haired, hence the number of russet-haired people found in Norway, the Shetlands (and Dublin - a later Viking colony)

Scandinavia was the last place in Europe to be settled after the great glacial age.

[Captain Audio]

The only Swedish joke I know was told to me in Germany (so maybe it's a German joke)

- Why do Swedish girls wear so little?
- Because they're all so incredibly hot!


It perhaps loses a little in translation.......

I Finn once told me that Russian women can be quite beautiful, if they shave their body hair, but alas if the do they will freeze to death.