Those are "spoken" dialects and not actually written.

yeah but many years ago we had to typeset and print stuff in Creole. Took a while just to find someone who could actually translate it from English.

[ve2vfd]

I don't know about Cajun, but I'm pretty sure that Creole is indeed written and though it's based on french, it's practically a different language.

Montreal has a massive Haitian population that speaks and writes Creole (including signs in their stores)

Pat

[krypticide]

People seem to be confused about what the American dream is. It isn't about owning this or that. The American Dream is that your children will live better than you do. If you think about what that implies, you will see that most of all the problems that started this thread, go away. Parents involved in actively seeing their children doing better. They themselves, doing everything in their power to do better so that it translates into a better starting point for their offspring. The world moving forward, not back into darkness.

You totally nailed it. The reason my parents left everything behind in Taiwan was so that I could have more opportunities, here in the US. It was never about just wealth, whether you measure that in terms of dollars or houses.

I never believed the whole "I work hard 8 to 5, I deserve big cars, big screen TVs, and a nice house." No wonder many people ended up over-leveraging themselves.

[Blue]

I don't know about Cajun, but I'm pretty sure that Creole is indeed written and though it's based on french, it's practically a different language.

Montreal has a massive Haitian population that speaks and writes Creole (including signs in their stores)

Pat

That's possible. I was basing it on my experience with Louisiana Creole and Cajun French and when they write, it is usually English.

[er1kksen]

People seem to be confused about what the American dream is. It isn't about owning this or that. The American Dream is that your children will live better than you do. If you think about what that implies, you will see that most of all the problems that started this thread, go away. Parents involved in actively seeing their children doing better. They themselves, doing everything in their power to do better so that it translates into a better starting point for their offspring. The world moving forward, not back into darkness.

But what is it that we call "better," and who defines it? Different generations, and different individuals within each generation, would define "better" differently if called upon to really give a serious answer.

The consumer-culture caricature of "the American Dream," the one that is about owning this or that, is an easy enough dream for people to follow without having to think too much about what they really want or deal with the conflicts that that may bring about. I'm not necessarily critical of "the American Dream" in its original intent, but for mainstream, culturally acclimatized Americans it seems to have warped into something far less noble, something which I feel drags our culture down.

The American Dream anymore is whatever you want it to be. Use to be to have a good job, a family, a home. Not always a house but a home. Money isn't everything. After all you can't buy happiness. So I just rent it.

I've turned down great pay, and partnership in a successful busines that could have left me well set but I wasn't willing to give up where I live. I would have had to move back to NY. In the short run it seemed stupid. Long run proved me right.

[er1kksen]

Well, you can keep florida, and I'll keep new york.

Until I start summering in Maine and Wintering in... well... South America, this year...