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Colin Powell was in the unusual position of being an American of Jamaican descent who was brought up in the Bronx, who could speak Yiddish. He would have been in the unusual position of speaking and understanding different varieties of English.

Do foreign words in everyday English function like a masonic handshake giving information about identity?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell

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They may. But so may English words: I may assert my membership in any linguistic community by employing words, phrases, idioms or syntactic constructions peculiar to that community. – StoneyB Sep 3 '12 at 19:10
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Sociologically, yes, in the same way that asking if people judge each other on their clothes. Your question is not restricted to anything in particular about English, or even foreign words in any language. You'e very good at posing very interesting questions that are just really outside the scope of answerability at stackexchange. Maybe you should go to chat where discussion are more likely to happen. – Mitch Sep 3 '12 at 19:26
I think this question might relate to Linguistics or Cognitive Sciences . You can try asking there. – Theta30 Sep 3 '12 at 20:02
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@Robin: In the past 24 hours, you've asked four questions, all revolving around a theme of integrating non-English words into the English language. All four questions have been closed. Maybe you should give this theme a respite for awhile. – J.R. Sep 3 '12 at 23:38
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closed as not constructive by MετάEd, Barrie England, tchrist, Mitch, GEdgar Sep 3 '12 at 19:31

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