[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English

Mon Sep 19 12:19:06 UTC 2005

On 19/09/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote: 
> 
> There is no Wikipedia in "Scot's English". There is a Wikipedia in Scots.

 Aa feckin' speak it bud! and I call it "Inglis".

Now, please list out for me some of the differences between American
> and Commonwealth English which one is likely to see in the average
> encyclopaedia article.

 That would take some time...

> How often will encyclopaedia articles talk about nappies/diapers,
> dummies/pacifiers, lifts/elevators, prams/strollers, or anything else
> where the essential terminology differs?

 more often you seem to realise

The reason there's a separate Wikipedia for Scots is because usage of
> Scots on the English Wikipedia would never be tolerated. However, both
> Commonwealth and American English are tolerated and widely used
> throught the English Wikipedia.
> 
> I, for one, am an American who prefers Commonwealth English, but
> having received my education in American spelling (or as you would
> say, "misspelling"), my writing tends to be a jumble of forms rather
> than all one way or all the other. I tend to write "encyclopedia",
> "traveler", "check", "catalog", but "realise", "internationalisation",
> etc. This isn't due to personal preference, but rather habit -- I
> would rather read a document in Commonwealth English, and I try to
> write in it, but since I don't go over my spelling carefully, I tend
> to end up using American spellings most of the time for certain
> lexical items (such as "encyclopedia"), but Commonwealth spellings
> most of the time for others (such as "rationalisation").
> 
> See, now, that the most common differences

 qualify "most common"

 are mere differences of
> spelling. 

 And I don't want to spell them in a foreign, incorrect way - is that too 
much to ask?

And they aren't particularly frequent. How often does
> Wikipedia say "nationalise"/"nationalize", "realise"/"realize"? 

 do you really want me to answer that?

Things
> like "kilometres"/"kilometers" are a bit more frequent.
> 
> But still, in the past, there haven't been separate Wikipedias for
> such tiny differences. You seem to regard Anglo-Saxon as similar to
> English.

 no, but English is spoken by about 60m people in the British Isles, the 4th 
largest economy in the world, and Anglo-Saxon isn't.

 A sample sentence from the Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia, for you to
> decipher (with accents and special characters removed):
> 
> "Lundene is heafodburg thaes Geanlaehtan Cynerices and Englalandes,
> and is thara greatostre worulde burga an. Hit haefth seofon millonan
> leoda in Greatrum Lundene (hatte Lundeneras)."
> 
> Now is that Balkanisation? "heafodburg"?? Are you kidding me? (in case
> you're wondering, it means "capital"). "cynerice"? do you get that? It
> means "kingdom".

 this is just academic willy waving.

There isn't an actual Wikipedia for Middle English, only a test
> Wikipedia, but it is also a bit hard to understand:
> 
> "A dogge is the beste that man hath as a housbeste. Doggen arn 'mannes
> best frend' as the saying goth."
> 
> "Hallo. It is trewe, as Briane hath seyde, when thaet man sholde
> scryven as in this cas in middel englisce, that suiche a nam is brodre
> than man wolde thinken, for it refereth to a period of foure hundred
> yaren, in which many different scrives manneren. Peradventure 'twere
> bettre thaet we formed some sort of concordat on this, but I fere
> thaet this coulde forfenden and demarken forcome contributiouns"
> 
> Compared to that, American vs Commonwealth differences seem tiny.
> 
> Mark

 what a digression.

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Cool, mockery is for trolls.
> > This is not about Balkanisation, it's about separating American-English
> > from English.
> > But come to think of it - yes, have one for every variation you like, 
> and
> > let natural selection take care of the rest. Just as long as English is
> > English, and not American.
> > Have you seen the "Scot's English" one? Do you not call that 
> Balkanisation?
> > If you want to have a legitimate criteria for a language, a different
> > orthography has got to be a clear one.
> > In English there are two - American and non-American.
> > Orthography is the main issue, meaning is another.
> > If you want to go academic - which is surely the best way to back this
> > whole argument up, you should scan this (ironically american) leading
> > insitute of linguistic research:
> > http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng
> > On 19/09/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > (note: I've split this into paragraphs for readability)
> > >
> > > Jack wrote:
> > > > I want American English to have a separate Wikipedia from English
> > > > English - this would mean copying
> > > >
> > > > I typed it in a hurry at the end of my shift with a view to
> > > > responding to any response, later.
> > > >
> > > > I've placed a more detailed post on the helpdesk page. I think,
> > > > however, that it's apt that I should go into even more depth here.
> > > >
> > > > I've asked about English on Wikipedia before and been told that they
> > > > think it's acceptable for English articles to be in a mish-mash of
> > > > dialects and spellings; but having seen the range of ludicrous
> > > > languages available - including variant forms of English: Scots
> > > > English and Middle English etc... I've now decided I must make a
> > > > request and campaign properly for American English to be given a
> > > > seperate Wikipedia language from (English) English.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I must remind viewers who are still with us that Balkanisation Is 
> Evil.
> > >
> > > > It's simply infuriating and offensive for the misspellings of a
> > > > dialect of English to take precedence over the standard language -
> > > > I'm sure Spanish, French and Portuguese speakers would feel
> > > > similarly; it's cultural imperialism.
> > > >
> > > > If you have different forms of Chinese Wikipedia (I'm a graduate of
> > > > Jap & Chi so I'm aware of xyz); if you have Wikipedias for dialects
> > > > and older forms of English; if you Wikipedias for countries and
> > > > languages with far smaller populations, economic/political 
> importance
> > > > and internet presences; then the English of the British Isles and
> > > > Commonwealth - the standard and original form of English - simply
> > > > *has* to be the only form of English that can use the term "English"
> > > > on Wikipedia.
> > > >
> > > > Some might say that it is "British English", this term is fallacious
> > > > (even if you can find it in a dictionary) no English, British,
> > > > British Isles or even Commonwealth native understands or recognises
> > > > the term - it is both meaningless and fallacious: there are no
> > > > "British English" speakers in the world - there are English
> > > > (nationality) English (language) speakers, Welsh English speakers,
> > > > Scottish English speakers, Irish English speakers, Cornish English
> > > > speakers and so on...
> > > >
> > > > Whereas the term "American English" is not.
> > > >
> > > > When I go to Wikipedia English, and type a search for "colour" I
> > > > should not expect to be redirected to "color" which is a recent
> > > > spelling of a dialect of English that has arisen over the last 
> couple
> > > > of centuries perhaps - it is simply *not* *English* it is
> > > > *American-English*. I'm more than happy for American-English 
> speakers
> > > > to have an American-English wikipedia and have all their weird and
> > > > wonderful spellings and vocabulary - and it may well turn out to be
> > > > the biggest wiki; but I don't want to select Wikipedia English and
> > > > type in "Aubergine" and get "Eggplant"; "Nappy" and get "Diaper"; or
> > > > "Tap" and get "Faucet", it's simply unacceptable, and against the
> > > > spirit of multilingualism and accuracy that wikipedia is supposed to
> > > > strive for. Hence I want to campaign in all seriousness that The
> > > > English Wikipedia is duplicated, and one is called American-English,
> > > > the other remaining English, and the task of correcting spelling,
> > > > vocab and grammar can begin.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I agree completely. Furthurmore, I feel that we shall need an 
> Australian
> > > English Wikipedia to handle the many words in Australian English which
> > > differ from English English (and possibly Queensland English, New 
> South
> > > Wales English, et. al), a South African English Wikipedia to 
> accomodate
> > > the heavy use of Afrikaans, a New Zealand English Wikipedia to account
> > > for the lack of vowels, a Canadian English Wikipedia to account for 
> the
> > > number of French words, a Canadian French Wikipedia to complement it,
> > > and a Singlish Wikipedia because it has a funny name.
> > >
> > > Here's a far better idea: Let's go back to Proto-Indo-European. 
> Imagine
> > > the amount of server space we could save!
> > >
> > > Conversely, imagine a Beowulf cluster of English Wikipedias!
> > >
> > > > The Campaign for an English Wikipedia is not about Britain (the
> > > > fourth largest economy in the world, a population of about 60m, 55%
> > > > of whom are online), it's also about a whole host of other countries
> > > > and regions (over a billion people) that do not use 
> American-English,
> > > > but use English instead as a lingua franca (many with complete
> > > > fluency):
> > > >
> > > <snip overly long list>
> > > > The term Commonwealth English is therefore also apt, but
> > > American-English
> > > > has no right to usurp the title English, from English! Wikipedia 
> should
> > > > reflect this.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I find your theories interesting/intriguing and wish to subscribe to
> > > your newsletter/journal.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Alphax | /"\
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