[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] English orthographies

[Jack & Naree]

If you search for "American-English" on google, you'll find a long list (a
very long list) of the differences.
Colour/Color is but a superficial one, but it is important because it's a
fundamental word and article entry.
The issue is that to choose one spelling over the other goes against the
principle that both spellings are equally valid; or that each spelling is
regarded as the correct one (and the other as a foreign one) by millions of
people, in each case.
There are other issues with other words, phrases or terms.
 e.g.: if I want to search for "tap", do I redirected to "faucet"?
If you use the word "faucet" in the British Isles, few people will know what
you mean - even in context (they might think it's a technical term for part
of a tap).
In such a case, it's a foreign word to millions of "Commonwealth-English"
speakers (though not necessarily all), and unintelligible - it has to be
translated.
To illustrate how the English I speak (in England) is a different language
to American-English, I was in Bangkok a couple of years ago, and in an
internet cafe - a man turned to me and said:
"What's up?" I said, "Nothing? Why?", he looked at me, baffled; I looked
back at him, baffled - we were using the same words, but speaking different
languages; neither of us knew what we meant and why.
 It became apparent that we were from different countries, and some
explaining was required - we had to learn each other's language. We were not
speaking the same language.
Americans might want to call their language "English", but the term is
inappropriate, because it already exists for a language that is
autochthonous to England, whence the name comes. Another term has to be
created for this offshoot of English, and the term "American English" is
used in the OED. So it's reasonable to say that Americans don't speak
"English", they speak "American-English", which is written often using words
that look identical or similar, but that does not mean that the meaning is
the same.
Having words which look the same does not mean they are the same.
The word "color" is spelt the same in a number of languages:
American-English, Spanish, Asturianu, Catalan... but not in
Commonwealth-English.
 If it's good enough for Google and Gmail to have American-English and
Commonwealth Englishes (which should probably be unified as
Commonwealth-English), then it should be good enough for Wikipedia.
 No offence to all of you who are not native speakers, but this debate is
better had between native speakers - as it would be for any language.
 I propose the fairest and most pragmatic solution is that the English
Wikipedia be duplicated into two and that these two are renamed:
 English (Commonwealth)
English (American)
 This is in keeping with Wikipedia's own policy statement on English; it
also seems fair considering the existence of things like:
Norwegian (Bokmal) & Norwegian (Nynorsk); Dutch, Limburgish and Afrikaans;
Simple English; Galician and Portuguese; and frankly some Slavic dialects.

 On 21/09/05, Pawe³ Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
>
> > In addition to massive (rather than minor) orthographic differences,
> > Bokmål and Nynorsk have very different grammars (some examples: the
> > word "I" is "Jeg" in Bokmål and "Eg" in Nynorsk, the word "not" is
> > "ikke" in Bokmål and "ikkje" in Nynorsk, even the word "Norway" is
> > "Norge" in Bokmål and "Noreg" in Nynorsk.)
>
> Well, that's a vocabulary difference, not a grammar difference. But I
> believe you that there are also some grammar differences :), although
> the examples you gave look pretty minor to me, like color/colour...
>
> --
> Ausir
> Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
> http://pl.wikipedia.org
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