Alphax wrote:
>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.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/English-American_Dictionaryhttp://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Australia-English_Dictionary
(I am looking to expand the latter a bit then get it onto the front page.)
- d.
In the last two weeks this list saw 233 messages with "English" in
the Subject line. The most common ("Re:" removed) were:
95 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English
45 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] new request for ASL/English wikipedia
30 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sample ASL/English entry
22 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Anglicised English British English
9 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for AS/English Wikipedia
9 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] OurMedia for ASL-English video
None of these discussions are expected to lead anywhere in the
near future. Please wake me up when you have some ASL websites
that I can look at, or when you have reached consensus on
color/colour spelling.
The most of these pointless messages were posted by:
27 From: Mark Williamson
21 From: Gerard Meijssen
19 From: Jack & Naree
19 From: Alphax
16 From: Andrew Gray
12 From: James R. Johnson
I admit to having written 2 of the messages, and this is my 3rd.
In 1945 Vannevar Bush wrote an article about the Memex, but he
never built one. In 1960 Ted Nelson started to design the Xanadu
system, but have you seen it in operation? The aspect that makes
Wikipedia stand out is that it exists. We will continue to be
more successful than those old losers if we keep smalltalk to a
minimum and get back to work on ideas that we can implement.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
On 19/09/05, Gerrit Holl wrote:
> Since English is really a dialect of French, a lie bree is probably a
> place where you buy your books, as it is in any "proper language" (-:
I'm not 100% sure if you were joking or just labouring under a
misunderstanding, so I thought I'd point out that English is largely a
Germanic language, closely related to the various modern Scandinavian
tongues, and also to modern Dutch and German.
French is like a distant cousin (sharing
great-great-great-great-grandparents in Proto-Indo-European) which
recently had a quick affair, so that a few of her features show up in
the offspring ;)
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]
_______________________________________________
English a germanic language? Impossible! An absurd notion! Lunacy! Exaggeration! Unadulterated opinionated insanity! Essentially misdirected ill conceived viewpoints. Troublesome tempestuous tapestries. As tasteless as a tarty tarantella. Significantly senseless. Quintessentially unquotable. Positively preposterous. Necessarily nonplussed and nominally abnormal. Exponentially and exceedingly uneventful. Undeveloped, uncorroborated, irresponsible, and finally, bountifully morally bankrupt. I opine that I have proven my point.
Yours truly, frankly, ecetera
pippu d'angelo
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger: chiamate gratuite in tutto il mondo
I love these kinds of debates - the ones that can go around in circles until the cows come home. Sure, I get pissed off (AE pissed) at american spellings as much as the next bloke - but it doesn't mean I can't follow what's going on - nor does it mean that it will ever influence my pristine, strawberries and cream, Oxbridge, very best of the Queen's english - with a name like Giuseppe d'Angelo - you wouldn't expect otherwise would you?
I love the fact that there are a couple of thousand words that might be found in wikipedia with two spellings (both equally acceptable). It makes it easier for me to point to my thick skulled paisani and say to them: don't worry if a word can be spelled two or three (or five or seven) ways in Sicilian - it's the same word and we all understand it regardless of how you want to spell it - it's not as big an issue as you think - look at English! - the language of the lower orders under Norman rule now rules the world - but the varieties are as many as teams in the English FA. It hasn't mattered one jot - there are more important things to worry about - like who will win out of the Sydney Swans and West Coast Eagles this Saturday at the MCG and will Bazza be rubbed out for a week? And has there truly been a leak in the brownlow voting? Now they're important questions!
Salutamu
pippu d'angelo
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi, antispam, antivirus, POP3
Touché!
9. Re: English - a sub-vernacular of Norman French (Rowan Collins)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 21:55:05 +0100
From: Rowan Collins
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] English - a sub-vernacular of Norman French
To: wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <9f02ca4c05092013557f11e85f(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I can only respond that "I will fight you on the beaches..." [I'm sure
you know the rest] ;)
On 20/09/05, Giuseppe DAngelo
wrote:
> English a germanic language? Impossible! An absurd notion! Lunacy! Exaggeration! Unadulterated opinionated insanity! Essentially misdirected ill conceived viewpoints. Troublesome tempestuous tapestries. As tasteless as a tarty tarantella. Significantly senseless. Quintessentially unquotable. Positively preposterous. Necessarily nonplussed and nominally abnormal. Exponentially and exceedingly uneventful. Undeveloped, uncorroborated, irresponsible, and finally, bountifully morally bankrupt. I opine that I have proven my point.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi, antispam, antivirus, POP3
Jack & Naree wrote:
>Well I'm familiar with the Canadian immigration procedure, and I know that
>it's hard to get in without decent qualifications and useful work experience
>(unless you speak French).
>
Canadian immigration policy is a subject best left for another time. :-$
>So all these Commonwealth English-speaking immigrants (including those from
>the British Isles) go into important jobs where they have input into the
>language that gets written down in the Canadian media; on websites; and
>official documents.
>
If you review the important statistics that you cited India and Pakistan
are Commonwealth countries that provide considerably more immigrants
than either the UK or US. A form of American English is also widespread
in the Philippines. The English of the subcontinent has a distinctive
flavour of its own, and if put in a position of influence those
immigrants may have an influence on Canadian English that could be quite
different from what you would expect. Immigrants from the UK will
include people with many other skills that just linguistic ones. Those
other skills are more important for immigration policy. Although the
same might be true for Americans it must be remembered that the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is also a factor there that will
facilitate higher level migration within an established company
>The podgy working-class Canucks, on the other hand may well be
>indistinguishable from podgy working-class Yanks, but they can't have as
>disproportionate an effect on written English in Canada as these
>aforementioned immigrants.
>
Television, and products advertised on television are more influential.
Most mass marketed books are from the USA. Those less educated persons
who continue to read are more likely to be influenced by American
romance novels.
>http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pub/facts2004/permanent/12.html
>The number of Commonwealth English speakers combined is by far the largest
>contingent.
>Plus the fact that you've got the French influence on spellings - it's
>cheaper (for advert/sign-writing) and more efficient to use one spelling, so
>why have an American and French version when you can have an English one
>that suits both.
>
The French spelligs do tend to be closer to the British for reasons that
go back to the Norman conquest, but if the context requires full
translation this is not likely to be noticed. The bulk of the
translation is from English to French so that becomes an exercise in
protecting French from the corruption of anglicisms of which ever type.
The politically correct tendency in Quebec French is sometimes toward
having a language that is more correct than what you might find in France.
Ec
>On 19/09/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Jack & Naree wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The thing aboot (!) Canada is that there's a steady stream of recent (and
>>>educated) British immigrants as with Australia, maintaining the standards.
>>>
>>>
>>>I would not be surprised to find Americanisms more a feature of urban
>>>working-class Canadians near the US border.
>>>
>>>
>>Some 80% of the Canadian population lives within 150km of the US
>>border. (That's about 90 miles for you Brits and Yanks that don't
>>understand that.) British and Australian immigrants have not been
>>dominant among those who choose to come live in Canada; we see far more
>>newcomers from India. I understand that years of British influence have
>>resulted in a peculiar form of hypercorrect English, but I don't see how
>>this influx of Raj English will help maintain standards among Disneyfied
>>Canadians. I think that a continued practice of smug linguistic aikido
>>will be more effective Come to think of it, that strategy may work as
>>well in cricket as in baseball.
>>
>>
Jim Breen wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>[Gerard Meijssen (Re: [Wiktionary-l] English orthographies) writes:]
>
>
>>>Jim Breen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>[Gerard Meijssen ([Wiktionary-l] English orthographies) writes:]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>1) English, American English and other orthographies are treated as
>>>>>>seperate entities.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>I think this will be a disaster.
>>>>
>>>>Can you explain why "jewellery" and "jewelry" cannot be alternatives
>>>>within the one entry?
>>>>
>>>>
>
>
>
>>>In the database design,
>>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_data_design , an
>>>Expression is a number of characters that make up a valid occurrence in
>>>a language. Therefore every spelling IS a different Expression.
>>>
>>>
>
>OK, so the short answer is that the UW database was designed that way.
>
>I predict it will be a mess. It is also at variance with all the
>lexicographical databases I have seen.
>
>
Yes, but there is as far as I know no database that wants to have ALL
languages and ALL words in one database. This is what Wiktionary does
and that is what the Ultimate Wiktionary makes markedly different from
what went before.
>
>
>>>The English used in Britain, the United States, Australia etc is
>>>significantly different.
>>>
>>>
>
>Nonsense.
>
>
That is a matter of opinion. I agree that to some extend the English is
the same. My English I learned at school and I lived in Great Britain
for a few years. I can tell you that I fall foul on misunderstanding
Americans sufficiently. The meaning is different and I have suffered the
consequences of not understanding well what was meant.
>
>
>>>This can be found in the difference in
>>>vocabulary and the difference in orthography.
>>>
>>>
>
>Both the spelling and vocabulary differ only to a very small extent.
>
>
When you however want the meanings described in that particular
orthography you need to have it specified as something specific.
>
>
>>>Typically when considering
>>>spelling, the way the English, American, Australian spell differently
>>>makes it a different orthography. This is reflected in there being
>>>English, American etc dead wood dictionaries. In a project like UW where
>>>we collect all words of all languages, it makes sense to reflect this.
>>>
>>>
>
>By all means collect them and reflect them, but don't foster the
>impression that they are a major issue, because they aren't. Also don't
>fall into the trap of thinking that you can neatly compartmentalize
>English spellings into strict country groups. Different mixes of spellings
>are used right across the English-speaking world.
>
>BTW, spelling and orthography are different things. Orthography refers
>to the writing system, i.e. "a method of representing the sounds of a
>language by written or printed symbols" (to quote Wordnet.) English
>is written with one orthographical system.
>
>
To be more "politically correct" Wiktionary gives as a definition: "The
study of correct spelling according to established usage". The
established usage in Britain is different from the United States and
therefore it could be considered a different orthography.
>To a large extent I don't really care that much about "jewellery" and
>"jewelry" being in their own entries in English, because they are only a
>few percent of words. Where this approach will be a total disaster is
>with Japanese, where most words can be and are written in two or
>more scripts, and where spelling variations are rife. The idea that the
>meaning, POS, etc. etc. for a word will be replicated again and again
>and again for each writing variant is too awful to contemplate.
>
>
With Japanese all these different ways of writing are ALL accepted
Japanese. They are ALL used intermixed and there is no reason why they
should not be. There is nothing that disallows Japanese expressions in
multiple charactersets. When a Word is included, it only needs to be
connected to the same Meaning through SynTrans to share the same meaning.
I am happy to explain how this works out from within the database
design. So consider asking questions instead of making pronouncements
about how "bad" it will be.
What is a POS?? part of speech ??
>To be blunt, it sounds like the UW database design was done with one
>or a few languages in mind, and the others are being told to fall into
>line.
>
I like you to be plainspoken, but consider; we consider sign languages,
we allow for these great bits of software that show strokes for Chinese
/ Japanese characters. We allow for many relations and labels for Words
/ Expressions / Meanings. Tell me what your issue is and I will see how
it fits in the database design and explain this to you.
I will not be too suprised when we find things that need improvement.
But improvements can only be made when the issues are identified that
are not catered for in the current database design. So give me your
issues and let us work toward solutions.
Thanks,
GerardM