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.
I come from Arizona. We have a plant there. It's called a Saguaro
(Pronounced sa-wah-ro). Yes, unusual terms will always have to be
translated for people outside of their realm, be it a faucet, plant, or
wind (such as Mariah).
What!~? I come from Arizona, and HERE we pronounce it "cigar". In
fact, we also write it "cigar". But it's not a plant. It's something
you smoke. However, we do have a plant which we call "sahuaro". Or
"saguaro". It's confusing.
And one can't forget Mexican food -- apparently a lot of people from
back East don't know how to say "tortilla", "fajita",
"tamale",
"quesadilla"... and then of course we have other weird plants like the
cholla. If you tell an out-of-stater to go to "cholla road", they'll
probably be looking for "choya". Even a lot of locals stumble over
"creosote" (I mean, really, nobody talks about creosote as much as
they talk about cholla or saguaro). Or javelina... or... well, we must
have other stuff people don't get. Like the fact that after living
here for 5 years, you should get an Arizona licence plate for your
car... or that right turn on red is legal... or that speed limit signs
are meant to be followed, rather than blown off. Or that 90 degrees is
_not_ hot.
Maybe a young man might ask you "what's going
down", and you might be
illiterate, He might ask you "where be the shizznat?" and you might be
illiterate.
You would *still* be the one illiterate in modern english, not he. You
have not kept up on your studies, if you cannot translate the above.
Ahh, see, in good old Englalound when they say "Wot's up!!?!!??" they
mean "What's wrong??", not "How are you?", and I'm guessing
when they
say "How you hangin'?" they're generally asking it of somebody
who's
just been hanged.
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.
When the englanders and amis can speak english, the world will be much
better. (riiight)
I personally think the Amis should continue to speak Amis. I think
it's tragic that they're currently undergoing gradual language shift
to Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese while losing their native language.
Why should they speak English?
I, for one, think Amis is a beautiful language. And really the only
time I've heard it is in that song "Rumadiw kita mapulong"... but it
looks funky when it's written, and that's cool too.
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)
I propose you fork off. The code is there. Go for it.
I also propose he fork off, or maybe that he go fork himself, where
"fork" is pronounced in an RP way but surrounded by words pronounced
in a Scottish accent.
Mark