On 19/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

Does your e-mail have a point?

I would guess this is the same person who ranted at the en: Help Desk yesterday about the issue.

As this rant included (edited highlights) -

"It's bad enough that the British invention of HTML won't let you type colour correctly in tags, without having the world's largest free online dictionary purporting to display information in English, but in fact displaying it in a dialect of English - we've got Wikipedia in Scots, Wikipedia in Middle English, but when you click on Wikipedia English, you get spelling errors, sloppy grammar and garbled syntax; in short the American dialect of English, trying to hijack the term English. ... I want Wikipedia "English" to be partitioned in to "English" and "American". We can copy and paste and run spellcheck to iron out the mangled American illiteracy, no worries. ... It is a scandal to actively promote the butchering of English..."

- I think we can safely consider this as not providing a great deal of useful insight into our language policy :-)

On 19/09/05, Ole Andersen palnatoke@gmail.com wrote:

On 19/09/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:

...

I would guess this is the same person who ranted at the en: Help Desk yesterday about the issue.

As this rant included (edited highlights) -

...

...

I want Wikipedia "English" to be partitioned in to "English" and "American".

It could be done, of course. We could also have Australian, Indian and South African English. If we wanted to do so, that is.

I don't think there is significant difference - I think it's really a split between "Commonwealth English" and "American English". The cultural ties - even down to soap operas on telly mean that Aussies and Pommes and South Africans have much more affinity and familiarity with each other, and this also extends to language. When it comes to Americans, however, there really is a gulf of (mis)understanding (and misspelling). But I think you miss the point in that - I'm not talking about making a "British English" wikipedia (In fact I don't believe the £British English£ article should exist, becuase the term does not make any sense outside America) - I want the English Wikipedia to be reclaimed by English or Commonwealth English speakers, and the Americans given their own "/am-en" American-English wikipedia.

--

http://palnatoke.org * Ole Andersen, Copenhagen, DK CV: http://palnatoke.org/CV.doc ICQ: 86989486 phone: +45 22 34 72 92 _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Jack & Naree wrote:

Yes, it was me, I did rant, I do apologise, but I'm just pissed off with proper English being treated like this.

You have Wikipedia in Klingon, in tiny tribal languages, and now in Scots (and I'm Scottish btw) - which is basically as similar to correct English as American-English is - at least I think most native English-speakers can probably read it.

Actually, we don't have a Wikipedia in Klingon. It's a Wikicity, which is hosted by Wikia, *not* the Wikimedia Foundation.

BTW, have you considered contributing to sco.wikipedia?

"- I think we can safely consider this as not providing a great deal of useful insight into our language policy :-)" Why not? Ok, I ranted, but this not an illegitimate point, why should we (and I say that because you have a ".uk" address) be forced to accept Americanisms?

Really? I thought it was en.wikipedia.org...

If you're British, do think we should start changing our spellings to American ones? Start changing our grammar too? someone at Wikipedia ages ago wrote to me that he thought it was fine for articles in the English section to remain in the dialect relevent to their subject matter - he basically said, if it's about the UK it can be in English, but everything else is to be in American-English, but called English - and he said he was British!

Actually, the policy is (or at least was):

* If subject of article is British (or other Commonwealth English)-related, use Commonwealth English. * If subject of article is USian, use US English * If neither applies, majority style (in case both are used) of original author is preferred.

I mean there are several issues here: cultural imperialism, ambiguation (because of the many differences in American-English and English usage), and English learners learning to spell incorrectly and talk like Americans - why is it wrong to resist that?

You are welcome to create your own fork of the site in Commonwealth English, provided you comply with the GFDL.

Jack wrote: <snip>

...

Actually, the policy is (or at least was):

• If subject of article is British (or other Commonwealth

English)-related, use Commonwealth English.

• If subject of article is USian, use US English
• If neither applies, majority style (in case both are used) of original

author is preferred.

And what of "Aubergines" and "Eggplants"? "Colour" and "Color"

Aubergine is a French word left over from the 1800s - 1900s when it became popular in England to use French culinary terms. Everyone else had already taken Eggplant and run with it.

Mark Williamson wrote:

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

...

...

Actually, we don't have a Wikipedia in Klingon.

that's a surprise

Why?

I think we have an inclusionist on our hands :)

...

...

Actually, the policy is (or at least was):

• If subject of article is British (or other Commonwealth

English)-related, use Commonwealth English.

• If subject of article is USian, use US English
• If neither applies, majority style (in case both are used) of original

author is preferred.

And what of "Aubergines" and "Eggplants"? "Colour" and "Color"

See the 3rd rule. However the original author of the article writes it. Colour and color aren't that big of a deal. Any mention of "eggplant" or "aubergine" can note the other variant in parentheses, although I have a sneaking suspicioun that in the commounwealthe the werde "eggplant" will be understode wel enough.

Er, Mark, have you been drinking, or have the CIA been reading your email again? :)

Besides, to many English speakers in the Commonwealth "Aubergine" is an unknown term. It certainly was to me until I learnt the word in French back in high school :)

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

Yes, it was me, I did rant, I do apologise, but I'm just pissed off with proper English being treated like this. You have Wikipedia in Klingon, in tiny tribal languages, and now in Scots (and I'm Scottish btw) - which is basically as similar to correct English as American-English is - at least I think most native English-speakers can probably read it.

I think this is a sheltered understanding brought on by being Scots and thus having a working comprehension of the dialect in the air - it's certainly one of the less easy ones for an outsider to encounter. I have had to explain to Oxford students that what they thought at a glance was Middle English was, in fact, early modern Scots...

To put it in context, Scots is comprehensible to the average resident of Chicago if he thinks for a bit, skips a couple of difficult words ("leid" always throws people), and reads it to himself in an accent. The writing of the average resident of Chicago is far more comprehensible to most Scots than that.

Why not? Ok, I ranted, but this not an illegitimate point, why should we (and I say that because you have a ".uk" address) be forced to accept Americanisms? If you're British, do think we should start changing our spellings to American ones? Start changing our grammar too?

No, and I think this is a strawman argument. Every article I write has been in "correct" British English, barring the usual errors and a couple of stylistic quirks I blame on reading Usenet too long. No-one has changed the grammar or the spelling; no-one has "forced me" to accept Americanisms and I very much doubt anyone shall.

someone at Wikipedia ages ago wrote to me that he thought it was fine for articles in the English section to remain in the dialect relevent to their subject matter - he basically said, if it's about the UK it can be in English, but everything else is to be in American-English, but called English - and he said he was British!

The only hard-and-fast rule is that where there is dominant usage of a particular dialect for a particular topic we use that dialect.

So, an article on a Royal Navy destroyer talks about it being "armoured", whereas an article on the same ship when in American service would use "armored". JFK got an _honorable_ discharge from the Navy, but Ted Heath served in the _Honourable_ Artillery Company.

Where usage is contested - "petrol" or "gasoline" is the most hard-fought one I can think of - the compromise is simply to use the first dialect in which the article was written. Hence we have articles on "Labour (economics)", related to the "Labour movement", which also has articles on "child labor" and "manual labor". Yes, it looks a little messy - but they're the same concept, and content is preferable over form.

As to your citation of "aubergine" and "eggplant" - we have the same article serving for "Rosa gallica", "Gallic Rose" and "French Rose", and it smells just as sweet. There is a redirect at Londres for London, for Beijing at Peking, one at Bombay for Mumbai and one at Calcutta for Kolkata. It's all just different names for the same thing.

There are some usages of American English which look glaring to a British-trained eye - "In 1945, Churchill wrote Truman that..." - but these can generally be redrafted into a suitably neutral phrasing ("In a 1945 letter to Truman, Churchill noted ..."), and no-one objects to that. There are likewise expressions in my usage that look glaring to an American, but offhand I can't think of any - I see no reason anything I write shouldn't be restyled to be easily comprehensible to both.

I mean there are several issues here: cultural imperialism, ambiguation (because of the many differences in American-English and English usage), and English learners learning to spell incorrectly and talk like Americans - why is it wrong to resist that?

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

The concept of English as a monolithic entity living somewhere in Kensington from which variants have sprung worldwide is now outdated; from the point of view of the writers of the first edition of the Britannica in 1770ish, you and I are speaking a degraded and foreign language. (Back then, plural's was still an accepted construction!)

Recently, I read Alford's "The Queen's English", dated about 1865. He angrily writes about Americanisms (though not using that term), about speakers of English writing various completely wrong barbarisms. Some are alien to me - I'd never heard of "diocess" for "diocese", but apparently the /Times/ insisted on using it. He states that exclamation marks - which he terms "notes of admiration", the term not having then been invented - are superfluous to the language and should be abhorred. To describe someone as a "talented" writer is "about as bad as possible", and likewise the word "gifted".

(Though, interestingly, he approves of verbing nouns, noting that a century before "to experience" was hated by scholars. Plus ca change...)

The language changes; there is no sense in fighting it, because one may as well try to split atoms with a chisel. The era of modern communications will invariably simplify previously divergent spellings, just as it has smoothed over the difference in regional accents in the past, and caused a small number of languages to become massively dominant. It's all the same process...

[oops, accidentally sent it to Andre only. My apologies for the duplicate - damn gmail!]

On 19/09/05, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:

Actually I think this one is a good advise for those writing Wikipedia

• usage of exclamation marks often means that you are slipping towards

POV. Alford's term "note of admiration" explains that well - we should not be noting that something is admirable, just tell the facts and have the reader decide whether they are admirable or down-to-earth.

Besides, using an exclamation mark in every second line, as some people tend to do, is in my opinion bad style in itself, even outside Wikipedia.

Not disagreeing with the style - this isn't the context for exclamation marks at all. However, I think the point holds - the language changes to the point that a very common piece of punctuation *doesn't even have a recognisable term* a mere hundred and forty years ago.

(Incidentally, http://www.issco.unige.ch/staff/clark/SprolacPaper.doc.pdf has quite an amusing table - frequency counts of !, !!, !!!, !!!! &c from Usenet.)

Andrew Gray wrote: <snip>

There are some usages of American English which look glaring to a British-trained eye - "In 1945, Churchill wrote Truman that..."

Argh! My eyes!

...

I mean there are several issues here: cultural imperialism, ambiguation (because of the many differences in American-English and English usage), and English learners learning to spell incorrectly and talk like Americans - why is it wrong to resist that?

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

Oh yes, French language has looked /very/ attractive down those dark alleyways in years past :)

The concept of English as a monolithic entity living somewhere in Kensington from which variants have sprung worldwide is now outdated; from the point of view of the writers of the first edition of the Britannica in 1770ish, you and I are speaking a degraded and foreign language. (Back then, plural's was still an accepted construction!)

(Most likely a contraction of plurales, hence the use of the apostrophe - which is of course the source of the possesive apostrophe, so if anyone tells you off for using it, smite them!)

Recently, I read Alford's "The Queen's English", dated about 1865.

<snip>

(Though, interestingly, he approves of verbing nouns, noting that a century before "to experience" was hated by scholars. Plus ca change...)

Oh yes, I can't stand it when someone verbs a noun... verb itself being a noun, I've just verbed verb :) Where will it end!?

The language changes; there is no sense in fighting it, because one may as well try to split atoms with a chisel. The era of modern communications will invariably simplify previously divergent spellings, just as it has smoothed over the difference in regional accents in the past, and caused a small number of languages to become massively dominant. It's all the same process...

This just in...

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European nation rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und zen ve vil konker ze verld!!

Jack & Naree wrote:

I mean there are several issues here: cultural imperialism,

Cultural imperialism is of course the very reason that Americans (and people in the rest of the world) speak English at all. All of the Louisiana Purchase area could speak French. The East Coast could speak Pennsylvania Dutch. Minnesota could speak Norwegian, and California Spanish. But no, they all speak some kind of English. And this is not good enough for you? I've even heard that some of the Americans aren't of the "proper" white skin color. Horrible! What's next? Perhaps the world will start to drive on the wrong side of the road? Oh, they do already?

I suggest you give up on en.w and start to contribute to the German Wikipedia instead. Even if they tried once or twice, the Germans have really failed to make theirs a world language.

James R. Johnson wrote:

Just a note on cultural imperialism, which many seem to attach an almost unanimous bad stigma. The British Empire used its navy to impose its views on slavery on the rest of the world, and it halted slavery in many places. Just a thought to ponder. (To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World by Arthur Herman)

Hmmm. This happened both before and after the abolition of slavery.

Ec

Stephen Forrest wrote:

On 9/19/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

...

fact displaying it in a dialect of English - we've got Wikipedia in Scots, Wikipedia in Middle English, but when you click on Wikipedia English, you get spelling errors, sloppy grammar and garbled syntax; in short the American dialect of English, trying to hijack the term English.

Middle English does have an ISO 639 language code, enm. But I wouldn't even want to think about how a wikipedia would work, given the number of variant spellings -- Anglo-Saxon was at least usually spelled consistently within a dialect, but the confusion introduced by the Norman Conquest left Middle English writers seemingly making up spellings as they went along.

Yes the influence of French spelling was bound to do that. :-)

Ec

(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.

Jack & Naree wrote: <snip>

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

Interesting, the language I speak is further removed from the langauge you speak - I speak a dialect called Australian Standard English, but people in the USA just speak English.

Well, join the UK chapter of the WMF (if it's been created yet) and things might happen.

There is no Wikipedia in "Scot's English". There is a Wikipedia in Scots.

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.

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

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 are mere differences of spelling. And they aren't particularly frequent. How often does Wikipedia say "nationalise"/"nationalize", "realise"/"realize"? 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. 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".

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

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@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@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 | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \ _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

---

Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Actually, it really depends on where you learnt it.

In most Pacific nations, they teach Commonwealth English, being close to New Zealand. In Mexico, however, they teach American English. Most European nations teach Commonwealth English, while many Asian and American nations teach American English.

Mark

On 19/09/05, Gerrit Holl gerrit@nl.linux.org wrote:

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

Compared to that, American vs Commonwealth differences seem tiny.

A point that has not yet been remarked in this threat is this: most people who learn English as a foreign language learn to write the traditional, commonwealth spelling. I really like the idea to convert the entire en.wikipedia to this spelling, but alas, it's not going to happen. I dislike American English, but I will learn to live with it. The splitting proposal is indeed exaggerated.

Gerrit.

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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.

On 19/09/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:

Gerrit Holl wrote:

...

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

Compared to that, American vs Commonwealth differences seem tiny.

A point that has not yet been remarked in this threat is this: most people who learn English as a foreign language learn to write the traditional, commonwealth spelling.

This really depends on who you're talking about, and I'm not sure it is "most". Most *Europeans* who learn English as a foreign language learn the UK spellings; most Asians, in my experience, learn the US spellings.

Asians - you mean Indians? Pakistanis? Bangladeshis? Of course, you mightn't know that in Britain "Asian" means "south Asian" and the American usage of "Asian" (East Asian) is covered with the word "Oriental". Yes lots of Japaneses, Koreans and Filipinos talk like Americans; lots of Sino-Asians, Thais, Malays, don't.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Commonwealth English", since Canadians

are in the Commonwealth and use a mixture of US and UK spellings ("colourize" is a nice hybrid word). The term seems to mostly have been invented at [[en:Commonwealth English]], and is not widely used elsewhere.

You might see it as an invention, I see it as a spelling error - as would an American no doubt.

-Mark

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On 19/09/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

...

...

This really depends on who you're talking about, and I'm not sure it

is

...

...

"most". Most *Europeans* who learn English as a foreign language learn the UK spellings; most Asians, in my experience, learn the US

spellings.

...

Asians - you mean Indians? Pakistanis? Bangladeshis? Of course, you mightn't know that in Britain "Asian" means "south Asian" and the American usage of "Asian" (East Asian) is covered with the word "Oriental".

I am rather amused by the juxtaposition that in American usage, Asians predominantly get taught American English, and in British usage, Asians predominantly get taught British English...

And the irony is, that that's because the difference between AmEn and En is that Asian has a different meaning - illustrating the point.

--

• Andrew Gray

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On 19/09/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:

(Actually, I thought that in Britain "Asian" meant "West Asian" (middle-eastern) - where's South Asia? I'm almost in South East Asia...)

Yeah, Asian ~ Indian subcontinent, basically. Pakistan, India. South Asia is pretty indeterminate - the BBC uses it for Afghanistan through to Bangladesh - but south-east Asia is Indochina/Indonesia &c. Australia gets its own classification...

I would like to thank everyone involved for a delightfully useless thread. Thanks, Jack and Naree!

Jack, the serious answer to your question is: try to relax, ok?

--Jimbo

On 9/19/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com 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.

Dude, truly you know naught of what you speak. No matter what level of British immigration Canada might get, it is more than met by the _vast tides_ of cross-border influence from the south.

As for this odd theory that American influence is a pernicious disease seeping northwards through the lower orders: southern Ontario has its own working-class accent, which is distinct from an upstate New York accent (as I am reminded every time I flip by the Buffalo news station on TV). And "Canadians near the US border"? The latter part of that statement is redundant for approximately 85% of us.

As a Canadian I am typically in the position of having to defend my Briticisms (colour, labour, licence) from clueless Americans. But I will equally well defend my Americanisms (curb, tire, jail, program) from clueless Brits.

You might see it as an invention, I see it as a spelling error - as would an American no doubt.

Well, there we are: linguistic imperialism from two directions. :)

Steve

But the issue is (to me, at least), that I can understand you, even if you spell funny (honour, colour, etc.) and have funny words (lift, pavement instead of elevator and sidewalk). And do understand that I'm being slightly sarcastic here, please don't rant-reply. Americans have some spellings, English have some spellings, but we can understand each other, except when we use our dialect-specific words. I don't really think it appropriate to dialectualize the wikipedia unless there's mutual unintelligibility (as in the Frisian case, I think it was).

James

-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jack & Naree Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 6:39 AM To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English

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@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.

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Delirium wrote:

(Although it seems the Scandinavian Wikipedias are going the opposite direction, creating a separate Wikipedia for each mutually-intelligible dialect.)

Well...: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Skanwiki http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/Skandinavisk/Hovudside

They're creating one wikipedia for three languages - Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. That's quite a very different direction, really.

Gerrit.

On 19/09/05, James R. Johnson modean52@comcast.net wrote:

But the issue is (to me, at least), that I can understand you, even if you spell funny (honour, colour, etc.) and have funny words (lift, pavement instead of elevator and sidewalk). And do understand that I'm being slightly sarcastic here, please don't rant-reply. Americans have some spellings, English have some spellings, but we can understand each other, except when we use our dialect-specific words. I don't really think it appropriate to dialectualize the wikipedia unless there's mutual unintelligibility (as in the Frisian case, I think it was).

And even with those dialect-specific words, there *are* points of absolute mutual unintelligibility - table as a verb, what pavement is, what a thong is - but we handle them just fine in wiki, by common-sense disambiguation. For example -

[[Table (verb)]] discusses both instances, though I suspect we might need to make sure that where possible we use different terminology in actual articles.

[[Pavement]] directs to [[Pavement (disambiguation)]], which links to both, though it's not a very clear disambig notice - if you've not encountered the word "sidewalk" before you'd be forgiven for thinking the UKian use would be under [[Pavement (roads)]]. Will rewrite that later on.

[[Thong]] doesn't even bother mentioning dialects of English, just points to various meanings.

It sounds like you want dialectual words and colloquialisms to form the basis of your 'English English' wikipedia.

James

-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jack & Naree Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 6:12 AM To: node.ue@gmail.com; wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English

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. 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. 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): Ireland India Pakistan Bangladesh Sri lanka Nepal Singapore Malaysia Brunei (Hong Kong) (Canada) Australia New Zealand Nigeria Ghana Sierra Leone parts of Cameroon Uganda Kenya Tanzania Sudan Zambia Zimbabwe RSA Lesotho Namibia Botswana Malawi various island nations in the Caribbean plus Belize and Guyana, Indian Ocean

and Pacific British dependencies all over the planet. 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. Jack York England The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Crown Dependencies & Overseas Territories On 19/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

Does your e-mail have a point?

Mark

On 18/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

...

Wikipedia Anglo-Saxon?! Wikipedia Middle English?!! Wikipedia Scot's English?!!! I want Wikipedia English English!!! _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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