On 19/09/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote: ... It could be done, of course. We could also have Australian, Indian and South African English. If we wanted to do so, that is. -- http://palnatoke.org * Ole Andersen, Copenhagen, DK CV: http://palnatoke.org/CV.doc ICQ: 86989486 phone: +45 22 34 72 92

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 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? 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! 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? On 19/09/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote:

that's a surprise BTW, have you considered contributing to sco.wikipedia? no - I think we can safely consider this as not providing a great deal of useful insight into our language policy :-) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk - Show quoted text - my turn to do a "..." And what of "Aubergines" and "Eggplants"? "Colour" and "Color" Happy to do so, but what I really want is a fork called "American-English". --

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: Why? 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. I hope you realise that a separate American English project wouldn't instantly lead to the "purification" of the existing Wikipedia. Let me put it this way: This issue has been considered very, very, very carefully in the past. It's always been clear to everyone involved that one Wikipedia rather than two is the better way, if not the only logical way. No matter how much you whinge, the chances that there will ever be two separate English Wikipedias are extremely low, especially given the current size of the project. However, you are welcome to start your own encyclopedia in "pure" English. In fact, you can even use articles from Wikipedia, provided that you release content under the gfdl. Mark

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mark Williamson wrote: You'd be wrong. :-) Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james(a)jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester(a)hotmail.com

On 9/19/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)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. Andre Engels

Andre Engels wrote: But we can't be fully NPOV. It's always POV to decide what news is important enough to be on the frontpage and what isn't, for example. Absolutely true! (-: Gerrit. -- Temperature in Luleå, Norrbotten, Sweden: | Current temperature 05-09-19 14:19:50 11.2 degrees Celsius ( 52.1F) | -- Det finns inte dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder.

"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." Who says cultural imperialism is a one-way street? It's not just Americans who think they're almost always right. James -----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Gray Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 7:30 AM To: jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com; wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: as 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. 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. 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. and why "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... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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) James -----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Lars Aronsson Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 3:36 PM To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English Jack & Naree wrote: 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. -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

On 9/19/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: [snip] Just wanted to point out that there is not, as yet, any Middle English wikipedia. 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. Steve

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(a)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(a)gmail.com> wrote:

It says English for all of them - ASL is listed as a dialect. The point there is that the UK is listed as the primary and original form, everything else is subordinate - a spin off. SIL is focussing on spoken language not on orthography, however. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English A wiki article that clearly states that american english is the primary language of america. and then goes on to use that inaccurate and meaningless term "British English" to describe differences between AE and E. (ask a Scouser, a Geordie or a Cockney if they speak British English! They won't know what you mean). It's appalling inaccurate because there are some vowel sounds in some dialects in England which are the same as in America - like in Wiltshire for example. Further, many dialects in England are as different from standard English than American is - and even more divergent than Australian. I mean, I want to challenge the term "British English" simply on it's definition; but that's a digression. On 19/09/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Mark Williamson wrote: 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. -- Temperature in Luleå, Norrbotten, Sweden: | Current temperature 05-09-19 13:39:49 11.9 degrees Celsius ( 53.4F) | -- Det finns inte dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder.

Gerrit Holl 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. 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. -Mark

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Andrew Gray wrote: You're both wrong, they come to Australia (being closest) and get taught Australian English :) (Actually, I thought that in Britain "Asian" meant "West Asian" (middle-eastern) - where's South Asia? I'm almost in South East Asia...) -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \

On 19/09/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Jack & Naree wrote: 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. Ec

On 19/09/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote: Aa feckin' speak it bud! and I call it "Inglis". Now, please list out for me some of the differences between American That would take some time... more often you seem to realise The reason there's a separate Wikipedia for Scots is because usage of qualify "most common" are mere differences of 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 do you really want me to answer that? Things 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 this is just academic willy waving. There isn't an actual Wikipedia for Middle English, only a test what a digression. On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote:

James R. Johnson wrote: I agree this is a good principle, and it does seem to be followed for the most part. In the Chinese case, a little bit of creative machine-transliteration even made some *non* mutually intelligible scripts able to coexist on the same Wikipedia (because they happen to be close enough to a 1-to-1 mapping that 95% of the conversion can be done automatically). As far as spreading knowledge goes, consolidating effort as much as possible makes semse, IMO. (Although it seems the Scandinavian Wikipedias are going the opposite direction, creating a separate Wikipedia for each mutually-intelligible dialect.) -Mark

Hei Gerrit, As far as I remember, Skanwiki doesn't use any sort of interlinguistic variety, but rather some sentences in each language, depending on the author. The Scandinavian test-wikipedia, on the other hand, attempts to use a sort of linguistic compromise, with words such as "indehold". http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/Skandinavisk/Leksikon has some more words. I think something similar should be done for Malay and Indonesian... Mark On 19/09/05, Gerrit Holl <gerrit(a)nl.linux.org> wrote: -- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

73 emails in about the 7 hours that I was gone. Jeeeeeez W/W