in the American sense of "UK"!) I think it's important that when I type in words like: "colour" That I get "colour" and not "color". I don't see why I need to know the spelling of the word in what to me is a foreign language when I'm looking up a word in a dictionary of my language. --- To GerardM Basically there are two orthographies for English. Some might argue the toss about that, I mean for myself as a "Scots" speaker, I know there are some who make a big deal about it being a separate language, but I myself don't know how to spell it properly, and I just think of it as a regional dialect of English like Scouse, Yorkshire, Texan, Kiwi and whatever else - because I would read normal English and pronounce it the same way as Scots - the odd word like "leid" to me is no different than a Yorkshireman saying "summat" for "something" or someone from the southeast USA saying "y'all" - they're just dialect words. I can show you texts written in a Yorkshire orthography, but the practical fact is that the overwhelming majority of the text in the modern world is either spelt the English way, or the American way. The debate is "huge" in terms of it's implications, because up until now no-one appears to have challenged the idea that American-English has the right to be considered the standard form of English. It's patently obvious it's a dialect, with it's own orthography and it's simply wrong for the headword in English to be written in a dialect of English in a dialectal orthography and presented as the standard form, when it's not.

On 20/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: Just a quick reply to this, but in a phrase I think I've picked up from the American media: I call bullshit on this. I have never, ever, heard anyone claim that US English "has the right to be considered the standard form of English". I've heard, and shared, the opinion that US English is a recognisable, valid, and hugely influential form of English, but that is a very different point. I have also heard, from you, the equally bogus claim that what you call "English English", but might more commonly be called "UK", "Commonwealth", "Queen's", or "BBC" English has the right to be considered the standard form. I have never heard a convincing argument as to why it has that right. As for this bit, I think I and others have already refuted this at some length on the other thread, but: 1) there is no such thing as "the standard form" 2) US English is a dialect of English 3) UK English is another dialect of English 4) neither of those labels is all that accurate, since those 2 dialects most definitely do not cover all usage in those 2 countries So, yes, it's simply wrong to present US English as "the standard form"; but it's just as wrong to present any other dialect, including your precious "Queen's English", as "the standard form", because *both are equally valid*. Here's a thought experiment for you, to avoid reading too much into the term "English": picture an imaginary language, we'll call it "Blibbish". Now, to simplify, let's pretend there is a single version of Blibbish spoken in Fooland, and a single one in Bargia. They are both Blibbish, both from the same historical roots, but due to the unfortunate location of a large body of sea-water between Fooland and Bargia, they have evolved somewhat separately over the last couple of centuries. Older versions of Blibbish were only spoken in Fooland, because Bargia hadn't been discovered yet, but those old versions are all extinct now - replaced by the two "competing" versions. Now, come up with a good reason why either version of Blibbish should be considered "superior" or "more standard" than the other. -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On 20/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: Current Wikipedia policy does not stipulate, encourage, or condone a situation where the majority of content is in "American-English". It is actually aimed at having a roughly even split, but there's probably a slight majority simply because there are that many more people - and, specifically, Internet users - in the US than in the UK. If this bias is more significant than I am imagining, it is by accident, not design, and has nothing to do with the "right to be considered standard". I understood you perfectly well; it's just not a commonly used label for the variety of English you're discussing, partly because it is ugly repeating the word, and partly because it doesn't map that strongly to the geopolitical area known as England. I wrote a long message, explaining my reasoning for there believing there is no "standard" form of English. I didn't want to repeat all that, so I merely pointed out that I had already done so. I used "refuted" only to mean "already answered". The variety of English spoken in the UK. As valid a label, I would think, as "English English", since neither area is that great a match for where the variety is spoken. You'll notice I also use "US English", because Canadians and South Americans occasionally object to "American English" [the words "USian" and "UKian" have entered Wikipedia jargon for exactly this reason]; I didn't pick you up on it, though, because I knew what you meant. That's entirely up to you; it's still the same thing. No. This is exactly the faulty logic I was trying to exclude. "English" and "England" come from what I think was the Latin name for a particular tribe of Scandinavian invaders, the "Angles" - one of a number of tribes we commonly refer to as the "Anglo-Saxons". The language they spoke - an early form of English - came with them across the sea, and was planted in Britain by bloody conquest. [The previous inhabitants, whom they rudely called "welas" - "foreigners" - spoke a completely different language, one of whose descendants is still known as "welsh"] Languages aren't "born" anywhere; there is no point where they begin. So, while "English" developed a lot after being imported from Scandinavia, it had already developed a lot in getting there. Its speakers had, long ago, crossed the Urals, from the central steppes where - if my memory serves me right - it is conjectured that all Indo-European languages were, in fact born. That is, the one language of which everything from Portugese to Punjabi is an "offshoot", whose "standard" is now lost to history. It evolved into versions like Celtic, Romance, and Germanic, and then further into different versions of each of those; if English was "born" in England, it was a pretty long labour! The same goes for the other major shifts in English, such as the influence of the Normans - who, confusingly, were originally "Norse men", also from Scandinavia, but who had taken up a Romance language instead of a Germanic one. The point about "Blibbish" being from "Fooland" is that you should not attach too much meaning to names - they are often rather misleading. So you agree, then, that English/Blibbish continued to evolve even in the area where it had already been for a few hundred years (since those pesky Angles brought it there). In what sense, then, is this a "continuation" but the other an "offshoot"? Why not just call them both "offshoots"? After all, they're all offshoots of Proto-Indo-European, really... When have I suggested that the name of a language be changed? When have I argued that, because one country is bigger than another, its language should be given priority? I've argued that both should be accepted, for sure - in the interest of productivity and peaceful relations, I would hope that the Blibb/Foolanders and Bargians could accept that since their languages are largely the same, they could not make a big deal about mixing them. I've also argued that they should accept even more minor versions of the language - though you seem opposed to this. I've also argued that the Blibblanders should not claim "ownership" of Blibbish just because their name shares a root with that of the language - because language would still exist without any labels, and because the idea of "owning" it is completely irrelevant. The important point is how best to use that language, whatever its name(s). -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On 21/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: Not really - I'd say it's called English by a historical accident; it could as well be described as "Franco-Latinate-Norse-Anglo-Saxon", the people as "Romano-Celtic-Norman-Anglo-Saxons", and the "nation" as "the Union of Normandy, Anglo-Saxony and the Daneland" [the Danes being the Vikings who spoke Old Norse] At best, it's called English because for a while it was only spoken in the area known as "England" - before spreading to Scotland, Ireland, the New World, and the British Empire. Did it cease to be English the moment it reached India? Of course not. And plenty of words were brought back to England having been incorporated into the language in these other places; were they only part of English when they reached the shore at Dover? Or, perhaps, when they reached the ears of Londoners? I see no reason to declare so. If there were no longer any such disctinguishable place as "England" (not so hard to imagine, given suggestions that areas like Cornwall, or "The North" around Yorkshire, could be separate nations with in the United Kingdom) it would not suddenly mean there was no such language as "English". Indeed, depending on your definition, this "English ethnolinguistic group" probably inhabits either the whole of the British Isles, including Scotland, and probably Ireland; or it only covers a fraction of what is currently considered the "nation" of England, historically centred around the educational and commercial triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London. It seems arbitrary in the extreme to include a Cornish farmer and a Yorkshire miner in such a definition, but exclude a middle-class family from Edinburgh. Or, alternatively, Norwegian shouldn't have two Wikipedias; if the situations are as analagous as you imply, I would support their merger. What Norwegian speakers would have to say on the matter is a whole other debate (and one of which plenty can probably be found in the list archives, if you look). -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

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

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(a)lexx.eu.org> wrote:

Jack & Naree wrote: Can someone explain this one for me - not a native speaker? I don'n know what "What's up?" can mean other than "What's the matter?", "What's the problem?". I don't understand. Gerrit. -- Temperature in Luleå, Norrbotten, Sweden: | Current temperature 05-09-23 13:19:54 17.3 degrees Celsius ( 63.1F) | -- Det finns inte dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder.

disagree, but don't have the time to... On 21/09/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Now, see, for all the people who weren't quite sure whether or not you're a troll, there's the proof. Now STFU, before I have to start filling your inbox with links to the "How about a nice cup of Shut The Fuck Up" advertisement (or, as you would say, adVURRtissmunt). Mark On 23/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> 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

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. 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. 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 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

Jack & Naree wrote: "foreign language" I think if you didn't say such ridiculous things, your _valid_ points (when you make them) would be taken much much more seriously. It _is_ of course important that issues like 'colour vs color' be thought about carefully. But inflammatory and patently false claims are likely to be taken as _trolling_ (deliberately trying to annoy people) rather than serious commentary. Knock it off. --Jimbo