[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English

[Rowan Collins]

On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > American-dialect English (also known as American-English) is more
> > related to English of the 17th-18th century than 'Commonwealth-English'
> > is.
> 
>  What you mean is, the American dialect appears to have retained more
> obvious features of C17th English, whilst also evolving new ones of its own.
>
> Neither Commonwealth-English nor American-English are
> > 'English-English' or proper English more than the other;
> 
>  Whilst neither Commonwealth English nor American-English *are* 'English
> English'; but,
> Commonwealth English includes English English and the accents and less
> divergent dialects of Commonwealth countries, which are more or less the
> same as written English English.

What is this "English English" to which you refer then, if it is only
"more or less the same" as actual existing varieties of English? Who
speaks or spoke it? You? Your wife? William Shakespere?

> So you're basically incorrect.
> Americans seem to want to believe that they speak English, and we speak
> British English in England (meaning Britain!). They are wrong. They speak a
> dialect of our language, called American-English, an offshoot from the main
> trunk if you will, which has evolved somewhat independently of English.

No. We all speak varieties of a language which has slowly evolved from
the "Germanic" languages of invaders of the British Isles several
centuries ago, diverging and converging according to political
expedience, and being heavily influenced by the mostly unrelated
language of a later wave of invaders from France. I suggest you read
one of the many fascinating accounts of the history of the language -
such as those by Robert McCrumb, David Crystal, or Bill Bryson.

English has evolved in various directions, over many centuries, and is
the product of a diverging evolution dating back much further still.
If you like, it is a dialect of German, which has evolved separately;
ultimately, through its Indo-European roots, it is also a separately
evolved branch of Spanish, and of various Indian languages. But you
couldn't really call it an "offshoot" of those, since they have all
developed entirely in parallel. The difference between a language and
a dialect is subtle, and sometimes controversial, but whether the
variety of English spoken in Sussex and the variety spoken in
Manhattan are dialects or just very closely related languages, they
are both recent [and eternally shifting] developments, and both
equally legitimate branches of an extremely complex grouping generally
known as "English".

In short, there is no "main trunk", never has been, and never will be. 

>  American-English is an out and out dialect of English. How can English
> English be a dialect of English?

Because "English" is a term which refers to a language, in all its
dialects and usages, and "English English" is a term you've just made
up to refer to the variety of that language you happen to speak,
and/or of which you happen to approve.

> (NB, I'm basing my definition on the written word not the regional spoken
> dialects of England).

There is no reason for a dialect to be unwritten - commonly cited
vocabulary differences include the word for a small bread roll ("bap",
"barm cake", etc), and I'm sure users of those words would quite
unconciously use them in writing if they weren't carefully conforming
to a particular "standard". The BBC recently had a fascinating
"Voices" season celebrating just how varied our language is.

> >  if you want
> > proper English, look to Shakespearean early Modern English.
> 
>  Incorrect, if you want proper English, go to England; that is where the
> English language is spoken by the English people, of England.

"Proper English" is a meaningless term. The first systematic efforts
to standardise English to any extent came with the invention of the
printing press, when it became possible to distribute documents en
masse all across the country (William Caxton wrote an oft-quoted
"prologue" regarding the difficulties of making printed material
understandable by all its readers). The concept of "English grammar"
is largely a construct of scholars who wished English was more like
Latin (to which it is largely unrelated) and attempted to force it
into a similar formal structure. "Correct spelling" is a similarly
artificial construct, mostly related to the mutual intelligibility
problem.

Meanwhile, if you want to use "English" to mean "the language spoken
in England" you will face two problems:
1) this is not how most users of English [or whatever replacement term
you wish to use for the sum of all English dialects] understand the
term; thus you defeat your own aim of using a "proper"/"standard"
language, in favour of using an "idiolect" which requires you to
constantly explain your reasoning
2) there is no one variety of English spoken in England; I think this
point needs little elaboration

Like I say, read some books about the history of English - it's really
quite fascinating, and should correct any misapprehensions you have of
a "pure" English ever having existed, even if you still remain on the
side of the "prescriptivists" who wish to create such a thing.

-- 
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]