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French here, I absolutely agree. Specifically, American English would be preferable because it is what’s spoken widely outside Europe, and its spelling is somew

French here, I absolutely agree. Specifically, American English would be preferable because it is what’s spoken widely outside Europe, and its spelling is somewhat more regular (as well as historically accurate!). I wonder to what extent coming up with a new name for it would help adoption.

liopleurodon 7y ago
Upvoted for American English The English tend to speak English better and have better grammar than Americans in my experience, but I do prefer American spelling (disclaimer: I'm American)
- anoncake 7y ago
  No. Like everyone else, Americans by definition speak their native language perfectly. There may very well be stylistic differences and you can aesthetically prefer a dialect, but native speakers do not commit grammatical errors.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    There are multiple dialects of english even within the US and many of them have different grammar rules.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Of course.
  - afiori 7y ago
    This is silly. It is like saying that native bipedal humans do not stumble when walking. There is a well recognized concept of mastering a language, you can claim (and I would agree) that dialects are respectable languages and AAVE is a proper English. Still some native speakers in any language cannot understand long sentences or know how to express complex information. Otherwise if we go with the truism "everyone speaks their native language perfectly" we simply end up essentially saying that languages are fragmented to the level of individuals and that some language are inherently "better" than others. Both are positions I would not like were they to become mainstream.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      > This is silly. It is like saying that native bipedal humans do not stumble when walking. In linguistics, there is a difference between errors and mistakes. Making an ungrammatical utterance is only an error if it's because the speaker's model of the language is wrong, i.e. because it differs from the one of a native speaker. This cannot happen to an adult speaker, except maybe in pathological cases or to children. Mistakes, however, happen all the time and to everyone. > Still some native speakers in any language cannot understand long sentences or know how to express complex information. That is true. I thought it was clear that I was referring to native speakers' grammar when I replied to GP's claim that Americans have worse grammar. Not being able to understand certain sentences isn't something that only applies to "some" native speakers either: > A man that a woman that a child that a bird that I heard saw knows loves. Of course, a sentence like this is unacceptable[1] despite being grammatical. > Otherwise if we go with the truism "everyone speaks their native language perfectly" we simply end up essentially saying that languages are fragmented to the level of individuals I'm sorry to disappoint but that is the mainstream view. The language spoken by an individual is called an idiolect. > and that some language are inherently "better" than others. I can't follow. Why does the existence of idiolects imply that? [1] That's the technical term for an utterance humans can't parse (except of course "manually" by analyzing it). This example demonstrates center embeddings. The brain probably fails to parse it because its stack overflows.
Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
I would be fine with American English, but I'm not sure one has to go to the trouble to specify an official dialect. In the written form, it's trivial to understand British English if you have learned American and vice versa. In the spoken form, it might be harder but this is something that commonly happens, even within monolingual countries.
alexgmcm 7y ago
The differences are trivial though? The main difference is the accent (when I was staying in California as an Englishman they couldn't understand me when I said "Kettle" and their pronunciation sounded more like "Keddle") But accents will always be an issue regardless of which language is chosen. I think they should continue using English as it's pragmatic but also introduce Esperanto as another working language and encourage its use (I used to speak Esperanto and my Grandfather is fluent so I'm a bit biased I suppose)
- afiori 7y ago
  Also the differences between American English and British English are significantly smaller than the difference between Italian English and French English or Chinese English.

liopleurodon 7y ago

Upvoted for American English The English tend to speak English better and have better grammar than Americans in my experience, but I do prefer American spelling (disclaimer: I'm American)

anoncake 7y ago
No. Like everyone else, Americans by definition speak their native language perfectly. There may very well be stylistic differences and you can aesthetically prefer a dialect, but native speakers do not commit grammatical errors.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  There are multiple dialects of english even within the US and many of them have different grammar rules.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Of course.
- afiori 7y ago
  This is silly. It is like saying that native bipedal humans do not stumble when walking. There is a well recognized concept of mastering a language, you can claim (and I would agree) that dialects are respectable languages and AAVE is a proper English. Still some native speakers in any language cannot understand long sentences or know how to express complex information. Otherwise if we go with the truism "everyone speaks their native language perfectly" we simply end up essentially saying that languages are fragmented to the level of individuals and that some language are inherently "better" than others. Both are positions I would not like were they to become mainstream.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    > This is silly. It is like saying that native bipedal humans do not stumble when walking. In linguistics, there is a difference between errors and mistakes. Making an ungrammatical utterance is only an error if it's because the speaker's model of the language is wrong, i.e. because it differs from the one of a native speaker. This cannot happen to an adult speaker, except maybe in pathological cases or to children. Mistakes, however, happen all the time and to everyone. > Still some native speakers in any language cannot understand long sentences or know how to express complex information. That is true. I thought it was clear that I was referring to native speakers' grammar when I replied to GP's claim that Americans have worse grammar. Not being able to understand certain sentences isn't something that only applies to "some" native speakers either: > A man that a woman that a child that a bird that I heard saw knows loves. Of course, a sentence like this is unacceptable[1] despite being grammatical. > Otherwise if we go with the truism "everyone speaks their native language perfectly" we simply end up essentially saying that languages are fragmented to the level of individuals I'm sorry to disappoint but that is the mainstream view. The language spoken by an individual is called an idiolect. > and that some language are inherently "better" than others. I can't follow. Why does the existence of idiolects imply that? [1] That's the technical term for an utterance humans can't parse (except of course "manually" by analyzing it). This example demonstrates center embeddings. The brain probably fails to parse it because its stack overflows.

Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago

I would be fine with American English, but I'm not sure one has to go to the trouble to specify an official dialect. In the written form, it's trivial to understand British English if you have learned American and vice versa. In the spoken form, it might be harder but this is something that commonly happens, even within monolingual countries.

alexgmcm 7y ago

The differences are trivial though? The main difference is the accent (when I was staying in California as an Englishman they couldn't understand me when I said "Kettle" and their pronunciation sounded more like "Keddle") But accents will always be an issue regardless of which language is chosen. I think they should continue using English as it's pragmatic but also introduce Esperanto as another working language and encourage its use (I used to speak Esperanto and my Grandfather is fluent so I'm a bit biased I suppose)

afiori 7y ago
Also the differences between American English and British English are significantly smaller than the difference between Italian English and French English or Chinese English.