5 ms·

As a Commonwealth inhabitant, having to deal with a multitude of formalized language variants, each with a small number of differences in orthography and vocabu

by prvc 5y ago

As a Commonwealth inhabitant, having to deal with a multitude of formalized language variants, each with a small number of differences in orthography and vocabulary, strikes me as a useless waste of energy. Difference and local particularity for its own sake may please the odd local jingoist, but it is simpler to simply take the mother version to be definitive.

gmfawcett 5y ago
Taking your point to its limit, all contemporary languages are a useless waste of energy. Let's adopt a terse and efficient esperanto so that the billions can easily conduct business.
- rikroots 5y ago
  > Let's adopt a terse and efficient esperanto That made me laugh! If forced to learn an IAL[1] I'd probably choose Solresol[2] because what sane person could resist the chance to yodel their complaints to Customer Services? Or, if "terse and efficient" are an immovable part of the specification then I'd suggest Ithkuil[3] ... or maybe Rust? [1] International Auxiliary Language [2] https://www.ifost.org.au/~gregb/solresol/sorsoeng.htm https://www.ifost.org.au/~gregb/solresol/sorsoeng.htm [3] http://www.ithkuil.net/ http://www.ithkuil.net/
krona 5y ago
I think you've missed the point of English, which is a collection of languages that evolved over time. Unlike e.g. French, there is no definitive, latest version of the language decreed from above. The dictionary is post-hoc, and long may it stay that way.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  > Unlike e.g. French, there is no definitive, latest version of the language decreed from above. What do you mean by this? French is spoken differently with different dialects over the world - eg. Quebecois French is not the same as France French. And while French may be one of the roots of English, there are also French words with their roots in English. It's all a mishmash.
  - krona 5y ago
    The Académie française is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language. No such institution exists for the English language.
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      Fair enough, though that's only France, not the language itself, but you're right, no equivalent exists in English.
  - jefft255 5y ago
    I think he’s referring to the Académie which pretends to control what’s correct French or not. Of course as you mention, Québec has its own thing and does not listen to them.
- jefft255 5y ago
  Even for French, in practice, that’s not how it works... The académie is often criticized for being too rigid and not following the language that’s actually spoken.
  - yarky 5y ago
    L'académie is a ridiculous concept. How come some elite literates tell people how to speak? It's like if there was one way only to solve a programming problem, and that's rarely the case.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I love the description of English as "three different languages dressed in a trenchcoat pretending to be a proper language" :) I'm trying to learn German at the moment, and it's fascinating seeing the similarities between the languages, and the things we used to have in common but got dropped or modified in English.
- yarky 5y ago
  You're wrong about french, it's pretty different between France and Canada. I first learnt France french, then Canadian. happen to find "correct" french extremely boring, absolutely no reason to speak in a boring way if you can speak cool french ;)
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    France French is centrally controlled; there's essentially a standards body (though you could argue that in practice this is irrelevant; if what is actually spoken diverges from the standard, then what is actually spoken is the language, and the standardisers are just playing at constructed languages). No major variant of English works like this.
  - JackFr 5y ago
    And don't forget Africa and the Caribbean.
- prvc 5y ago
  I am referring to formalized standards here. There is exactly no literature that I care about which has been written in some English variant other than British or American. Why force students and professionals to buy special dictionaries and conform to oddball rules, which really only have a small number of differences, just because it tickles the fancy of a minority of would-be authorities. For example, Canada should just adopt American English. As for the countries mentioned in the article, the majority of "English speakers" there are not competent as speakers (easily seen by spending a few minutes reading Twitter), so the people proposing formalizing variants for those regions are not doing so in good faith, but to satisfy a political agenda that is only tangentially related to interest in language.
viraptor 5y ago
In what way do you "have to deal with a multitude of formalized language variants"? How does that impact you day to day?
sandworm101 5y ago
Like when I committed that greatest of Canadian sins: using the work 'labour' in a document read by an American client. The reaction was ridiculous. Or the hilarious situation I had at a legal conference. I thought one of my right-wing US friends had gone totally racist. He was complaining about all the new "turbins" he was seeing while driving to the conference. I thought he meant turban, but that's just how Americans pronounce "turbine", as in the wind turbines he could see from the highway.
- Mediterraneo10 5y ago
  I have met Americans who believe the UK spelling of words with -our instead of -or actually represents a difference in pronunciation. That is, they have the mistaken impression that Brits say /kəlur/ instead of /kələr/.
  - JackFr 5y ago
    'gaol' always throws me for a loop when I'm reading something British. I need to remind myself it's pronounced 'jail'. (A quick google tells me that all the major British newspapers switched over to 'jail' by the 1990's - score one for the good guys!) I remember reading 'Mutiny on the Bounty' as a child and talking about it with my father and I said something about the 'boatswain', and he (a former naval officer) looked at me like I had two heads. "You mean the [BOSUN]?" "Well, no it says 'boatswain'" "Yes, it's spelled like that, but it's pronounced BOSUN. It's like 'colonel'. Don't think about the letters."
    - alickz 5y ago
      I've known the word boatswain for decades at this point and never knew it was pronounced like that! Speaking of military terms, lieutenant as "leftenant" always threw me. I had just assumed they were different words.
      - sandworm101 5y ago
        Even worse: Try being at unit with brit/canadian/american exchange officers. Same spelling, different pronunciations depending on who you are talking about. And they really do care.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
Ah but which "mother version"? American English is closer to the original spelling than British English, but getting the actual English to change their use of their own language because the Americans use it differently seems... odd. Plus there's no intrinsic reason to prefer the original spelling over later versions. So maybe we should all use English as it is used by the actual English? But that would see a small minority of the number of English-language speakers setting the rules for the huge majority. So maybe (as others have suggested) we follow the majority of native English speakers and use the Indian version?
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > So maybe we should all use English as it is used by the actual English? Which ones? It's not like English, as actually spoken in England, is particularly uniform. It has uniform _spelling_, but that's about all; a lot of vocabulary and even grammar is quite regional.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    If we get a choice, then Irish English. There are a few things that got pulled from Gaelic to English in Ireland that I love. Like "him/herself" to mean the object of the sentence without naming them "ah would you look at himself, all dressed up like that", "I'll have to check with herself if I'm allowed out on a school night", etc And no (or dimished) use of yes or no. Monosyllabic answers verboten.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    Unless you're in Bristol and notice how much the "should'ov" spelling becomes a thing.
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      I really think that "should have" is going to be replaced by "should of". It already is in most actual usage, and it's only "language snobs" (like me) who care that it shouldn't be used like that. I have the same feeling about "lose", which is increasingly spelled "loose". It annoys the living crap out of me, but in fairness English is whatever people say it is, and if people want to say it's "loose" then so be it. I've already seen "moorish" succumb - from meaning (more or less) "spicy" to meaning "something I'd like to have more of". Which to be fair we don't have a word for, while we have plenty for "spicy" so it seems like a fair trade.
pdpi 5y ago
Languages evolve. With something as big as the commonwealth, different groups will see their own local use of the language evolve in different directions. The "mother version" itself has evolved plenty over time, and I don't think it's reasonable to say that the way that particular version has evolved over time is the "definitive" version of the language.
mitchdoogle 5y ago
Language has never worked like that. It's always going to be a changing thing, with branches that extend out until what was one language becomes two or more distinct languages.
sumedh 5y ago
Your ancestors came from Africa, why dont you speak your ancestor's African language? Languages keep on evolving, you just have to deal with it.

by prvc 5y ago

gmfawcett 5y ago

Taking your point to its limit, all contemporary languages are a useless waste of energy. Let's adopt a terse and efficient esperanto so that the billions can easily conduct business.

rikroots 5y ago
> Let's adopt a terse and efficient esperanto That made me laugh! If forced to learn an IAL[1] I'd probably choose Solresol[2] because what sane person could resist the chance to yodel their complaints to Customer Services? Or, if "terse and efficient" are an immovable part of the specification then I'd suggest Ithkuil[3] ... or maybe Rust? [1] International Auxiliary Language [2] https://www.ifost.org.au/~gregb/solresol/sorsoeng.htm https://www.ifost.org.au/~gregb/solresol/sorsoeng.htm [3] http://www.ithkuil.net/ http://www.ithkuil.net/

krona 5y ago

I think you've missed the point of English, which is a collection of languages that evolved over time. Unlike e.g. French, there is no definitive, latest version of the language decreed from above. The dictionary is post-hoc, and long may it stay that way.

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
> Unlike e.g. French, there is no definitive, latest version of the language decreed from above. What do you mean by this? French is spoken differently with different dialects over the world - eg. Quebecois French is not the same as France French. And while French may be one of the roots of English, there are also French words with their roots in English. It's all a mishmash.
- krona 5y ago
  The Académie française is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language. No such institution exists for the English language.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    Fair enough, though that's only France, not the language itself, but you're right, no equivalent exists in English.
- jefft255 5y ago
  I think he’s referring to the Académie which pretends to control what’s correct French or not. Of course as you mention, Québec has its own thing and does not listen to them.
jefft255 5y ago
Even for French, in practice, that’s not how it works... The académie is often criticized for being too rigid and not following the language that’s actually spoken.
- yarky 5y ago
  L'académie is a ridiculous concept. How come some elite literates tell people how to speak? It's like if there was one way only to solve a programming problem, and that's rarely the case.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
I love the description of English as "three different languages dressed in a trenchcoat pretending to be a proper language" :) I'm trying to learn German at the moment, and it's fascinating seeing the similarities between the languages, and the things we used to have in common but got dropped or modified in English.
yarky 5y ago
You're wrong about french, it's pretty different between France and Canada. I first learnt France french, then Canadian. happen to find "correct" french extremely boring, absolutely no reason to speak in a boring way if you can speak cool french ;)
- rsynnott 5y ago
  France French is centrally controlled; there's essentially a standards body (though you could argue that in practice this is irrelevant; if what is actually spoken diverges from the standard, then what is actually spoken is the language, and the standardisers are just playing at constructed languages). No major variant of English works like this.
- JackFr 5y ago
  And don't forget Africa and the Caribbean.
prvc 5y ago
I am referring to formalized standards here. There is exactly no literature that I care about which has been written in some English variant other than British or American. Why force students and professionals to buy special dictionaries and conform to oddball rules, which really only have a small number of differences, just because it tickles the fancy of a minority of would-be authorities. For example, Canada should just adopt American English. As for the countries mentioned in the article, the majority of "English speakers" there are not competent as speakers (easily seen by spending a few minutes reading Twitter), so the people proposing formalizing variants for those regions are not doing so in good faith, but to satisfy a political agenda that is only tangentially related to interest in language.

viraptor 5y ago

In what way do you "have to deal with a multitude of formalized language variants"? How does that impact you day to day?

sandworm101 5y ago

Like when I committed that greatest of Canadian sins: using the work 'labour' in a document read by an American client. The reaction was ridiculous. Or the hilarious situation I had at a legal conference. I thought one of my right-wing US friends had gone totally racist. He was complaining about all the new "turbins" he was seeing while driving to the conference. I thought he meant turban, but that's just how Americans pronounce "turbine", as in the wind turbines he could see from the highway.

Mediterraneo10 5y ago
I have met Americans who believe the UK spelling of words with -our instead of -or actually represents a difference in pronunciation. That is, they have the mistaken impression that Brits say /kəlur/ instead of /kələr/.
- JackFr 5y ago
  'gaol' always throws me for a loop when I'm reading something British. I need to remind myself it's pronounced 'jail'. (A quick google tells me that all the major British newspapers switched over to 'jail' by the 1990's - score one for the good guys!) I remember reading 'Mutiny on the Bounty' as a child and talking about it with my father and I said something about the 'boatswain', and he (a former naval officer) looked at me like I had two heads. "You mean the [BOSUN]?" "Well, no it says 'boatswain'" "Yes, it's spelled like that, but it's pronounced BOSUN. It's like 'colonel'. Don't think about the letters."
  - alickz 5y ago
    I've known the word boatswain for decades at this point and never knew it was pronounced like that! Speaking of military terms, lieutenant as "leftenant" always threw me. I had just assumed they were different words.
    - sandworm101 5y ago
      Even worse: Try being at unit with brit/canadian/american exchange officers. Same spelling, different pronunciations depending on who you are talking about. And they really do care.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

Ah but which "mother version"? American English is closer to the original spelling than British English, but getting the actual English to change their use of their own language because the Americans use it differently seems... odd. Plus there's no intrinsic reason to prefer the original spelling over later versions. So maybe we should all use English as it is used by the actual English? But that would see a small minority of the number of English-language speakers setting the rules for the huge majority. So maybe (as others have suggested) we follow the majority of native English speakers and use the Indian version?

rsynnott 5y ago
> So maybe we should all use English as it is used by the actual English? Which ones? It's not like English, as actually spoken in England, is particularly uniform. It has uniform _spelling_, but that's about all; a lot of vocabulary and even grammar is quite regional.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  If we get a choice, then Irish English. There are a few things that got pulled from Gaelic to English in Ireland that I love. Like "him/herself" to mean the object of the sentence without naming them "ah would you look at himself, all dressed up like that", "I'll have to check with herself if I'm allowed out on a school night", etc And no (or dimished) use of yes or no. Monosyllabic answers verboten.
- viraptor 5y ago
  Unless you're in Bristol and notice how much the "should'ov" spelling becomes a thing.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    I really think that "should have" is going to be replaced by "should of". It already is in most actual usage, and it's only "language snobs" (like me) who care that it shouldn't be used like that. I have the same feeling about "lose", which is increasingly spelled "loose". It annoys the living crap out of me, but in fairness English is whatever people say it is, and if people want to say it's "loose" then so be it. I've already seen "moorish" succumb - from meaning (more or less) "spicy" to meaning "something I'd like to have more of". Which to be fair we don't have a word for, while we have plenty for "spicy" so it seems like a fair trade.

pdpi 5y ago

Languages evolve. With something as big as the commonwealth, different groups will see their own local use of the language evolve in different directions. The "mother version" itself has evolved plenty over time, and I don't think it's reasonable to say that the way that particular version has evolved over time is the "definitive" version of the language.

mitchdoogle 5y ago

Language has never worked like that. It's always going to be a changing thing, with branches that extend out until what was one language becomes two or more distinct languages.

sumedh 5y ago

Your ancestors came from Africa, why dont you speak your ancestor's African language? Languages keep on evolving, you just have to deal with it.