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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 versio
by 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 agoThe 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 agoFair enough, though that's only France, not the language itself, but you're right, no equivalent exists in English.
- jefft255 5y agoI 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 agoEven 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 agoL'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 agoI 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 agoYou'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 agoFrance 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 agoAnd don't forget Africa and the Caribbean.
- prvc 5y agoI 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.