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>> How exactly would that happen? > How it always happens? How much time have you spend in multi-lingual contexts? How do you think creols and slang develope?

>> How exactly would that happen? > How it always happens? How much time have you spend in multi-lingual contexts? How do you think creols and slang develope? Language naturally evolves to fit the needs of people who use it. This is a failure to demonstrate how promoting language standards may result in increased discrimination. Again, whether a language standard is promoted or not, people will discriminate against others who differ from them. The existence of a language standard removes the confusion and ambiguity as to what the correct form of the language is. This enables everyone to participate in the usage of the language equally. > Funnily enough, your example, python, actually has two versions in use. If everyone refused to use python 3 because it was "bad python" then the communtiy would have been worse off. Right and it took an official body with authority over the language to get everyone to reunite over Python 3. If no official body stepped up and no standard version was declared, there may still be large fragmentation between Python 2 and 3. Everyone clearly understands fragmentation of a language community is a stark negative. You are suggesting we pretend that a standard form of English does not exist which would only result in further fragmentation of English, which just as in Python, would be a bad thing for the community at large. > Ideally you can also teach this standard without impicitly judging people as stupid and uneducated when they use their native dialect. No one in this thread ever suggested using language standards for this purpose. And again, the existence of a language standard is largely orthogonal to this phenomenon. Judging people as stupid comes from differences in people, not language standards. In the absence of the existence of a “correct English” the judgements would transition from “you are not speaking correct English” (which is shared by all) to “you are not speaking my tribe’s English” (which is unique to a single tribe and would be a lot more tribally divisive). > Who decides what is standard? Whoever is the appropriate authority of the language. It could be a national government or an academic organization. Language standardization isn’t a new concept, nearly all European languages have gone through a standardization phase. It’s a solved problem. This is the equivalent of saying we can’t standardize Python because there is no obvious way to decide who is allowed to standardize it. That is just silly. Either an interested committee will form or a pre-existing authority will take on the responsibility.

shkkmo 5y ago
> This is a failure to demonstrate how promoting language standards may result in increased discrimination. It does that right now, no "may" about it. > Again, whether a language standard is promoted or not, people will discriminate against others who differ from them. "Promoted" is a too nice a word when the reality is that the standard is used limit the opportunities of people who don't follow the standard. > You are suggesting we pretend that a standard form of English does not exist It doesn't exist. There is no single standard English, there isn't even a standard set of spellings for English. > Judging people as stupid comes from differences in people, not language standards. I've literally had people tell that they assume someone is stupider if they use the "me" instead of "I" in an "and" clause. > Whoever is the appropriate authority of the language. It could be a national government or an academic organization. Language standardization isn’t a new concept, nearly all European languages have gone through a standardization phase. There is no such authority for English, so there is no standard? Also, "standardisation" didn't work for German or Spanish (the other two European languages I speak) as local dialects diverge significantly from the "official standard". It is far from "solved". > This is the equivalent of saying we can’t standardize Python because there is no obvious way to decide who is allowed to standardize it. That isn't what I said at all. > In the absence of the existence of a “correct English” the judgements would transition from “you are not speaking correct English” (which is shared by all) to “you are not speaking my tribe’s English” (which is unique to a single tribe and would be a lot more tribally divisive). Those judgements already happen. Teaching people about each other's dialects would make them less foriegn and lead to less judgement and better understanding. When you take that position that there is "one correct English", that makes it harder to encourage people to learn each other's dialects and it encourages discrimination against people whose dialects differ more from the one correct English. Finally, I'll repeat myself: I am not wholey opposed to language standards on principle. A good language standard would be determined inclusive organization that is representative of all its speakers, would be a living standard that changes as the underlying language and it's dialects change (i.e descriptive), and would understood as common reference point for communication rather than as the one correct way of using that language ( i.e. not proscriptive). English does not have such a such a standard and other language standards I am aware of are not super effective and tend to be rather eurocentric and not inclusive of their broader populations.

shkkmo 5y ago

> This is a failure to demonstrate how promoting language standards may result in increased discrimination. It does that right now, no "may" about it. > Again, whether a language standard is promoted or not, people will discriminate against others who differ from them. "Promoted" is a too nice a word when the reality is that the standard is used limit the opportunities of people who don't follow the standard. > You are suggesting we pretend that a standard form of English does not exist It doesn't exist. There is no single standard English, there isn't even a standard set of spellings for English. > Judging people as stupid comes from differences in people, not language standards. I've literally had people tell that they assume someone is stupider if they use the "me" instead of "I" in an "and" clause. > Whoever is the appropriate authority of the language. It could be a national government or an academic organization. Language standardization isn’t a new concept, nearly all European languages have gone through a standardization phase. There is no such authority for English, so there is no standard? Also, "standardisation" didn't work for German or Spanish (the other two European languages I speak) as local dialects diverge significantly from the "official standard". It is far from "solved". > This is the equivalent of saying we can’t standardize Python because there is no obvious way to decide who is allowed to standardize it. That isn't what I said at all. > In the absence of the existence of a “correct English” the judgements would transition from “you are not speaking correct English” (which is shared by all) to “you are not speaking my tribe’s English” (which is unique to a single tribe and would be a lot more tribally divisive). Those judgements already happen. Teaching people about each other's dialects would make them less foriegn and lead to less judgement and better understanding. When you take that position that there is "one correct English", that makes it harder to encourage people to learn each other's dialects and it encourages discrimination against people whose dialects differ more from the one correct English. Finally, I'll repeat myself: I am not wholey opposed to language standards on principle. A good language standard would be determined inclusive organization that is representative of all its speakers, would be a living standard that changes as the underlying language and it's dialects change (i.e descriptive), and would understood as common reference point for communication rather than as the one correct way of using that language ( i.e. not proscriptive). English does not have such a such a standard and other language standards I am aware of are not super effective and tend to be rather eurocentric and not inclusive of their broader populations.