Talk:English in the Commonwealth/Archive 1

Miscellaneous

The main problem I think we have here is the fact that we are talking about two different things. "Written English" and "Spoken English"

First there are two different written or orthographical systems used in the world, and as far as I can tell the standard terms for these are "American English" and "British English". Now as an Australian that irritates me, but the two terms have support in EVERY major reference source (OED, American Heritage, Fowlers Usage). The only exception I have found is one source (I forget which one, but I can look it up) refers to them as "American" and "Traditional" orthographies, and I don't think that will be popular with anyone.

Then there are spoken variants, and I fail to see why there should be any collective term for all of them - they are all unique in one way or another, and the safest way to handle it is as we have done - by simply defaulting to geography.

I propse that we dispense with the terms "International English" and "Commonwealth English" (except as cross reference terms to the terms used in the computer industry) and standardise on the following: "American Written English" and "British Written English"

Written English is fairly standard throughout the Commonwealth, so just keep it as it is, as either "American English" or "Commonwealth English". There is no need to add "Written" into the names, it just makes the names and links longer than they need to be.

I prefer English and American myself!

When talking about pronounciation... <country or region> English.

When talking about spelling.. International English and American English. -- Chuq 01:34, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"American" is not a language.Rotiro

"International English"

I'd like to learn more about "International English". Anyone know any sources? Maurreen 03:30, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So would I. "It is also sometimes refered to as International English, which is while the Australian telephone code of 61 is used for setting up International english on computers." Huh?

I'm going to delete this: "It is also sometimes refered to as International English, which is while the Australian telephone code of 61 is used for setting up International english on computers."

The first part at least needs a source, and the second part isn't clear. Maurreen 00:28, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not much used

Setting Google to English and searching on "commonwealth english" gets only 4,520 hits. A search on "commonwealth english" -wikipedia gets only 3,060 hits indicating that almost 1/3 of the hits on commonwealth english are to Wikipedia mirrors or citations. A search through the supposed non-Wikipedia sites shows that many of them also display Wikipedia articles or citations and that many of the hits which are not Wikipedia-based are false matches such as "Commonwealth - English", "Commonwealth (English)", "British and Irish, Commonwealth, English Caribbean," and so forth.

Rather than International English being a Wikipedia invention, as suggested earlier on this page, it seems that Commonwealth English is more likely to be a term mainly spread on the web through Wikipedia. International English by contrast is widely documented and much argued about by academics. I find one current reference at [1] to 'Beijing Commonwealth English School", the only reference that seems at all official. I have not found the term Commonwealth English in any books I consulted.

Accordingly the article is now in part a dicussion of the term and why there is some difficulty in making it fit reality, as well as indicating that differences between varieties of English used throughout the Commonwealth render this term not especially suitable for language or spelling choices or computers. I am also curious about what important differences Microsoft saw between British formal English and Australian formal English that necessitated a separate Australian versions of Encarta (but not curious enough to go pouring through article after article looking for the differences).

Possibly the term should be defined as "Standard British English usage as found in current or former Commonwealth countries or in Ireland as contrasted with American usage"? Essentially it is a nuanced synonym for British English, and nothing more.

Jallan 04:33, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would imagine usage is different in Australian formal English as the set of literature used in school is different in a significant part. Also what is acceptable formal usage drifts over time and has probably diverged. As you imply, it would be interesting to be presented with specific instances of this.

"Commonwealth English" does seem to be a very recently invented term. OTOH, it is more descriptive than "International English". It highlights that the Americans broke away from the British Empire by force rather than by negotiation (or however you want to say it). Mr. Jones 09:20, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes. That seems to be one intent. With terms like International English and Commonwealth English people are trying to find a single name that loosely fits Standard south British English idiom and orthography but includes close varieties of English used in other countries also. One can reasonably put Standard British English, Irish English, Australian English, New Zealand English, and South African English (and a few others) into one category. But finding a name for that category is the stickler, especially since Yorkshire English and Scots English and some other dialects of English within Britain don't fit. All such terms as English English, British English, Anglo-English, Southern English, International English, Commonwealth English, which are sometimes used with close to identical meanings don't well match the name and concept. Jallan 05:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Also increasingly spell checkers are supporting more finely grained systems of spelling, not attempting to make British English, renamed as Commonwealth English, to do for all."

Now, I am a Canadian (and an Albertan at that - the statement about Albertans spelling colour wrong is completely bogus, as far as I know) and I always switch my spell checker to Canadian English when I use Microsoft Works. However, if I type "civilization" or "realize", it actually underlines it in red, so I have a hard time believing that these spell-checking systems are more "finely grained".

(As another Albertan, I wholehartedly agree that "colour" is always spelt as such in Alberta, just as in other parts of the country).

Grammar

"Historical ties with Britain tend to pull Canadian spelling in that direction; physical proximity with the United States has tended to pull it towards the American standard. As a result, Canadian spelling has tended to waver between the two, taking some of each." i think this is bad grammar but can't think how to change it. Can anyone help. 18:51, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Trying to improve this article

The discussion here seems to have gone cold, but I notice there are still plenty of edits to the article itself, so I'm going to post here anyway.

I just attempted a copyedit of the first part of this article, but as I went on, I began to doubt whether much of the article really belongs here at all. First, there's the point that Jallan and Mr. Jones discussed above - is the term real and current, or is its prevalence largely perpetuated by Wikipedia itself?

But second, supposing the term is valid and deserves an article, what should that article provide? A clear definition for the term, and its scope, plus a discussion of any disagreements about how it should be applied, ambiguities, etc. In this case, the idea is that the term 'Commonwealth English' is an umbrella term for the varies dialects similar to British English spoken throughout the Commonwealth. The introductory section of the article explains that, and the section 'Limited use' later on further clarifies it. But the rest of the sections seem a bit redundant to me. There are already excellent and detailed articles on Australian English, Canadian English and so on, so I don't think these need to be here too. If 'Commonwealth English' is supposed to be a collective term for a bunch of similar dialects, not a new dialect in itself, it doesn't need a detailed linguistic breakdown here; it just needs a description of the terminology itself and links to the existing articles.

Just my 2p's worth - what do others here think? Wombat 13:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for this artcile to exist. As a Canadian, my English (written and spoken) is much closer to American English than to the English of Britain, Australia, or New Zealand. HistoryBA 13:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

In the absence of any other feedback this year, and given the general prevalence of opinion on this talk page from earlier years, I'm going to delete the dialect-specific passages in this article. If anyone disagrees, feel free to revert and discuss here! Wombat 15:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi everybody. The term "Commonwealth English" has little or no support by linguists or lexicographers; Pam Peters's book (which is listed as "the" reference for this article) never, ever uses it. I believe it was coined by Linux programmers to differentiate between center-color-modeling spelling (American spelling) and centre-colour-modelling spelling (that would be "Commonwealth" spelling). Aside from the fact that "Commonwealth" spelling is far from standardized---for instance, -or endings can be found in Canada and Australia; Canada usually has ize & yze, Britain has ise or ize but only yse, and Australia overwhelmingly prefers ise over ize; and I could go on and on---this aside, the term has been misused and abused on Wikipedia (this one was ridiculous: [[2]]), and applied as a counterpoint to American English in various respects---vocabulary, grammar, even pronunciation. Additionally, it's not clear whether Canadian English should be "Commonwealth" or not. Furthermore, in most cases we don't have enough literature to generalize from British usage to (alleged) Commonwealth usage; for instance, the article on cookies used to say that "in Commonwealth English, cookies are called biscuits." But can we really infer this holds for the Caribbean, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, yada yada yada? (Note that it's false for Canada.) As far as grammar differences are concerned, yes, there are a few between American and British usage, but they are often negligible when it comes to real, proper written English; and yet each so-called Commonwealth dialect has its own peculiar constructions. There's really no "perceived standard dialect of the English language used in the Commonwealth of Nations." It's however true that spelling is more uniform within the Commonwealth than between Britain and the U.S., and that many "Briticisms" (e.g. petrol, nappy, lift, biscuit, pavement, etc.) are actually shared by many, if not most, countries that were formerly under British control (again, with the exception of Canada, where only a few are used.) Note that the term "Commonwealth" is particularly popular among Australians; Australia officially is a "Commonwealth," and the writing style of the Australian government is (or at least was) referred to as "Commonwealth style." I currently am trying to remove references to this page whenever they are not necessary, e.g. instead of, say, "honor (American English) or honour (Commonwealth English)" I'd put "honor or honour (see spelling differences)" with a link to American and British English spelling differences. The former wording is not accurate, even misleading, and unnecessarily compartmentalizes the language. We all speak the same language; in that case, we spell a word differently, but so what? It's the same word. --JackLumber 12:10, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

And don't be fooled by running across things like "Commonwealth English as a Second Language Program" in Australia---that in fact means "ESL Program of the Commonwealth (of Australia)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by JackLumber (talk • contribs)

(Oh, gee whiz. 'Twas just a postscript. JackLumber, 19:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC))

OR Template tag added about here in timeline

(Revision as of 21:54, 3 May 2006 ... see below removal) Tags Added sans documentation FrankB 18:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It has little to do with spoken English, the dialects within England alone are probably as diverse or more than those across the rest of the Commonwealth and the United States. It is to do with written English and spellings. The term International English could be used, but that has POV connotations, particularly when one considers that American English is taught in such places as Southern Germany. One could use British English but that is probably a shorthand for British Empire English, (now "sweet Rockall"[3]). So I suppose that British English is today short for "British Commonwealth English" and as the Commonwealth of Nations has dropped British from its title if we do the same then we end up with "Commonwealth English". --Philip Baird Shearer 09:46, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, "international English" would sound better to me, but it's already used with a different meaning among linguists; we could as well start calling an internal combustion engine "crankshaft" :-) The phrase "British English," which first appeared around mid-C19, has always meant "English as used in Britain" (or the British Isles), although yes, there are more dialects in Britain than in the U.S., Canada, and Australia combined. The caveat is, there has never really been a "perceived English standard" across the Commonwealth of Nations, nor a "Commonwealth" body or organization or anything else governing such a standard. Australia and Canada have their own dictionaries and spelling systems; 20 years ago, "color" was the preferred spelling in Canada, now it's only listed as an also-ran in the Canadian Oxford; not to mention that many American spellings were popular in C19 Australia (present-day Australian English doesn't make much use of American spellings anymore, but unlike before is remarkably willing---if compared to British English---to adopt American vocabulary items.) So I guess it's pretty safe to assume that nobody in the past ever thought of such things as "British Commonwealth/Empire English"---that would have been just "Queen's/King's English." That being said, and granted that -our endings are the preferred choice in Australia and Canada nowadays, it makes sense to say that center-color-modeling are U.S. and centre-colour-modelling spelling are non-U.S. This really is the most conspicuos difference between English as "written" in U.S. and English as written elsewhere, and is the only tell-tale sign (aside from minor punctuation rules) of the country of origin of many books, articles, and papers on physics, computer science, philosophy, etc.---that is, spelling aside, written formal English is worldwide fairly, although not completely, standardized. So it makes sense---beware, from the standpoint of people like open-software programmers and the like, who don't give a damn about the _language_ because they're not even supposed to, to distinguish between "Commonwealth" and American English: the way people from the Commonwealth spell "centre" and "colour" as opposed to the way Americans spell them. But there are many, many exceptions. Take the -ize/-ise issue, or program vs. programme, or, for Canadians, tyre vs. tire, sceptical vs. skeptical, kerb vs. curb, etc. When it comes to grammar, vocabulary, or pronunciation, the problems of such a classification would be overwhelming. And we know little or nothing about English as spoken in, say, Mauritius, Kiribati, or St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Many Commonwealth nations don't even have English as an official or de-facto language, *nor are they supposed to*. And the Republic of Ireland has nothing to do with the Commonwealth. JackLumber 12:23, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

"Many Commonwealth nations don't even have English as an official or de-facto language" with the exception of Mozambique could you give half a dozen examples? --Philip Baird Shearer 12:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Cyprus, Bangladesh, Brunei, Tanzania, Maldives, and... gosh! number six? ;-( --JackLumber 19:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been through the List of members of the Commonwealth of Nations by name#Current members and the following do not include English as an official or de facto language (according to their WP entries): Cyprus, Bangladesh, Brunei, Malaysia, Maldives, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Tanzania (total 7). -- TrevorD 22:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

That Mozambique and the Maldives have little to no English would not be a great surprise to me. But the others do have English de-facto language for at least a sizable portion of their population:

• Wikipedia Bangladesh: Bangla is the official language of Bangladesh, though English is used as a second language among the middle and upper classes. It is also often used for official purposes and in higher education.
• Wikipedia Brunei: These groups also reflect the most important languages: Malay, which is the official language, and Chinese. English is also spoken ...
• Cyprus English is widely understood, and is taught in schools from primary age. Also English speaking Europe#Cyprus: Since the effective partition of the island in 1974, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have had little opportunity to learn the other's language, and are more likely to understand English. Knowledge of English is also helped by the large Cypriot migrant communities in the UK and Australia, leading to diffusion of culture and language back to their country of origin. There is a large British expatriate population, in addition to the British military presence in the Sovereign Base Areas, plus the UN buffer zone, whose peacekeepers usually use English as a lingua franca. All this maintains an English-speaking presence on the island.
• Wikipedia Malaysia: Currently Mathematics and Science subjects such as Biology, Physics, Chemistry are taught in English. The reasoning was that students would no longer be hindered by the language barrier during their tertiary education in fields such as medicine and engineering. All other subjects are taught in Bahasa Melayu. As I have been told that a disproportionate number of Malaysian ethnic Chinese study in an English language environment.
• Wikipedia Sri Lanka: Both Sinhala and Tamil are official languages. English, the link language in the present constitution, is spoken competently by about 10% of the population, and is widely understood. All three languages are used in education and administration.
• There is also a strange system within Tanzania education whereby primary education is taught in Kiswahili and then switches to 100% English for secondary education. This causes chaos for the pupils who are forced to switch language instantly! [4]

English may not be an official language, but in each country there are a large group of people who write and speak the language. But even all 7 are taken not to be English speaking, which is a conclusion I contest, it would only make up 7/53 (13%) of the commonwealth which is not "Many Commonwealth nations don't even have English as an official or de-facto language". --Philip Baird Shearer 15:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

In each and every single nation on Earth there's a small or large group of people speaking & writing English. But I have yet to figure out what this "perceived Commonwealth standard" is. JackLumber, 19:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Removing OR/pov Template

re

Revision as of 21:54, 3 May 2006; -- JackLumber Tags Added sans documentation

Who didn't bother to document what he felt was POV (Original Research), unless it was during his much later posting on prefering International English as a term. IMHO, such in-your-face templates should not be applied without a significant talk post—as is clearly implied in the templates— if only to respect the time of other editors trying to deal with resolving any 'real' controversy. It is necessary for you to have a POV of your own before making such a judgement, and hence doubly reprehensible to NOT justify your assertion.

They should certainly NOT EVER be marked as a Minor Edit ( 21:54, 3 May 2006 JackLumber m )!!! Please give the rest of us a break! This is very disrespectful of our time, and we shouldn't have to spend it tracking down when and why such a tag was employed.

If there are particular statements ruffling your skirts, try applying the '{fact} template' to the single line; not using a 'shotgun' on the whole article without any guidance as to what your agenda or 'pet peeves' may be! Best regards // FrankB 18:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

OK Fabartus, you are in love with the term Commonweath English; I personally hate it. There's nothing wrong with it—just two different standpoints. JackLumber, 19:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Not so Jack, but I was 'very annoyed' at having to waste time figuring out the history. Call it a pet peeve—we're supposed to work together, so taking an action which causes another to take extra time figuring out what happened and why strikes me a more than a little disrespectful and a whole lot of ego-centrically selfish or immature. Consder yourself spanked with a wet noodle!

On the 'term', I'd much prefer the honest 'British English', but being a 'realist' trying to accomplish expansion in the main, I recognize I'm NEVER going to get everything my own way herein—we all get edited unmercifully—it's written right in our munificent contracts! e.g. Note my coining the term 'Former British Nation because of such P.C. wikipolitics. 'Colonies' is fine by me. But we sidestep such international nicities because one or two revisionist apparently want to denigrate the actual history and historical debt! The Empire was a uniquely special event in history to any fair reading, and trying to hide something of that magnitude is just plain silly!

My personal POV (and hope) is in the future of the next several years, the foundation will have to eventually incorporate some sort of 'editorial content oversight controls', and such terms will eventually shake out under the weight of usage per the rest of the world's usages, not because of the complaints of some under-seasoned, over-sensitive but vociferous editors. Or so I hope. But note that requires a change from the foundation policies on down, not bottom up.

My point on applying such templates is first to the issue of respect for WikiP's credibility —imho, such in your face templates cause harm, make us look like clowns to the customer user— and secondarily but as importantly, cost another editor his time when applied sans stating any reasons for such application. Such documentation is only fair to those who then stumble across it afterwards, and if you can't justify such rationally and intellectually because of some strong feeling, it's a pretty good sign it shouldn't be applied at all until you can address the matter dispasionately with logic instead of such feelings. I have no problem with being passionate—just in the disdain for the rest of us and our judgement. In a word, applying such templates sans comments is disrespectful. You and I have no other issues of fact, save that.

In closing, perhaps if the name is so bad to you, you should formally considering 'move/renaming' options (e.g See examples Talk:Tsushima Island, or the currently ongoing Talk:eBook). Assuming of course you have the stomach and will power for such a debate, and are willing to abide by the majority view. If you aren't, then WikiP is something you probably ought to leave for other activities, or at least vow to stay out of things that make your blood boil.

In sum, take the long view! Very Best Wishes // FrankB 17:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Funny... you coined "Former British Nation"? That's why it looked so weird, I guess... No, I didn't even notice it, I warn't aware of that PC thing.... But yeah, your mighty right, I prolly got carried away a tad. Anyways, I posted a better suited tag on the page. Thanks for spanking me, I kinda deserved it. All the best, JackLumber, 20:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Doubly funny — as a redirect, it never works! Note the redirect contents: Commonwealth_Realm#Former_Commonwealth_Realms It's ALWAYS broken —the redirect is supposed to be linking to that section of the article on 'Non-commonwealth Nations', (I'm sure we have some mergests to thank for THAT awkward grouping of data in a 'converse' article) i.e. 'the republics, et. al' sans Queen! But such a redirect never works in the system software, so you have to pipe trick the desired (compromise) phrase and the direct link each time. A pain, but at least the redirect page keeps the reference for quick lookup and CnP operations.

I find the phrase works better than ex-British Colonies which seems to raise peoples blood pressure, yet still allows one to talk about the big picture with succinctness. Don't see any new tags, but then if I did, I'm sure I'd have seen you document your reasons here first too! <g>

Best regards // FrankB 05:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Commonwealth v U.S. English

Has anyone seen any surveys on the respective popularity of both, among non-native English speakers? It would help to resolve an amicable dispute at talk:Football (word). Thanks. Grant65 | Talk 01:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This is ridiculous.

We all know there is no such thing as Commonwealth English. There is British English, American English, and an English for each country that has English has its primary language (e.g. Australian English, Canadian English etc.). Attempting to lump all the pseudo-British Englishes under the common label 'Commonwealth English' is aggregation for aggregation's sake. They don't need to be aggregated. They each have their own quirks, and will sit somewhere on the spectrum from BE to AE. They are individual locations on that spectrum; aggregating them is pointless. Who cares what Commonwealth English is? Nobody, since nobody thinks 'what is the correct spelling for [...] in Commonwealth English?'. Is there a Commonwealth English dictionary? No. For which reason, there should not be a wikipedia page on Commonwealth English. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.163.107.34 (talk) 12:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

That's it, exactly. According to Google, this term appears to be chiefly a Wikipedia shibboleth, likely popularized by people who know a lot about computers and little about the English language. —^Jack_Lumber ^/tɔk/ 13:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

One of the funniest uses of this term on Wikipedia: [5] —^Jack_Lumber ^/tɔk/ 13:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, you think it's funny, you wrote it.  :) Or did you actually mean that you thought what you were reverting (anachronistic use of the 1926 term "Commonwealth" (as in "Commonwealth of Nations") to describe dictionaries extant 98 years earlier in 1828) was funny?   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 10:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Wait, wasn't it? There has never been a "commowealth English dictionary," let alone 98 years before the British Commonwealth came into being! —^Jack_Lumber ^/tɔk/ 17:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Oppose deletion

I oppose deletion on the grounds that I have come across the term before, although it is not very common, it is not just a wikipedia invention. It may have been coined by Linux programmers, but that does not make it invalid, it gives it a certain legitimacy. The term may be problematic, the article may be unreferenced, but you could say that of a lot of other articles. PatGallacher 18:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yet that doesn't give it notability. Books like McArthur's Oxford Companion to the English Language, Crystal's English as a Global Language, Peters's Cambridge Guide, or Trudgill's International English make no mention of it. The exact definition of the term is not clear, either---and no one else has actually defined it so far. The only reliable reference I have found states in fact that such a thing doesn't exist! —^Jack_Lumber^/tɔk/ 21:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)