User talk:Lee/Archives/2021/January

Name of Sinhala debate

Hi Lee! Thanks for your support in this debate. However, English does not have, and never has had, an organisation to decide what words we should use, unlike French, Spanish, and Italian. The "correct" usage of the English language is decided democratically and usually unconsciously. When it is discussed consciously, it is not always a peaceful process. Each speaker thinks their own particular way of speaking is better than everyone else's. I would like to point out that Sinhala has modified many foreign words too. "French" is ප්‍රංශ භාෂාව and "English" is ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාව, when they would be more accurately ෆ්‍රෙන්ච් භාෂාව and ඉංග්ලිශ් භාෂාව respectively. The French and English don't tell the Sinhalese that they're using the wrong words for their languages. Likewise, the Sinhalese have no right to say what the right word for "Sinhala" is in English (which would be better as "Singhala" anyway), unless the current word is offensive. The word "Sinhalese" is not offensive as it's the correct word to use when talking about the people. It's just no longer the most widely used word to call the language in English. I want to give this debate the best possible chance of succeeding, and raising the issue of whether English people have the right to use whatever word they collectively decide on is a distraction and not constructive. No-one, not even an English individual, has the right to change the words that the English people en mass agree are correct, just as no-one but the Sinhalese can say what is correct in Sinhala. I hope you understand. Please do look at the evidence gathered and lend your support, but don't attack anyone or introduce issues that will cause people to discount what you're saying about the main topic. My aims are: to prove that English already uses "Sinhala" far more than "Sinhalese" for the name of the language; get community consensus to change the article titles back; and to stop changing the titles once they're back to "Sinhala". I have gathered a lot of evidence already, so if you are planning on introducing any of your own, would you please run it by me first to make sure it's compatible with the arguments I intend to present? Danielklein (talk) 10:13, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

@Danielklein: I apologize on my wording there for they do sound non-constructive. As per the previous discussions I came to know that people here are trying to use the rules only for their advantage. That is really disgusting. However I do agree with the notion that if someone owns a language they have a right to decide what word they use. In this case the *owners of the English language* have a right to decide what they would like to call the සිංහල භාෂාව. --Lee (talk) 10:40, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Nobody "owns" the English language, or if you like, every native speaker owns a tiny piece of it. Nobody owns enough to tell anybody else what is correct and what isn't. It's estimated that there are at least 360 million native speakers of English. Obviously we can't get them to all vote and see if we have at least 180 million people in favour. The point of the debate isn't for some elite group on Wikipedia to go around telling everyone else what to call Sinhala. The point is to uncover the truth about what native speakers have been calling it for decades, and to use that name consistently across Wikipedia. It will be hard because there will be a lot of people who will insist that the name of the people and language must be the same. We have to be patient and educate them gently with facts and persuasion, not by fighting. If we fight with others, they will not listen to us. And I'm speaking to myself as much as to you here! I tend to think that being right is enough. However, there are skills to use to make people happy to be on your side. Danielklein (talk) 12:27, 14 March 2019 (UTC)