English People...
"Just a note even though I live in Canada where we like to pretened to be and speak english"
Do you not have some sense of national pride? Get your own culture and stop pretending not to be Canadian. You prefer the population of another country than your own. Is that why you call fellow countrymen "frogs"? A traitor and an English lick arse.
Damian - I wish I could say the same about you Scottish folk, but so far I've only really known one Scotsman, so the sample is not big enough to draw conclusions I reckon.
<"Just a note even though I live in Canada where we like to pretened to be and speak english">
It's a fucking Yank. You bastards leave us in peace and invade someother country to keep your people happy.
>>Acually, I think it's a good idea for the American version of English to be officially called American, making it a cleary defined official Language of the United States of America. There is British English, Australian English, Canadian English, South African English..and so on.....and then there is American.>>
Absolutely. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.
Good Lord. Are any of you who are suggesting that the US make "American" the official language Americans?
Maybe that bloke in the White House, Tiffany! :-)
As a non American, I see no reason why the United States does not officially adopt the term "American" in respect of it's version of the English Language. Apart from the United States, English is pretty well spoken only in countries linked to British Commonwealth nations: Canada * Australia * New Zealand * South Africa * India * and smaller similarly linked countries / states.
The United States is the power it is now, but has no such ties to the home of the English Language whatsoever....a totally independent country. This has nothing to do with cultural ties or political alliances. Apart from those, the United States of America has no allegiance to England (I say England rather than the UK because England spawned the Language in the first place). As I've said before in another thread, the UK and the USA are totally foreign to each other, whereas all the other English speaking (Commonwealth) countries are not.
There are quite a lot of diferences between BE and AE, so on that basis, and on the points I've raised in this post, I really think there is a strong case for the United States to call their version of the English Language:
American
Obviously the management of that store in Hanover Street agrees with me! :-)
England may have spawned the language but that's ancient history. It's own dialects since then have deviated at least as much as any other non-British ones. So the English language has its home in other places, not just in England. Analagously, I know Brazilians feel they are home to the language they speak, even though it's named adjectivally after another country (Portugal).
In terms of foreignness, if you choose to ignore political and cultural aspects, then all we have to compare is language and each English speaking country has its own version of English. But we all speak the same English language and understand each other just fine, even in informal registers. American English is no more foreign.
The only significant differences between BE and AE are lexicality and for that reason Canadian English is actually closer to American English, though in contradiction, Canada is part of the Commonwealth politically. But such differences are also found when comparing BE and other Englishes spoken in India, Australia, South Africa, etc. (e.g. In South Africa, you brake at "robots", not traffic lights.)
In the US, we speak English. If you want to argue that it is a separate language, go ahead, but be prepared for an argument. I'd love to see how AmE differs so greatly from any other fom of English that it merits calling it another language.
And that bloke in the White House? He may not speak English (doubtful, very doubtful), but I certainly do!
Tiffany: Your ability to speak perfect English is evident from your postings. As for that bloke in the White House, he is undoubtedly a native English speaker...it's just the things he says that's open to hilarity.
Jeremy: I understand what you say, and you more or less said what I've said in previous posts. Yes, historically England (or the area that was at the time, but later called England proper) gave birth to the English Language, and in later centuries it spread to all four corners of the world under the aegis of the then British Empire. It's a natural process that the Language in it's new domains evolved into different forms in different places, be it accents, different speech patterns, new vocabularies and certain words evolved into meanings different from those back in the Mother country.
Each variety of English was just as valid as that back in England, and I've never been aware of anybody here in the UK that really believes that British English is superior, especially as there are so many variations of British English itself, anyway.
With regard to American English, I just thought that Americans generally would think it a good idea to call their own version American, rather than English. After all, there doesn't seem to be a more patriotically minded country than the USA, does there? Flag flying is endemic over there, so why not build on that national pride a wee bit more and rename your branch of English? What's wrong with that? Only a suggestion after all, no offence (sorry...offense) meant! If umbrage is taken at the idea, then by all means carry on with calling it English. OK: let's just compromise and say it won't be the Queen's English. There...problem solved. Guid nicht, Tiffany! :-)
Damian:
I see from your cynical tone in your last paragraph that your ideas have little linguistic interest but are simply politically motivated. I regret I took your first post seriously.
Honestly, we Americans have been perfectly happy to call our language English. It's the rest of you who make such a huge fuss over minor dialectical differences... like English is the only language that ever had any!
>Honestly, we Americans have been perfectly happy to call our language English. It's the rest of you who make such a huge fuss over minor dialectical differences... like English is the only language that ever had any! <
Well Uriel you haven't heard horror stories of the ugly Americans (tourists) who whines about how we can't spell 'English' words correctly. Remind me when you head here and I'll change all the freeway signs with 'town centre' to 'town center'. Remember we gotta keep you happy so you spend your green bucks on the economy. ;)
"As I've said before in another thread, the UK and the USA are totally foreign to each other, whereas all the other English speaking (Commonwealth) countries are not."
Well said by Damian.
As a native English-speaker from one of those loyal Commonwealth countries, I agree totally. Others have tried to downplay the differences between AmE and BE, but the truth is that AmE is much more different from UK English than is the English spoken in almost all other Commonwealth countries.
The strange aspect of this is that it is the NAs, normally not backward in coming forward, who resist what they speak being named after them.
We're considered backwards because we realize that we speak English.
Wow. I can't even describe how awed I am at this comment.
Funny that I can read everything anyone from a Commonwealth country has posted with ease. You would think there might be the least bit of difficulty if "American" really was a separate language.