Talk:Anglicisation

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[edit] Proper Names

Loss of Anglicized names due to "national pride" or official pressure: Not sure Bombay/Mumbai and Peking/Beijing are good examples of this. "Bombay" to "Mumbai" was a real name change: the two names are etymologically differerent, although they do look like they could be related. As for China, there's nothing "official" about Peking becoming Beijing. The only official name for China's capital is 北京, and the Hanyu Pinyin spelling of these characters happens to be Běijīng. While the PRC government may be promoting Hanyu Pinyin as its preferred Romanization scheme, this seems to be more about consistently representing the Mandarin Chinese language in Roman letters than dictating what appears on maps intended for non-Chinese speakers --- as evident from the fact that the pronunciation of some letters in Hanyu Pinyin bears no relation to their pronunciation in English or indeed most languages using the Latin alphabet --- e.g. q, x. In any case, Francophones seem quite happy with Pékin. What may have happened is that English-speakers caught wind of the Pinyin spelling and thought that some sort of name-change *had* occurred and for that reason started using "Beijing" (of course missing out the tone diacritics when writing it).

Sometimes a place name appears anglicized, but is not. In some cases, the form being used in English is an older name that has now been changed. For example, Turin in the Piedmont area of Italy, is named Turin in the original Piedmontese language, but now officially known as Torino in Italian. In some cases, link English-language media overcompensates for this in the mistaken belief that the name being used in English was imposed by English speakers and is some sort of injustice. Locals tried to get Piedmontese included as an official olympic language, but were unsucessful. Well, I guess someone has to finish what Mussolini started.

Still-Anglicized place names are certainly not all Western European, and includes some where the name might be expected to be the subject of political contention (e.g. Jerusalem)

Better examples of official de-Anglicization might be Ivory Coast, where the government insists that the name not be translated from the original French (Côte d'Ivoire), or Calcutta becoming Kolkata. --- Alex -- 2005-07-29 17:45 UCT

Names were not changed by immigration officials in the United States. This is an urban myth that has been propagated for many many years. Immigration officials didn't write down names, but rather worked from manifests provided by the shipping companies. Any errors were made by the company, and not the Immigration clerks. Immigration officials were available who spoke the native languages of the immigrants. This is not to say that name changes did not occur. They did. It happened in my extended family when a grade school teacher told an great uncle of mine that he was spelling his last name wrong. My paternal grandfather changed the family's name for unknown reasons; but to say that name changes occured by government officials is simply untrue.[1][2][3]

It is also a bit of an overstatement to say "personal names have been heavily anglicised." The examples given of Johann/John, Piotr/Peter, Giorgos/George, and Yeshua/Joshua have been anglicised. These are all biblical names, and have analogs in all European languages via Hellenistic Greek translation/transliteration of Hebrew names. It is possible to find analogs of these names in other Middle Eastern languages as well. There's examples of this, Peter the Great, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope's ruling name for three. However it seems like this phenomena primarily occurs with individuals of historical prominence, not average persons, and not recently practiced (with the notable exception of the Pope). If someone can cite some stats or examples of widespread anglicisiation of personal names, I think this section should be rewritten. I guess its ultimately a judgement call, but I lean against the characterization of "heavy." -- 70.106.209.48 05:37, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Americanization

Isn't it good to rename this article Anglicization? I think Wikipedia has many more -ization entries than -isation entries. - TAKASUGI Shinji 09:35, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To quote "Anglicisation is a process of making something English". We spell things -isation in England, American's would spell it -ization. Hence, Americanization is correct, Anglicization is incorrect. Selphie 09:46, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC) *talk*

It doesn't make much sense, because Americans speak English, not American. This article is mainly about changing non-English words to English or English-like ones, and it happens both in England and America. This is clearly different from Americanization, adoption of American culture. Anyway, I'm not enthusiastic on Americanizing the spelling, and it's okay if majority prefer Anglicisation to Anglicization.

I think it's better, like I said - it's talking about British English not American English and therefore the British English would be the correct spelling. Selphie 12:12, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC) *talk*

Nobody here has ever heard of OED English? The -ize spellings are acceptable for British English, too. --/ɛvɪs/ 15:33, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Manual of Style states not to use regional variants for topic titles, but to use forms used in all dialects. This is the reason the aircraft article is not at airplane or aeroplane. --/ɛvɪs/ 15:37, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
...Plus the article isn't talking about just British English, but rather all dialects. --/ɛvɪs/ 21:26, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
Whatever the OED may or may not say I, as a true Brit (being of both English and Welsh extraction), would always consider the use of -ization as American (I mean -isation just comes off the pen/keybourd more naturally to a Brit, I'm sure the converse is true for an American, one doesn't even think about it). About not using regional variants, who's to say that your spelling is not a regional variant? Be that as it may, I do not see either usage as wrong per se, but should be at the discretion of the founder of the article. If the article is started as Anglicisation, then why change it? As long as it's made clear that alternative spellings exist, and as long as people are re-directed here when they use the alternative for a search, then why the grief? Your demands smack of cultural imperialism and personal opinion (even POV) to me.

--Alun 05:53, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary seems to imply that it isn't a regional variant:
Either spelling may be used. The form -ize has been in use in English since the 16th century; although it is most widely used in American English, it is not an Americanism. The alternative spelling -ise is used particularly in British English. --/ɛvɪs/ /tɑːk/ /kɑntɹɪbjuʃənz/ 18:48, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Eh? Did you not read what I wrote? Are you bound only to repeat yourself? I can also repeat ad nauseum if you like (but I think this'll be my last), Whatever the OED may or may not say I, as a true Brit (being of both English and Welsh extraction), would always consider the use of -ization as American (I mean -isation just comes off the pen/keyboard more naturally to a Brit, I'm sure the converse is true for an American, one doesn't even think about it. I don't dispute your practical knowledge of being American, so why should you dispute my practical knowledge of being British? I merely point out that as a Brit anglicization does not come as a natural or normal spelling, whatever the OED may or may not say. I'm absolutely sure the OED gives definitive spellings for other words that you would heatedly dispute yourself!!!!! What I mean by a regional variant is that, what is a variant is dependent on what region a person lives in at any given time. Take the term bloke for example. You may consider it a British or Australian regional variant of guy. Whereas a Brit or Aussie would consider guy a regional variant of bloke. Everything is relative. I might add that there is no standard English. I live in Finland and the state actually controls the language, (i.e. decides what is standard Finnish or not, I believe the same is true in Germany and German), the same is not true of English, ipso facto anything goes in English, there is no such thing as correct English. Or if you like, there's no such thing as a regional variant, or perhaps all non standard parochial words are regional variants. Both definitions work for me. Chill out. If the meaning is generally accepted and anglicized is redirected to here, with the proviso that other spellings exist, then why the grief? I suspect cultural imperialism. I've been to your user page and have the impression that you consider anything other than americanisations (sic) beyond the pale, or why else all the references to encyclopaedia?--Alun 20:28, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And of course us Aussies use -ise as well, so that's two Englishes to one. I suspect our mates across Tasman are -ise-a-holics as well, that's 3-1! -- Paul 18:07, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm fine with British spellings on UK-centered pages (such as the United Kingdom article) and American spellings on America-centered pages (such as the United States article). I'm just trying to say that Anglicization/Anglicisation isn't something limited to the UK, even if the language was invented there. As for having a governing body, English really could use one. As for the name of this article, I give up. And no, I don't hate British spellings/words, especially since I feel that the football (soccer) article would be better at association football, but that's just me. --/ɛvɪs/ /tɑːk/ /kɑntɹɪbjuʃənz/ 17:15, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
By the way, isn't it assuming bad faith that I'm trying to spread cultural imperialism? Also, I would prefer a move to anglicization for the same reason I prefer grey over gray, and that's that more dialects accept it. Just because most English dialects have more speakers that use -ise over -ize doesn't mean that the -ize variants can't be accepted. Similarily, I'm pretty sure that more Americans, including myself, use gray over grey, though grey is still acceptable. Plus, I actually kind of like the move from yogurt to yoghurt since it's closer to the original Turkish word. --/ɛvɪs/ /tɑːk/ /kɑntɹɪbjuʃənz/ July 2, 2005 02:01 (UTC)
Have a look here Evice. Why bother to change any spelling if the spelling is an accepted English spelling, from whatever English variant. Personally I don't find your arguements compelling enough to warrant any sort of change. I tend to agree that an overseeing body for the English language would be a good idea, the problem really is that it would have to be an international body, and we would end up with all variants being accepted anyway.Alun 05:26, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Nothing really to add to the argument here. Just saying as a person lived in Hong Kong and Canada equally for half his life, I still prefer isation and most other fine British spellings. I do spell tires for those wheelie things, however. --Kvasir 06:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why only 'language'?

Why are we accepting that anglicisation is most commonly discussed in the more abstract context of language? I'm not sure this is true, and is it not somewhat POV? I mean does it not depend on who's doing the discussing? I recently linked my user page here, because I mention that Gwent is one of the most anglicised parts of Wales, only to find that this article is all about language. I think that this article is unbalanced and doesn't reflect the true meaning or usage of the word.--Alun 05:45, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Outside of the United Kingdom, I think it's much more commonly used in a linguistic sense. If there is something interesting to say about the other sense though, feel free to add a section or split this article. I don't know much about anglicisation as it applies to making things more English in a cultural sense, beyond the simple definition that I already included in the first paragraph of the article. --Delirium 23:23, May 21, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Pronunciation?

Would the pronunciation of words in an Anglicized way count as Anglicization? For example, many U.S. cities have names originating in other languages, whose pronunciations have been mangled (to use a POV term) to conform to English conventions. Some of the most infamous examples are French names in the Midwest and Spanish names in Texas:

I wanted to get some opinions about whether this counts as Anglicization, before adding anything to the article. Onyourside 15:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I would so say so. An Siarach
Moscow -- mosCOW --12:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I could be wrong but the US pronuciation of Moscow as /Mɶsgau/ stems from the German name for Moscow "Moscau"? An Muimhneach Machnamhach 11:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] unreferenced

This article is a ramble it needs to cite its sources (WP:CITE). There are lots of generalisations that have been added which are clearly a POV. Often this is to do with degree of the type covered by some/many/most which allows for lots of non-NPOV. Eg often even with diacritical marks that do not normally exist in English and others like this With languages that use non-Latin alphabets, such as the Arabic, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabets, a direct transliteration is typically used, in order to secure faithfulness to the original pronunciation rather than conformance to the norms of English. Who says so? If the word is directly translated from the native language into English then unless the grammar rules are the same as English the word will not be read that way. Besides it is not translation from one alphabet to another it is transliteration. Even if the word is from the Latin alphabet one needs to know for example that in German "W" is pronounced as a "V" if one is to have hope of "secur[ing] faithfulness to the original pronunciation" and unless one has learnt German this is unlikely to be true. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] removed the following

"Anglicisation in language" There are two primary types of Anglicisation in language: Anglicising non-English words for use in English, and Anglicising non-English languages through the introduction of English words.

The latter does not follow a standard definition of 'Anglicize'; the use of English words in non-English cultures is more a form of acculturation. - IstvanWolf 00:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not true at all. "Anglicize" means simply to make more like English. It's true that a common use is to describe anglicization of individual words when importing them into English, but it's also common to describe anglicizing other languages or even entire cultures; one of the two canonical quotes the OED has under its 'anglicize' entry refers to the British 'anglicization of India'. Compare Hellenize. --Delirium 21:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
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