Talk:English language

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[edit] Online utility

I think that Free Online Tools For English Language should be added at external links as useful ESL (EFL) resource? Do you agree? If do, please consider to add it. --217.23.199.99 10:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect map

The map about english as a primary/official language is incorrect. In Sweden or Finnland english is not an official language. In Sweden swedish is the only official language, in Finland swedish and finnish are official languages. These countries can be found at the top of Europe. Someone could edit and post a new map?

[edit] English long O (as in "bode", "bowed", "boat") a diphthong?

I suppose that any English vowel may be "coloured" into a diphthong, and no doubt is in many regional forms; but as a native speaker I find it completely surprising that the long "O" should be primarily classified as such. Upon what authority, or criterion, does this rest? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.140.107.26 (talk) 06:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

The formant frequencies of [oʊ] can be seen changing in spectrogram analysis. You can use praat to see for yourself. Monophthongs have flat (unchanging) formants in spectrograms, as is visible in the "formant" article. --Kjoonlee 06:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

As for authorities, Peter Ladefoged's A Course on Phonetics (4th edition) shows how all the formants of American/British English change/stay put, and Ladefoged says that the changes are "not just the result of my own listening. The data are taken from the acoustic analyses of a number of authorities." --Kjoonlee 06:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It depends on where you live. A lot of Brits say it that way. A lot of eastern shore and southern Americans say it that way also. Here in the American midwest, it's a little more clipped, and would be harder to identify as a dipthong. Wahkeenah 07:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] India treated as second class citizen on this page

I am from Canada and was in Chennai, India for a heart surgery 6 months back. India has second largest english speaking population (probably first) and yet it is treated as second class citizen on this page. I was to asked to wait for two years in canada for my surgery and cost was huge. In india, i got it done at one tenth the cost and with in a month. During one month of my stay in India i had no problem commmunicating with anyone. Wherever i went people spoke fluent english though in a heavy accent. Even the people on street could speak good english. So why not to modify this page to adjust with realities of world rather than few countries monpolizing it. And you know what, if english will be the most widely spoekn language in 21st and 22nd century, it will be not because of US, Canada, UK or Australia it will be because of India.

Remember, you kept yourself in cities. More people speak English in and around Indian cities because that's where the rich, who speak English, live, and because that's where Western tourists, who are more likely to speak English than an Indian language, go. I imagine that if you went into poorer and less metropolitan regions of the country, where the majority live, you'd find many fewer people who speak English, or even Hindi. 72.166.213.41 22:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

But the point is, for debate lets say, only 10 percent of indians speak fluent english (ignore the accent part) then also it is whopping 110 million people. So doesn't that counts some respect which has to be shown on this page. I am a canadian and i speak english and french both with equal command. Similar is situation of indians, they speak english and hindi (or any other native language) with same ease. It does not even matter that we on this page admit Indians as english speaking people or not, industry does. Look at all the outsourcing going on. Pls try to shape this page like in real world, the things are they are. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.59.132.58 (talk) 01:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

It does not matter, english is not native tongue in india so they do not need much mention on this page period. zombie_neal 18:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I would have thought that the answer is for 'Indian English' to have its own page linked from here. Surely it is correct for the first article on English to point out its European origins and development. As a Native English speaker I think the article is biased towards American English. For instance stating the fact that there are more native speakers in USA than anywhere else is clearly silly when you consider the relative population of the two countries with the largest number of native speakers 250 Million Americans and 60 million Brits. Much more interesting would be the countries with the highest proportion of Native speakers. Afterall in the UK fluency in English would be well over 90% of the population, with America having such large numbers of Spanish speakers I doubt whether the rate of fluency there would be so high. Additionally I note there is not much discussion of the quality of English amongst non-natives. I have observed that outside of the Traditional English speaking nations it is Europeans such as the Dutch and French who speak English most fluently.

Would you consider it silly for the portuguese language article mention that there are more native speakers in Brazil than anywhere else? Given the large geographic distribution of these languages such facts seem notable.

Your point about highest proportion of native speakers may also be interesting with the caveat that as a rule smaller populations will be more likely to have homogenous compositions. There are multiple regions containing 60 million people in the US which could be selected which would have a proportion of native english speakers as high as or even higher than that of the UK as a whole.

Your observation about european english fluency is both a generalization and original research and ought to stay out of the article. That generalization notwithstanding, it might have a home in the article if you can find a reference for it.Zebulin 17:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

A very fair point Zebulin. It would not seem silly to me to mention that the largest number of speakers of portuguese Live in Brazil and indeed it does say something about the geographical progress of the Language. Perhaps it just seems more obvious to me that Americans Speak English ! Though of course there are other native languages there too. I still feel however that the article would be better if percentages were used across nations rather than absolute numbers. No nation could then feel like a second class citzen of the language. There are other territories such as Canada and Australia which would also be represented better. Its unfortunate I don't have any reliable data. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.86.139.181 (talk) 13:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

How many native speakers of English are there in India? That is, how many speak English as their primary tongue, with Hindi and/or their regional language as secondary? I could ask the same question about continental Europeans. My guess is: Not all that many. But I'd like to see some numbers. Wahkeenah 13:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some requests

Please list all the countries where English is official.

It's in the infobox. —An gr 06:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

No it's not. There are many more countries where English is an official language.

Then list them here and we can talk about it. Wahkeenah 09:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Anguilla, Antigua, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belau, Bermuda, Botswana, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Antigua, Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bhutan, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cameroon, Canada, Cook Islands, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guam, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Jersey, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia, Midway Islands, Montserrat, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Niue, Norfolk Island, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Pitcairn, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, St Helena, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Swaziland, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, US Virgin Islands, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu, Wake Island, Western Samoa, Zambia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all have english as an official language

Make the map bigger.

You can click on the map to get a larger view of it. —An gr 06:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

Please keep all the countries where English is spoken in the infobox. The list may be very long but it is not up to wikipedian editors to decide which coutries are the most important. All should be listed. Thank you.

The infobox is for brief information only. It should not be overloaded. The full list is in the article, which is appropriate. No information is being suppressed, but listing fifty countries in the infobox completely defeats the purpose of having an infobox. —An gr 10:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

And who determines that what is important? Like India has second largest english speaking population yet it is not an important information to be included in the infobox. Give me a break. I know your only argument would be Indians are bilingual. But here in canada most of us are too. —sticksnstones 18:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

English is not the primary language of India, but a "second language". It is the primary language of UK, USA, etc. Arguably, English could be claimed to spoken in every nation on earth. That doesn't mean it should be in the infobox. If India is to be included, then some criterion must be determined for a minimum percentage of speakers of a second language in a country. Wahkeenah 18:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting debate now. More than 100 million Indians use english in daily life except at home (see list of countries by English-speaking population, it claims 350 million). No country can claim that kind of figure. So your point 'every' nation is irrelevant. Indian figures are huge, no other country has that kind of population. Why do you think that all the service sector jobs going to India? You know what wahkeenah, whether some editors at wikipedia agree or not, english will be dominant language in 21st century (may be even in 22nd) because of major role of India. The number of graduates they produce in a year is whooping - 2 millions, all of them speaking english as all their research and education is in english. Don't you see a point there. I am not cliaming that indians will start using english at home but that they use it everywhere else and they are basically bilingual people and that too in huge number. —sticksnstones 18:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Why are you even bringing up India? India is included in the brief version of the infobox anyway, despite the fact that the influence of India on English is minimal. —An gr 19:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

How hard is it to find families in India that speak english at home? If such families are seldom encountered I'm not sure English has a truly permanent presence there.Zebulin 04:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I would say then you know nothing about India and the complexities of that land. Okay, here is a analogy that might help your understanding. European Union that you are trying to build in europe, India is a very advanced version of that concept. Every state (28 in number) of India is a nation in itself - diffrenet langauge, customs, festivals, fooding, clothing and what not. Most of these states have poulations more than indiviual countries in Europe. You cannot convince any of these state to give up their native language and accept language of the biggest state (read hindi). Can in europe you convince frenchs or spaniards to give their language and start speaking english at home. No, you cannot. Now talking again about India, english integrates such a complex nation and thus can never go out. Indians are by nature, multilingual people and they have been fine with it for ceturies. Talk to a linguist and he will tell you what we call as hindi is not a single language in itself, it is group of atleast eight smaller languages. And most indians will speak/understand all of them without any effort. Whole point is India is as complex land as you can imagine and it normally assimilates every thing into it. English is now part of India and thats the way it is. -Adork 05:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Is english the first language that has filled this role in India? Prior to the arrival of the british Indians did not have a common second language for communication between linguistically different groups?Zebulin 01:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To answer you very frankly, yes english is first langauge that fills that role for common educated man. Before british and mughals (about 400 years back) common man travelled very less and hardly any chance to interact with others. Scholars used some derived languages from Sanskrit. But these languages are long gone, now they are studied by very limited people and that too for research. After british there was no consensus on making any native language (read hindi) as national language so hindi+english was used for official purpose. English became langauge to integrate India and to integrate it with rest of world. Indians who always have tons of langauge with them never had problem accepting one more. And english is percolating even more and more down the society with passage of time. -Adork 11:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

What would prevent English from being abandoned as those Derived languages from Sanskrit were? Do english speaking Indians nearly always learn the language at school? That seems to make it far less established than languages learned from parents since all that is required for it to vanish from the country is a couple generations of curriculum changes. Suppose Mandarin chinese becomes the defacto world wide lingua franca in the next century. Wouldn't it be easy once nearly everybody is learning Chinese to stop also teaching English? With no native speakers a language can vanish from a population much faster than is the case for populations who use it as their first language at home.Zebulin 05:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Because India is a democracy now, world biggest and most complex democracy. Comparison between what was possible in 19th century and something in 21st century is stupid. British introduced english with purpose creating a elite classs of Indians who can help them in rule india. And they were successful. Doing away with english was possible in 1950 when people were less educated, government even tried it but failed. Now they don't even imagine doing away with it. In india you simply cannot introduce a law which does not satisfy every state. Making Hindi national language will never be accepted by 20 other lingual groups. English for education, research, work place, government work and hindi (or other native tongues) for use at home. Their complete education, research, business and service industry is based on it. I know, probably you are not able to imagine the complexity of India, thats why you are not convinced. But that is the way India is, complex and diverse. -Adork 8:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Adork. English is now inseperable part of urban India. There is a new class of urbans parents who communicate with their kids in english at home and these kids use english as first language. This is a new phenomenon - may be 5-10 years old and limited to urban higher middle class but this is a new beginning adding even more complexity to a already complex country. I think english is flourishing in India because it gaurantees you a good future job and helps you to rise in society. -apurv1980 9:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regional bias

This being an article about the English language, I expected the vowels to be those of the Received Pronunciation, not General American. The symbols put me off a bit, as some seemed to be missing and some were a bit unusual, but I didn't think much of it. Imagine my surprise when I later came back to the article and read the footnotes that these vowels are for NORTH AMERICAN English.

It'd be nice if someone could put a frickin' warning somewhere. For anybody from outside North America it is not clear that the article on the English language would list the North American (what the heck does that mean anyway? General American, I presume? There are too many dialects in the US alone to make any meaning of that term) vowels without explicitly making this clear.

In all phonological literature on English that I have seen so far, RP was considered the default unless mentioned otherwise. I'm sure this will be differently in countries where a non-RP form of English is spoken natively, but it's a bit annoying when you learn that you just spent a few hours memorising the wrong symbols for the proper sounds. 91.0.116.92 16:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC) (Ashmodai)

The phonology section does not only discuss North American English; it covers both British and American varieties. And while it's true that American English should not receive undue prominence in this article, neither should British English. Treating RP as "the default" variety of English is just as non-NPOV as treating General American as such. —An gr 20:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Second most widely spoken language

I've made a small but significant change to the top of the article, moving English up one place to the most widely spoken language behind Mandarin Chinese, which is where it appears in most sources. It is possible to make claims for both Spanish and Hindi (and it is notoriously difficult to be accurate about the figures for language-speakers) but it seemed odd for Wikipedia to be claiming that English is less widely spoken than Hindi, when Wikipedia's current figures give 370 million for English, 364 million for Spanish and 333 million for Hindi. I have no particular axe to grind on this - figures can be interpreted in umpteen different ways, as the source I've cited discusses quite admirably, but it would seem logical that Wikipedia rankings (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) reflect the current numbers of native speakers currently quoted by Wikipedia (1.1 billion, 370 million, 364 million, etc). --Quywompka 13:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Post script: I've just noticed Wikipedia's ranking page, which should provide some kind of Wikipedian authority on the order of languages, although I notice that its neutrality and factual authority are currently both disputed. (And I've added Arabic to the top of the article as a result.) The way I'd recommend handling the issue would be to hedge your bets in an appropriately NPOV, by pointing out that there is no single accepted and accurate way to total up populations of language speakers.

--Quywompka 14:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English as 2nd language numbers

How many exactly are there? An anon keeps adding a sourced claim that the numbers are 1.4-ish billion, but the source actually says "370 million" in one place, and "1 in 5 people in the world" in another. The former doesn't seem to be quite enough, and creating a number out of the latter constitutes original research. Can someone who actually knows what (s)he's talking about clarify? JuJube 04:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Elementary arithmetic doesn't fall foul of OR, IMHO. I think 370m is the first language number. Rich Farmbrough, 09:55 14 February 2007 (GMT).

375 million may be the number of people who speak English as 2nd language, and "1 in 5 people in the world" may includes people who are learning English and who do not speak it. However, it is said that about 380 million people speak English as their 1st language, and a third of the world's population(about 2-2.5 billion) are in some sense exposed to it now.[1] --220.217.87.84 19:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Current article says that the number of people who speak English as 1st language ranks 3-5 place. It is not true.--210.234.58.218 08:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

I have listed this page for a review of its GA status. You can review my reasons, and submit your comments here. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 13:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] got interwiki?

I wonder why is got: interwiki written by entities with note please don't change to utf-8. interwiki bots will allways change it, because of their nature. JAn Dudík 08:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Result of the GAR

[edit] English language

result:Delist 5-0

I believe this article no longer meets GA criteria, as it it not factually correct or verifiable. Many sections currently have citation needed tags, while others have the entire sections tagged as missing or needing citations. It's clear that statements that may be questioned are not properly cited. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 13:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

It's also not stable, as it gets vandalized about three times a day. —An gr 14:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Too many unreferenced parts, Delist. Homestarmy 16:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Delist per under-referencing. Teemu08 19:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Delist per under-referencing and needs WP:GTL work.Rlevse 03:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
DelistSumoeagle179 12:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Delist per above. LuciferMorgan 23:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Anyone mind if I WP:SNOW this as unanimous? Homestarmy 03:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

this is probably a stupid question but if the article used to qualify for GA status can't we just flip back several pages and revert to a version that qualified?Zebulin 04:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand

Isn't English the official (de facto?) language of New Zealand? Shouldn't it be included in the "Official Language of" list? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.167.78.52 (talk) 05:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

English is a de facto official language of New Zealand, alongside the two de jure official languages (Māori and New Zealand Sign Language). I see we're listing some countries with English as a de facto official language, so it seems to New Zealand would also fit. -- Avenue 07:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I don't understand "English has an ordinarily rich vocabulary and absorbent prowess" - can someone explain?

I don't understand the sentence "English has an ordinarily rich vocabulary and absorbent prowess" - can someone rewrite, simplify or clarify it? Thanks --Brian Fenton 11:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

In "plain English", it means that English has a huge vocabulary, due to being a cross-merge between German-based and Latin-based languages; and that English speakers and writers will gladly "borrow" a word from any language, if it seems to fit. Wahkeenah 13:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that Wahkeenah, I wonder did the original author mean to say "extraordinarily" rather than "ordinarily"? That would make more sense to me. "absorbent prowess" is pretty unclear too - I much prefer your explanation! --Brian Fenton 15:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I mis-read it as "extraordinary", which is what it should say, otherwise there's no point in saying it. :) And terms like "absorbent prowess", while proper English, are an example of the language being just a tad too rich at times. "Plain English" is better. I might say "extraordinarily rich vocabulary and willingness to absorb new words". Wahkeenah 16:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I made the suggested change. I'm a fan of precise and descriptive language but it also needs to be understandable to the intended audience. --ElKevbo 17:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if "capacity" would be better than "willingness". But maybe we could leave it as is and see what comments it provokes, if any. Wahkeenah 17:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand the historical record of willingness of English speakers to adopt foreign words but what is the nature of the *capacity* to absorb those words? Is it impossible in many languages to absorb foreign words directly as english does? Perhaps there are grammatical barriers to doing so?Zebulin 20:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, "willingness" is better, then. Not willingness of the language itself, but of those who speak it, as you say. English is not run by some academy obsessed with keeping the vocabulary "pure". If a word works, we use it, no matter where it came from. Wahkeenah 20:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

English also does lack grammatical barriers found in some languages, for a word can be used a verb, noun and adjective without changing its form. --teb728 22:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the changes - although I think I'd replace "willingness to absorb" with something like "has shown an openness to absorbing". Also do these statements need a citation? Cheers --Brian Fenton 12:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you could find endless citations about its widespread use and large vocabulary. I've heard English called "the most democratic language". Wahkeenah 12:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the "ordinarily" was an apparently honest mistake by user Mandel on February 5. Wahkeenah 13:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

"Absorbent prowess"? You gotta be kidding me! JackLumber. 21:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Concidentally, someone recently sent me an internet story about Marines having included tampons in their first aid kits, to help with battle wounds. Apparently tampons also have "absorbent prowess". Wahkeenah 22:02, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words?

"The influence of the British Empire is often cited as one of the primary reasons for the language's initial spread far beyond the British Isles."

Whilst the above statement is undoubtedly correct, it could also describe every other in Wikipedia - which is, of course, built on citable facts. The wording appears to imply that there is some doubt as to the primary role of the British Empire in spreading the use of English around the world. Since there is actually no doubt about this, why the equivocal phraseology? TharkunColl 08:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

primary is something of a loaded word. It implies that the british empire has been at the center of *all* english language spreading trends. I hardly think that has been the case for at least a few decades. However, the quoted sentence doesn't refer to the spread of english in general terms but rather to it's "initial spread far beyond the British isles." Thusly qualified I agree that the words "one of" should be removed. I'll go ahead and edit them out and we'll see if anybody minds.Zebulin 09:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It's fair to say that the extensive use of English in India, for example, is a direct result of the influence of the British Empire. You could argue that the USA has played a role in all this as well. Of course, the USA was once part of the British Empire also, yes? Wahkeenah 11:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

If anyone questions this premise, it would be like questioning whether the spread of Latin was due to the Roman Empire. It's not just English, of course. It's other important cultural influences, such as the Parliamentary system of government. And cricket. (Which we Americans call "baseball"). d:) Wahkeenah 11:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Baseball is in fact derived from the English schoolgirls' game rounders... (smile). Actually, in the above quotation, I was mainly asking why it was explicitly stated that the British Empire was "often cited" - as if there were some argument about it. I'll reword the sentence. TharkunColl 16:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Americans decided it was more fun to run "round" the bases instead of just back and forth. "Often cited" is indeed silly. Who was going to spread English besides the English? One can argue for America's role, but America speaks English because of England. Wahkeenah 16:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks better with the new wording in any case.Zebulin 18:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Ha ha. The weasel words were the result of an American author who was quibbling over the role of the British Empire (among other things). It took some time to come up with an acceptable form of words. Ironic that a new group of American authors (?) should agree to the change so readily. Made me smile anyway :) Wiki-Ed 11:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spain as an anglophone country!!???

1- English is not an official language in Spain: You cannot use it in the administration. The only official language in all Spain is Spanish. There are also regional official languages whose usage is restricted to certain regions.

2- The European Union publishes its laws in 15 languages, not only in English.

3- Come to Spain and try to speak English with the natives.

Fmercury1980 15:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It will be if Gibraltar becomes a part of Spain.

That will never happen! English is not an official language in Spain, SqueakBox 16:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be ironic if Spain became English-speaking and the USA became Spanish-speaking. Wahkeenah 16:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Neither is likely. Spain is one of the least English-friendly countries in Europe and Spanish is soemwhat of a political hot potato in the US, SqueakBox 16:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Spanish is all over the place in the USA and is becoming a de facto second language, in a country which has no official first language, just a de facto first language of English. As for Spain... that little Armada incident was like 400 years ago. Some folks just can't get over something and move on. :) Wahkeenah 17:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Irish used to be spoken in Boston. The same is true of Italian in New York. Irish is gone, and Italian is on its way out. I can't think of a single time in history when immigration alone caused a change in language. There's also a huge immigration crackdown building up right now, in case you didn't notice.--Wishbone 676 08:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but did the immigration of the English and Spanish into the Americas not change the main language there?−Woodstone 11:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It established a main language. There were many individual tribes and languages across the Americas. In terms of languages, the English and Spanish did to the Americas what the Romans did to Europe. Wahkeenah 11:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no actual American crackdown on immigration, just a token effort here and there to generate headlines. Wahkeenah 16:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Spanish cant be compared to Italian and Irish in the US because of the enormous number of Spanish speakers on the continent and the fact that chunks of the US were taken from Mexico in the 19th Century, SqueakBox 16:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, "chunks" like Texas and California. And, Hey! We stole that land fair and square! Wahkeenah 18:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I am confused: What has this section got to do with the English language article? --teb728 09:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sí, tiene razón... es una buena pregunta. Wahkeenah 16:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

See, that's exactly the sort of English they speak in Spain. Clearly an English-speaking country. The Jade Knight 21:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactamente. :) Wahkeenah 22:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jamaica

Isn't English the official (de facto?) language of Jamaica? Shouldn't it be included in the "first Language of" list? OliverR 00:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Native English speakers in Canada

A much more precise estimate (without the 5 million either way confusion) is available from the "Mother Tongue, 2001 Counts for Both Sexes, for Canada, Provinces and Territories" table from the 2001 Census: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/highlight/LanguageComposition/Page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo=PR&View=1a&Table=1a&StartRec=1&Sort=2&B1=Counts&B2=Both

The counts according to that table are: English as mother tongue: 17,572,170; French as mother tongue: 6,741,955; English and French: 122,660

These seem like more useful stats than the "Knowledge of Official Languages" currently cited in the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.20.198.70 (talk) 15:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Can we list all the countries where English is an official language in the infobox?

Other languages have done this and it makes a lot of sense. I'm not asking to list all the countries that have English signs in their airports.

How about if you post the list right here? Wahkeenah 09:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

If we included all the countries where their are airport signs in English we would have to include every country in the world! SqueakBox 16:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Having signs in another language does not mean that that language has become an official language. Wahkeenah 16:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Countries where English is a de facto or de jure official language are Canada, the United States, Belize, Guyana, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Malta, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Eritrea, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau. That's a lot for the infobox. Especially since English has significant numbers of first language speakers in only a small number of these countries. john k 17:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe just following countries should be listed: "The term can also refer to major English-speaking nations, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, India, Jamaica, Belize, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand, Nigeria and other such chief English-speaking countries, all sometimes collectively known as the Anglosphere." OliverR 21:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammatical gender

In English language#Grammar is says

Modern English, unlike Modern German or Dutch and the Romance languages, lacks grammatical gender...

I think that may be an oversimplification because English does distinguish between he, she and it - compare that with languages which really lack gender like Turkish or Armenian, where o in the former case and na in the latter are used for everything. The Columbia Encyclopedia makes a few good points on this issue [2]. Can the article be reworded?--Domitius 14:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

We could say it lacks grammatical gender in nouns, to be more precise. Then again, the kind of gender it has in the pronouns is really not quite "grammatical gender", it's "natural gender" (sensitive directly to natural sex and animacy, with few exceptions). Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] U

Question....help me settle and arguement that my boyfriuend and I are having concerning the word PUMA (as in big cats, tennis shoes, and the likes). Is it pronounced Puma as in the U is long like as in YOU or is it puma is in room? He insists that it is pronounced as in PE U, I insitst taht the correct pronuncait4ion is poooma. Who's right?

It can be either, according to Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, which gives the pron. as /'p(y)ümə/. The parentheses around the y indicate it is optional. ü is oo.--24.9.113.212 08:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

In the southern USA, and maybe in a lot of other places around the world, those "u" sounds are often pronounced like "yoo" rather than "oo" as a general rule. Take the words "news" and "tune" for example. I'm a northerner, and I say "nooz" and "toon". Southerners are more likely to say "nyooz" and "tyune". But they would still say "rule" as "rool", because "ryool" is hard to say.

And in Britain it's always [usual caveats apply] p-you-ma, n-you-z, t-you-n, etc. But also rool. Snalwibma 12:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Number of words in English

«This is much greater than the 185,000 terms in German, and the 100,000 in French»
Such comparison is incorrect and chauvinistic and must be removed. It's not correct to consider internationalisms and loanwords as beeing English words. Greek, Latin, French, Spanish etc loanwords are not English words. So any language can borrow thousands of words from other languages and say that it`s the richest language in the world. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roberts7 (talk • contribs) 11:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

No, part of the point of the section is that many other languages cannot borrow vocabulary the way that English does because they have official academies to protect the “purity” of the language. English also has few structural barriers to borrowing (like word endings). Borrowed words (like “language”) can become just as much a part of the language as those of Anglo-Saxon origin (like “the”). This doesn’t make English “better” (for having more words): the foreign language academies would say it makes it worse (for being “bastardized”). Indeed, a very real sense we all suffer from it by having to learn more vocabulary (and with inconsistent spelling reflecting the word origins at that). --teb728 18:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English is also the language that this page is written in

This is a pointless statement - shouldn't it be removed?! Anybody who is reading the page is going to be aware of that fact by nature of the fact that they understand the preceding sentences and that they are reading the English version of Wikipedia! 82.27.233.225 09:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

It has been removed. Snalwibma 09:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

LOL, good catch. I didn't notice before. That statement made me laugh, because it seems so absurd, almost like a joke, for the fact that User:82.27.233.225 provided. Glad it was removed. Thanks! Jeeny 17:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Word origins

This section makes no distinction between Norman and French!

For example: Catch comes from Norman, Chase from French. Warranty from Norman, Guaranty from French. Castle, Mug, Mutton, Beef (etc.)… all these came from Norman, not French. On the other hand, many other later Latinate borrowings come from French (such as "corps"). While, in some cases, it is impossible to tell which of the two a word came from, in many cases it is fairly easy to tell. These two languages are quite distinct, and should not be mixed when determining etymology; "catch" and "chase", though the exact same word (being cognates) in Norman and French (cachi and chasser) are hardly identical! [FYI: I'm reposting this from the archive because it never received a response…] The Jade Knight 10:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

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