The French speak French, the Spanish speak Spanish, The English speak?

[Karma168]

When it comes to the date system it has to do with efficiency compared to nations that are more mired in tradition.

The bottom line is that when your filing things the older files are usually moved out and archived. Typically you have the year on the drawer or box, and then when you flip through them the first thing you see is the month, once you have the month you can narrow it down to the day, the year is the furthest over since it's the least relevent and only really useful for determining what box/drawer it goes in if it gets misplaced or misfiled.

He's not talking about filing. Of course files are spilt into year-month-day, that's the most efficient way to store files. what he means is the strange way Americans write the date in common usage; the European version follows a logical progression whereas the American version doesn't seem to. If i want to know today's date (already knowing the month) then i can just read the start of the date and know whereas with the American system i have to read superfluous information. (yeas it may only be a small amount but it still slows you down) Plus this impedes intercontinental communication with short hand dates as you would have to specify which system to use; for example if i write 9/7/11 anyone in Europe would read that as the 9th of July while an American would read that as the 7th of September - How do you know what is the correct version?

The British will specify "British English" largely as a method of diffentiating themselves from the US and asserting a cultural identity, where Americans will rarely say "American English" since we really don't care, and are using the name of England (which we broke away from) to begin with).

No we just say English - as in the language that originated in England. It's only really Americans who feel the need to add the British bit.

Still holding a grudge about British rule?

As far as the international usage of English, that comes from the US being the dominant world power and also the biggest positive cultural force the planet has ever seen, like it or not.

Try again. English is the dominant language because of the British empire, We ran over a quarter of the planet, that's why English is the dominant language.

Interestingly, I think one thing that we're eventually going to see happen despite great opposition is English becoming a mandatory language for the planet. People will still have cultural tongues, but as a secondary thing. Simply because it will help efficiency in communications and the spread of ideas, and also because so much of the world is already using if only for administrative purposes.

More likely it's going to be Panglish, several million people in Asia now speak it as a middle ground language so it's more likely to become the standard business language.

 

[Torrasque]

Considering English is the language equivalent to the Zerg, I believe there is a difference between English, Canadian, American, Australian, etc. english.
Each sub-category of English has its own words and meanings (I posted in a thread a while ago where 1,000,000,000 is a billion for North Americans, but a thousand million for brits) but at its core, it is still English.
The only other language that I know of, that has this regional distinction, is Japanese.
Northern Japanese is different from Southern Japanese (slightly), but enough to cause a little confusion.

I'm sure French, German, Spanish, etc. have this sub-regional differentiation as well.

 

[LeonLethality]

As a Canadian who is fluent in Canadian French I call the European one "French" and Canadian one "Quebecois"

That said Quebecois can mean someone from Quebec or the language spoken there. I use it for both.

 

[Pilkingtube]

When the English speak English, it is called British English rather than English.

That, quite simply isn't true. Having lived in England all my life I can safely say that the English speak English, just like how the French speak French and the Spanish speak Spanish.

At the risk of sounding arrogant (here it comes XD) Their is no distinction between 'British English' and 'American English' the Americans still speak English, they just speak it wrong. However it may be the case that you make the distinction across the pond but then...

Spoiler

With all due respect, I did say "Hey so i'm wondering after seeing a few comments from US citizens on this site about English grammar.".. I'm an English citizen myself, which is why I made this entire thread, because calling it British English was alien to me.

So, sorry, but i'm on the same side of the pond as you.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Yea when an English speaking American talks I literally do not understand a word! Its all Jibba Jibba, foo.

 

[Pilkingtube]

snip

Fair dos, then just imagine the quote in an American accent

I tried to be as diplomatic as possible, however i've managed to offend a handful of Americans, a Mexican and a Canadian over the last 149 posts, couldn't bear offending more people

 

[Trildor]

Hey so i'm wondering after seeing a few comments from US citizens on this site about English grammar. When a person is Spanish and they speak Spanish, their language is called Spanish. When the Japanese speak Japanese, it is called Japanese. When the English speak English, it is called British English rather than English.

Please don't confuse a dialect with an entirely different language. There are many variations of English (Canadian, American, British, etc), just as there are many variations of Spanish (Mayan, Latin, etc). If you want to get technical, there are also pidgin and creole languages.

Sorry for being a pedant, but there's no such thing as Mayan or Latin Spanish.

By "Latin" I mean "Latin American", aka the dominant Spanish spoken in North and South America. It's a different dialect than the Spanish spoken in Spain.
As for Mayan Spanish, It's quite apparent you've never been to the Yucatan Peninsula before. Mayan is mixed in with Spanish as a form of a creole, and quite a few native Mexicans in the Peninsula speak a variation of both Mayan and Spanish. If you speak "pure" Spanish to someone who speaks Mayan Spanish, it is as if you were speaking English to an English speaker on the Ivory Coast. The dialect is worlds different, and almost unintelligible. Mayan is indeed alive and well as a creole in Mexico.

Mayan is a creole language, then. I wasn't aware of that, my bad.

I would hardly call Latin American Spanish a dialect, though, because often the difference between Latin American countries is as large as the one with Spain.

 

[Latinidiot]

To answer your first question, yes.

If, like me, you come from the American South West and have learned Spanish there you will have a very interesting time trying to communicate with someone speaking Spanish in the way it is spoken in Spain (typically called Castelian Spanish, by the way.)

I don't speak French, but I have a Haitian friend who does...unless you ask a French person, at which point he sure as hell isn't speaking "proper" French.

American English and British English are the same way. Which one is considered odd is a matter of cultural relativism.

I think that all this is Dialect. The Spanish i spoke in Costa Rica was dialect, the spanish you spoke in the southwest is probably even more estranged from the original.

The only challenge in this is deciding what's a dialect, what's an accent and what the original is.

 

[Drakane]

With all due respect, I did say "Hey so i'm wondering after seeing a few comments from US citizens on this site about English grammar.".. I'm an English citizen myself, which is why I made this entire thread, because calling it British English was alien to me.

So, sorry, but i'm on the same side of the pond as you.

I am American and I've never heard it called British English I have heard it referred to/and called real English (ie yours) to be the Queens English and our bastardized version just as English.

 

[kittii-chan 300]

french speak french spanish speak spanish english speak english and americans speaks english spanish french japanese african and every other language in the world

 

[lockeslylcrit]

Mayan is a creole language, then. I wasn't aware of that, my bad.

After the Spanish conquest and Mexican Revolution, yes. The surviving Maya (even today, there are Maya still living in abundance in the Yucatan and Central America) meshed their language with the dominant Spanish language, creating the creole that is now known as Mayan Spanish.

I would hardly call Latin American Spanish a dialect, though, because often the difference between Latin American countries is as large as the one with Spain.

The same could be said of British English and the local dialect in, for example, Ghana. The cultural differences in dialects are vast, but at their core they are still English. The same is true with Spain's Spanish and Latin America's Spanish.

One could argue that Portuguese is a dialect of Spanish, owing to its proximity to Castile and Leon on the Iberian Peninsula during Portugal's foundation some 900 years ago. Diffusion (the melding of two or more cultural ideas) is, after all, the one of the two very foundations of cultural change (the other being innovation- the refinement of a cultural idea). However, Portuguese not only differs in words, but also syntax and grammar, making it almost impossible for a Spanish speaker to understand Portuguese, and vice versa, thus making Portuguese and Spanish separate languages. English first started out by being a diffusion between Anglo-Saxon German, Romano-British Latin, and Norman French. Over time, however, it innovated itself to be its own distinct language.

 

[alrekr]

When the English speak English, it is called British English rather than English.

Look I don't mean to be rude; but it is just English. What Americans speak is bad english at its best and plain wrong at other times. The people of the USA use a evil version of english; I mean they spell sulphur as sulfur

 

[CODE-D]

I have no idea what your talking about but Im just an American that just speaks english.
Although I prefer nonverbal communication.

 

[Geekosaurus]

There's no such thing as British English or American English. There is English and there are mistakes.

 

[Gloomsta]

"Individuality," as a nation

The words individuality and nation dont go together.

 

[masher]

"Individuality," as a nation

The words individuality and nation dont go together.

This is true.
Still don't recall the context of that comment, though.
I'm sure it was inane anyway.