Regarding Standard English forms (American, British, Indian, Nigerian, etc.), each group of people is at liberty to set its own standards, create its own idioms, and so on, with confidence and without apology.
Do you agree?
(Adapted from a statement by Chinua Acebe, 1965.)
Setting one's own standards.
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Setting one's own standards.
Last edited by metal56 on Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I'm not sure what you're driving at as I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with it. Our own Noah Webster did precisely that with American English. The only thing I question is Indian English, and maybe you can inform me on this. Do the Indian people regularly speak English to each other in preference to their own native language? If so, I would think that would be the cause of more lively debates than the alleged integrity of Indian Standard English. I see a parallel in Taiwan, where I never witness Taiwanese speaking English to each other functionally (once in a while, you'll hear them making obviously artificial dialogues on the subway only to practice) except as a gesture of politeness when native speakers not knowing Chinese are present or are involved in the conversation.
There are many languages in India. English has acted as one lingua franca for hundreds of years. Didn't you know that?Do the Indian people regularly speak English to each other in preference to their own native language?
Although the Indian constitution recognizes eighteen languages as the official languages of the country, Hindi and English are the most commonly spoken languages. Some of the officially recognized languages are very state-specific spoken by the people of that particular state only. For instance, the local people of Maharashtra speak Marathi. By using the term ‘officially recognized’, one means that these languages may be used for appearing in government examinations. In reality, only Hindi and English are nationally used languages.
Just received this reply on another forum:I'm not sure what you're driving at as I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with it.
Very bad idea practically. There should be only one standard which every speaker follows. English was originated in England. So British version is something that speakers from all over the world should stick to it. More and more versions would only complicate things further for those who want to learn it as a new language.
Thanks for the laugh, Metal.metal56 wrote:Just received this reply on another forum:I'm not sure what you're driving at as I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with it.
Very bad idea practically. There should be only one standard which every speaker follows. English was originated in England. So British version is something that speakers from all over the world should stick to it. More and more versions would only complicate things further for those who want to learn it as a new language.
metal56 wrote:Just received this reply on another forum:I'm not sure what you're driving at as I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with it.
Very bad idea practically. There should be only one standard which every speaker follows. English was originated in England. So British version is something that speakers from all over the world should stick to it. More and more versions would only complicate things further for those who want to learn it as a new language.
Please tell me what forum. I need more laughter in my life.
Go here, if you dare:Please tell me what forum. I need more laughter in my life.
http://www.antimoon.com/forum/f1.htm
I agree with some of revel's sentiments.
I'm not sure that there is such a thing as SE in the spoken form (I think you alluded to this fact in a previous post metal). SE is a written phenomenon. It is political in the sense that it maintains power for those who have mastered it and excludes those who haven't (see Milroy). From a prescriptivist perspective, it is written English in its current form and is largely static and invariant (Milroy again I think).
It is thought to have originated as a result of the advent of Caxton's printing press and subsequent prescriptivist discourses (see Cameron's Verbal Hygiene).
So, back to my question to you metal. Are Indian English and Nigerian English considered to be an SE form? If so, why?
I'm not sure that there is such a thing as SE in the spoken form (I think you alluded to this fact in a previous post metal). SE is a written phenomenon. It is political in the sense that it maintains power for those who have mastered it and excludes those who haven't (see Milroy). From a prescriptivist perspective, it is written English in its current form and is largely static and invariant (Milroy again I think).
It is thought to have originated as a result of the advent of Caxton's printing press and subsequent prescriptivist discourses (see Cameron's Verbal Hygiene).
So, back to my question to you metal. Are Indian English and Nigerian English considered to be an SE form? If so, why?
Very dramatic.Do you doubt that they are such?
Should you have not put 'Do you dare doubt that they are such?'. You would have had a nice bit of alliteration to further foreground your question.
Do you mean to say that Standard Indian English and Standard Nigerian English have different prescriptivist rules for their writing systems? Really, my question is what makes them different from SE?