Talk:English language/Archive 4

message: These were removed for one or more of the following reasons: extraneous, superfluous, silly, inappropriate, or misplaced (meaning they could easily be put elsewhere in the article, or in a related article). If anyone disagrees... well, put them back. Really, though, that section could stand to be pared down even more. Slainté, --P.MacUidhir (t) (c)  02:49, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links section just went on a diet. 

message: I noticed that the Afrikaans article starts "Afrikaans is a West Germanic language" so I thought I would look at English. "English is a West Germanic language".
Why the obsession with "West Germanic"? Why not  "Indo-European" or "Germanic"?
What percentage of language would have to come from another source before it was not "West Germanic"? --Philip Baird Shearer 08:46, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: West Germanic

message: In English, the functions of intonation are
#Emotional - intonation can be used to express the speakers attitude; e.g. sarcasm, delight, anger etc
#Grammatical - intonation can be used to identify grammatical structure in speech, performing a similar role to punctuation.
#Informational - intonation can be used to draw attention to what meaning is given and what is new in an utterance.
#Textual - intonation can be used to make larger units of meaning than sentences cohere and contrast.
#Psychological - intonation can be used to organise speech into units that are easier to memorise
#Indexical - intonation along with other prosodic features is an important aspect of personal or social identity.
I found the above on page 249 - "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language" by David Crystal, published by Cambridge University Press 1995. Would it be a copyright infringement if it were used (I changed it a little, in order to differentiate from the book)? I am still trying to find the balance between Wikipedia:Verifiability and citing sources and copyright infrnigments. Izehar 15:38, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Functions of intonation 

message: This article states that Spanish as well as English are "official languages" of New Mexico.  There has been ongoing discussion at Talk:New_Mexico#Official_language about this.  Though that article still lists English and Spanish as official languages its infobox, that's not how I see the preponderance of the evidence piling up on the talk page:
:*Spanish is protected by the state constitution. However, that is the limit of the language. The constitution protects the status of the Spanish language in the state and prohibits discrimination on that basis. Nowhere, however, is Spanish cited as an "official language"  --ABQCat 05:30, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I think the myth that New Mexico has two official languages started from the fact that when New Mexico became a state, Spanish was given protection for a period of time (since expired). I can find no evidence that any language is either official or "protected" in New Mexico at present.  — 70.176.142.8 21:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

text: *The Reference Department has checked the state statutes and confirmed with the Supreme Court Law Library that New Mexico does not have an official language. ... Reference Desk/bjm refer@state.nm.us — Thanks to the refdesk. WikiDon 17:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Would English also be considered an official language of NATO? Ryan Salisbury 03:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official languages of New Mexico. Not? 

message: Folk language is very hard to get rid of. How common is folk language?? To clarify what I mean, I mean something that is the way it is for historical reasons and doesn't reflect the present view. How common is folk language in English?? Georgia guy 21:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Folk language 

message: The Basic sound-letter correspondence has this to say.
IPA	Alphabetic representation                                  	Dialect-specific
   	ch, tch                                                    	occasionally tu future, culture; t (+ u, ue, eu) tune, Tuesday, Teutonic (Australian English)
   	j, g (+ e, i, y), dg (+ e, i, consonant) badge, judg(e)ment	d (+ u, ue, ew) dune, due, dew (Australian English)
Is it really only in Australian English that tune, Tuesday, Teutonic, dune, due, dew are pronounced with postalveolar affricates?  I thought that this would common in most forms of Commonwealth English. Jimp 07:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I pronounce them that way in my variety of British English.  I am by no means a speaker of RP, but I think I speak for the majority of my countrymen in saying that they talk this way too. Matthew 12:02, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yod coalescence an Aussie thing? 

message: User Cassowary claims that English has no genitive case. How would he classify the 's in expressions like "a person's right". −Woodstone 10:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The same way he would classify the ’s in "the girl next door's cat", "the window he broke's frame" or  "the guy whose foot I stepped on's toe". Case markings attach only to nouns (and pronouns): If it was a genitive case, you'd have things like *"the window's he broke frame" or *"the guy's toe whose foot I stepped on" or something, which are both ungrammatical; and the door would own the cat. It's a clitic... —Felix the Cassowary 13:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In those examples the " 's" attaches to a nominal phrase and as such is an extension of the genitive formation of nouns. −Woodstone 13:39, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: English does have a genitive case. "The king's horse" is no different from German "des Königs Pferd" or Danish "kongens hest". Evertype 15:06, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Felix is right, English doesn't have a genitive case; at least, English nouns aren't inflected for genitive case. The possessive clitic ’s is etymologically derived from a genitive ending, but it isn't one anymore. Synchronically, the king's horse is structurally more like nonstandard German dem König sein Pferd or like Afrikaans die koning sy perd than it is like des Königs Pferd. Felix's examples above show this: you can't say *des Kerl, auf dessen Fuß ich getreten bin, -s Zehe in German. A genitive case ending would have to be attached to the noun in the genitive; that's the nature of inflectional morphology. A possessive clitic like ’s or non-standard German sein, can attach to a whole noun phrase. (I'm pretty sure dem Kerl, dem ich auf den Fuß getreten bin, seine Zehe is possible in the relevant dialects of German, though die Zehe von dem Kerl, dem ich auf den Fuß getreten bin is more idiomatic.) --Angr (t·c) 22:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh, come on. Anomalous distribution of the genitive over complex syntactic structures is a very different thing from an ordinary genitive. Des Bischofs Pferd and the bishop's horse are equivalent in just the same way as Richards Pferd and Richard's horse are. The South African example you give is an example of where the genitive has been lost. But we in English do not (standardly) say the bishop his horse any more than we say Richard his horse. English has NOT lost its genitive. Evertype 01:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we don't, because the possessive clitic in English isn't his, it's ’s. But it is a clitic, not a case ending. --Angr (t·c) 07:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genitive case 

message: I am curious about the odd reference to Scots as the closest relative to English. Surely the miss-named American English or any of the other modern versions can claim a closer relationship? I intend to correct this paragraph shortly. Markb 10:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: American English isn't a relative of English, it's one of several dialects of English. Scots is generally considered a separate language, not a dialect of English. --Angr (t·c) 11:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Closest relative?

message: I've altered this to make it clear that versions of English are spoken by a large number of people. As Canadian English, Australian English etc. are listed in Wikipedia as different varieties of English, it would be wrong to state that only one version is spoken by all these people.Markb 10:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The first paragraphs of the Geographic distribution section refer to the English language considered as a whole, not to the individual dialects separately. --Angr (t·c) 11:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Geographic distribution

message: I have moved the full text of the History section to serve as an introduction to the main article, History of the English language.  That done I summerised the section.  Although my main motivation here was to give the main article an intro I think that similar things should probably be done to other sections  the because article is rather long.  Jimp 11:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section 

message: "However, recent ongoing studies seem to indicate that in deep antiquity, English and Tamil, a classical language of India may have shared common ancestory. Likewise Tamil is also linked to the ancient Australian languages. Please see tamil.bloki.com More research is required to illustrate how the variantions in the subsequent developments of these languages took place."
What is this????? These facts are highly questionable and should be removed.... It's like the languages of Africa being related to Chinese.... There is no correlation between the Dravidan languages and English... English is a 2nd generation Germanic language and a part of the Indo-European family.  However the Hindi languages are part of the Indo-European family since they descended from Sanskrit.  I read the website and I think those facts leave a lot to be desired.  No linguists I know have EVER confirmed ANY link between English and Tamil.  I removed that comment - Unless I FIND anything in ANY book to confirm this - this is plain garbage.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rggca61 (talk • contribs) .
:Absolutely with you - the first time that I am hearing about Tamil and English having common ancestry. AFAIK, some 10-20 words from Tamil have entered English language, which is natural, given the British Rule of India. --Gurubrahma 18:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  comments 

message: The Philippines should be shaded on the map. -- Jonny 07:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philippines 

message: Currently, the article makes a difference between countries where English is the sole de jure official language, and such where it is one among several official languages. Shouldn't Canada be listed in the latter category? Blur4760 23:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English Official Language of Canada