> Which leads to one more complex question? What is English? Is it what > you speak in England? or is it the version of English spoken of each > country? Can each country determine the English names of its language, > country and places? > > Javier
I saw several episodes of "The Story of English" on PBS, and he points out that one of its strengths is that it absorbs change and other peoples speak "English" but make it their own. They gave examples of post-colonial government in India, and Singapore, that I recall. That's why French lost its place as an internatial language -- great for contracts since the words don't change, but bad for day-to-day business. So, if enough Bengali people come to New York, in a hundred years it will have an influence on official mainstream English. Capice? [/ka.'piʃ/ That's a borrowing from New-York Italian-American, which isn't even standard Italian form for "You understand" but a variation from the region that imported it] The English spoken by the people in India certainly have different ways, and that should not bother North American Perscriptionists or Brits who can't pronounce their R's. For customers, changing phrasing and spelling should be a matter of course. It's no different than rewording "lift" for "elevator" or spelling "colour" as "color". In Windows, I see a huge number of sublang IDs under English: Australia, Belize, Canada, Caribbean, India, Ireland, Jamaca, Malaysia, and 8 others. So EN-IN is different from EN-US or EN-GB. Big deal. But, if you use EN-IN in a program, don't mark it as being EN-US or we'll tell you it's misspelled or bad grammar or whatnot. Don't mark it as EN-GB or you'll be informed that it's misspelt. --John TradeStation Group, Inc. is a publicly-traded holding company (NASDAQ GS: TRAD) of three operating subsidiaries, TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NYSE, FINRA, SIPC and NFA), TradeStation Technologies, Inc., a trading software and subscription company, and TradeStation Europe Limited, a United Kingdom, FSA-authorized introducing brokerage firm. None of these companies provides trading or investment advice, recommendations or endorsements of any kind. The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.
