Even if the decision to maintain Canadian English is political (I don't believe that it is), what would be the issue with that? As an independent country, it isn't required for us to go along with what the US does even if they are our neighbours and even if they do have 10 times our population. It is well within our rights to protect and encourage the cultural differences that do exist between our two nations.
Or would those claiming that Canadian English is 100% political and shouldn't be protected or promulgated in Canadian schools say the same thing about Taiwanese Mandarin? That Taiwan shouldn't bother maintaining the use of traditional Characters or their own form of transliteration (Zhuyin rather than the Hanyu Pinyin used on the Chinese mainland), not to mention differences in vocabulary and pronunciation? After all, China is far more culturally dominant than Taiwan in the Sinosphere and has 50x the population of Taiwan. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
The way we say it in French is actually closer to the American, and sounds like "lee-oo-tenan(t). Also police forces in Quebec have lieutenant as a rank, which I don't believe exits outside of Quebec. We also don't have "constable" in Quebec police ranks, except for the RCMP when it operates in Quebec. An RCMP constable in French is a "gendarme". In all other police in Quebec I believe the constable-level rank is "agent". |
Quote:
Though on a micro level it's worth noting that American spelling and vocabulary are also very, very common amongst Anglo-Quebecers themselves, and one can't say that that crowd is anti-Canadian in any way. |
That's an interesting one to see what everyone uses.
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary uses, beginning with the lowest rank:
It's the oldest civil police force in North America so those terms might be outdated the farther west you go, I'm not sure. Quick Google search shows Ontario clearly based on the same terms, just with additional descriptors. There's also a High Sheriff and that sort of thing but I think that's part of the Department of Justice and I've no idea how it works. One local oddity, though not really a word - judges wear wear pink robes. http://i65.tinypic.com/33mwh9d.jpg |
Map of the world showing which variant of English is taught in school (American English vs British English).
https://moverdb.com/wp-content/uploa...an-english.png source: https://moverdb.com/british-vs-american-english/ American English holds sway in Latin America, the far east and in Saudi Arabia. The Queen's English controls the rest of the world. :banana::banana::banana: |
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
My point stands though - I'm pronouncing the endings of color and major the same way, therefore I'm spelling them the same way. Even though most languages have their quirks, I don't see why I should go out of my way to needlessly make things even more illogical. :p
|
Quote:
And the genders for inanimate objects. |
You'll also need to do some additional spelling changes in Englsh: Aura, aural, and aurora come to mind. Not sure what to think about Seymour - since its a proper name, I guess it must remain "illogical". Pompadour could be an interesting discussion - when referring to a hairstyle, could it be a "pompador"?
Come to think of it, dinosaur, war, pour, oar, and centaur. Not to mention troubadour. |
Quote:
Source: My stepson and daughter are both in the Shanghai public school system. |
Quote:
English to become the official language of the EU The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas. :) |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
Things like Australian and NZ English, South African English, Irish English, Jamaican English are now their own thing "owned" by their native speakers (though they may be offshoots of British-derived or American-derived English). If these can have their own variants that are considered "standard", then Canada can too. |
Quote:
But what country was a part of another country, or influenced by another in the distant past anyways doesn't bind or oblige a country to keep that influence. Whether Canada was part of the British Empire or British North America, or under shared British rule with the colonies that were once the US means little now. How many European countries after all, were merged and split with kingdoms, over centuries, if not millenia, sharing a language totally different from what was later spoken and what is spoken now. |
Quote:
Copying another country's standards is political, and wanting to keep your own country's standards is also political. It's not like just going along with only one of the choices is the political statement and not the other. Either way you're making a statement about what you want your country's standard to be like. |
Canadian English is basically US English with a few "u"s thrown in so we can herald ourselves as being distinctive. I don't get the idea of expressing national pride by saying 'leftenant', for example.
Some seem to treat the use of UK conventions as some kind of act of resistance against our US cultural overlord, but I don't see how one colonial master is any better than another in this regard. Apart from Canada-specific terms like bunnyhug, pogey and other quirky words like that, it's not like those customs and uses were invented here. |
All times are GMT. The time now is 4:31 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.