Internationalization

[TheBeardedQuack]

ResidentBiscuit wrote:

I'm frankly tired of seeing all these non-English options all over the place. America is the best and biggest country in the world. Everybody just needs to learn English and give up their inferior languages.

Firstly, shame on you for saying "inferior languages" because there is no such thing.... And same point to "America is the best and biggest country in the world"

But what really gets me here is that America DOESN'T KNOW ENGLISH!!

[chrisname]

helios wrote:

we should never do things just because they are easy

Yeah, we should. It saves energy, money, and time. If electricity does it, why shouldn't we?

When electricity does it, it doesn't cause problems (except when people have designed their electrical systems incorrectly) because electricity strictly abides the laws of physics. When programmers do things the easiest way, it often leads to bugs, security holes, poor performance, etc.

[helios]

bugs, security holes

The probability of bugs grows at least linearly with the number of lines, which itself is proportional to the complexity of the system. Thus, the easier solution means fewer, not more bugs.

poor performance

This is truer. However, that something will be absolutely slower is by itself not reason enough not to go with the simpler solution.

[giblit]

SatsumaBenji wrote:

Firstly, shame on you for saying "inferior languages" because there is no such thing.... And same point to "America is the best and biggest country in the world"

But what really gets me here is that America DOESN'T KNOW ENGLISH!!

I am pretty sure they were being sarcastic. I'm surprised you didn't comment on the "biggest country in the world" since you commented on everything else they said :P

[Avilius]

SatsumaBenji wrote:

But what really gets me here is that America DOESN'T KNOW ENGLISH!!

wat.

[TwilightSpectre]

In my part of the world, most commonly Americans speak American rather than English. Its really a joke - the pronunciations and spellings are too different in America compared to England or other countries from the commonwealth.

[BHX]

I always love these rather pointless debates, but I'll humor myself.

NT3 wrote:

In my part of the world, most commonly Americans speak American rather than English. Its really a joke - the pronunciations and spellings are too different in America compared to England or other countries from the commonwealth.

So if pronunciations and spellings make American English and the Queen's English different. Then this raises the question, which part of America speaks American since the pronunciations and (sometimes) spellings are different in different states and regions of America? Then we get into North and South America since American references both of them.

[TwilightSpectre]

Always, different parts of the world have slight dialectal varieties on the language. However, some are more noticeable than others. The only reason why, for where I live, the language is basically split into 'English' and 'American English' is just how different it can sound - a strong American accent sounds quite amusing to our ears (no offence to anyone).

Of course, in all seriousness, its still English. In comparison, the dialects in places like China and some parts of Japan can make it difficult for people to understand each other. According to some linguists I talked to, the only reason why some of the dialects of China come under the same language is because they use the same writing. On the other side, from memory Serbian and Hungarian are exactly the same language, just one uses Cyrillics. I can't remember exactly which languages, but its something like that.

As for internationalization of programs, I think it really depends on the target audience and users. Use what they want - no need to specifically add support if they'll never use it anyway.

[chrisname]

There isn't really a clearly-defined line that demarcates languages and dialects. A good one would be mutual comprehension, i.e., how easily do speakers of two separate languages or dialects of languages understand each other, but Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are accepted to be separate languages even though they are largely mutually-intelligible. Also, the Serbo-Croatian languages are all virtually identical. WIkipedia says they're considered separate "for political reasons".

It's kind of like the definition of a species vs. a sub-species: within a species, all healthy organisms can reproduce; between species, they can't. But horses and donkeys and lions and tigers are separate species, but horses can reproduce with donkeys and lions with tigers, so you have to add the addendum fertile offspring, which separates them because mules and ligers are not fertile. I don't know how that works with languages.

[ResidentBiscuit]

Don't speakers in the UK even speak different dialects of English?

[chrisname]

Well, people from the midlands have this habit of shortening "to the" to "t" (e.g. "let's get in t' car") but that's about it. We all spell colour with a U, etc.; the pronunciation differs but no more than in any other country.

[TheBeardedQuack]

The thing is with the American and English thing is that even though they're bother "English" and in most cases as long as you've got an audible accent most British English speakers will know perfectly well what an American speaker is talking about (unless it's only something that exists in America) and same the other way round.

It's just so bloody irritating hearing the completely different pronunciations of words (like big changes, not just accent) and completely different words in place, or even the misspelling of words... Someone mentioned that often even spellings can change between small regions/states but I've never seen this in English as long as I've lived (but that's only a measly 18 years).

I don't particularly mind the corruption of the language too much (I think) but it's actually spell check and other such technologies that are constantly telling me that I'm spelling everything wrong (Nobody dare shout at me saying "Use English UK" because that doesn't work, I'm using it now and just typed the word "colour" to test and it's got that little red line under it)...
And it's even worse when I speak to actual people from the US and they're constantly trying to correct a British English speaker on their words, phrases or spellings. That just infuriates me...

And while I'm on that topic, the American patriots that are outraged by people emigrating to the US and say lines such as "Only Americans should be allowed to live in the US"..... Even though the US was founded by British explorers, i.e. emigrants.

It is very few people like this and I feel sorry because they let a nation down... But then again so does the entire nation with other things such as gun crime and everything else! :D



Well, that's my rant... Sorry =P

[giblit]

Someone mentioned that often even spellings can change between small regions/states but I've never seen this in English as long as I've lived (but that's only a measly 18 years).

In the US where I live we say soda, some places they say pop and others they say soda pop. In the south they also say y'all instead of you all.

It is very few people like this and I feel sorry because they let a nation down... But then again so does the entire nation with other things such as gun crime and everything else! :D

we could say things about your country too if we wanted to.

[Duthomhas]

Google around Noah Webster if you want to know why American English is so different from British English.

[helios]

It's just so bloody irritating hearing the completely different pronunciations of words

Yes, it's so bloody irritating that there are people out there who are different from you, isn't it? Nowadays you can't take a bus without having some black sit next to you like he has rights or something.

emigrating to the US

You "immigrate to". You "emigrate from".

[Alrededor]

The Russian mathematician Abram Bescovitch left Russia following World War I and ended up at Cambridge in England.

Bescovitch was a quick study, and he rapidly became proficient in English. But his fluency was never perfect and he always had a notable accent. He adhered to the Russian paradigm of never using articles before nouns. One day, during his lecture, the class chuckled at his fractured English. Bescovitch turned to the audience and said, "Gentlemen, there are fifty million Englishmen speak English you speak; there are two hundred million Russians speak English I speak." The chuckling ceased. ( from Mathematical Apocrypha by Steven G. Krantz)

There are over 300 million Americans who speak American English. Just saying.

And perhaps in another 10 years or so, when you call tech support and your call gets routed to that bastion of foreign British English, legacy of the East India Company, instead of listening to quasi-intelligible British English, you'll be able to listen to quasi-intelligible American English. Get over it. It's not like complaints don't go both ways. All because of Wimbledon we have to put up with things like:

http://www.thecentrecourtapts.com/
http://www.centrecourt-tennis.com/index.shtml

:-)

[z05DSL3A]

helios wrote:

Nowadays you can't take a bus without having some...

I do hope that's sarcasm.

helios wrote:

You "immigrate to". You "emigrate from".

That's an interesting one. If I were to leave the UK a move to the US: from my frame of reference I would be 'emigrating to the US' and I would think that someone in the US would see it as immigrating from the UK.

[LB]

Grey Wolf wrote:

If I were to leave the UK a move to the US: from my frame of reference I would be 'emigrating to the US' and I would think that someone in the US would see it as immigrating from the UK.

That's still backwards ;)

[giblit]

You emigrate from UK and immigrate to the US.

Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region with the intent to settle permanently in another.

Immigration is the movement of people into another country or region to which they are not native in order to settle there

Grey Wolf wrote:

I do hope that's sarcasm.

I could be wrong but I read it as SatsumaBenji was getting mad that people are not speaking the same language as him(different than him) and helios was saying if that irritates him then other things must irritate him also.

Anyways, the letter 'Z' is pronounced very different. We pronounce it as "Zee" and UK pronounces it as "Zed."

[helios]

I do hope that's sarcasm.

Obviously.

If I were to leave the UK a move to the US: from my frame of reference I would be 'emigrating to the US' and I would think that someone in the US would see it as immigrating from the UK.

I see it as using different forms to express/highlight something different about the same action, which is "to migrate from src to dst". So if you want to only mention src because, for example, dst is implicit, you drop "to dst" and change the verb to "emigrate".
And vice versa.

This is the only prescription on which preposition to use I can find, and it limits itself to say "usually": http://www.wordreference.com/definition/immigrate