Um, the Duden is the quasi-offical guide on correct grammar and writing; but when the regulatory body tried to push a reform of writing through by force several years back, it became a lot of chaos, when they tried to enforce the new spelling in schools, and some publishing houses set all books with the new spelling (even old books, which many thought was beyond dumb), but several big newspapers went against the trend and stayed with the classic spelling (to show their independence and tradition, and how disdainful they were of new trends). Lots of people complained, school children were confused, the Austrians objected to some parts, parts of the reform were reversed, and people started writing more as they liked than before because of the confusion.
They also dragged the whole affair before the courts, which decided that nobody has the power or right to regulate spelling.
So while the Duden is considered the standard book for looking up the rules that Grammarians use, nobody else cares too much about. The Duden also only records the changes in language, it doesn’t comment on it (that’s a private club for German which does).
Whereas we are often told how the Academie Francaise in France keeps a strict hand on the French language, coming up with new french words to use instead of imported foreign (english) words (and getting upset when the normal people say “le pic-nic” instead of the official french version which means ‘lunch in the green’).
That’s the wonderful thing about OED: it became the authority on English more or less naturally, and balances the opposing forces of prescriptivism and actual usage very neatly.
The authority on British English or American English?
While we are at it: didn’t Indian (the country) English also develop its own rules in the past 100+ years?
What about Australia after it stopped being a colony? Do the Canadians speak pure BE or some own variant?
Afghanistan is even worse. Afghan is another (older) name for Pashtun, while Afghani is the nationality meaning citizens of Afghanistan. Indeed it is only for the last 200 or so years that it was known as Afghanistan (“Land of the Afghans” or more accuratly; Pashtuns), the traditional name for the area was Khorsan.
There are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than they are in Afghanistan and indeed it would be perfectly accurate and acceptable to refer to them as “Afghans”, while say a Tajik citizen of Afghanistan cannot be referred to as such, though Afghani will be accurate.
On a related subject, the Economist recently had a very interesting obituary on Margaret Gelling, former president of the English Place-Name Society, who was devoted to determining why particular English geographic features were named what they were.
The nitpickers on this thread should find the obituary highly engaging.
Canadian English is about 80% American and 20% England-English. I just came up with those numbers off the top of my head but generally Canadians will find Americans much less likely to use unfamiliar terms. People from Newfoundland have their own way of speaking English.
However, you’re going to have some trouble demonstrating a significant difference in the dictionary. English words are generally the same everywhere, just with different rates of usage of certain words and different preferred spellings. What Americans call a “faucet” Britons call a “tap,” but either word’s correct in either place.
That may be what you’re told, but it’s not necessarily accurate. The Académie française makes usage suggestions, and so does the Office de la langue française here in Quebec, but they’re not binding on the public. In the end, usage will win out. At most these suggestions may act as an official style guide for government publications, but according to Wikipedia:
So it seems that this may not even be the case.
What is not untrue is that some of these language regulatory bodies suggest native neologisms for new concepts instead of simply using English loanwords. But (and keeping in mind that once again, usage will win out in the end) I don’t see the problem. I say “courriel” instead of “e-mail” in French because I think it’s a pretty word. Some suggestions are not nearly as pretty and tend to be ignored. But complaining that I use “courriel” instead of “e-mail” is basically like complaining that I use “arbre” instead of “tree” when speaking French, I’d say.
For the record, I don’t know of any other French word than “pique-nique” to describe a picnic. I’ll check my Larousse when I get back home. The word appears to be of French origin anyway.
We are also currently undergoing an orthographic reform, though I can’t say who suggested it in the first place. Looking on Wikipedia (see “The rectifications of 1990”), it appears to be the French government, with help from members of the Académie française and international observers. This reform did cause controversy as well, but since both spellings are to be considered correct for now I’m mostly ignoring it and keeping on spelling as I’ve always done. I’ll see which suggestions get adopted by the users of the language.
South Asian English varies over region. In general it is more archaic than either present day British English or American English. Lots of extinct terms survive, “do the needful” is perhaps the most famous.
I can’t think of a Norwegian country adjective that doesn’t end in -sk, but there’s a lot of variation for the nouns for inhabitants of countries.
Most (I think) end in -er, like tysker, amerikaner, kanadier, italiener, tanzanianer (German, American, Canadian, Italian, Tanzanian), but there are a lot that don’t follow that pattern, such as danske, svenske, finne, laot, engelskmann, spanjol, polakk. (Dane, Swede, Finn, Laotian, Englishman, Spaniard, Pole)
And for the adjectives, the changes in the part preceding the -sk suffix, usually mirror the noun for the inhabitants.
In terms of scholarship, both, really. The OED includes words used exclusively in the US, Australia, Canada and so on whether or not they’re used in Britain.
India hasn’t even been independent for 100 years, so no. That said, Indian English is very similar in structure and vocabulary to that spoken in Britain in 1945, since most Indian schools use textbooks and lesson plans for English instruction which are based on the books in use at the time of independence.
I think second languages tend to evolve less since they’re learned from books and teachers rather than at one’s mother’s knee.
In Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu, it really is this simple: all adjectives derived from nouns or proper names end in -i. It came about separately in Semitic on the one hand, and in Indo-Iranian on the other hand, from convergent evolution. In Arabic and Hebrew, as far as I can tell, the adjectival ending has always been -i. In Persian, it derives from the Pahlavi (Middle Persian) ending -ig or -ik, which is related to -ic from Greek, but with the final consonant lost. In Hindi it can derive either from the Persian form or from Sanskrit -ya.
In Malay and Indonesian, it’s even simpler: there are no adjectival forms at all. They express the meaning through noun apposition, with no changes in morphology. E.g. for a Chinese person they say orang Cina literally ‘person of China’. Chinese language is bahasa Cina ‘language of China’. Etc.
This is unclear to me, maybe Anaamika or other Indish native dopers can explain it: I have heard that Indians learned one of the about 40 different official languages as first/mother language, and then English as second language, and so have the same problems as other second-language speakers. (To me, it seems to make most sense to learn one language as first one for communication across the tribes, even if it’s the language of the former colonial power, but apparently people feel different about it).
I’ve also heard that many Indians do learn English as first language and are thus native speakers.
I’ve also read some books in English written by Indians (well-educated ones) and to me, there were mistakes in the written English. Since I doubt that a professional book would be published without copy-reading and at least a glance from an editor, I assume that this different from BE usages are accepted in India.
As for the time scale: if, starting with primary school, all schooling is done in English, as well as all official business, then even Indians who learned a different first language would be more proficient than in other countries.
Thanks for that info, but I’m still unclear on how the nouns themselves are formed: in English and other European languages, the names of the countries themselves were formed at different times with different rules, so you have England, Norway along with France and Aserbaijdshan. Are there simple rules without exceptions for forming the names themselves in the languages you cited above?
Almost all middle class people (as well as most others) are trilingual at the very least. They will learn the local regional language at home, Urdu and English at school (Hindi in India). The medium of education is usually English and the business, government and judicial language is English. Definatly people are more than merely second language speakers, but somewhat less than first language speakers. Skills would vary, professionals, businesspeople, government servants , lawyers and others would use English daily, they would be more skilled in the language than others.
Could you please specify the “mistakes” you allude to?
If you’re talking about Salman Rushdie or V.S. Naipaul, they’re both British-educated and their works are published using UK-standardized spellings.
ETA: IME, normal English usage in India often contains words, phrases or constructions that would be considered quaint or perhaps novel in Britain, but as errors in the US.
So if the people of the higher social level use English daily, but with a different first language background, then their usage of English would change from BE by being spoken, yes?
I read somewhere that the Welsh have several unusual phrases because Welsh, their first language, has a very different grammar from English, and some phrasings are carried over; I assume a similar process would influence Indian British English.
Well, I don’t have the books at hand here at home. Basically, it was the phrasing and grammar of certain sentences that struck me as “I would never express myself in English that way, I thought that way is wrong”. I mean, I know my English is stronlgy influenced by my native language (and lack of speaking practice) and thus not on the level of a native, but I can feel a bit how the natives write based on what the Dopers post, for example.
No, noth those authors. I get theological books from India by Indian authors published in India for Indians about Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity mostly. The authors sometimes have a degree, sometimes are simply priests or euqivalent of the religion they are writing about.
Yes, that’s what I thought when I noticed it recurring - the special phrases must be Indian English.
There is similar weirdness in Kazakhstan. Someone is “Kazakh” if they are Kazakh in language or culture. Someone is “Kazakhstani” if they are from the country. Since there are a lot of Russian (culture/language) citizens, this is a real distinction. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a similar distinction in the other “-stans”.
For those posters who say there is no rhyme or reason, I don’t agree. There seems to be a mix of English syntax along with the local syntax. As someone noted, most of the -i endings come from the same part of the world… There are clearly patterns, just not simple ones.
Pretty much everyone has to use English to a certain extent; 90% of signs are in English. And its dose not really correlate to social class as opposed to profession, a clerk will have to use English much more than lets say a housewife, but yes higher social class will usually have better english by the dint of being better educated.
As for “expression” well yes there are many expressions and terms which are unique in S Asia and a North American might find them to be “incorrect” or “bad english”.
“Shopper” means a shopping bag as opposed to people who are shopping.
“Madam” means any woman in a position of authority "madam of that department
“Miss” is what pretty much all female teachers are called regardless of gender