Wikipedia:Peer review/American English/archive1

American_English
In the very first paragraph there are contradictions and incorrect facts.

1. American English is refered to as both a language and a dialect. It cannot be both. 2. A claim is made that "97% of U.S. residents speak English "well" or "very well". This should either be corrected to 'The American dialect of English", or removed completely, depending on point number 1.

Please try to see these points as constructive, rather than the method in which the previous peer review was taken.

80.177.116.191 23:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * You do not seem to understand. Peer review is not the place for such comments.  Use the article's talk page for specific disputes you bring up.--naryathegreat | (talk) 02:48, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

American English
Firstly, there cannot be any such thing as "American English", by definition, English means to be of or about the country of England. Therefore it's like saying 'Japanese Italian', it doesn't make sense.

("American English" meaning 'a person or object of or belonging to England, of or belonging to America' !!! incredulous!!)

Secondly, most of the 'English' speaking world, including Global organisations such as the UN, refer to 'English', being the language in common use by 'England'.

As there cannot be any such thing as 'American English', the article should be renamed to be about 'American', Mr. Websters derivation of English, based on phonetic mis-spellings, and adapting the meaning of words to suit common usage.

This point, and it is a point of a great many English speakers worldwide - deserves to at least be noted in the entry, even if our North American friends do not agree.

80.177.116.191 15:34, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

68.163.208.65 16:43, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * No.
 * 1. American English is the form of English spoken by the majority of Americans, which itself consists of multiple dialects. Have you not noticed that a word can have multiple meanings? For instance: English can be an adjective meaning "of or relating to England" or it can be a noun meaning a language, the language in which I'm writing, in fact.
 * 2. If a large number of Italians moved to Japan and over time came to change their use of the language, distinguishing it from the Italian spoken by those who live in Italy, then it would be fair to call it Japanese Italian, I say.
 * 3. Most of the English speaking world speaks its own local dialect of English, of which there are many. They all refer to the language as English, but they don't mean the British English you seem to believe they do.
 * 4. I fail to see how adapting the meaning of words to suit common usage or changing the spelling of words is wrong. You are aware that British English arose from various Romance and Germanic languages in just the same way, are you not?
 * To summarize: I disagree.

The suggestion is preposterous. If taken to its logical conclusion, then there is no such thing as Scottish English, Welsh English, Hiberno-English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, or Indian English, because none of those countries is England either. And if "English" can only mean the language spoken in England, then by extension one cannot use the name "Spanish" for the language of most countries of Latin America, or "Portuguese" the language of Brazil. There would be no such thing as Swiss German or Austrian German either. This request for peer review is basically vandalism. --Angr/undefined 18:07, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree 100%. This page should be deleted and removed from Peer Review. However, I must also suggest that maybe each of these articles include the word "language" at the end of their title. See all of the other language articles, such as Spanish language.--naryathegreat | (talk) 20:24, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

So, If we follow your suggestions we should actually be talking about American English Romance Germanic Language. This is my point, it is stupid to continue to refer to a language as a modified set of a previous language. This new language is American, it ceased to be English as soon as it was modified.

There is no such thing as British English either, it's English, full stop (or period, to use your crude American language) As for the point about Scottish English, I don't understand, is this not the same argument. I do not beleive there is such a thing as Scottish English.

I don't agree with the accusation that this request is vanadlism, it's putting across a point of view. Infact, I feel that you have been very insulting there. It's no good to run this vault of knowledge with iron fists, we aren't all North American, and I beleive this is a valid point.

It must also be added that 'English' has been continually evolving since it's "split". Therefore, it can be claimed, that although a common history is shared, the two are now 2 smiilar but seperate languages, increasing the reasoning to call it something other than 'English'. I personally beleive "American" is a very good choice.

Remeber the Americans fought for independence and re-inforced this with a new Language, the least they could do is take ownership

80.177.116.191 23:44, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)