Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 September 9

= September 9 =

English language academy
Why English has never had any authoritative body like German Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung of Spanish Real Academica Española? What are reasons for that? Could this be founded in the future? 40bus (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * With the Oxford University Press and its fine range of dictionaries and scholarly expositions on the language it doesn't really need one. 2A00:23A8:4C31:5901:9580:C3C4:6DB1:AE40 (talk) 16:23, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Well maybe, but Oxford spelling is not the mainstream spelling in the UK. Do you organise or "organize"? As for that pesky Oxford comma, who uses that? Alansplodge (talk) 17:55, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Me, but I'm statistically insignificant, and only do it to be awkward, and only if I remember. Card Zero  (talk) 20:41, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey, "Oxford comma" is just a pejorative name (pejorative because it makes it sound exotic) for the everyday serial comma. Mind your WP:NPOV, please. --174.95.81.219 (talk) 21:05, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oxford is a beautiful Cotswold town, serial is what killers are. DuncanHill (talk) 09:50, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oxford I'll give you, but serial is what USB connectors are. So there. --174.95.81.219 (talk) 04:24, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oxford is this sweater, and serial is a lovely breakfast food. Shells-shells (talk) 06:07, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @DuncanHill: I lived in Oxford for so many years and I never once heard it described as being in "the Cotswolds."  It's technically part of the East Midlands.   And I never heard it described as "a town" - I visited Christ Church Cathedral at least once. 2A00:23C4:570A:601:1D49:1F37:425A:A93A (talk) 10:09, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * True, but see town and gown. Our Cotswold article says: "On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud". Alansplodge (talk) 10:16, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't ay it was in the Cotswolds, just that it is a Cotswold town. And of course it all depends what you mean by "Cotswold", "town", and indeed "in". These things all have rather fuzzy edges. We don't know which meaning of "East Midlands" you intend - there are several. DuncanHill (talk) 10:57, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It's hard to answer questions about "why didn't something happen". There have been proposals, but they've never come to anything. My personal answer is that people realised what a pointless waste of time and effort such a thing would be; but others will no doubt disagree with me. One point that immediately arises is that for most of the non-US English-speaking world, speaking something different from American English is a point of pride (I get the impression that this is even true to some degree for Canada). So are you going to have twenty different English academies? ColinFine (talk) 17:14, 9 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Even in England alone there are numerous variations. Hardly anyone now speaks the way the late Queen did. And I'm quite sure the French do not all speak their language in the same way, despite their Académie Française. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The Académie française has tried of late to recognize that there are varieties of French spoken outside of France that are also correct, and its membership is very timidly beginning to reflect that, but, one must remember it only elected its first woman member in 1980 (!) (Marguerite Yourcenar), so it's not exactly a nimble and responsive institution attuned to the times. In any case, its role in determining correct usage is very overstated, compared to that of the media, dictionaries and school curriculum. It mainly survives because it's a quaint institution dating back to the days of Louis XIII and (some of) the French tend to like the sort of grandiose pageantry it embodies, now that they no longer have a monarchy anymore. Xuxl (talk) 20:20, 9 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Isn't regional variation the reason for the Council for German Orthography (RdR) ? Card Zero  (talk) 21:11, 9 September 2022 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- There was a certain amount of debate about this in the eighteenth century (Jonathan Swift was for an English-language Academy, if I remember correctly). At that time a UK institution would have claimed oversight over the whole English-speaking world and probably few people would have disputed it, which is not the case today... AnonMoos (talk) 22:30, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It wasn't even the case toward the end of the eighteenth century, when Noah Webster put his thumb on the scales of American English. Card Zero  (talk) 23:33, 9 September 2022 (UTC)


 * We have an article Proposals for an English Academy. I don't think that Noah Webster's efforts to promote slightly reformed spellings were too influential until near the end of the 18th century (or possibly the early 19th), while Jonathan Swift's proposal was in 1712... AnonMoos (talk) 04:57, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I expect that's right, I couldn't tell from the article exactly when his reforms crept into the spellers (it sounds like it was a gradual process anyway). I see the putative English Academy was inspired by the Académie Française, and the reason it didn't happen during those hundred years of proposals, up to about 1714, was ... according to our article, jealousy from the established universities (about Maidwell's Academy), and from Samuel Johnson, who apparently didn't like the prescriptivism of Swift's project and thought people would just rebel against it. Then came a couple of German monarchs called George, not noted for their grasp of English or interest in academia. Then soon enough it was time for American independence, and the chance of dictating to all English speakers how they should speak it began to decline. So this Academy idea was held back by various chance incidents, along with opposition from the advocates of liberty and from a protectionist establishment who were already language authorities. (Johnson probably counts as both.) Card Zero  (talk) 06:32, 10 September 2022 (UTC)