Forum:English variant

I'm reopening the discussion on what variant of the English language to use. Looking back at the pitifully small discussion we actually had on this the rationale's that were used to pick UK English look dubious.

Prior discussions:
 * Narutopedia talk:Manual of Style
 * Forum:Spelling
 * Forum:Amaterasu correction
 * Talk:Mum's Red Hair

ShounenSuki's rationale for UK English was this: 
 * The USA is the only country major country in the world that uses US English.
 * British English is used, not only in the UK, but in (with minor variations) in Canada, Australia, Ireland, India, and many more countries. Hence why British English is also called International English.
 * Not only is British English used in the vast majority of English-speaking countries, it is also taught in the vast majority of non-English-speaking countries that teach English as a second language in any official manner. The European Union, Japan, and China, for instance.
 * This wiki caters to an international audience. Yes, the US makes up for a large portion of that audience, but that portion isn't even half of our entire readership. (In fact, if I remember correctly, it isn't even a quarter.)
 * Since we are a wiki that uses a Japanese series as the main source of its information and caters to an international audience, it makes no sense to use any other form of English besides British English.

Firstly, the assertion that British English is used in Canada, Australia, Ireland, etc... is bullshit. Every region has it's own variations. And some of those variations are as notable as the US <-> UK variations.

If you want to jump into the dictionaries and localization languages offered by software with me. The common ones (with varying consistency) listed (and have shown up in MediaWiki i18n discussions) are:
 * US English (en-US; sometimes fused together with the standard 'en' English locale)
 * British English (en-GB)
 * Canadian English (en-CA)
 * Australian English (en-AU)

((Side note, as far as MediaWiki goes; US English (en-US) is fused with the standard 'en' English locale (bug 31874). British English (en-GB) has been supported for awhile. I helped add Canadian English (en-CA) in 1.19. As for Australian English (en-AU) we have one or two speakers in the dev community but there's no-one in the translation community that has stepped up to translate the software.))

The extras I also see in dictionary lists (some of them) and language header lists:
 * Belizean English (en-BZ; Belize)
 * Irish English (en-IE; Ireland)
 * Jamaican English (en-JM; Jamaica)
 * New Zealand English (en-NZ; New Zealand)
 * Philippine English (en-PH; Philippines)
 * South African English (en-ZA; South Africa)
 * Trinidadian English (en-TT; Trinidad and Tobago)
 * (en-ZW; Zimbabwe)

So the idea that UK English is the be-all-end-all of English is bullshit. Just about every one of the changes that were made to the MediaWiki: messages in the name of translating them to en-GB (which btw was the wrong way to change the wiki's locale) was not part of Canadian English (en-CA). So the idea that we are catering to the majority of the world besides the US by switching to British English (en-GB) is bullshit, and in a way offensive too.

The idea that British English is "International English" too sounds dubious. There's no source for that claim. And when I tried to look up the topic of "International English" I came up with something completely different. It's much more likely that English in foreign languages varies by teacher and country-by-country with different countries' education organizations standardizing on different English variations on their own.

Secondly, none of the claims about audience have been backed up by proper stats. And country stats aren't even the proper stats for that. What we want is current stats about what languages users browsers are set to. This is exposed in the Accept-Language header on every pageview. eg: Mine is set to "en-ca,en;q=0.5". That combined with a little bit of cross referencing with the country stats is what we need for that kind of decision.

The last reason was just re-iteration referencing the flawed premise of the whole rationale. The Japanese part has nothing to do with the topic about what variant of English we use.

Lastly, this was all done without even taking into account the readers and watchers of Naruto. Our actual audience.

By that I mean; Viz distributes the Naruto manga in North America and the UK. And the English translation of the anime in as well (Manga Entertainment had the license for the first series in the UK it seems. But now Viz's translation of Shippuden is being broadcast nearly worldwide thanks to CR). Has anyone actually bothered to double-check what variant of English Viz translates the manga and anime into? And do they use one translation and distribute it worldwide? Or do they localize separately for the US and UK?

Because if our canonical English translation of Naruto is using US English and distributing US English to the UK or the US version is spread worldwide more than the UK version then that is enough of a rationale to pick US English.

~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 06:55, October 28, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

 * It is 4AM for me at the moment, but I will say this: as a speaker of US English, I have absolutely no problem with using British English. Will I have more to say on this? Probably, but as I just said, it is 4AM for me as of this writing.--TheUltimate3 Allied Shinobi Forces Symbol.svg (talk) 08:14, October 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * Where I'm from we use English UK and a bit of English US (a mix really), so I really don't have an issue with conforming to either. However, I'm just worried about the headache that might arise if we decide to change back to US English (that's if I read Dan's post correctly).--Cerez 365 ™Hyūga Symbol.svg(talk) 11:42, October 29, 2012 (UTC)

Just missed this somewhere in those few deletions. Well to begin with, my condition is the same as of Cerez. We use a mix of US - UK English. My main concern is that if we deciede to use US English; how exactly are we going to change the whole wiki? Maybe you already have a bot ready? If not then you must think again before starting to make one. Having made a spellbot recently, I know what it takes to make a near to complete spell-bot..... That apart seeing the reasons for both neither seem satisfactory enough and having to choose one I would say we should continue using UK English because thats what we had been using for so many days.

P.S. I don't have any problems with either —

Changing back to US English could just be done slowly over time. The variant we use matters more for future edits than current content. From the looks of other discussions and talkpage warnings we already have people attempting to change things to US English even when we supposedly were supposed to be using UK English. So if we pick US English even if we just leave the wiki's content alone things will slowly start to shift towards US English anyways.

Btw, right now the wiki's locale is set to 'en'. So all our system messages are in US English but the language code we output is just English, no specific variant. So there isn't anything really technically wrong with a mix of locales.

Also MediaWiki is supposed to support en-US (as en), en-GB, and en-CA on the version we're on right now. But neither en-CA nor even en-GB is available in the preferences. So it's possible that Wikia is actually actively disabling support for any variant of English but undefined English with US English system messages. So actually switching to UK English won't be simple either.

Anyone got enough manga / time to check what variant Viz is using? ~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 16:37, October 29, 2012 (UTC)

For the middle part: Maybe you should use Special:Contact and ask them. They are the only ones who can answer you (Though they like to keep things secret you know...).—

Don't really read/use/have access to Viz but I believe that they use En-US. Also, I didn't know Canadian english was different enough to have their own variant, I always thought they used En-UK. Still like I said, I wouldn't really have an issue with using ether though the reverting process does seem like it's going to be tedious.--Cerez 365 ™(talk) 17:03, October 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * There are a bunch of unique Canadianisms in en-CA (ever heard the garbage disposal referred to as a "Garburator"; We use "expiry date" rather than en-GB's "Use By" or en-US' "expiration date"; etc...). Besides those en-CA is a blend of en-US and en-GB. But neither completely. There are some words like "colour" and "centre" that use their en-GB spellings. While other words like most -ize/-ise words are spelled using the en-US -ize spelling rather than the en-GB mix of -ize/-ise (strictly speaking though, most en-GB translations including MW's and the ones that were made to the wiki here will use -ise). There are some whole words like "cutlery" and "tap" that are used like en-GB uses them. But also other words used like en-US uses them; eg: Like the US we still use "Fall" rather than "Autumn". There are also some words like "Washroom" which originally came from en-US but is no longer used by en-US and doesn't exist in en-GB. ~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 17:41, October 29, 2012 (UTC)

Not to forget that it would also make things inconsistant and complicated throughout the wiki.—

This again? I can live and edit with either spelling, really, but the idea of going through this debate again, and the prospect of having to through this every time someone brings this up is very off-putting. What I care the most is that the picked spelling is used consistently through all the articles, so whatever is picked is picked and discussion is done, which I had hoped would have been last time. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 22:37, October 29, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with this. ~IndxcvNovelist (talk 17:45, October 30, 2012 (UTC)

Got a reply from staff: "Narutopedia averages, about at a 10:1 ratio, many more users' whose browser language variant is EN-US as compared to EN-GB. This lines up with our general numbers about your wiki, I'm seeing a 8:1 ratio there. EN-CA is not a recognized language variant either in MediaWiki nor Google Analytics so I can't really provide any data about that." ~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 18:41, October 30, 2012 (UTC)

I welcome this change. Arrancar79 (talk) 00:39, October 31, 2012 (UTC)

That might just be bacause people don't know how to set the spell check correctly.—
 * The stats? I don't think so. Dictionary settings and browser language are separate. I can set a different dictionary and language preference in most browsers. The Accept-Language header can contain any language code, and multiple of them. The default English should typically output en, not an implicit en-US or en-GB. So stats on en-US vs. en-GB should be somewhat reliable. ~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 18:46, October 31, 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanx for clarifying that up.—

I agree with Omni as long as we stick with one and don't look back... at all.--Cerez 365 ™(talk) 11:07, October 31, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, a little side anecdote on this topic. I know someone from Japan living here in Canada temporarily learning English. I caught her using "color", despite us using "colour" here in Canada. So I definitely don't buy the "Other countries teach British English" argument. ~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 01:08, November 4, 2012 (UTC)

Conclusion
Ok looks like we need to reach to a conclusion quickly otherwise people would just be changing UK → US back and forth.—