Talk:World Englishes

Untitled

For those less familiar with WEs, there are several journals dedicated to their study, the most important of which are probably World Englishes and English Today.

Just to be clear, World Englishes are not "Inner Circle" varieties, e.g. Irish English and Australian English, neither are they International English (whatever that is, I suppose ETS designers know best) or English as a Lingua Franca. Trachys (talk) 14:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

"New Englishes" should redirect here as WE is the preferred term. Trachys (talk) 14:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. World Englishes are related to but unique from New Englishes. "World Englishes" runs the risk of confusion with "World English" or "World Standard English" and is an inaccurate term as it does not properly suggest the character of the language varieties in question. "World Englishes" is an umbrella term and goes so far to include the variations of the inner circle of L1 users whilst New Englishes are distinct to L2 users...Need I go on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rough for Radio 1 (talk • contribs) 11:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvements

In The Global Spread of English you use dispersal in the titles but diaspora in the text. Unless there is some deep reason for this then it would be better to adopt a consistent term (preferably the same as Kachru). Francis Bond (talk) 01:43, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Gorlach's model needs some discussion in the text (or to be deleted). As it is, it is only understood by reading the soon-to-be-deleted-and-hard-to-read-anyway illustration. Francis Bond (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:58, 28 November 2010 (UTC).

Spanish?

"Spanish appears to be a major contender [to replace English as the main international language], with its simpler pronunciation, spelling and verb systems, and its increasing influence in both the EU and America."

This is at minimum POV and at least partly inaccurate. A discussion of rivals to English needs to include Chinese, Arabic, and other expanding languages and show how they might overtake English someday -- not just be a one-sentence statement about Spanish. Spanish may have fewer phonemes than English but it's hardly minimal. Spanish's verb system is much more complex with three conjugations, personal endings, more tenses, and more irregular verbs. Spanish is spoken in one country, one continent, and few small ex-colonies. English is a first or second language on all continents. Sluggoster (talk) 03:03, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Part of your second paragraph is inaccurate, Sluggoster as Spanish is spoken in many countries and at least three continents. However, everything else you said is correct. Agreed, it is both subjective (and unwise for an encyclopedia) to try to make comparisons between languages, as to which is "simpler" in terms of pronunciation, spelling and verb cases! The sentence about Spanish is gone. Thank you! --FeralOink (talk) 19:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Spread of English

The article says: "The first diaspora involved relatively large-scale migrations of around 25,000 mother-tongue English speakers from England, Scotland and Ireland predominantly to North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand."

What timeframe are we talking about here? If we're counting all the migrations from 1600 to the 1800s (when the British colonization of South Africa and New Zealand began), a lot more than 25,000 people left the British Isles. 65.204.123.98 (talk) 00:17, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

65.204.123.98 You are correct. I will try to do something to address that. --FeralOink (talk) 18:55, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Three or four?

§ Classification of Englishes says

The spread of English around the world is often discussed in terms of three distinct groups of users, where English is used respectively as:

1. a native language (ENL); the primary language of the majority population of a country, such as in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
2. a second language (ESL); an additional language for intranational as well as international communication in communities that are multilingual, such as in India, Nigeria, and Singapore. Most of these Englishes developed as a result of imperial expansion that brought the language to various parts of the world.
3. a foreign language (EFL); used almost exclusively for international communication, such as in Japan.
4. a lingua franca (ELF); the most extensive contemporary use of English, additionally acquired language system which serves as a common means of communication for speakers of different first languages, such as Japanese.

3 ≠ 4. Which of these is (more) verifiable? To discuss this, please {{Ping}} me. --Thnidu (talk) 00:01, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I checked with a professor here at NTU (Tan Yin Ying) who told me:

The old classification is 3-way: ENL, ESL, EFL (see Quirk and Greenbaum, and others around that time). This was before the World Englishes movement.

With World Englishes, there are a few major frameworks, many of which are already listed on the page.

The ELF framework is a fairly recent thing and is promoted by a group of linguists (Barbara Seldfoher and others). Some people view them as an alternative to the World Englishes folks. They started a journal aptly named "Journal of English as a Lingua Franca".

I will add a citation for the 3-way classification and hope some else can add in something about ELF. Francis Bond (talk) 06:20, 22 May 2015 (UTC)