Template talk:Info

Dialect

A small point: if we use this, I can see future fault-finding with the word 'dialect' because it gets us into awkward definitions over what the difference between 'language' and 'dialect' is (e.g. Scots vs. English, whether 'American English' is a separate language, any variety of Chinese...). Plus there's the everyday definition of 'dialect' as 'non-standard dialect'. I would suggest we change this to 'language' and include a detail of which variety it is, e.g. language = British English. If it is not clear, language = English would also be possible. John Stephenson 04:20, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

The only two linguistic entities we'll allow on this wiki are British English and American English. Scots not allowed, because most English speakers can't read it. So, what are BrE and AmE--languages or dialects? You tell me. --Larry Sanger 04:26, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

'North American English' to include the Canadians?

I can't tell you what they are; linguists have made careers arguing about this. Actually we use the word 'variety' to avoid the whole thing, but that's too obscure. I think major contributors should be allowed to fill in what they like ('Australian English'; even (ugh) 'Commonwealth English'); I can see people getting annoyed about being labelled a British English writer when they're Australian, etc. John Stephenson 04:36, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

Hi John, I put it there on a whim since I saw it being discussed in the forums. At present it is not used by the templates and I'm not even sure it should be called dialect. This is the very beginning of the concept so we can shape it as we please. Chris Day (talk) 13:46, 28 July 2007 (CDT)