Talk:Australian English

Comments:

I can warm up to 4, 5, 6, all of Pronunciation except -s = [z] and the negative verbs. I do have some serious reservations about the other proposed ideas. They really do seem not to fit what is known about IB English or what has been established through recent discussion. Aussie English, while decidedly "lower class" in nature shouldn't be all that different from the British forms! After all, it would still be actual Englishmen (and women) and probably some Scots too that brought the language to those far shoars.

Well, I guess if they *really* want to have an edh, let them have it! That's really more a matter of spelling convention. -tion disappeared from English long before any white blokes ever went to Australia; there was never a -re to model the change on (though I suppose one could argue that whoever it was deciding back in the 1930s could have made the change on etymological grounds). I'm certainly willing to be persuaded if there are good reasons for the other proposes articles! Elemtilas 01:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

As I said it's just a beginning. Where are you getting some of your information from? I can't see alot of it on the English page. I decided on these changes simply as a form of Standardising the language. Not necessarily trying to be historically accurate. Also due to the huge mix of settlers from different areas, many peculiarities arose. E.g -s as a standard 3rd person singular ending. P.s Question, in IB, the tern Australasia just refers to the continent of Australia *here, right? Geofism 13:03 5th May 2009 AEST

No, Australasia is a commonwealth consisting of the continent of Australia, Van Diemens Land, the Aotearoa islands (New Zealand),and a few other island dependecies. The continent is called Australia, same as *here.

I think there are some very interesting ideas in the proposal, and of course, the idea of determining what English would look like in any given IB country poses an interesting question for our consideration. I also think you're on to something good with the idea of standardisation: I fully admit that the description we've devised for IB English leaves room for not only dialect variation, but also variant standards and even some diversity within a dialect.

My information came from the article English. It is an encapsulation of the primary points of distinction between *here* and *there*'s English, not a complete description of English grammar or history as a language of IB. Creating a standardised language is certainly not a bad idea -- I've blamed the rapidly approaching death of Kerno in Kemr on the lack of a standard dialect. My comments weren't so much aimed at the idea of standardising as some of the new standards don't jive with IB English as we understand it or else represent a radical departure from existing standards that have been established.

For example: introducing the letter edh. While I don't really have a problem with that, it is a radical departure from standard English orthography that was already long established in the 1930s; likewise the switch from -cion to -tion -- IB had merged -tion into -cion at probably about the same time *there* as we merged -cion into -tion *here*. By the time Australasia was settled by English speakers, -cion would have long been the standard spelling. It would be like reintroducing the letter yogh or reverting to -cion in modern American spelling! I am only asking for rationales, and if changes are to be made, I would seek to make those changes not only possible but also likely given the source material (in this case, what is known of IB English). If you've got a good reason, I can be convinced!

To offer a counter proposal, I might suggest *standardising* things that are in flux in the parent Englishes -- like you did with all final [k] being spelled as -ck -- rather than changing things that are already standardised! None of those faux French spellings like apologetique! This I think is a natural direction for a language board to take.