by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/11/12 03:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/11/12/9061246.aspx
Now if you look at all of the following blogs:
The real issue we are talking about (once everyone stops complaining, which can take a while!) is the problem I explain in Who owns English, exactly?.
Of course if we "owned" English (assuming "we" could define who "we" are in this case!), then wouldn't we take all of the following and more:
Angielski anglais Anglè Anglès angleščina Anglické Angličtina Anglis anglisli anglizča Anglu anglų Angol Engels Engelsk engelska englanti Engleski Englezã Englisch English English Hol Ingelesa Inggeris Inggris İngilis dili ingilizçä İngilizce ingles Inglés Inglês Inglese inglise keel TiếngAnh Αγγλικά англiйская англизча Английски Английский Англис англисū Англиски Англия Англійська Енглески Инҝилис дили Անգլերեն אנגלית ענגליש الإنكليزية انگليسي آمريكايي अंग्रेज़ी ஆங்கிலம் ภาษาอังกฤษ ინგლისური 영어 英語 英语
and have opinions about the way English is spelled in other languages?
Perhaps since no one in Great Britain or Australia or Canada or the USA is dictating how the items in this list are to look,people sould not spend so much time trying to tell people how their language is to be spelled in English? :-)
You might be living in Iran, and bothered by the English word Farsi.
Or perhaps you are living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China and bothered by the English word Uighur.
And so on.
But it might be a good idea to take a deep breath and relax....
This blog brought to you by E (U+0045, aka LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E)
Abdusalam on 12 Nov 2008 8:02 AM:
For me, both Uyghur and Uighur work.
Abdusalam on 12 Nov 2008 8:24 AM:
Personally, both Uyghur and Uighur are OK to me as long as they can uniquely identify who we are in the world =)
Now let me show you the way we spell the word, English, in our language, Uyghur (or Uighur):
ئىنگلىزچە
It reads something like "In'gleezche". Actually, this is the mostly accepted (may also be the standard) one of the variants of the spelling.
Just for fun =)
OK, here comes my question:
Is there any chance that we (customers) can test the earlier builds of Windows 7? I've noticed a couple of issues related to Uyghur language (of course, not about the spelling any more =D) within the pre-beta 6801 build of Windows 7 and no idea how to send my feedback to you.
Anyway, you've done a great job in this cycle, thanks a lot!
Abdusalam on 12 Nov 2008 8:38 AM:
Oops! Forgot to inform you of something interesting.
You're getting famous among our folks for your great contributions (as acknowledged by our folks) to Uyghur language within Windows. Take a look at the following website, which is one of the great websites out there:
http://bbs.bilik.cn/viewthread.php?tid=20133&extra=page%3D1
The text will look better if you have the following font put into your Fonts folder (this is a font widely used by Uyghur websites):
Michael S. Kaplan on 12 Nov 2008 9:28 AM:
If you got the Win7 build from somewhere legitimate there should be some feedback method available to you; if not then you can always send it to me and I'll make sure it gets to the right people....
It's good to be famous (and I hope they know a lot of other people helped here behind the scenes), though not necessarily with *that* picture! :-)
jmdesp on 12 Nov 2008 9:35 AM:
I think there's a difference still. It will be very frequent for those peoples to find themselves forced to use the word "english" people have decided to use to design them instead of the proper one in their language. Just like the main reason chinese people have decided to try to force pinyin upon everybody (efeo is in many case much nearer to the correct pronunciation !) is that they themselves use it a lot.
Michael S. Kaplan on 12 Nov 2008 10:24 AM:
And yet somehow spelling differences between Britain and the US have not destroyed language, either.... :-)
Teklimakan on 12 Nov 2008 1:04 PM:
Hi all.
Being an Uyghur, I think I (Uyghurs or nonEnglishSpeakers) can not control English speakers's tongue. what do they call us is their business. but the problem is Using the words which the original speakers dislike as: Kashi for Kashgar, Wulumuqi for Urumchi ect.
Si on 12 Nov 2008 2:55 PM:
A few years back I recall seeing on the news that there was an effort to make English the official language of the USA. Being a British citizen living in the US I started to get excited. However later to my great disappointment I learned that the effort was to make "American English" the official language. :-(