Talk:English-only movement/Archive1

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This page is intentionally in Spanish, please do not "fix" it by making it in English --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 21:33, 26 January 2008 (EST)

Can I add some stuff in Chinook? Secret Squirrel 21:35, 26 January 2008 (EST)
Anything but English! --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 21:36, 26 January 2008 (EST)
Ahh, thanks! Secret Squirrel 21:38, 26 January 2008 (EST)
You speak Chinook? too cool. Endangered languages Rock! I could do somethign in lakota, but I don't know the words for "English" or "movement" or "offical"... which sorta defeats the purpose. Humm "Only white speach is allowed here?"--Waiting for Godot 14:26, 6 August 2008 (EDT)
You might be able to find a Lakota - English dictionary online. I've found a crazy wealth of rare-language dictionaries online. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 14:32, 6 August 2008 (EDT)
Online dictionaries are only that, dictionaries. It would be the same as me saying, in japanese, Watashi tabaru. for "i eat" without having knowledge of how the grammar works. That's one of the problems in the French translation, but i didn't want to step on anyone's toes.--Waiting for Godot 14:34, 6 August 2008 (EDT)
You said you know "Lakota"... I figured that meant you understood how to effect the correct grammar. Your example is kind of uh... funny, because it does mean "I eat", and does so in an entirely grammatical way. It's just not the most formal way of saying it. (It's something I would say to friends, or maybe a sister, but not to my parents, or a stranger. It's also unlikely that a boy would be saying it unless he were talking to his... eh... boys just don't really use "watashi" all that much... especially if it's informal enough to use the informal form of the verb.) The French translation was taken directly from the french Wikipedia, which has sense been updated... I can update it again on our page, if it bothers you that much. :)
Oh, i know the grammar of Lakota as well as any one who doesn't speak it for a living (as it were) could, but my point is i'm highly suspect of dictionaries, online or otherwise. As for the japanese, my understanding is that "watashi" required a "wa" to be a subject. My knowledge of japanese is umm (blushes) from anime. ;-)--Waiting for Godot 15:38, 6 August 2008 (EDT)
Japanese is "pro-drop" that means they drop a bunch of stuff. "wa", and "o" are the two particles most commonly dropped, as well pronouns typically drop themselves as well, as they can be deduced from context. "taberu" (I'm eating) "taberu?" (are you eating?) If you want to talk about perfect formal Japanese, you wouldn't even use "watashi" nor "taberu" anyways. The most humble form of 1st person address is "watakushi", and then there's the humble form of "taberu" (which I don't know). Either way, you're only going to be using that Japanese with the Emperor anyways. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 21:41, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

Anyone know Klingon? Secret Squirrel 22:01, 26 January 2008 (EST)

I'll try to add Mando'a when I get a chance. (It's a language from the Star Wars universe.)Cade Skywalker (talk) 01:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

You sad people. - π 01:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

日本語[edit]

The Japanese there seems to be broken. I can hardly understand even a bit of it. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 10:12, 27 January 2008 (EST)

ナ、アチクルの日本語は悪いですわ。あたしは少しでも分かれます。どれか治れますか? The Japanese there seems to be broken. I can hardly understand even a bit of it. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 10:20, 27 January 2008 (EST)
Sorry - that translation was courtesy of babelfish.altavista.com which doesn't seem to be much of a translator. It is supposed to be a translation of some classic wisdom from Yoda. "Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." Secret Squirrel 10:16, 27 January 2008 (EST)
Yes, autotranslators don't work very well at all. I kind of got that was the line of thinking, and now that I know what it came from, I got one of those "AHHHH!" moments. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 10:20, 27 January 2008 (EST)
Fixed it! :) Thanks for the hint. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 10:24, 27 January 2008 (EST)
I bet the Slovenian is broken since I used an autotranslator for that also. Secret Squirrel 10:33, 27 January 2008 (EST)
The Siglish is perfect, I ran it through my Hungarian to English dictionary. ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 18:51, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

Awesome article[edit]

I thought I was making a red link when I added it over at NAFTA, imagine my surprise when it wasn't, and when I actually came and read this! Should it have a "see also" (en Espanol, of course) to cabra? humanUser talk:Human 13:13, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

UTF-8[edit]

Please ensure that all material on this page is encoded with UTF-8, so that it all works together. Thanks :) --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 19:24, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

Siglish? What would that be? --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 19:28, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
The special language used by many Trashional Wikians in the signatures... ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 19:47, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
It looks a bit like nonsense... I'm sorry, but I'd rather suggest that we use only languages that are well established. (Or, alternatively, have an ISO code). --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 20:22, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
Um, most of this looks like nonsense - one is just question marks! I put it back, it's not hurting anyone, is it? ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 22:38, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
Eira, please discuss and give a good reason here rather than continuing to delete my contribution, 'k? ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 23:13, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
Discussion is below, on its own header. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 23:15, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
I know enough about the languages posted to know that it's not just gibberish, or just made up. (Ok, I don't know the Chinook) The question marks are showing because you don't have a font in that coding plane of Unicode. Unfortunately, Microsoft seems to think people don't need East Asian fonts, unless they insist on having them. That is what it most likely is. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 23:16, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
I know the question marks are an Asian font - you might want to remove the spaces I put in between them if there is actual coded "something" there. Otherwise, it's still a cool joke for those used to seeing the "??? ??" things at Wikipedia because they don't have the font(s) installed. I also commented below. ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 23:25, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
Y'all don't know the Chinook? Japanese font showing up as ???'s? Oh dear. Ironic, no? Secret Squirrel 20:59, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

To clear up anything[edit]

"traducido al castilliano" means "Translated to Castillian," which is a minor dialect of Spanish, like Catalonian, etc, that was taken out of context from WP. Lyra § talk 20:36, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

Castillian - "a minor dialect of Spanish"? I rather doubt it! It's the main form spoken on the Spanish peninsular anyway.--Bobbing up 02:18, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
It's actually the Iberian Peninsula. And as far as Spanish goes, there's Mexican, Cuban, Chilean, Argentinian... The list goes on. Unlike Commonwealth English, the Spanish spoken in the colonies has diverged much more from the English spoken in the colonies. (Possibly due to all the various Spanishes diverging equally, meanwhile American English is way closer to Victorian English than Commonwealth English is.) --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 04:19, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
I understand, I speak enough Spanish to realize "doof! she's right!" Hehe. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 20:53, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
By the way, I copied the "see also" (if it does indeed say that!) from cabra, you might want to make sure it says what I think it says. ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 23:26, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
Oh yeah, it was right and all, don't worry about that. I changed it to Esperanto... it's kind of hard to choose one language to represent all the titles, I figure the International Language probably works just as well as anything else. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 00:21, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
Excellent, nice choice! ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 00:34, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

Siglish[edit]

First, Siglish is composed of random letters from random alphabets (and possibly abjads). Next, the overwhelming results for "siglish" point to it being a manually coded form of English, not some whatever. If you want to include it, I would need a direct link to the page (likely as a <ref> tag.) So that I can actually make sure you aren't just making stuff up. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 23:13, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

First "siglish" is a word I made up earlier today, in this context. Second, you are taking this way too seriously. Third, I appreciate the humor of the accurate translations being the body of the article, but am I somehow not allowed to make my own contribution to the article, down near the bottom, where it doesn't get in the way? Fourth, this is a wiki - a collaborative project - if you want to control the content of a page ("If you want to include it, I would need a direct link to the page") put it in the Essay namespace. Fifth - I am making it up!!! It's a freakin' joke - I sat with the edit window open randomly clicking on characters below it, then added spaces, punctuation and links. And let's face it, other than the heavy-handed "not writing the article in English" joke, that line is the only Goat in the article so far. ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 23:24, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
Well all the other stuff actually MEANS something:
  • "試みないで。す る。し ない。 試み がない。" = (Japanese, kanji+kana) "Do not try. Do. Do not. There is no try".
  • "Amerika de eigo dake shaberarenai hito wa totemo baka, dayo. Amerika no hito wa iroiro kuni no hito deskara, nandemo no kotoba ga ii to omou." = (japanese with romaaji) In America, people who can only speak in English are totally stupid. Americans are from many origins, whichever language is good, I think.
  • "Selvom det unægteligt vill gøre mange offentlige forhold nemmere, er det grundlæggende en umådeligt tåbelig, for ikke at sige intolerant ide. Styrke gennem mangfoldighed!" = (Danish) "Although it undeniably will make many public relation easier, it is basically a tremendously stupid, not to say intolerant idea. Strength through diversity!" (this needs to be fixed... it appears to have been through an autotranslator)
  • "Moči vi ugibati kakšen jezik to je?" = (Slovenian) "Can you guess what language this is?"
And the others I know are more-or-less valid languages and sentences. The whole idea of this page is lost if there isn't meaning behind what we put in it. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 23:59, 21 May 2008 (EDT)
Well, the "siglish" entry I added means "In America only is English spoken, which shall be the one Language of the People and no funny talkin' furrinerz can be Murkins if they don't larn it!!!" Only the punctuation changes in translation. "The whole idea of this page" - you're back to trying to control. Let go. There are awesome furrin language thingies on it. There is surely room for one that no one can translate? Does that not make teh joek teh bettah? Teh kittehs agree with me in pmail ;) ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 00:39, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
Teh Kitteh r wif MEH! But you'll agree... if someone added English to the page, it would totally destroy the joke. :( -- — Unsigned, by: Eira / talk / contribs 00:59, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
Noes!! Teh kittehs are wif meeeh!!! I certainly agree on the no English rule, that's the main structural joke, and I think it rulzorz. I always have, ever since I linked here expecting red. I appreciate the grammatically-correct title, since that's how I found it. ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 01:45, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

Danish[edit]

I can assure you that the above sentence is entirely correct and that I am not an auto-translator. ;-) --AKjeldsenCum dissensie 05:25, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
Well, *shrug* I'm not perfect, Lama knows. However, it's also one of those situations where I know swedish, and all the Scandinavian languages are all pretty similar. So, basically it just looked a little wrong to me, because it didn't match Swedish vernacular close enough.

Fun[edit]

This should really be in the funspace. We aren't even attempting to be informative, we're just having a good time. There is nothing wrong with that, but we should do so in the funspace. That's what it's for.

The English-only movement is a major front used by nativists. We trivialize the dark core of racism behind it by having a mainspace article that tells us absolutely nothing about the subject. Star of David.png Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments. 05:05, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

As RA points out, the issue is a real one, and fits in perfectly with RW's mission. As for fun, a case could be made that ridicule and satire are a valid means of exposing the xenophobia inherent in the Emnglish-only movement. Rational Edthink! 09:56, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
Agree with RA; Fun it & start a new real article. SusanG  ContribsTalk 10:06, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
The only "problem" with this article is it does not explain anything to someone who doesn't read any of the languages used. I suggest we break down and write about it in English (or British, or Canadian, perhaps an Australian version for PJR) after what we already have. And it should open "Now, for those of you who are only literate in one language..." (or "And now for something completely different — it's...") ħψAnarchy dd00dd.pngUser talk:Human 13:13, 22 May 2008 (EDT)
The "problem" with Americans is the monolinguistic imperialism that is inherent in our culture. RW's purpose is a snarky point of view, and I cannot see a more snarky point of view than to show this without any English... I'm willing to concede a machine-translated version from the Spanish into English. I think that would have the best effect of adding usefulness of the text to you monolinguisitic imperialists, while still maintaining the "none of the contributions on this page are in English." --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 14:21, 6 August 2008 (EDT)
See, to me if you want to retain the snark, but add something informative, you can easily make a "UK" link, like the spanish, and the French using some dialect of english with colorful spelling, sayings, vocab choice and still be readable. For what it's worth, the "spanlish" or whatever Human proposed would have done it quite well. I don't see why this has to be "so serious".--Waiting for Godot 14:32, 6 August 2008 (EDT)
I still see no problem with actually getting into the issue below the various language statements. Eira, you seem to be the only one insisting we type no English at all on the article page. This isn't an issue of your "conceding" and "allowing" others to add what they feel should be here, it's an issue of a community that wants to make the best possible article. I am now beginning to lean in RA's direction - move the completely non-English article to "fun" and write a real one here. Or keep them together as I suggest.
I would also have no problem with taking whatever we write in English and presenting it first in it's entirety in other languages first. That way the English will get buried several screens down. By the way, I'm not an imperialist. Also, being fluent in barely one language doesn't make me a "monolingualist". ħumanUser talk:Human 22:01, 6 August 2008 (EDT)
I must concede the article is "English-only"... the only requirement for irony of the article is that English not be the only language presented. I like your suggestion, where English is just one among the sea of other languages presented for the article. :) Also "monolingual" means only knowing one language :P. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 01:07, 8 August 2008 (EDT)
So we are on the same page? I love the multilingual aspect of this page, don't get me wrong. I love the idea of several pages (screens) of non-english. I also think, that after all that, we should deliver a scathing article on the WUN-LANGWIGCH movement. And whatever the article says, inglish comes LAST. Remember, I loved, and still love, your joke, and it should come first. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:14, 8 August 2008 (EDT)
Yes, we're on the same page. :) Go ahead and snark away... :) --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 13:51, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

Both of you are such twits... Star of David.png Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments. 19:15, 16 August 2008 (EDT)

Hey! I resemble such remark! :P --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 16:14, 17 August 2008 (EDT)

Mission[edit]

"English only!" sounds authoritarian to me.--Bobbing up 11:23, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Yep. Now let us remove the template without further delay. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!But wishing is not enough. We live in the real world where nothing does exist. We cannot just disinvent it. 11:32, 11 August 2008 (EDT)
Yeah, as well, it's definitely a "crank idea", and has to do with rationalism. There is no rationally valid reason to consider English superior to all other languages. In fact, the page as presented is probably understood by more of the world than if it were strictly English-only. RW is not US-centric... that's Conservapedia. So, our focus should be international, to the point of telling US authoritarians (you know, the ones that think the US is the best place on Earth... PERIOD) that they're full of crap, and to try living in another nation for awhile, and see how well THEY can pick up a language as an adult. Meanwhile, none of this mentions the hundreds if not thousands of individuals in New Mexico (as well as Arizona, Texas, and California) who speak Spanish natively, or exclusively, and have been US citizens since their territory was purchased / annexed by the US government. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 16:02, 12 August 2008 (EDT)
I got a chuckle out of your last line... The last land the US got from Mexico was the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. [1] ħumanUser talk:Human 17:41, 12 August 2008 (EDT)
Yeah, which means quite a few generations of people that had just suddenly become Americans. Basically, the only difference between those on one side of the Gadsden Purchase, and the other, was where they lived. Some got "lucky" and ended up US citizens, and others, damn, sorry, if only you lived a few miles north :( --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 05:32, 13 August 2008 (EDT)
But your tenses made it sound as if you were talking about people living now... anyway, yah, to quote Mencia, "I didn't move - the border did!" Speaking of which, were/are people in acquired territories automatically and instantly granted US citizenship? Or did/do they have to wait for statehood? ħumanUser talk:Human 16:48, 13 August 2008 (EDT)
Such people are living today... they simply have to have their citizenship directly dependent upon the border having moved. For example, my father lives in New Mexico, however he was not born their, and none of his ancestors were Mexican at any time. My mother on the other hand was born to an entirely native Hispanic, who spoke Spanish natively, and a man who's history was dutch having entered the US through the coast (of texas/mexico) during the times that it was Mexican controlled. For this reason, my mother (still living) is literally only an American citizen because the border moved. Both of them live together. In fact, were New Mexico not a state, my father would never have moved there, and I would never have been born... and any children that my mother had had would be mexican citizens. I'm not talking about 1st generation "border moved over me", but rather otherwise. Also, Puerto Rico citizens are US citizens by birth. They don't have to wait for statehood. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 20:06, 13 August 2008 (EDT)
Pedantic defense of what was a funny misphrase days ago, I guess. Wait, your grandfather entered texaco 160 years ago?! I guess I don't know how old you are... So everyone born west of the original British cession is a citizen by virtue of the "border moving"? ħumanUser talk:Human 20:18, 13 August 2008 (EDT)
No, his ancestors arrived in texaco, not the United States. The history of my mother's side is entirely contained within territory, and by people who were living in that territory before it became part of the US. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 01:11, 14 August 2008 (EDT)
So he was born in US territory... ħumanUser talk:Human 01:32, 14 August 2008 (EDT)
Only by fact that the border had moved. If the border hadn't moved, he would have been mexican. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 15:24, 14 August 2008 (EDT)
Ah, I think I see where our semantic difference falls - I'm thinking "border moved while living there" and you are generalizing to "border moved at some point". Not that any of this matters, although I think mencia's joke, which I took to mean the narrower interpretation, works better with the broader one (yours). ħumanUser talk:Human 15:47, 14 August 2008 (EDT)
Eira: explaining jokes since 1994 *laugh* :) --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 13:35, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Could I put a kip in American Sign Language?[edit]

It is, i supposem another language. I could upload a bunch of images and line them up to spell out what deaf people would use. I am asking, however, because it is AMERICAN sign language so... I am not sure. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.

BSL (British sign language) is very other fom ASL. SusanG  ContribsTalk 00:14, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Yeah, I do know there are other forms of sign language, but sadly, the only form I know is ASL. I DO know a little Australian Sign Language, but not enough to place it in and know I did it right. My point is that while ASL (American) is technically English (as is British sign language) it's technically also not English as it isn't spoken so I want to get a community idea before I add in American Sign Language. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.
Separate article? (They're pretty comprehensively covered on WP though) I'd have to ask: Mission? SusanG  ContribsTalk 00:21, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Australian & NZ is related to BSL, apparently. SusanG  ContribsTalk 00:25, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
This page is supposed to be the "English Only Movement" (which I do disprove of, as this is a counrty of many nations and, hence languages.), and I would like to contribute in this page by forming sign language to replicate what is being said in German, Spanish, Hebrew, and all the other languages. I don't really want to make another page on ASL because, as you said, mission doubt. I do want to put it down because it is the only language aside from English I know (being hard of hearing and all). What I am trying to touch on, however, is if ASL is English, or if it is "another language".

ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas. (edt conflict)

You'd know better than me. If you just use the 'Alphabet signs' then it's English but once you go onto the symbolics then you're able to express concepts etc in a different way - so then it is a different language, No? Moot point. SusanG  ContribsTalk 00:34, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
I shall get to work on the gestures as soon as I can. I was already planning to use the gestures, I just wanted approval from somone other than myself. I am planning to make a text file and use those to show the language. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.{edt}
Interesting: in Sri Lanka they don't speak English but use BSL - so what.s going on there? It seems to be a mixture of an alphabetised language and a (whatever those Chinese/Japanese things are called - memory GOING). So I suppose it's not realy a language in the traditional meaning of the word as you can speak Spanish in ASL, I presume. SusanG  ContribsTalk 00:41, 31 August 2008 (EDT) (EC)
I suppose it is entirely possible for a person who doesn't speak a word of english to communicate with a deaf person in ASL, with a complete barrier in the spoken language. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.
The alphabetised ones apart, that is. Apparently a Japanese can read Chinese Ideograms & vice versa although the spoken language is totally different. That's the downside of an alphabetised language. SusanG  ContribsTalk 00:59, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Status report: At the time I am working on translating and making grammatical sense of the Spanish Translation. The end result in sign language would be... a bit appalingly long, so I am shortening it down to this. "The English-only movement is a political movement to make English the sole official language in the United States of America." Bear in mind this will take more space than indicated due to the fact the symbols need to be a bit larger for people to see. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.
I say the ASL thing is an awesome idea. ħumanUser talk:Human 00:56, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Thank you =) ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.
Interestingly I was about to download the BSL font when I realised it wouldn't be much use unless everyone had it, DUH! Looking for sign language font in google - strange: BSL products: all free; ASL: $$$. SusanG  ContribsTalk 01:10, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Update: Just finishing the translation for "United States of America" in alphabetised version. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.
This is my go-to site for free fonts. Awesome stuff. To get around the installed issue, do what I did for Bob at Ten Commandments - create images using the font you want. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:21, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
No ASL or BSL on there H. SusanG  ContribsTalk 01:28, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Yeah, I did quick search, bummer. Still, it's an awesome font site! ħumanUser talk:Human 02:23, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

(Unindent) This is the addition spelled out, awaiting judgement on if it needs to be translated into fluent sign language, or if it can be left as is.User:JAvascap/sig.

ASL.GIF
Fucking awesome. Want to redo it as a gif? jpg is really bad for line drawings... ħumanUser talk:Human 02:04, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
"movemen"? Shouldn't there be a "t" at the end? Both of them seem to be missing it. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 07:10, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
The image is at first originally correct, however it's not ASL... it's just English spelled out with the ASL alphabet. If you can actually do something in real sign language, I'm looking for the name of the way that sign language can be written as is, and not reprocessed into English. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:15, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Found it, it's called SignWriting and it has everything you need to actually write out real ASL, rather than just English with the ASL alphabet. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:17, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Eh, whatever, I say put it up, and improve it later. ħumanUser talk:Human 02:21, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

I did the SignWriting version: --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 03:13, 31 August 2008 (EDT) Official english asl.png

Literal translation "only English movement, from supporters name proper decided english movement, politics movement propose use establish english for only proper decided language in USA" Needless to say, it comes out silly looking... We can have a native ASL speak arrange the words properly later. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 03:15, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Yes, awesome too! ħumanUser talk:Human 03:31, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
I could be wrong, but I have the impression that the word order in sign languages does not follow the word order in spoken languages. In other words the word order in this translation may be correct.--Bobbing up 05:22, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
I know the word order is correct here, I just don't know if it's best, and it likely isn't. *shrug* As noted a native German speaker finally corrected the small issues with my German translation... and almost certainly a native ASL speaker would be able to phrase this a little better as well. I'm likely a little more worried about the prepositional use... and just the word order sounds odd to me in the sign language... not as fluid and interesting as I find most of it usually to be. (btw, ASL has really flexible word order, it just tends to prefer with native speakers to differ greatly from English, however since they're all pretty much fluent in written English, they're able to understand things in English word-order.) --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 06:33, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Some minor corrections... "use" => "establish" and "proper" => "decide"... the decide sign is a lot more of a "official" type sign, as it is like saying "this is it", rather than saying "this is correct". As well using "establish" over simply "use" should be pretty clear. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 06:50, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
I will get to work on arranging the above as soon as my eyes finish bleeding... I have, in the many sign language books I read over and studied seen a lot of ways for movements to be expressed, but up untill now... damn, I can hardly make sense of that. O_O. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.
If you know ASL then the text is pretty easy to understand... just start signing my gloss, and you'll start getting the hang of it. There are other ways to record signs, and I'd be happy to see any of those used as well, however no person who knows ASL would sit there and spell out the entire sentence that you've presented. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 16:51, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
After many thinkings and brain thingies going on, I have come to the conclusion that sign languaging the translation would require a moving .gif image, of which I have no experience doing. I have, however, updated the alphabetised version. The text reads "The English-only movement is a political movement to make spoken English the sole official language in the United States of America.", which I think jabs somewhat at the irony sectour. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.

ASL.GIF

In ASL there is no confusion as to what "English" is... and English is not ASL, and not signed, unless one intends to say Signed Exact English, but even then they wouldn't spell everything out. Deaf people can certainly fingerspell really REALLY fast, but still, it's entirely inefficient to do 21 some hand movements to say "United States of America", rather than interlock you're two open hands towards yourself, and move them in a circle. (The separate open fingers symbolize the states, and interlocking them and the circular movement symbolize unity, and togetherness.) I mean, even moderately long words like "Microsoft" are always shorthanded to "MS". Again, seriously, no one but someone who has no knowledge of ASL beyond the alphabet would actually sign what you present. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 16:51, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Yes, it does take a helluva long time to spell out letter by letter in ASL, and yes, I do perfer using the hand gestures for phrases and words, but the problem (for the moment) is getting a sense of what is being done without scratching one's head at what is "supposed" to be said. I cannot think of a way to incorporate movement aside from making a .gif image, of which I have no experience doing. I would much perfer actual "sign language", but sadly, for the time being, I am stuck alphabetising. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.
Well, using sign language to actually spell the stuff out doesn't make much sense anyways, because ASL speakers, even native, will typically write in plain and simple English, if something need be written. Unless you're going to represent the actual signs themselves, then I think using the ASL alphabet is no more different than "look, I wrote the English version with Cyrillic characters!" At that point, it's just a nifty font that you're using. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 17:46, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Wow, yeah, an animated gif would be cool. They are built out of a whole series of "normal" gifs, in a program that can handle the format (my old PSP can do it), you can even interpolate "transitions" from each image to the next one (although that adds more intermediate images), and set the timing for everything. ħumanUser talk:Human 16:07, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Now using Stokes Notation: --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 17:43, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Official english stokes.png

(unindent) The molestation of a language just to make things easy for us, or for other people to work out what the specific language says is just entirely contrary to the irony of the article. We should be presenting each language unadulterated so that a native speaker/reader of that language would view it as if it were written by one of their own in their own language. Even if such writing would be in a script that few people know/support. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 17:49, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

I agree with Eira, that the "ASL" as given is not ASL. It's English, signed one letter at a time. From my limited experience, that is only done with words people don't know the symbol for, and telling people how to spell your name. It would be nice to replace it with "true" ASL, which, as I also learned, is not English. ħumanUser talk:Human 18:13, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Some things also just don't have popularly disseminated signs. Like "Spinach", the best you can do is fingerspell it every time you're talking about it until you talk about it enough to be fed up and invent a home sign for it. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 18:18, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Trakudo Angle[edit]

Surely even a machine would have retained the capitalized "America" at the end? Or did it really drop it? ħumanUser talk:Human 16:02, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

No, it really did drop the capitalization. Silly, right? --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 16:41, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Hilarious. That's why I asked... ħumanUser talk:Human 17:03, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Funny boxes instead of characters[edit]

How come my firefox doesn't try to tell me what I have to install to read them? I'd appreciate any pointers so I can see them properly... ħumanUser talk:Human 18:10, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Japanese and Greek are the primary two on the page. That's pretty much it beyond extended Latin characters. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 18:19, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
For the boxed glyph languages (Japanese and Greek) I added a ref to each to point one to the Wikipedia articles on the languages. Let me know if you think the names should be in the neutral language (Esperanto) rather than their own native languages. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 18:24, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
Thanks, the Greek works here, but I've never loaded the Asian languages when WP used to prompt me to do so. And I want to enjoy this page to its fullest ;). As far as the refs you added, I think they should be as you did them - in the same language as where they are called from. ħumanUser talk:Human 18:44, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Missing languages[edit]

Some of the missing languages I noticed off the bat, and sadly am not versed in, include Hebrew and Arabic. Is it too bold to ask for someone who even understands these languages to take their best shot at including them? --V

Well, I did my best with the Arabic. Literally translated, the grammar is pretty bad. I am saying "English only movement is movement to make English only language of America." I will get back to it and give it a better shot when my language skills becomes better. ĴαʊΆʃÇä₰ I know Anonymous user sniffs beside tapiocas.

I'd also like to see Hindi/Urdu, Vietnamese, and Korean. I'm pretty sure those are the other "main languages" of America. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 17:43, 27 November 2008 (EST)

If anyone knows any Russian, please fix up what I just posted. That's my best effort at translating it, but my Russian really sucks. Researcher 18:20, 27 November 2008 (EST)
Oh yeah, Russian :) That's a good one, too. You know, I honestly think that just people trying here gives so much insight into the non-americocentric nature of Rationalwiki. :) It warms my heart to see so many people interested in helping out with this page, and fighting against the bigoted americocentricism that dominates "the world" (by which, I mean America, lol). Honest broken versions are a start, and they're a much bigger start than just dumping it into an auto-translator. That's like not even trying... not putting any effort into it, it's like the microwave version. Here's for the full golden brown rotisserie (ok, and many times burnt) meat that makes up the flesh of this page. HUZZAH! --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 19:09, 27 November 2008 (EST)
I took Russian for a few years in college and my first time in grad school, so there is some knowledge and thought that went into it. (However, my Chinese version is probably much better...that's my second language. Russian was going to be third.) Researcher 19:18, 27 November 2008 (EST)

Una Pictura Que Los Lectores Deben Pensar Que Es Graciosa Y Tonta![edit]

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6166/americasofficallanguagelo3.jpgBassoonsAreSexy 14:06, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I've seen that before, somewhere, but I see no link in the rest of the talk page to it. Perhaps we (you) should add it as an external link from the article? ħumanUser talk:Human 21:20, 30 November 2008 (EST)
Oops, never mind, it's in the blog entry in the "exophobic link" section... ħumanUser talk:Human 21:21, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Braille[edit]

Probably doesn't work on computer screens, but I undid my undoing of the inclusion. Discuss? ħumanUser talk:Human 03:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It appears as though the Braille-template uses the Unicode Braille characters, which can only be viewed if one has a Unicode font installed. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 03:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Reality check. How do smooth screens display true Braille? (I know it's a font, blah blah blah) If you're blind you ain't using Braille on the 'puter, you're using, what, a voice that reads the page? ħumanUser talk:Human 03:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
It's mostly for the amusement. The blind user's computer should take up the actual english part(below) as english brailles, (and ideally) russian part to russian brailles etc. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 04:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
(EC) They have Braille-terminals that people can use for that sort of thing. As to putting it on the screen, you could say the same thing about the ASL signs. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 04:04, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
(EC)The voice sounds like Steven Hawkins. - π 04:04, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if there are any programs that reads screen for more than one charset (Latin/Cyrillic/Japanese/Chinese), so each of these lines with a different charset are as good as the ASL Pic. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 04:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
The signs are for the deaf/hard of hearing (can see the screen). Braille is for the blind (can't)... ħumanUser talk:Human 05:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
If they can see the screen, they can just read the letters like everyone else instead of having to have text spelled out in ASL signs. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 06:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I kind of walked away, and never came back to replace the ASL. Braille was included with justification by the use of the ASL manual alphabet, thus is was dropped. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry what is that non-sequitur about? Also why are you allowed to unilaterally hack off bits of the article? - π 02:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Braille was included based on the position "the ASL is just English in the manual alphabet"... I was meaning to change it, but never actually did. I now changed it, and the reason for the Braille to be included has since disappeared, and was never valid.
Why am I allowed to hack off bits of the article? Well, a) I'm a janitor b) I'm ensuring article quality. and c) I started the article. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:24, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I liked the Braille and stuff, it was fun and interesting. Addressing your other two point, a) this is a community project and c) this is a community project. You do not own this article because you created it and you most definitely do not get to dictate to the other editors of this site because you are a sysop. Pull your head out of your arse. - π 02:28, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I know this is a community project... but mob rules. If you disagree change it. I've still made a good argument that the Braille is just English, thus including it is irrelevant. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I like the ASL, braille, and hex (?) too. The fact that a common English speaker cannot read it is enough for me. ħumanUser talk:Human 02:54, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, at the very least, we can use the "real" ASL, rather than just the English in manual alphabet. Same as we would fix the Russian, if we could find someone to properly copyedit it. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:56, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Agreed on the ASL, which is not literal English of course. That would be nice. ħumanUser talk:Human 03:13, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if Wikipedia is to be believed, binary and Braile are actually seperate languages from English. In fact, Braile was invented by those damn French! Lord Goonie Hooray! I'm helping! 06:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

That is actually ASCII coded in binary. ASCII is a language in its own rights, it is based on the ordering of English language, but it is not English as per say. - π 06:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
NO! ASCII IS NOT A LANGUAGE!!! Both binary and ASCII are coding mechanisms... not languages. The binary representation in the article may not appear to be English, but most certainly is English encoded into binary. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 06:50, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Actually, binary IS a language. Granted, not a spoken language, but it is a technical/mechanical language in the same way that C++ or G-code is a language. Punky Your mental puke relief 06:54, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
If by "binary" you are referring to the x86 instruction format, then... eh... it is one of a number of binary instruction formats. But while they may have some language features, none of them will let you directly express the topic at hand. If you really want to equivocate "language" up in here, and just base your entire argument on fallacy, I'm willing to let you, but I don't think it's a good idea. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 07:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
So, according to you, you cannot use binary or Braile to communicate the topic at hand? You cannot, for example, use binary or G-code to talk to a mechanical device? Lord Goonie Hooray! I'm helping! 07:07, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I said you cannot use binary to directly communicate the topic at hand (this article). Next, both binary ASCII/Unicode, and Braille can be used to communicate the topic at hand, but only by encoding a spoken language. The languages that were encoded by these encoding systems for this article so far are: English. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 07:13, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
(EC)From Wikipedia: "A language is a system of signs (indices, icons, symbols) for encoding and decoding information." You are encoding information in binary, ergo it is a language. - π 07:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Perfect! Now, we're getting somewhere in resolving this equivocation. You are using the wrong meaning of "language". The US government, even if it were to legislate, and enforce an English-only law would still permit the use of Braille and particularly ASCII/Unicode for the purposes of encoding English to written/printed/stored form. When I say "language" I mean a system of human communication that is composed of syntax, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics. While C/C++ are most certainly "languages" used for communicating instructions to computers, it is not used as method of human communication. I am using a much more stringent distinction of language than you guys are. Not everything is the same "language" as another "language". --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 07:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I think the Braille/ASCII further highlights the absurdity of the English-only movement by showing that even sentence written in English can be unreadable to an native English speaker. - π 07:38, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Good argument, but I'm still only meh on Braille. ASCII still doesn't really sit well for me. The English text is still in ASCII... just processed more than another. All of this is still rebutted with "why not just write English with Cyrillic?" Of course there is the "Siglish" on the page, that is there for no good reason... but the binary just kind of takes up a lot of room. :( --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 07:56, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
The binary is actually in Spanish. - π 10:52, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Kind of my point... it's not a language itself, it's just a way of writing another language. --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 18:57, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

New box to help with unicode[edit]

It's not very friendly. ħumanUser talk:Human 05:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Better? - π 05:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Hehe, well, it's friendlier, I'll give you that. Whether it's more user-friendly (I think XP added the Braille code "somewhere" on my hard drive?) or not is another question. ħumanUser talk:Human 05:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Just get the true type file and place it in C:\Windows\Fonts it installs itself when it is in that directory. - π 06:08, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I know how to grab fonts, but the site linked does not make it "easy" or "simple". ħumanUser talk:Human 06:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Is the Russian machine-translated?[edit]

I'm really just a beginner in Russian, but the present version seems quite fishy to me. --127․0․0․1 (talk) 13:53, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It might be Ukrainian? This message brought to you by: Toastrespondand honey 01:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Seems unlikely. Except one ("Англисский", later in the sentence spelt as "Англиццкий", could both be misspellings of "Английский"), all the individual words are Russian. The sentence as a whole however seems ungrammatical. --127․0․0․1 (talk) 10:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Funspace[edit]

While it is certainly spectacular, it has no business in mainspace. We should have a real article. Blue (pester) 20:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Right, because we can totally say with words what is better expressed through satire? What happened to the SPOV? What happened to this wiki, why is all "serious business" anymore? Can't we have fun in the mainspace anymore, or are we just going to become another boring wikipedia clone? --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 21:05, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Or maybe one big joke (which isn't very funny, IMO) isn't enough for this article. I wouldn't object to it if there was any actual content besides the joke. Can you point me to any other articles that are also just a long gag? If there is precedent I'll change my position. Blue (is useful) 21:10, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Goat As well, nearly everything that Stephen Colbert does on immigration is by Stefán, his Mexican alter-ego in Spanish. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 21:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Very well then, ignoring the fact that the Colbert Report is not RationalWiki. Blue (pester) 21:15, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Move to fun IMHO. ТyTalk. 21:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
He serves a similar purpose. The purpose of being a humor website is that we don't have credibility... yet we're taken seriously because what we say is fucking right. If anyone wants to critic The Daily Show on not asking serious enough questions, they respond that the show before them is a bunch of puppets making crank calls. Yet, they still have serious and hard-hitting interviews. It's that duality of purpose that makes them great... they can speak "truth to power", and get away with it, because getting after them for not being a serious news source is like yelling at a wall for being a wall. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 21:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Fuck it... RW is apparently all about serious business now... thanks for shitting in the punch bowl assholes... enjoy your dead wiki... --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 21:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

This article stays. Morons who don't get it need to go back to school. ħumanUser talk:Human 04:28, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

There's too much English on this page. The title can stay English but someone should change the other occurrences of the words "English", "only" and "movement" into German, Swahili and Native Hawaiian respectively.

Protest[edit]

The founding fathers wrote the Constitution in English. The official language is therefore English. Talsley (talk) 15:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. So is the official language of England French because that was what William the Conqueror spoke, or Latin because that the language in which documents like Magna Carta were written? –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 16:00, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
No, it would be English after the people who colonized it. Talsley (talk) 16:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah - so German then? You know the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were Teutonic tribes, and colonized England (Angle-land) from what is now Denmark and Germany? –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 16:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but the language has evolved since then, has it not? Talsley (talk) 16:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, and it has in the USA too. Thanks for playing. –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 16:29, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah, but the liberals wish to give Spanish equal weight by making it an official language. This is despite the fact that the illegals aren't here to stay! Talsley (talk) 16:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
No. There's no official language, and it's the racists that want to enforce English as one. Liberals want to keep the status quo of having no official language. –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 16:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I am not racist. Tradition states that English is the official language. When the Irish and Chinese immigrants came over in the 19th century, they learned English. Why can't the Hispanics? Talsley (talk) 16:35, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Well the Irish already knew English didn't they? Why can't you learn Spanish? Why can't the country be bi-lingual? India manages pretty well with 30 languages spoken by 1m+ people. Switzerland works pretty well with four official languages. Stop being so pathetic. –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 16:47, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The Irish speak Irish. I do not wish to have to earn a new language because "guests" in my country refuse to learn mine. People in India speak Indian, they used to speak Sanskrit. Switzerland is a nonfunctional welfare state, This is were multiculturalism leads: communism. Talsley (talk) 16:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Most Irish don't speak Gaelic, actually. And since you're a guest in the USA, I assume you speak Cherokee, Arowak, Inuit or some other native American language? –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 17:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
To the victor go the spoils. Talsley (talk) 17:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah, so you desire to make armed conflict the only way the rapidly-growing Hispanic population can get recognition for their language? –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 17:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
If they are capable of taking down the arsenal of democracy they will be perfectly welcome. Talsley (talk) 17:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Not difficult. Every terrorist group in the world kicks America's ass these days. Anyway, you've moved so far from your original point that I'm declaring victory and ignoring you from now on. You're pretty clearly a troll so I'm gonna stop feeding you. –SuspectedReplicant Support democracy - Ace is the REAL moderator 17:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
No coward, we are winning the war on terror. Talsley (talk) 17:30, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Grade 2 American English Braille (DRAFT)[edit]

Ahoy. I'm VI, and am adding the ASCII braille here for Grade 2 Braille. It's currently in Grade 1. (Since the Japanese doesn't have Furigana, and the Chinese doesn't have Zhuyin, I figured to contract it. If it's for those crazy Brits who don't use capitals, just remove the ,s) -- ,! ,5GLI%-ONLY ,MOVEM5T1 AL CALL$ ! ,(FICIAL ,5GLI% ,MOVEM5T1 IS A POLITICAL MOVE;T T PROPOSES ! USE ( ,5GLI% Z ! ONLY (FICIAL LANGUAGE 9 ! ,UNIT$ ,/ATES ( ,AM]ICA4 -- Cheers, — Unsigned, by: 139.225.246.59 / talk / contribs 2011-11-29T00:40:50‎