Saturday, March 1, 2008

Which English?

Citizens of the World, Let it be known that computers speak ENGLISH. Well, I lived in England for the last 15 years and mind you the ENGLISH can't speak proper English, much less write it. Apparently, even those native language which are NOT English can speak,write and converse in Excellent English.

I come from Singapore, a tiny island in the South China Sea where the majority is of Chinese Ethnic race followed by the native Malays and Indian (Asian) with some other minorities. Being a tiny island of 647 square kilometers populated by 6 million people, we speak Queen's English. As how it is dictated in Oxford or Cambridge. However, likewise, we have our own 'flavor' of English too called SingLish or in our next door neighbour Malaysia called it MingLish etc.

Despite that, English is only spoken by nearly 2.6 Billion people and of that , less than 500 million speak or write American English. Just because computers were developed and invented by the Americans, does not mean everything must be created as per the whim of the American Language. However, some people may thing I am an Imperialist when I speak of the sense of the Saxon English forced their Language onto the world because the Colonists were greedy and well, plainly forced their way and way of living onto everyone, even to the sense that Slavery was rampant because of the English.

That ..is pure history and I won't want to invoke any issues here.

Issue at stake: WHAT ENGLISH.
The Answer : ANYTHING. As long as the Writer and the Community understands it, it is fine by me. Prophet Muhammad ever said that if you want to succeed in a Mission of Faith (of those Nuns and Padres, and to those Muslim Preachers too), you must follow the local method, means by means of their language or culture as long as it does not breach your faith.

So there is no point in forcing your point onto others. Some has said to me that my language is very poor because I use cos instead of cuz etc. But it's what I like. It's how I was taught. Heck even the spell check I have switched on redlined their American Slangs which I was asked
to use, as it's not grammatically correct and the spelling sucks.

As it is, You don't want to read the Translated Version of the China Straits (make up name for a News Daily) or Sin Min News when it has been translated from Mandarin to Bahasa Indonesia to English to Cantonese in Hong Kong and then quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

It is just plain silly. Point is, as long as the kid makes sense, it should work to an adult. Keep it simple.

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