Mastodon: Support different regional variants of English

[harrislapiroff]

Currently there's only a single localization for English which features a mix of British and US English (e.g., I see "favourite" 🇬🇧 all over the place, but also "authorize" 🇺🇸). We should support both! And maybe other regional variants too? I'm not really an expert, here.

[Quenty31]

I'd be for the all in British as US English is only used in one country and we are taught British English at school :)

[nightpool]

what would be the benefit of supporting both varients? they're easily
mutually intelligible

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018, 7:45 AM Quentí [e-mail] wrote:

I'd be for the all in British as US English is only used in one country
and we are taught British English at school :)

—
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/8163#issuecomment-413173941,
or mute the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAORV1vnkhcNFJxWKh-ozz9bhC688SjYks5uRAnKgaJpZM4V4tQf
.

[harrislapiroff]

@nightpool That's definitely true. I think, as with many UX touches, it's not just about whether software can practically be used but whether it feels like a smooth experience that users experience as thoughtful, designed for them, trustworthy, and enjoyable. For example, misspelled words on a website may be completely intelligible, but would still reduce the website's perceived credibility. NNG has a 2008 article about English variants here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/american-vs-british-english-for-web/ It would also have the benefit of feature parity with most other social media apps.

[holaymolay]

@Quenty31, according to Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world)

Approximately 330 to 360 million people speak English as their first language.

The United States has the most native speakers at 258 million.

Additionally, there are 60 million native English speakers in the United Kingdom, 19 million in Canada, 16.5 million in Australia, 4.8 million in Ireland, and 4.8 million in New Zealand. Other countries also use English as their primary and official languages.

Just saying....

[Quenty31]

You would suggest some French from Africa as a model just because they are more over there? Whereas French from France is the easiest to be understood.

Just saying....

[holaymolay]

Hardly the same thing when +70% of the native English-speaking world uses en-us. However, its obvious that both should be supported because each dialect is distinct enough to warrant the effort. English, however, is an evolving language -- in spelling as well as pronunciation. An example of this is how

non-rhotic (current British pronunciation) speech took off in southern England, around the turn of the 19th century, especially among the upper and upper-middle classes. It was a signifier of class and status. This posh accent was standardized as Received Pronunciation and taught widely by pronunciation tutors to people who wanted to learn to speak fashionably. Because the Received Pronunciation accent was regionally "neutral" and easy to understand, it spread across England and the empire through the armed forces, the civil service and, later, the BBC.

This is all to say that it is difficult to assert that one is more correct than the other.

It's easier to say that France's French is more correct -- even though there are different dialects -- because the French people are more diligent about defining an official French vocabulary. English is much more bastardized, regardless of which side of the pond you're on.

[ykzts]

You can add British English from https://weblate.joinmastodon.org/projects/mastodon/backend/en_GB/ :tada:

[LoganDark]

I second this. "Favorite" is misspelled on my Mastodon instance. Even just at a glance I already saw something out of place. I was about to open a bug report for this, but it seems like there was already an issue for this (and it honestly seems like people only support British English).

I'm honestly offended by the lack of support for our English. You can argue all you want about which one's better, but the core issue here is that you only offer British English as an option (even the API endpoints are spelt that way, which is honestly ridiculous). As my Mastodon instance is running for a U.S.-based company, it would be nice to have localized text on the network, especially for things that are visible in many places (e.g. Favorites).

Basically, in summary, it's just a little ironic that you offer options for tons of other languages... but not a simple variant of English ("favourite" -> favorite). Even my spell checker finds "favourite" to be wrong.

[holaymolay]

@LoganDark while I agree with your point, being "offended" is a bit too strong of an emotion to warrant its invocation. I'm guessing your use is a result of the word being over-used in recent years resulting in a dilution of meaning. At best, the en-uk "snobs" are mildly insensitive, but as long as no ad-hominem attacks are exchanged, all is fair if everyone sticks to arguing the facts.

With that said, the main argument here is over _economy of effort_. Is it worth the time and effort for the mastadon contributing community to put towards the cause?

I guess I'd say Yes, it should be done eventually. How soon is another matter entirely. However, if someone wants to contribute their time and spearhead the effort then I see no harm in that. Isn't that kind of the beauty of open-source? You get to contribute how and when you choose.

[LoganDark]

s/([Ff])([Aa])([Vv])([Oo])([Uu])([Rr])([Ii])([Tt])([Ee])/\1\2\3\4\6\7\8\9/g

I'm sorry for having a strong reaction to this, but I have seen british spelling used in places where it should not be and it honestly pisses me off. I get fed up of some things easily.

[Quenty31]

It should be called English and English US as only a country decided that have a different spelling for weird reasons.

[LoganDark]

...I would recommend English UK and English US, to avoid being unfair.

[holaymolay]

ok ok, how about we call them "Kinglish" and "EnglUSh" respectively?? :laughing:

[Quenty31]

Bah non Logan, British English is used everywhere but in the US, it is not that "British" then, just English :)

[LoganDark]

There's British and American english variants though. Doesn't matter where they're used.

[rugk]

Indeed, can we stop this silly discussion? It's clear what this issue is about and how it is implemented. Naming the language selection is a totally minor (and, actually solved) detail.

[LoganDark]

Exactly...

[stevenroose]

I hope this is meant for the interface and not for the content filter of posts?

[Pizzacus]

Mastodon is written in American English! Some of the time…

Also, the word "favourite" is actually used within the source code itself. Although I personally use British English, I don't think code is supposed to favour it… It creates a lot of confusion if you have to wonder "was this property 'color' or 'colour'?"

I think we can all agree that making a "milkshake" of both dialects like that is unacceptable as everyone ends up being unhappy…

[Quenty31]

What's the legitimacy of the US way of spelling words?
Thanks

[Pizzacus]

Sorry does a dialect used by millions need to be "legitimate" to be supported? What is this elitism?

If it was me, I'd even support Canadian English, which uses -our and -ize

[LoganDark]

@Pizzacus Canadian English is just British English. You could go the phpBB route and support "British English" and "American English" options.

[Pizzacus]

@LoganDark no as I said they use the British U like in "labour" and the American Z like in "minimize"

That is indeed pretty minor but it can pretty much be handled automatically with the right setup, so I'd rather give people options ^-^

Not saying Mastodon should do the same, but at least we can agree having the choice between US and UK spellings is a minimum.

[LoganDark]

Oh, sorry, I guess I missed that...

British English, American English, Canadian English then?

[Pizzacus]

Well, it's up to you guys for Canadian, it depends on how messy having 3 English locales would be.

[LoganDark]

Well you could always go the route of most of the world and only support British English and Windows

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[ryliejamesthomas]

I would still like to see this done.