Talk:Language in the Twelve Colonies/Archive3

Radio Alphabet

Discussions moved to Talk:Colonial Wireless Alphabet by Joe Beaudoin at 20:07, 10 October 2005 (EDT).

Racetrack

Is it just me or does Racetrack have a vaguely Canadian accent in her scene on the Raptor early in Final Cut? --Peter Farago 02:10, 10 September 2005 (EDT)

Stating the obvious

Mister (Mr), Miss, and Doctor have all been used, but Missus {Mrs} has not.

The concision fairy frowns in disapproval. Why is this interesting? --Peter Farago 02:26, 17 September 2005 (EDT)

Nothing much since we haven't seen anyone married. Given the gender equality in BSG, however, it may well be that "Mrs" is not used. --Redwall 17:20, 17 September 2005 (EDT)

General American

On a somewhat smaller matter, there is no linguistically accepted version of English called "General English," with a capital G. I am willing to accept a lower case g, "general English," to indicate "common sense" notions about the accent/group of accents. --BlueResistance

You are correct. The article previously referred to Standard American English (SAE), which I have encountered in contrast to African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in sociolinguistics. As I'm sure you can tell, I intend to refer to the mid-western "newscaster accent" used throughout the entertainment industry.

As for Wikipedia, they referred to this accent as Standard Midwestern until last February. It was then moved to General American based on User:Angr's statement that "the accent is not standard in any official sense, nor is it limited to the Midwest."

Since they are serving as our primary reference, I am inclined to follow their conventions on the matter. Perhaps you could take up your point with them? I realize that we are not powerless to employ our own terminology, but consistency strikes me as a self-evident virtue. --Peter Farago 02:31, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Sigh. General American bothers me. I'd much prefer Standard American English. I mean--that's a term that linguists use when discussing American accents. I wish Wikipedia had a page entitled that, but I don't want to get into a land war there (or, really anything there as time is finite). A few things have to be understood about SAE (or, as it stands, General English):

1) It doesn't really exist as a spoken dialect. No one grows up learning SAE the way one can grow up speaking Texan English or any of the various sub-dialects of AAVE or whatever. However, Americans seem to be able to sense what it is. This is still under research.

2) When used in a non-scholastic setting (like this wiki), saying someone speaks SAE generally means that the region they learned English in is not identifiable by the way they speak. Apollo speaks SAE, for instance. However, Jamie Baber or however it's spelt, is British and really speaks some form of British English dialect (I've not heard him speak myself).

With these two things in mind, using a term like SAE to refer to dialects of characters is perfectly fine. I mean--the dialect is a kind of mental construct and so doesn't really exist and the characters, likewise, don't really exist. ;) OK. That was a joke. My problem with the term "General American" is that I've never seen it before in a linguistic context. "Standard American English" is a term used in all caps like that in many texts by various authors. I'm tired and I think I'm losing coherency. Does my point about, for lack of a better word, officialness come across clearly? I sure hope so. --Day 03:04, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

I would be happy to have the relevant links marked as Standard American English and go to Wiki's General American article through pipes. The term General American was introduced on October 8th by Troyian - I'd like to know if he is personally in favor of the term, or was just matching wikipedia's terminology. --Peter Farago 03:09, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Improvements?

After "Razor" I was wondering if we should start this article by discussing the identified languages by colony, noted uses of "non-English" languages, and then continue with the cinematic and series-colloquial aspects. We've known that the clergy have used an old language (note services for the dead), and that Aerelon and Gemenon have had distinct languages as well. The question that should come up is, what is the standard or common language to all colonists? The naval Colonial Fleet had to have had one to function, which is what we hear in the show. But civilians use it, too. But every so often the regional dialects and unique names appear.

We can't fanwank the use of English, but we should note the likelihood that the colonists came from Kobol with, or over time developed a common language between them. I just think this article is too out-of-universe and so makes little sense in its current form. --Spencerian 11:52, 13 December 2007 (CST)

I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but I really don't get the objections to this "out of universe" perspective. My purpose in writing the original version of this article was to put together a cogent, out-of-universe, critical analysis of language in the series, not language in the show's universe. Has everyone decided against the utility of such articles now? And if so, why? --Peter Farago 12:53, 13 December 2007 (CST)

I don't see anything wrong with that either. This is an article that almost demands it. If you remove those parts, there is nothing left. We could write a few lines about the in-universe languages, but it wouldn't be much. What could be done is separate the two areas better. First do the out-of-universe stuff and then some in-universe info. For example putting the Aerelon accent under the real-life English accents might not be such a good idea, even though it naturally contains out-of-universe information. --Serenity 13:12, 13 December 2007 (CST)

I probably didn't make myself clear. For articles such as these, the order of the information is just as important as the cinematic analysis. In other words, note the specific languages/dialects used or said by the characters. Next, the rest. As an encyclopedia, the emphasis should be on the in-show content first (if any...the Computers in the Re-imagined Series article would look like crap if we applied that since there's no technobabble). If result unbalances the article as read, I can understand that, and it might be better to leave it closer to its format. Right now, my eyes dance around it. The subject matter is fine. The order of it, not so much. --Spencerian 17:17, 13 December 2007 (CST)