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Which flag should represent English? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| TobaccoSmoke Newbie England Joined 4377 days ago 16 posts - 21 votes | Message 1 of 11 03 January 2013 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||
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In general, the English language is typically represented by either a British flag or an American flag.
However, the reality is although English is the de facto language of the whole of the UK, it is not named the "British" language, so technically only really represents England, considering there are other languages native to the UK besides English, such as Welsh in Wales. I think it would be more accurate to represent the English language using the English flag, as after all, it is the English language, ie the language of England. Welsh would always be represented with a Welsh flag and Catalan would always be represented with a Catalan flag, so why is English not represented with an English flag? You could argue that both German and French are represented by their respective national flags, despite the fact that other languages are native to those two countries, but the difference is the national language of those countries has adopted the name of the country, and thereby are accurately using their national flag to emphasize their status as the national language. Perhaps the English language would be more accurately described as "British" to reflect it's national and international nature? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AndrewL Newbie United States Joined 6662 days ago 26 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 11 03 January 2013 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Oh, but I've seen it represented by the Canadian flag before, particularly for the website of a Canadian country. Then again, what does it matter?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mezzofanti Octoglot Senior Member Australia mezzoguild.com Joined 4751 days ago 51 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Arabic (classical), Arabic (Egyptian), Irish, Arabic (Levantine) Studies: Korean, Georgian, French | Message 3 of 11 03 January 2013 at 2:07am | IP Logged | ||
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That's a good point.
There are so many native British languages so technically English should be represented by an English flag. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 11 03 January 2013 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||
Language predates nation-states. This idea of linking a flag to language is ultimately a consistent but perverse outcome of Herderian or Fichtean thought where for every distinct nation (and later state/ghetto meant to compartmentalize imagined communities called "ethnic groups") there is a distinct language. It's paradoxical or maybe even farcial then that these German philosophers' ideas were expressed in one of the world's pluricentric languages, die deutsche Sprache. For the record I think that Barbados' flag  should be the visual shorthand for English. English is official there and no one dislikes the place, so deal with it. You're better off purging yourself of "England", "America", "Canada", "Australia" and the lot of them...
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| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4832 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 5 of 11 03 January 2013 at 3:35am | IP Logged | ||
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The truth of the matter is that most people aren't able to differentiate between Great
Britain, the United Kingdom and England. So if you toss up an image of St. George's cross then people will have absolutely no idea what it represents. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mezzofanti Octoglot Senior Member Australia mezzoguild.com Joined 4751 days ago 51 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Arabic (classical), Arabic (Egyptian), Irish, Arabic (Levantine) Studies: Korean, Georgian, French | Message 6 of 11 03 January 2013 at 3:53am | IP Logged | ||
What do you mean by this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 11 03 January 2013 at 4:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Basically the pointlessness of this kind of exercise (especially on a forum about learning languages) when we have in front of us a pluricentric language.
I detect an undertone in the OP where language is supposed to fit neatly with one particular piece of turf as represented by a flag. In this case there's an insinuation of the primacy of one part of the UK called "England" when it comes to English, even though there's no language planning body, and the majority of native speakers live outside the UK and/or have no connection (biological or otherwise) to people who imagine themselves to be "English". Pluricentric languages disabuse us of this idea. Otherwise, Australians, Canadians, Americans, et al. would insist that they don't speak "English" but "Australian", "Canadian", "American" etc. P.S. Hence my suggestion of Barbados' flag >:-) English is far removed from its roots as a wayward West Germanic dialect whose name is related to (East) Anglia and one tribe called the "Angles". Edited by Chung on 03 January 2013 at 4:14am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5265 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 8 of 11 03 January 2013 at 4:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I think we've seen this kind of low level trolling before, cough, cough, COF. Don't feed it.
6 persons have voted this message useful |
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