Talk:English in the Commonwealth of Nations

Canadian English

by no means is CanE included in AmE; many will argue that CanE is halfway between BrE and AmE; and that's not even the reason why there's no "Commonwealth" dialect[1]

Would you expound, JackLumber?

My understanding is that whether by direct lineage or by comparing modern attributes, Canadian English is a variety of American English and not of British English (while English spoken in the remainder of the Commonwealth represents varieties of the latter). Even much of the “British” spelling and vocabulary of Canadian English date back to North America before Loyalists fled the thirteen colonies.

Do linguists consider Canadian and American English (“U.S. English?”) to be two branches of “North American English?” Even if that is so, although there is English in the Commonwealth, there isn't a single or collective variety of English representative of the Commonwealth. It should be made clear that this is a geographic survey article, and may examine some commonalities of English throughout Commonwealth countries, but that “Commonwealth English” isn't a recognized branch of the language. —Michael Z. 2008-10-14 01:25 z

Dialects

There are very few differences in English between countries of the Commonwealth. It is not true to say that they have "developed their own native varieties of the language". There are not different "varieties" of English. These are not even dialects, as properly defined. There are regional and national differences, but these are only slight. Much less pronounced than the differences between counties of England in previous centuries. The only national variation that could be considered a different dialect is Indian English. That has some obsolete and unique words and bizarre sentence forms that are peculiar to India. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 02:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)