Template talk:English variant notice

This template (Template:English variant notice) was considered for deletion on 2013 September 7. The result of the discussion was "snow keep".

The deprecation of this template was discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). The result was oppose deprecation. 06:47, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Removal of British English

British English should be removed due to the fact that there are sub-dialects that are part of British English therefore don't differ from or are not used in British English. An example is Template talk:Scottish English which currently doesn't make sense. Regards, Rob (talk) 00:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Templates can be modified individually. Regards Rob (talk) 00:15, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Text

This edit request to Template:English_variant_notice/text has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I think the template's text should be changed to:

This article favors [[{{{variant}}}]] vocabulary, grammar and spelling if universal convention is absent. Some terms that are used in it differ from or are not used in British, American or other variants of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Because the current wording suggests that articles are written in specific dialects of English, however per MOS:ENGVAR, Wikipedia 'prefers no major national variety of the language over any other' and 'tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English'. Articles only favour variants' vocabulary, grammar and spelling if universal convention is absent, and they don't use any variant of English as such. Regards, Rob (talk | contribs) 23:23, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What is this supposed to mean? Disagreements only arise where there's differences in the language. Where there's differences, there's no 'universal convention'.... self-evidently. — Lfdder (talk) 02:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. This user seems not to have read WP:ENGVAR, specifically "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the English of that nation." The proposed edit both here and here and here seem to be part of a campaign to overturn this long-standing protocol in favour (or do I mean "favor"?) of a "universal convention", the nature of which is unknown to me. Ben Mac Dui 09:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The template suggests that articles are written entirely in one variant of English, but there not. Wikipedia articles don't use any variant, they take into account all variants, and therefore are evidently not useing any one specifically. They only favour/prefer one variant when there is no universal way of presenting something. How is this difficult to understand? Wikipedia articles' all use international English, not British, American or Scottish English. I've seen editors change terms on articles to local variants claiming 'it's suppose to be British English', most likely due to the wording of the template. Regards, Rob (talk | contribs) 12:16, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's no 'international English' in that sense. If it's not British, it's American or some other 'local variant' -- even if that variant doesn't go by any name. I mean, there's probably a word that's more likely for it to be more widely understood than others, but then we'd probably have an argument every freaking time about which one that is. And -- perhaps -- rightly so. — Lfdder (talk) 12:44, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article aren't written using the form of English used in any specific country, which is what these variants are. Articles are written using English that people from all countries will understand (it doesn't matter what we refer to this as). Articles on Wikipedia are not written in the form of English used in the UK or USA; as they're written so that English speakers from all countries can understand them, and this distinctively differs from how they would be written if they were targeted only at Brits or only at Americans. Like I said, articles favour or prefer national variants as there simply isn't a universal terminology for all terms, however they do not use any variant. I'm not bothered about the specific wording of the template, as long as this inaccuracy is corrected. Rob (talk | contribs) 13:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Some interesting English variation here. In English English, "there's differences" should be "there are differences"; "there not" should be "they're not"; "useing" should be "using"; "it's suppose to be" should be "it's supposed to be"; and why is there an apostrophe after "Wikipedia articles'"? Notwithstanding that,

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template.. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ops, I misread the template documentation, sorry. I don't understand how the differences you point out are relevant. They're instances when there isn't universal convention, and so a preferred form's convention would be used in those instances. However, in contrast, articles preferring British English would avoid using the term 'chips' in favour of 'fries' as the latter is used universally whereas the former is not. If the articles used British English (which refers to the form of English used in the UK), they would use the term 'chips' as that is more common the UK. Therefore, no article uses British English surely? I don't know why I added that apostrophe, I probably re-worded the sentence and forgot to remove it. Rob (talk | contribs) 14:14, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've already explained how that's problematic. Regardless, it's a given that academic English writing and style will differ very little across variants. Why must we fret over the wording? — Lfdder (talk) 14:00, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well I've stated why, would you like me to repeat? Rob (talk | contribs) 14:18, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And I've already explained that what you're claiming is arguable. — Lfdder (talk) 14:25, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What you think is problematic, is MOS:ENGVAR. This template currently contradicts MOS:ENGVAR. You haven't explained how this isn't contradicting MOS:ENGVAR when it states that Wikipedia 'prefers no major national variety of the language over any other' and 'tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English'. Per MOS:ENGVAR, no article uses the form of English used in any country. Why should this template suggest otherwise? Rob (talk | contribs) 14:34, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You should be able to see the leap from 'prefers no major national variety of the language over any other' to 'no article uses the form of English used in any country'. — 14:40, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

My point is the wording of this template is misleading. Surely you can see that? Rob (talk | contribs) 14:45, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed change seems like an improvement to me minus the 'universal convention' bit (for the reasons above). — Lfdder (talk) 14:50, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This all seems to be coming from a fundamental misreading of the ENGVAR principle. Yes, as a whole, WP does not use or prefer any individual variety of English but individual WP pages do. In fact, read in its entirety, ENGVAR explicitly requires each page to be consistently written in, eg US, British or whatever English etc. In turn the role of the template is simply to advise later editors which type to follow on the page in question: hence, it should say "uses" and definitely not simply "favours". I don't know what the proposed "universal convention" addition means or adds. N-HH (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

N-HH, all articles should be written using 'words that are common to all varieties of English'. MOS:ENGVAR does not explicitly exclude country-specific articles from this. Why on earth would we use terms that are only understood by Brits, if there is terms with the same meaning understood by both Brits and Americans? Just to fuck with people so they can't understand articles related to the UK? Rob (talk | contribs) 18:44, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But ENGVAR doesn't say that. Please read it all, as it explains the issue quite clearly as far as I can tell and in such a way that changes are not needed here for the template wording to reflect its requirements. In the "commonality" section it says WP "tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English" [my emphasis], which seems sensible advice but probably not something worth overloading a template with. However, there's no contradiction with what it then goes on to say: "within a given article the conventions of one particular variety should be followed consistently" [emphasis within original text]. If a term is genuinely common to all forms of English, it of course by definition falls within any specific variety as well. Hence your proposed change is unnecessary before it is anything else. But as noted above, it's also a recipe for more word-by-word arguments, eg where you have debatable or partial commonality. Should, for example, articles about UK food refer to "fish and fries" on the basis that most British people will understand such a reference to "fries" and all Americans will? Finally, beyond that, especially since the differences between varieties are actually pretty minimal overall, I can't see this is such a big issue that we need to agonise about how to overcomplicate and qualify the wording here. N-HH (talk) 19:03, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ps: also it seems you've simply gone ahead and unilaterally made this change to a couple of specific English-variety templates. I'd really suggest that you get a pretty strong consensus first for changes to templates that appear on 1000s of pages and that are trying to help to people follow existing site-wide guidelines. I'm reverting those pending that. N-HH (talk) 22:20, 17 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is that articles aren't entirely 'written using British English', or 'written using British English dialect' (dialect... really?). There's a distinct difference between a text 'preferring British English vocabulary, grammar and spelling' and being 'written using British English'. The latter infers that the text is written using all the characteristics of British English, including the choice of vocabulary. Articles choice of vocabulary on Wikipedia is not specific to variants of English, but instead finds 'words that are common to all varieties of English', with preference to appropriate variants if there isn't 'words that are common to all varieties of English'. The former implies that vocabulary of British English is preferred, but not mandatory if universal terms exist. Not that single examples prove anything, but 'Fish and chips' doesn't have a comparable term, even in the United States it's called 'fish and chips', however 'steak and chips' does, and 'steak and fries' is used in both variants of English and should be used in all cases on Wikipedia. Rob (talk | contribs) 13:20, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure you've read what I've written above. In particular, as I suggested, please actually read ENGVAR, especially where, in the context of potential commonality across WP as a whole, it uses the words "tries" and "often preferable" while, in the context of specific varieties of English in specific articles, it uses the words "should be followed consistently". Get consensus to change that guideline and standard editing practice, then get consensus that the wording here needs to be not only changed but made more verbose and complicated to reflect that, and we're off; until then, we're going nowhere, but as usual the talk page is filling up and everyone's time is wasted. N-HH (talk) 13:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@ N-HH I have made similar comments at Template talk:Scottish English and am in agreement with your remarks above. Ben Mac Dui 19:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think MOS:ENGVAR is clear on this at all, and I'm aware of your interpretation. Anyway, I can't be bother to pursue this since, in general, editors avoid using variant exclusive terms when possible. These templates are shite anyway, MOS:ENGVAR refers to vocabulary, grammar and spelling, not dialect. At least articles don't actually follow that bullshit; otherwise Scotland-related articles would be incomprehensible to a lot of readers. Regards, Rob (talk | contribs) 20:32, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I hadn't even noticed this one says 'dialect', 'cause the AmE and BrE ones say something completely different. That definitely should be changed. In fact, these shouldn't even refer to BrE or AmE, but national standards. — Lfdder (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the term "dialect" is a problem, as is the proliferation of supposed types of English and templates associated with them: we are talking about a limited number of varieties of formal written English and distinctions such as "favor" vs "favour", "pavement" vs "sidewalk" etc, not the use of unlimited national/regional dialects or slang. I don't think many people read ENGVAR as allowing, say, the use of cockney or whatever in practice, but the existence of some of these individual templates is a little confusing (again, the policy itself and most people's reading of it is not). N-HH (talk) 10:43, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How would we like this worded then? I don't think 'British' and 'American' should be stated on the meta-template, as it's not appropriate for many varieties.

This {{SUBJECTSPACE formatted}} is written in [[{{{variant}}}]], and some terms used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to...

{{SUBJECTSPACE formatted}} uses [[{{{variant}}}]] vocabulary, grammar and spelling; and some terms used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to...

Obviously, I prefer the latter. Rob (talk | contribs) 12:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am fine with either and prefer the latter too. Could I point out (again) that you seem to be confusing the Scots language with Scottish English. The latter is not likely to be "incomprehensible" to anyone, although it may well contain a few unfamiliar words or expressions, especially in relation to government, legal systems, religion and a few topographical features. Otherwise it is very similar to British English - as I wrote some 5-6 years ago now "a useful (if class-conscious) rule of thumb might be that if you can imagine an Edinburgh lawyer using the word in court, it's probably acceptable." Ben Mac Dui 13:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is not really relevant to the discussion, but nonetheless, I was exaggerating. Most varieties of standard English are only slightly varied. I'm aware of the Scots–Scottish English situation, I only live 40 miles from the Scottish border, so I'm not clueless. Rob (talk | contribs) 13:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer:

{{SUBJECTSPACE formatted}} uses [[{{{variant}}}]] vocabulary, grammar and spelling; and some terms used in it may be different or absent from other national standards.

— Lfdder (talk) 15:31, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer the second of Rob's options I think. I'm wary of talking about other "national" standards, which risks encouraging proliferation of the sort I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure each nation or even region really has its own variety as such when it comes to formal, written English – in reality there are probably only a few even more minor variations on the two already barely different main themes of "British" or "US" English. And let's not forget that the purpose of these templates is simply to notify people as to why they might see the occasional – but nonetheless systematic and proscribed – unfamiliar spelling, word or grammatical construction, which they might otherwise think is "wrong" and needs to be corrected. It's not about slapping national flags on pages or saying we simply must notify people that there might be one word or term there they might not have seen before (the same issue after all arises with technical words). N-HH (talk) 16:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's definitely no point in referring to varieties of English. — Lfdder (talk) 16:58, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Any specific reason why not? Seems to be quite common terminology in studies of the topic. As, to be fair, although to a lesser extent, does the phrase "national standards of English", although in turn looking into some of those books, eg the Oxford Companion, does tend to back up my assertion that we should be wary of assuming that there are necessarily that many of them, or that they display differences that diverge that much from the two dominant, for better or worse, starting points of US and British English. N-HH (talk) 17:56, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Because varieties redirects to dialects, and is generally understood to be that, rather than some formal national standard or other. — Lfdder (talk) 18:11, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, OK. My worry is that using "national" would encourage the assertion of 101 distinct types of English on behalf of every nation or would-be nation. At the same time of course it would at least limit it to that rather than allowing 1001 types of regional or local dialects to be asserted. Of course the term "varieties" doesn't have to include a piped link to the dialect page. I assume it was only included in the suggestion because that's the link currently used. If we're replacing the word dialect, we should probably replace the link too; with what, I'm not sure. N-HH (talk) 11:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why are some templates disproportionately used?

The British English templates are used about 5300 times, American English 2441 times, Canadian 1626, Australian 1137, South African 923, Indian 495, and the others much less. Why are these templates not used proportionately? This slant is especially prevalent with European and international topics. Dustin (talk) 21:49, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment

An editor has asked for a discussion on the deprecation of Template:English variant notice. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC: Should Template:English variant notice be deprecated?.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 07:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This RFC has been closed. It can be found here Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_126#RfC:_Should_Template:English_variant_notice_be_deprecated.3F. The result was consensus opposed deprecation. AlbinoFerret 06:52, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template-protected edit request on 18 February 2018

This edit request to Template:English variant notice/text has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Change /text to sandbox version (tested here). All the current english language templates as far as I know (e.g Template:South African English) use the custom text option {{{text}}}; this version adds parameters to allow standardization instead of that. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:49, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also for some reason /text is template protected while Template:English variant notice/core and the main template itself is not. Seems unnecessary. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:16, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. I have lowered protection of /text. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:10, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Commonwealth English

I've set up Template:Commonwealth English and related templates (with |id=cwe for this module). This is to A) account for all English dialects that are "{{EngvarB}}" but which do not have codified, formal written registers or their own style guides (i.e. are generally indistinguishable from British English in encyclopedic writing); B) forestall the creation of more pointless "Use Zimbabwean English" and "Use Belizean English" templates; and C) provide Commonwealth merge-and-redirect targets for some existing junk templates we do not actually need (because they fall under point A, above).

I haven't dug around in the code here, so I'm not sure how to integrate this new meta-ENGVAR into the module, and would rather leave that to its regular maintainers. If an image is desirable, I suppose File:Commonwealth and Anglosphere.svg will do well enough, at least in the interim. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:30, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS: It should support the |Oxford= option, though no {{Commonwealth English Oxford spelling}} and {{Commonwealth English Oxford spelling editnotice}} templates exist; parameters should probably be sufficient as they are for various other "EngvarB" dialects. I'm not too sure about |IUPAC=. I don't see any IUPAC-specific British English template, just an American one. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:37, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish Every english variant template using Module:English variant notice automatically supports |Oxford= and |IUPAC= parameters (using that parameter in this template, makes the text: "This page is written in Commonwealth English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise)"). I do not see that any particular integration of this into the module is necessary, though if it is, feel free to ping me since I wrote Module:English variant notice Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:01, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Galobtter: Doesn't it need to do something with the code cwe? I don't know the guts of these templates and modules very well. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:54, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish All |id=cwe does is set the "id" parameter in {{editnotice}} to "cweeditnotice" (which was all that was done with it in the the template {{English variant notice}} pre lua). Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:59, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. That just seems to be an HTML id attribute for CSS. Wouldn't it make sense for all of these things to have no id and instead of have a consistent class? PS: I tried setting up Module:English variant notice/sandbox to handle a |size= parameter for the image, but that didn't work out. I know Lua about as well as I know ancient Akkadian. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:21, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Galobtter: I tried your re-sandbox, and it's not working; see current code of Template:Commonwealth English (invoking Module:English variant notice/sandbox temporarily) ; it uses the illegible tiny icon size no matter what value is given for |size= — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs)

SMcCandlish - check say Talk:Jonathan_Moyo, you can see that it works. The preview on these templates uses the main version of the module, not the sandbox version of the module, because the whole display is a transclusion of Template:English variant notice/documentation which uses the main version of the module. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:37, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Argh. Need coffee! — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:26, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could we add a variant that cites MOS:TIES rather than MOS:ENGVAR?

The final sentence "According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus" sounds distinctly odd in articles which have strong national ties, as there is not a WP:SNOWBALL's chance in hell of such broad consensus being reached.

As a preliminary proposal, perhaps a parameter |ties=South Africa might change that to "This is because the subject has strong national ties to South Africa." Or maybe just |ties=y and the template knows the noun form of the country. (I thought it might be occasionally useful to specify a different location, e.g. Bermuda.) Or maybe just rephrase to not mention a location? Or just omit the final sentence entirely?

209.209.238.149 (talk) 01:07, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest flags are removed

Can I suggest the flag icon is removed from this template. Most of the the time there is no issue. However I would suggest a problem can arise when a variant is used on a page where the result of MOS:TIES does not match or is otherwise debateable. The planting of a flag on the talk page can be a matter that goes beyond which variant to use and can be viewed as provative. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 06:32, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Request for notes section

Dear editors,

In Talk:Pakistan International Airlines Flight 8303 an editor wanted to know how users should follow WP:ENGVAR conventions for English-as-a-second language countries where the distinction between the formal, standardized Englishes of those countries and say British English may not be so much clear cut. As per WP:ENGVAR former British colonies should use the standardized formal Englishes of their respective countries, but it may be difficult to instruct people from other countries on how to follow this.

I wish to add for relevant countries and territories of the British Empire:

including Bangladesh, Barbados, Botswana, Brunei, Cyprus, Dominica, Fiji, the Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Republic of Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Nigeria, Pakistan, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe ...

... "Do note that the formalised English used in (country) is similar to British English, so when in doubt follow British conventions unless/until other differences are encountered."

(I believe articles solely concerned with the European Union may use British English as current member states Cyprus, Ireland and Malta and former member state UK pretty much use British English.)

For Liberia and the Philippines: "Do note that the formalized English used in Liberia/the Philippines is similar to American English, so when in doubt follow American conventions unless/until other differences are encountered."

Samoa was under New Zealand rule for decades, so I believe New Zealand English would be the default for Samoa.

I have not studied Lua so I'm not sure how the template should be modified to allow for a "notes" section of this kind.

@Martinevans123: @Stepho-wrs: @Johnuniq: @RexxS: @Ohc on the move:

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 21:58, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: Another idea is to take Template:Commonwealth English and allow it to state "X country is in the former British Empire and uses Commonwealth English" or something to that effect. If a former British empire/Commonwealth country has not formed its own national variety of standardized English with significant differences from British English, it could redirect to Commonwealth English. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I welcome the simplification, effectively removing a substantial bunch of ghettos. However, for the purpose of ensuring spelling, the distinction is unnecessary for maintenance purposes, as there are only four code variants recognised: American, Canadian, Commonwealth and Oxford. All the other English-speaking countries' codes of spelling belong to one of these. I do not endorse the multiplication of such templates beyond the for named. My script doesn't maintain any of the non-mainstream codes, and it's my intention to carry on in the same vein. --Ohconfucius (on the move) (talk) 23:14, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ohc on the move: There are some differences between varities of English within the commonwealth: in South Asia the numbering is often different: From The Hindu: "Cabinet approves ₹3 lakh crore funding for MSMEs " - this numbering with "crore" doesn't appear in the UK.

Wikipedia:ENGVAR does say: "Use universally accepted terms rather than those less widely distributed, [...] ten million is preferable to one crore (Indian English)." However I've seen plenty of South Asian Wikipedia articles that do use "lakh" and "crore" because the numbering is so prevalent in South Asian media. It may be better to have both the South Asian numbering and UK numbering present, like "one crore (ten million)" to accommodate both types.

At the very least India, Pakistan, etc. should have its own template. In regards to other Commonwealth countries it might be good to make a table of some kind to determine if each territory has significant differences with UK English.

WhisperToMe (talk) 01:40, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, bad idea. As Ohconfucius said, the four varieties of American, Canadian, Commonwealth and Oxford are sufficient. The purpose of WP:ENGVAR is to prevent style edit warring, not to honor the norms of whatever topic is being discussed. Imagine taking this idea to the next logical step: should Tok Pisin (English creole spoken in Papua New Guinea) be written in Tok Pisin? As I said at MOS, the English Wikipedia is written for and by people from places where English is the primary language. ENGVAR stops people fighting over how to spell color/colour. Johnuniq (talk) 02:22, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: Firstly Tok Pisin has its own ISO code, and pretty much categorized as its own language with its own dedicated Wikipedia. English-based Creoles like that, Jamaican Patois, Pitkern-Norfuk, and Sranan Tongo are given their own Wikipedias. Nigerian Pidgin has a test wiki though not much is on it. Anyhow WP:ENGVAR states clearly that only formal standardized varieties of English are to be considered for use, so I don't see how it would be taken too far.

Re: "The purpose of WP:ENGVAR is to prevent style edit warring, not to honor the norms of whatever topic is being discussed." While its primary purpose is indeed to stop edit warring, it does state clearly "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation." As demonstrated by the article in The Hindu, India does have its own style formal English used in the press (and by the government: "FM shares details of Rs 20 lakh crore Atma-Nirbhar package").

"the English Wikipedia is written for and by people from places where English is the primary language." I disagree that its audience is restricted to native speakers: it is not only written for native speakers, but also for English-as-a-second language countries where they have other native languages but where English is a, or the, language of government, the media, and/or commerce: Singapore and Nigeria come to mind, and India de facto has English as the main unifying language. If anything ENwiki is for anybody who has a sufficient command of English.

On another note, I understand that the Wikimedia Foundation would very much like to see the Wikimedia movement expand its presence in India. I myself attended a Wiki conference in Bangalore and I could tell the South Asian participants were quite keen on making their mark. I am not sure an English-educated Indian participant would appreciate the idea that his or her or their variety of formal standardized English wouldn't be suitable for use on the English Wikipedia.

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:44, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

People are welcome to build content in any way they can, so long as it's useful. I've seen new articles posted here in Russian, and which were kept after others did the translation and fixed references. However, if an edit adds English that is widely regarded as broken in the areas where English is the primary language, the edit should be fixed, not retained because of the editor's local custom. Johnuniq (talk) 04:45, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly non-English content and content in slang and informal varieties need to be refactored. When official government documents and respected newspapers adopt a convention and that convention persists, though, it becomes actual English. Lakh and crore, for example, are now an actual official practice in India. It's not even "broken" anymore.. it is English, just not the same as in the UK and US. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:00, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

use of terms such as lakh and crore may have great prevalence in the Indian sub-continent, but in the rest of the world it isn't used at all. Same goes with myriad in Chinese-related articles. Use of these in en.WP articles (even when wiki linked) is be a barrier to comprehension – just imagine that numbers formatted 1,00,000 Indian system) or 1,90 (European system) start appearing all over en.wp – because it causes readers to do a "double take" or go looking for explanations, and I would argue for their systematic removal on grounds of WP:COMMONALITY. I have to an extent automated the removal of lakh and crore, and it seems not to be contentious. --Ohconfucius (on the move) (talk) 06:43, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ohc on the move: Indeed it would make no sense to use South Asian terms in topics which have nothing to do with South Asia, and if somebody does use the South Asian numbering in a non-national article, that should be changed.

For South Asian-related topics, would it be useful to notify noticeboards for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, etc. regarding this discussion? When doing some research I noticed that this book explains...

Delhi Travel Guide by T. Turner PT122: "Though these terms come from Sanskrit, they have been adopted so deeply into Indian English that most people are not aware that they are not standard in other English dialects." [and to the point where government documents and formal newspapers are using it]

For South Asian topics I've sometimes seen the format "South Asian numbering (conversion into U.S. dollars)" due to the setup of Template:INRConvert (see the notes which show that crore can be displayed) but I personally don't agree with that because it doesn't tell non-South Asians what the original numbering is. I would prefer "South Asian numbering (British numbering, conversion into other currency)". I'm not sure if it's easy to write a bot to do that, but that format I feel accommodates both South Asians used to their own system and non-South Asians who are not familiar with South Asia. (Editors unsure about the prevalence of numbers in formal varieties of English of a country can check government websites and/or major newspapers like The Hindu and Dawn)

As for the European number formatting I've seen that quite a bit in continental Europe-related articles, presumably added by European users. Since those formattings have not really been adopted in any formal variety English, those ones should be changed to US/UK numbering.

Evidence: The Local (English language newspapers for continental Europe) uses UK/US numbering ("Sweden and Denmark offer 3 billion kronor to protect SAS from coronavirus impact" uses "$151.2 million or 137.7 million euros"). I also see UK/US numbering in these English editions: "3,831" in Le Monde Diplomatique, "28,000[and]0.20" in El Pais, "7.6 million" in Le Monde, "3,313 [and] 10.2 million" in Der Spiegel, "6.1" in Corriere della Sera, and 8.3 billion in Berlingske. TLDR use UK/US conventions for European articles. This press release from the Spanish government mostly uses US/UK numbering so the first "4.668" seems to be a mistake. The French government used "5,000" here.
(I did notice an article in Le Monde English using French guillemets but I found another that used quotes like the US/UK. Also I noticed an English article in Berlingske with different guillemets, but I don't think it's enough: standardization/prevalence is needed before "allowing" a convention)

BTW Re: "Myriad" is this a thing specifically in Hong Kong or just China? If it's just overly literal translation from Chinese that should be changed.

WhisperToMe (talk) 13:24, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are basically three written English regimes for WP-writing purposes: Commonwealth/British, US, and Canadian (which is about a 50/50 mixture of the other two, usually preferring Commonwealth spellings, but sharing mostly a general North American vocabulary and grammar with US English). While there are lots of national dialects of English around the world, these are primarily spoken and informal. In formal writing, they're almost all indistinguishable from British, and even when technically distinguishable in a few nitpicks, the results are not impermissible in British and usually resolve to local vocabulary preferences, not grammatical or even spelling differences. There are a few places like the Philippines and Okinawa where English (to the extent used locally at all) goes with American spellings. We really don't need all these nationalistic templates, and they do more harm than good. In an encyclopedic register of writing, there is no effective difference between Scottish, Hong Kong, South African, Belizean, and New Zealand English. To the extent there is any detectable difference at all, it won't matter enough that we need WP:BATTLEGROUND-inspiring templates, much less new-editor-hostile editnotices, talk page banners, and other aggressively nationalistic "noise". It will be sufficient to have page-top templates that are present but invisible except in the code, for US, Commonwealth, and Canadian English (only). Remember that no one has to even read much less fully comply with MoS or any other guideline in order to edit here, they only have to comply with the core content policies. So, we cannot actually force anyone to write in "Jamaican English" at History of Jamaica. The only thing we can do is normalize to Commonwealth English spelling after the fact, a WP:GNOME activity. The only templates we need in aid of that activity are the silent page-top ones that provide a date of assertion of a particular ENGVAR, and even that is only of use in talk-page discussions about whether the right ENGVAR is being used, a very rare sort of discussion (and one which is usually resolved quickly anyway). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:53, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS: On numbering questions: We should never, ever use non-English decimal numbering, e.g. "3,20" to mean "3.20". It is a non-English practice. We should never, ever use krore and other non-Western counting systems without also converting them to numbers understood by the majority of our readers, and we should really put the non-Western ones second. This is not IndiaPedia. There are no English-speaking people in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. who do not understand the Western counting system in addition to the native one; and non-native speakers of English in these places are apt to prefer their own-language Wikipedias anyway, except for topics those editions are missing. There is no case for just putting something like "3.2 krore" in an en.WP article and leaving it at that. The same general argument goes for Islamic and other calendar systems: put the standard Western date first, then provide a conversion to something else in articles in which such a conversion is topically relevant. As with the main point above, we can't force people to comply with style guidelines, so cleaning up after them in number and date matters is gnome work, not something to post huge banners about or harass people on talk pages over.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:02, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: I'm all in favor of requiring usage of UK/US numbering with any instances Indian numbering in South Asia-relevant articles. This is why I inquired about modifying Template:INRConvert so that the UK/US numbering automatically displays with Indian numbering.

Re: "non-native speakers of English in these places are apt to prefer their own-language Wikipedias anyway," That may not always happen, as English is the most commonly accessed Wikipedia variant in India even though very few Indians natively speak English. It may have to do with the English internet being more developed, English being associated with economic progress, and/or English being the only unified lingua franca for all of India.

Re: not using non-English decimal numbering: I fully agree. I have collected evidence above that European newspapers use UK/US numbering when writing English articles.

Re: National templates, it'll be good for Wikipedians to research the formal English of each country, and unless there are significant differences like South Asia, fold it into the Commonwealth or US templates, with a component stating the relevant country for each article.

English has gotten beyond its native countries, so Indian conventions have become a fully-fledged variety English. However WP:ENGVAR makes it clear that articles should be written to appeal to an international audience when possible, so I'm taking steps to modify INRConvert to fulfill this duty.

WhisperToMe (talk) 02:23, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, the fact that the Hindi and Kanada and Telugu and so on Wikipedias have far fewer articles means, yes, that en.WP is going to see more traffic from India. But that still has no implications that would lead us to put Indian numbering first or only. If people in the Hindi Wikipedia want to do that, we don't care; different site with a different general audience. "Significant differences like South Asia[n English]" are not significant differences in encyclopedic writing on English Wikipedia. We should not tolerate substandard "Indiglish" usages on en.WP, like "allows to", etc., any more than we'd accept Hiberno-English colloquialisms, like using [to be] after + an -ing verb to indicate past tense ("Intel is after releasing its tenth-generation Core series processors in May 2020"). It doesn't matter that lots of Indian and Irish people use such constructions in their everyday language, sometimes even in writing. It's not how to write formal English in those dialects. (These colloquial divergences are impositions of native-language grammatical structures onto English, similar to a half-fluent learner of Spanish imposing English adjective-noun order in a Spanish phrase.) Even if such things occasionally were to be found in some formal writing in those dialects, we would have no reason to permit them here, since they're confusing to everyone else in the world, including the overwhelming majority of our readers. Meanwhile, mainstream Commonwealth/British, US, and even Canadian English are not confusing to any fluent English speakers from anywhere (except where someone writing in any of these were to dive clumsily into weird colloquialisms like "gobsmacking", "ornery", or "pogey", respectively – the problem is with colloquial usage, not with region). Anyway, yes, we should fold most of these templates into a tiny set, instead of having national ones. At very most, have nationally named redirects. In the end, this comes down to very little beyond -our/-or, -re/-er, -ence/-ense and a few other spelling differences, and a handful of vocabulary ones (like survival of whilst in Commonwealth English, and its preservation of a practice/practise distinction). On other matters, we've even gotten American English users here to accept aluminium as an element name, and to go along with clarifying alternate to alternative in constructions like "alternative-universe fiction". British and other Commonwealth editors have been accepting of our preference for e.g. and similar punctuation (which is also found in most British style guides, just not for contractions that start and end with the same letters as the full word, thus Dr but Prof.), even if British news style in particular has a tendency to drop all punctuation it can get away with. There's just so little to fight about any longer that we have no need for all these claim-staking, aggressive-looking nationalistic templates. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:37, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

1. Even with the understanding that Indian language Wikis are less developed, the figures show ENwiki is 86% of the page views from India, with Hindi Wikipedia being 7.6%, and Marathi Wikipedia being 1% (Russian was 1.2%) effective 1 Sep 2018 - 30 Sep 2018.

2. ENGVAR states that only formal English usage is considered, so I agree colloquialisms don't belong in the article space on ENwiki.

3. For most commonwealth varieties I'd propose a template merge.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:15, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BTW Richard Shapiro (Pre-editorial Research Manager) of the Oxford English Dictionary posted an article on the OED blog titled: "The most distinctive counting system in English? Indian cardinal numbers". It goes into detail on exactly when Indian English speakers (in the printed media) use lakh/crore versus million/billion: the example from Times of India shows that Indian currency is in lakh/crore while foreign currency is in millions. This might be a good resource for Wikipedians. BTW the entry does say "The opinions and other information contained in the OED blog posts and comments do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Oxford University Press." WhisperToMe (talk) 16:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I found a NYT article: Joseph, Manu (2011-02-17). "India Faces a Linguistic Truth: English Spoken Here". The New York Times. - I quote: "English is the de facto national language of India. It is a bitter truth." WhisperToMe (talk) 17:31, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Convert all English variant notices to editnotices

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Convert all English variant notices to editnotices. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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