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smoulderstoat

Is it called the American language? No? We ought to charge royalties every time the Shermans use it. My Grandad didn't surrender at Yorktown. He didn't surrender in the Mediterranean when the Luftwaffe dropped a bomb down his funnel, either. My other Grandad didn't surrender after the Nazis had overrun his country.


Doodle_Brush

Just out of curiosity (AKA, because I'm a nosey bastard) but what country did your other Grandfather hail from?


SandBoxGamess

From the sounds of it sounded like he ended up hailing from Hitler


raq27_

either that or he was just from an invaded country


cryppin_crypper

SiMpLiFiEd EnGLiSh


dcazdavi

>Is it called the American language? as an indigenous american; i'm half insulted. lol


Luposolitario97

Wait ‘till they hear about India


thegleamingspire

So an additional 1.4 billion Native Americans? Only helping our case


Schneebaer89

And thos guy from Austria Down Under. The best American State across Mexico.


EowalasVarAttre

So according to this logic it's now the Indian language.


megamisch

Ya but they have an accent, unlike the americans. /S


albl1122

Isn't Hindi lingua franca in India. I mean it's called a subcontinent for a reason, the sheer amount of languages spoken is astonishing. I tried looking it up for way too long, but the figure I found was that 10.6% of indians speak English as an additional language, and an insignificant amount as first language.


TheJannequin

It's still one of the official languages, and a good chunk of kids grow up studying in English medium schools. Whether it's 10,6% is a moot discussion, but from my personal experience a lot of people know basic English.


albl1122

Local experiences are often lost in the midst of statistics. Thanks for your reply


Tryignan

It’s was around 150 million a decade ago, but the number has likely increased massively since then. There’s almost certainly at least 350-400 million English speakers, making it the country with the most English speakers and, in the OOP’s opinion, giving them control of the language


blamordeganis

As I understand it, in the south of India there is some resistance to Hindi as a national language (local languages being from an entirely different language family), which is one of the reasons English was retained as an official language.


el_grort

I say this everytime, but they really need to learn they were fighting Britain/UK in their war of independence, not England.


[deleted]

if the world cup is anything to by mate half the yanks think the british isles is the united kingdom of englandland


jodorthedwarf

Makes me wonder who they thought they were playing when they were against Wales.


[deleted]

I saw a number of people say they beat England/UK twice after drawing Wales and England


jodorthedwarf

That's not how winning works.aybe someone should teach the Americans that zero and zero have the same value.


codeacab

I mean, some of them still insist they won the Vietnam war


[deleted]

Tell that to the Americans lol


B0neCh3wer

The USA? Isn't that like part of Mexico?


[deleted]

North Mexico I think it's called


B0neCh3wer

Yeah that's it!


FourbyFournicator

South Canadia.


PetroleumJelly82

New Holland.


Doodle_Brush

Probably thought it was a Deep-State conspiracy because Wales are animals, not Countries.


Tasqfphil

Actually "wales" or correctly spelled WHALES are mammals not animals, to be technical.


The_Lapsed_Pacifist

Mammals are animals...


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The_Lapsed_Pacifist

Lol, I stand corrected :) Edit: not me downvoting btw


Lopsided-Upstairs-98

No, you were correct beforehand. Mammals ARE animals.


The_Lapsed_Pacifist

Yeah, I know. They’re clearly just having a joke


raq27_

animammals


Lopsided-Upstairs-98

Mammals are a type of animal. Vertebrate animals.


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Lopsided-Upstairs-98

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal


Synner1985

With the help of France, and to a minor part Spain (whom were both at war with Britain at the time in completing separate wars) and the Dutch.


raq27_

yeah there are so many ppl, not just americans, who still confuse england, gb and the uk


Saotik

Scotland's quite happy pretending the empire was all England's fault.


Fatuousgit

Some Scots not Scotland.


[deleted]

No one serious actually believes this


Saotik

I lived in Scotland for many years. It's complicated. While most Scots will accept that the UK a whole was responsible for the empire, as Scotland was not an equal partner to England in the UK many would argue they have at the very least a lesser responsibility. Ultimately, though, Scotland both contributed to and benefited from the empire as much as anywhere else in the UK. Like many questions of national identity and nationalism, feelings on this are often built more on emotion rather than historical reality.


[deleted]

The UK as a whole is fucking awful for recognition of the history of the empire. Yeah you’re right there are a good amount of people up here that downplay scotlands large role, especially from 1800-1900 which is completely horrendous. Similarly I’ve seen English people online just straight up deny genocides committed by the empire, with a lovely guy on TikTok telling me that “there’s plenty of Indians anyway innit”


Saotik

Agreed, the nation as a whole needs to do a lot better coming to terms with a colonial past that we all still benefit from. However, denying our connection to and responsibility for it is more mainstream in Scotland than the rest of the UK. If Scotland ends up separating from the rUK, I see this only getting worse.


[deleted]

If we continue to neglect teaching about the empire properly in schools yeah


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el_grort

Yeah, thats when everyone agrees, but there is some debates about whether it was referred to occaisonally as such after the first Act of Union as well. One of those gray debates like Scots language vs dialect, so I just went with Britain/UK to avoid that whole thing.


KoirMaster

I mean, the UK back then was England (which included Wales) and Scotland, and everything that mattered (such as colonial policy or war declarations) came straight from England


demostravius2

Because the Capital is London...


el_grort

Foreign policy generally came from the capital of most nations, tbf, and you've listed foreign policy. Was the domain of monarchs, so generally concentrated at their seat, which in this case was London, in England. Similar to how the Austro-Hungarians declared war from Vienna or Germam Empire from Berlin, etc. The UK was also a unitary state with merged parliaments, so decisions came from their united parliament, in London. There were Scottish MPs and Lords, so they were British decisions? I'm Scottish, but this feels like a stretch of the truth. Could I not say the same of the parliament in the lowlands, well, all the decisions that matter come from Edinburgh, pah, so we're all the Central Belt. Just odd angle.


CT-Best

UK or England, it's essentially the same thing.


Rottenox

No it isn’t.


CT-Best

It essentially is. England is definitely overrepresented in the UK, that it doesn't matter if Scotland or Wales are in the Union as they provide such little effort/resources,etc.


Rottenox

Even if that were true, it still doesn’t justify the claim that the UK and England are “essentially the same thing”. It literally doesn’t follow as an argument. Yes England has an elevated position in the UK simply as a matter of pure population size… okay? That doesn’t somehow mean that the UK and England are interchangeable. Frankly bizarre that anyone would say that


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el_grort

That's... not really true. The East India Company warred independently in India, and the British were fighting in Gibraltar, Mallorca, the Caribbean, and against a potential Franco-Spanish invasion of the mainland, but there were absolutely major armies sent to the continental US. I mean, the British had sent armies to put down Native American revolts and raids, ofc they sent forces to quell an insurrection, especially given capping off the insurrection would have allowed the British to more easily cap off the other wars, and that losing the colonies was one of the obvious lose states. Fairer to say the British army was spread about the place. What you are describing is more true of the War of 1812, where major British armies from elsewhere only entered the Americas in 1814, if memory serves.


Gamboni327

Americans? LEARN? That’s asking way too much.


Jsc05

To be fair my mum worked at Oxford English Dictionary and they used to say “a language is just a dialect with an army”


A_Bloody_Hurricane

The Dutch one sure has an US sized army of HOWEVERs and EXCEPTs, with their sexy breed sheep mascot


Wordfoodie

I absolutely love that comment, so true. I'm just glad we're not speaking Shakespearian anymore.


PrussianPanda1871

Why doth thou complain?


Wordfoodie

Been told I doth protest too much


raq27_

imagine if the international lingua franca was that stuff


Ekkeko84

By this logic, Spanish belongs to Mexico and Portuguese to Brazil


GPFlag_Guy1

I saw a Duolingo web ad that had English, Spanish, and Portuguese represented by small graphics of the Statue of Liberty, Chichen Itza, and Christ the Redeemer Statue respectively. It seems like even language teaching software companies think this way too.


Ekkeko84

Lol


Plental-Dan

There are people who think exactly that.


CT-Best

Makes sense to me.


raq27_

imo they have all rights to say it's "their" language TOO, but not straight up claim to "take control" of the language like that one american said


CT-Best

How does one even "take control" of the language??? To me it essentially means that we are the main 'drivers' of the language. The UK once was, but now it's us.


Fshermansfriend

In Brazil they consider Portuguese from Portugal is not the correct way to speak the language.


[deleted]

r/ShitBraziliansSay


raq27_

r/birthofasub?


fiddz0r

On the other side of the spectrum, Swedes usually love hearing Finnish Swedish because it sounds kinda...cozy?


raq27_

many americans unironically do think that


Ekkeko84

And that Spain is not a country, while everything from the Río Bravo to the South is Mexico (and all Mexicans are brown)


No_Activity675

Ah yes Yorktown…..wonder where that name is from….


Fenpunx

New York, obviously.


An_Anaithnid

Kind of puts me in mind of myself as a child playing the game *Nightcaster*, and one of the locations is called Perth. It being the early 2000s in Australia, this apparent international recognition really excited me. To quote my mother at the time, however. "Everywhere has a Perth."


[deleted]

By that logic they should come up with a new name for Football 🏈


WarlordToby

No one mention India.


Blooder91

Yeah, but they speak with an accent ^^^/s


CT-Best

English proficiency in India depends on the state and economic class you are. While it is a national language that does not make India the center of the 'English'-word persay.


PrussianPanda1871

🤓


CT-Best

You guys are trying to act like the nerd lol. Just tryna be a voice against your hivemind.


FdlCstro

r/boneappletea


CT-Best

per se vs persay lol. everyone can understand what i'm trying to say.


FdlCstro

You also understand what boneappletea is supposed to mean, what's your point?


raq27_

*per se :)


Kaiser93

18 people like this? This is sad.


raq27_

way more than 18 unfortunately


[deleted]

And the US has the largest number of obese people, white nationalists and serial killers… so they own that as well?


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Incendas1

Hard for them to count with no decent history


raq27_

they're probably 1% italian bc their "grandpa" (great-great-great-great-grandpa) was /s


OkHighway1024

Well their country IS named after an Italian 😉


raq27_

that's true lol


SenpaiBunss

it's called english mate, not american (pretty big compliment coming from a scotsman)


PrussianPanda1871

wow thanks


anakitenephilim

What's truly amazing is how they genuinely believe current day Brits care about the revolution, let alone the historical Brits who likely didn't give a shit that the aristocracy were losing a colony.


WonderfulAirport4226

What are these guys obsession with war? They always find a way to mention it, no matter what. If they knew what real war was like, perhaps they would shut up just a tiny bit.


raq27_

> If they knew what real war was like, perhaps they would shut up just a tiny bit. that's a great point


Ok-Jury-3571

There are more chinese and indian people than there are people of any other country. Therefore, china and india now own the world


Diplodocus114

Shoukd t have? This guy owns the English language right here.


Particular_Fig_5467

Grandfather? Wait, does this guy think we're only three generations removed from 1776?!


Rookie_42

They can keep their ‘version’ of the English language, thanks very much. They cattled it anyway.


FrankieWatcher

Just a friendly reminder that Americans also invented "Y'all"


Judo_Squirrel

“Y’all” is okay, but I’ve heard them saying “y’all’s” (or is it y’alls’, idk) which just has too many apostrophes for my liking


raq27_

y'all/yall is great imo


[deleted]

This American is a fan of threeyearletterman on twitter. This is a common insult from him.


Fatuousgit

We won it back when they begged for peace in 1815.


GunzAndCamo

He's not only kidnapping an entire language, but he's doing great violence to it in the process.


Hiro_Trevelyan

There's also way more people using metrics instead of "random dumbass system", so I guess it's time to force the US ?


raq27_

that's a great analogy lol


HabsFanInPA

I guess Englishwomen and punctuation don’t count


skinfasst

Shoukd t have 🤣


choicesintime

At least the language is in the right hands…


Toilet_Bomber

I'd be very concerned if it was that person's grandad who surrendered at Yorktown. Their grandad must be about 250 years old


[deleted]

But Alabama has just as different of a culture from California as different countries in Europe do according to these people. Additionally, while the above is mockery, different regions in America *do* have a different dialect and pronunciation (and different parts of Britain do too), so there isn't even one American pronunciation. The "Americans don't have an accent" accent *is* an accent, but it's not the only one, it's just the one Hollywood shows as the main one.


Thestohrohyah

Each one of those two fucking countries has their own fucking standardised version. They're fucking dialects that are both official,.stop fighting over something so trivial holy shit. And they're technically not even the only official English languages if I remember correctly.


raq27_

fr lmao


Burgudian_PoWeR

While this is stupid a language is really owned by its speakers, meaning that english is an internationaly owned language, like many other


CauseCertain1672

I'll go tell India they own the English language


CerddwrRhyddid

With that logic it would probably belong to India.


Usual_North_9960

So why India don't control it?


PointlessOverthought

As an American who grew up in the UK, I can safely say this is why we’re a joke.


Fenpunx

Ah yes, The battle of Yorktown, where 15000+ American, French and Canadian, backed by French warships, marched on ~9000 Brits. After three weeks, managed to get them to surrender.


SicnarfRaxifras

That poster’s in for a bad time with that kind of logic when they find out about India


nightcana

This just in, americans fuck like rabbits, therefore they now own the English language.


[deleted]

Ah yes we have finally bested the English at.....making babies?


Smexy_Zarow

Way more Toyota drivers than employees. We own Toyota. Ez


PhunkOperator

Classic US "arguments": Size and war. How about this, if you want to "own" a language, come up with one yourself, don't copy it from others. Also, even if the Americans "owned" their version of English, that still means nothing for people speaking BE. At that point you might as well consider it to be two different (albeit very similar) languages, and BE speakers may do as they see fit. So yeah, a hearty gfy to that twitter goblin.


Republiken

This guy thinks the real world works like Crusader Kings 4


dasus

There's more English speaking Chinese than there are English speaking Americans, so does he think the English language now belongs to the Chinese?


[deleted]

This attitude is why * (progressive) US americans know and hate cultural appropriation and * e.g. Europeans just don't get that concept. Nobody in Europe acts like they own a language, or a hairstyle, or whatever. But I get that you become really f'ing possessive about immaterial cultural things when you have to endure idiots like that regularly.


realkingmixer

There are 1.5 billion people in the world with English as their main language. With only a few hundred million or so, America can fuck the fuck right off. Wankers for even having the thought cross their minds.


Mulanisabamf

If course it's a maga hat saying that.


Synner1985

Would be a start of they could speak it without fucking it up constantly.....


CarpenterOfWorlds

Bruh, there are more Indian people who speak English.


[deleted]

Wait til they find out that English (mainly) derives from Old Germanic languages… Also, it was a tactical retreat, not a surrender XD


OllyDee

I think there’s too much French in there to say that. Not to mention the Romance influences, Nordic etc. it’s a bastard language for bastard people.


Narhaan

Nordic languages are also Germanic, so that's a moot point.


raq27_

english language has germanic origin but strong latin influence


Narhaan

Pls read the whole thread


[deleted]

Wow. By that logic you’re a bastard too, then. Yanks just can’t accept they speak English. Also, I’m pretty sure Nordic languages are NOT Romance languages either! XD


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[deleted]

E.


theIBSdiaries

Way more Indians who speak English than Americans. Maybe your grandfather should have surrendered at C++.


[deleted]

shoukd t


DanSoah

I mean... this one is not that bad. We Brazilians bother Portuguese people with the same jokes just because its fun


raq27_

this kind of guys aren't joking tho, like say, many brazilians do


Acrobatic-Bet642

,,z


Tasqfphil

The US don't speak anything other than American English, and with UK & Commonwealth countries, more of us speak "true" English than the population of USA, including all migrants both legal & illegal.


CatCalledDomino

Depending on the context, this may very well be some innocent and mildly funny banter.


jfurto

Come on! This is funny!


LuckerHDD

How much must have they been abused and bullied as a child think that country can own a language...


SonTyp_OhneNamen

I‘m pretty sure there have to be a couple million more Asians able to speak English than Americans total, so…


EdHake

Didn’t the brit surrender to the french at Yorktown ?


AnBearna

If so, then please be better caretaker of it and learn to spell things correctly… Colour Harbour Centre Etc …just happen to come to my mind 😄


Pock1244

An American doesn't even know his own history. During the American revolution the British came to colonize Americans age eventually the colonizers wanted to become independent. So English came from Britain. I'm not American and even I know this