• epicstove@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    When I was visiting Paris, a tour bus we got on had a audio guide, the languages were all labeled with national flags.

    English -> UK flag French -> flag of France Spanish -> Flag of Spain Portuguese -> Flag of Brazil

    Even in Europe Portugal plays second fiddle for it’s own language

  • kamen@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Traditional English vs Simplified English. I won’t tell you which is which.

  • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    I don’t like using country flags for languages. For one thing, not every language has a country of its own – there are 700+ languages in use today, but <200 countries. Many languages don’t even have any obvious insignia to represent them at all.

    If you’re making a piece of software and you want it ported to many languages, just use text to represent the language.

    • anachrohack@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      America has one of the largest Spanish speaking populations in the world, so in future web applications I will use the American flag to indicate Spanish, for the lulz

  • Event_Horizon@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    As an Aussie it really grinds my gears that office defaults to American spelling. And even after I change the dictionary to Australian or UK english it still continues to insert ‘z’ into words. It’s colonise, not colonize!

  • stebo@sopuli.xyz
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    7 days ago

    it’s worse when it’s an American flag because I’m always looking for the British one

  • redwattlebird@lemmings.world
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    7 days ago

    The way ‘herbs’ or ‘erbs’ (as some pronounce it) drives me absolutely nuts.

    Also, ‘mirror’ where it sounds like ‘meer’ drives me nuts.

    I definitely prefer British English. Love reading the old Agatha Christie books. E.g. “My word!” The colonel ejaculated, “I do believe that she’s dead!”

    • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      In the Black Panther they talk about the “heart-shaped 'erb,” and it sounds so strange to me, I always think it should then be “'art-shaped 'erb!”

    • SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      That “meer” thing has to do with where you are in America. Same with words like “roof” or “pecan”.

      • redwattlebird@lemmings.world
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        5 days ago

        Yep, I’m not doubting that.

        I have to say, though, my most favourite American accent is the Minnesota one. Fargo helped make it all sound very endearing. Unsure how they pronounce mirror. Perhaps it’s ‘meer’.

  • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    I wish there were some internationally recognized symbols to represent languages as distinct entities from their countries of origin, but the idea of trying to make some seems really unpopular for some reason.

    There’s other languages that have far more politically contentious flags representing them - at least all the English-speaking countries are broadly allies. Spare a thought for the Taiwanese who have to select a People’s Republic of China flag, even though the language is as much theirs as it is the PRC’s, or the large number of Russian-speaking native Ukrainians who have to select the flag of the country who’s bombing them and their families.

    The notion of a country owning a language is fraught with toxicity (indeed, Russia’s claim to vast swathes of Ukraine leans heavily on it), and if languages had their own flags we could sidestep the whole issue.

    • epicstove@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      French has the fleur De lies which, although it was a symbol of French royalty is still used on the flag of Quebec and some places in Canada identify the French language option with the flag of Quebec.

      Realistically, the best option would just be a shorted abbreviation of the language in that language. Ex. Eng for English and deu for German

      • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        There is a set of ISO codes for each language, but it’s not catchy used as an icon, and are also implicitly Western-centric by virtue of using the Latin alphabet.

    • BodilessGaze@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      I woke up screaming last night because I dreamed I went to grab my colored pencils and they said “colour” on the box. Almost as bad as that time I dreamed I had to take a driving tests and all the speed signs were in KM.

    • Rose@slrpnk.net
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      6 days ago

      At this point point, people who speak English as second language usually go “awww, how cute, the native speakers really think this is the biggest controversy of English orthography.”

      (Instead of, you know, everything.)

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    The British, when they have to click the American flag for English, and then they see “color” without the “u”:

  • BlackSheep@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    Seeing recipes from everywhere but the US, and Americans asking to have the recipe ingredients converted “for them”. Sheesh…

  • AtariDump@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Ok, it’s driving me crazy.

    Who is that? The actor, not the character they’re playing.

  • moopet@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    Languages and nationalities are not a one-to-one match anyway. What would you expect from a Canadian flag? French, or English? The USA has NO official language, so that makes even less sense.

    I wish people would stop trying to replace words with cute little images.