A huge point about why I hate American-spelt words so much.

American here.  I can understand being frustrated over that.  I was born in the US to Cuban immigrants.  My father was adamant about me learning proper Spanish and would punish me for using words in that were Spanish versions of English terms.  For example, the proper term for to print in Spanish is imprimir.  However, most Hispanic people here say printiar.  To me, that sounds terrible, and I equate it to someone giving up on their culture and letting English take over.  I usually want to "correct" them, but then I realize, "If everyone understands them, what's the problem?  Who am I to tell someone how to speak and what terms to use?  I don't own Spanish and everyone that speaks Spanish owns as much of the language as I do.  They have every right to speak it the way they do just like I do." 

It also happens between different dialects of Spanish.  In the Cuban dialect, the word for mixed is mesclado.  However, Mexicans use mixto, and to me that sounds like an Anglophone making fun of Spanish by adding -to at the end of the English term.  But again, who am I to tell a whole culture how to speak?  If I were to interject and "correct" them, then the implication is that I control the language or that the Cuban dialect is somehow the correct one.  Imagine me thinking that I could tell a whole culture the proper terms they should be using.

It helps me to understand the possible reason for the use of what I see as the incorrect term when it comes to to print -- it's imprimir!  When printers started becoming accessible to the general population, they came out as printers.  Due to economic factors, the general population in the US had access to printers way before the general population in Latin American countries.  Thus, the Hispanic population in the US first experienced printers in English-speaking settings.  That means that when they first started hearing people talking about printing, they heard people say to print and somehow turned that to a Spanish term that is printiar because they hadn't heard imprimir before unless they were privileged enough to work on an environment that had printers.

Also, I love the way English people spell tyres and say aluminium.  Whenever I run into an English person, I get them to say aluminium because it makes me happy to hear them say it.  By the way, is English person the proper term, or should I be using British person?  Also also, when I read the word colours, I say it with a French accent in my head.

The French call everyone from the British Isles 'Anglais(e)' without fear or favour, if you try to introduce the concept of 'British', they typically get terminally confused with Breton.

I have a follow up question.  What is the noun for an English and British person, respectively?  For example, an American person is called an American.  Would it be the same for an English?  Or is the term an Anglo.  Is it a Briton or a Brit?

Dutch. 'I am a Dutch' does not work grammatically, but 'I am a Dutchman', does.

I think I have the opposite. Ordinary words just drop out of my 'ready access' vocabulary in mid sentence, irritatingly often, when speaking English. However, when speaking French I think that I am primed to search around for alternative words and expressions, as I am very far from fluent, so I don't have the same problem. 

Uh, no offence but, I don't like that word "wife".

All My Friends Are Autistic said:

If Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain but not from the island of Great Britain, someone from Northern Ireland is both British and not British at the same time?

Yes, anyone born in Northern Ireland can hold either a British or Irish (Republic of Ireland) passport, or both. My wife's mother was born in Northern Ireland and, because of this, she holds both British and Republic of Ireland passports.

Well, it was the Romans who called the inhabitants of the island of Britain, British. Originally it was 'Pretanni', possibly meaning 'The Painted Ones', referring to blue skin dye, woad, used by many Celtic peoples, it later morphed into Bretanni, and finally Britanni. The people would have mostly identified with their tribe, such as the Cantiaci, Brigantes, Catuvellauni etc. Catuvellauni literally meant 'The Battle Experts', it was the tribe that Caratacus belonged to.

The English, or Anglo-Normans. began the conquest of Ireland in the 1170s under a leader called 'Strongbow', but it wasn't really completed until the late 16th and into the 17th century. The English conquered the Welsh in the late 13th century under Edward I. He also tried to conquer Scotland, but unsuccessfully. The Scots and English first came under a 'personal union' when James VI of Scotland succeeded to the throne of England when his childless cousin Elizabeth I died. The two countries were only formally unified by the 'Act of Union' in 1707, at the time of James' gt granddaughter, Queen Anne. The successful struggle for Irish independence began withe the 'Easter Rising' of 1916 and was ended when effective independence was achieved, following a bitter armed conflict, in 1921. This was immediately followed by a civil war within Ireland. The civil war was largely triggered by the peace being dependent on the division of Ireland into the Irish Free State, later The Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland, which remained part of the UK. This was because The North (Ulster) had a large Protestant population that feared being politically and culturally swallowed up by a largely Catholic Republic.

I think it would generally be taken incredibly poorly if you were declaring that someone wasn't British enough. Like very John Cleese. If a person felt like that other part needed to be distinguished they would generally add it on. Nigerian-British or whatever. 

Technically I believe the full name is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so there's always a distinction. And the history and present status is such a mess that I'm not sure you really want to hear it from someone who isn't actually from there. 

What if someone is only kind of a Briton, like if I was describing a meal that had Cuban influence, but was not clearly Cuban.  "That's a Cubanish meal.  It has garlic, peppers, and onions, but I don't know what that BBQ sauce is about."  Then they would Britonish or Britishish?  Or is there a suffix that doubles the -ish, such as -ese, which would make it Britese.  "They're not completely a Briton.  They're Britese."

More fun!  In English, The country is called Germany.  In Spanish, it's called Alemania. In German, it's called Deutschland. Now, I may be incorrect, but I heard it's because of the respective tribes/nationalities that first had contact with the respective language ancestors.  So the Angles met the Germanic tribes.  The Castilians (possibly wrong Iberian nationality) met the Alemain tribes, and the Germans met the land.

Do you know of any other nationalities that require the use -man in it like Englishman?  Even Spanish people are Spaniards. Trying to think of British colonies, there's American, Jamaican, Trinidadian, Indian, Cuban, Bahamian, Canadian, Australian, South African, Kenyan, Palestinian, Iraqi,...not one .  There's no Bahamishman.

ohhHHHhh!  And Great Britain is the island that has England, Whales, and Scotland.

If Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain but not from the island of Great Britain, someone from Northern Ireland is both British and not British at the same time?

I feel like I'm on the opposite side of the conversation when I explain to someone that people from Miami are not Southern but people from Georgia are.

I'm guessing here, trying to put the pieces together. Someone from continental Europe made it to the islands north of what is now France.  These people called themselves Britons.  They spread out and covered all of the nearby islands.  They called the largest island Great Britain, probably organizing as a kingdom.  While separated on separate islands and experiencing invasions, the cultures naturally diverted their dynamic trajectories.  The people on Great Britain eventually gained political control over all of the islands and respective kingdoms, and called them the British Isles, while naming the kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain.  The people of Ireland then had a war of independence.  The Irish on the island were able to achieve independence, but the Irish on Great Britain were not.  Is this how it happened more or less?

That's so cool!  Lately, I've been interested by English history, both the people and the language.

I apologize for my ignorance.  We barely learn any English history in US education. 

In my head, Anglo- and Hispano- are two pre-fixes in the same category that mark descendance from their respective colonial power's culture, collectively known as the Anglosphere and Hispanosphere, respectively.  Therefore, we have Anglophones (English speakers) and Hispanophones (Spanish speakers).  A Hispanic person is someone who's culturally from a Hispanophone nation.  Is there an Anglo equivalent, like an Anglic person? Does the concept of a person of English-speaking ethnicity even exist outside my head?

A Northern Irish republican (mostly Catholic) would tend to call themselves 'Irish', but a Northern Irish unionist (mostly Protestant) might call themselves 'British' or 'Irish', depending on circumstances, or even only use 'British'. A person from either of the political/cultural groups might also refer to themselves as an 'Ulsterman' or 'Ulsterwoman'.

A) From my general education in the English language within English schools. So while "I am an American" works grammatically, "I am an English", does not (in the same way that "I am a Spanish" does not work either). This is because the words English and Spanish work as both nouns and adjectives, but their form (ending in '-ish'), is  primarily an adjectival form. Therefore, the addition of a suffix, -man or -woman, is absolutely necessary to make a statement of national identity grammatical in this case.

B) I have an interest in Zulu history and culture. The Zulu for the Portuguese is 'u Putugezi'.

Someone from-

Britain or UK : British

England : English

Northern Ireland : Irish

Scotland : Scottish

Wales : Welsh

"Englishman or Englishwoman are the historic usages. Englishman is the origin of the Zulu word for the English 'u Ngishmane'."

Not sure where you are taking that from but I have this-

"Old English Engliscman, from English (n.1) + man (n.). Related: Englishmen. Englishwoman is from c. 1400. Englander "native of England" is from 1820; in some cases from German Engländer. Englisher is from 1680s. Englishry is from late 13c. in Anglo-French as "state of being English;" from mid-15c. as "the English people or faction.""

www.etymonline.com/.../englishman

So many different information on my topic here by everyone that I'm unable to answer every person and their thoughts, and I can't even make my own comment here without replying to anyone for some reason. Anyway, no offence but I'm never interested nor ever been into the Dr. Who culture myself, or even Star Wars. It's gaming that always made me go along...despite the Americanism of words they always contain, especially that one word "armor" not properly being "armour". I ask myself, does anyone around here not want to consider typing in "armour" that way for me, when normally talking about something with me? Like say for instance (inside or outside of gaming), I had my own dream ally character being a huge fighting robot, and it should be commented for "its tough armour", WITH the "u" letter than without it. Please? You or anyone just say it for me as a quick demonstration? I've been suffering with seeing that word not having "u" a LOT lately now, so I could do with the corrected version for relief. Sorry, I'm just not in a decent mood right now, that's all.

And to recall, since no one mentioned back to my additional statement as well, that Diva girl in Streets of Rage 4 is not particularly nice to my mind and as a character herself within the game. She just always has that mean look on her face, like she doesn't ever want to smile or be positive, too. I know she's part of the bad guy group in the game but...whatever.

🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs said:

Do you think that being autistic has an impact not just on our communication in english but then also ads another layer of difficulty learning or rather using another language?

I think this derives by the way we condition our brains to think over the years - the more you work with logic (eg working in IT) the less easy it is to understand some of the abstract components of a foreign language.

I have struggled terribly to learn Portuguese over the years because there are so many rules for constructing even a simple sentence , especially compared to English. There are dozens of ways to say each verb depending on the tense and who it relates to, many words change their endings when in plural or depending on the gender it relates to, plus the usual batches of rules that make no sense but are expected to be understood.

Until you are fluent and the mental pathways for accessing this myriad of rules is burned in, you will inevitably have to put considerable thought into constructing the sentence then verbalising it (Portuguese has some sounds that are not common in english such as word ending in lha / lhe / lhi / lho or lhu plus some letters being pronounced quite differently such as words starting with R are pronounced H).

Considering how buzzing our brains are with the myriad inputs in any situation then you add this on top and try to keep up with the conversation - it is just overworking your aready stretched neurons.

For me English feels almost like an art form - there are ways to say things that have wonderfully subtle inflections or nuance in meaning and it comes so naturally as it is very much burned into my way of thinking.

I hope you don't mind that I ask this question, but do you find as an autist you are more or less likely to go non-verbal when trying to communicate in the language that is not your native one?
I ask because I have nearly always been hyper verbal in English, with going nonverbal happening just very briefly in the transitional "slipping gears" phenomena where my brain scrambles around it's inner thesaurus for the correct word so there is a noticeable but small pause before I speak again. However when in German (not my native language) I understand a lot more than I can say but I frequently just "forget" the words, even ones I do know, and end up being very nonverbal in those communications.
Do you think that being autistic has an impact not just on our communication in english but then also ads another layer of difficulty learning or rather using another language?

I tried explaining the concepts of Bretagne (Brittany in France) and Grande Bretagne (the Island of Britain), to two French friends, in my rather basic French. I got lost somewhere in the depths of Brittany originally being called Less Britain, in distinction to Great Britain, because the same people lived in both places. Trying to explain how Breton, Cornish and Welsh are closely related languages defeated me completely.

Englishman or Englishwoman are the historic usages. Englishman is the origin of the Zulu word for the English 'u Ngishmane'. Briton is the noun, 'Brit' is just an abbreviation in slang/informal use. Anglo is not a stand alone word it is either hyphenated as in 'Anglo-Indian' or fully incorporated into a word, such as Anglosphere.

Anglo is a Latinisation of 'Angle', possibly coined by the Venerable Bede, an 8th century historian. The Angles and the Saxons are the cultural (and partly the physical) ancestors of the English. Engle was just a linguistic variant of Angle and Englaland was an early version of England - land of the Angles. 

Englishman or Englishwoman are the historic usages. Englishman is the origin of the Zulu word for the English 'u Ngishmane'. Briton is the noun, 'Brit' is just an abbreviation in slang/informal use. Anglo is not a stand alone word it is either hyphenated as in 'Anglo-Indian' or fully incorporated into a word, such as Anglosphere.

Anglo is a Latinisation of 'Angle', possibly coined by the Venerable Bede, an 8th century historian. The Angles and the Saxons are the cultural (and partly the physical) ancestors of the English. Engle was just a linguistic variant of Angle and Englaland was an early version of England - land of the Angles. 

Dutch. 'I am a Dutch' does not work grammatically, but 'I am a Dutchman', does.

Do you know of any other nationalities that require the use -man in it like Englishman?  Even Spanish people are Spaniards. Trying to think of British colonies, there's American, Jamaican, Trinidadian, Indian, Cuban, Bahamian, Canadian, Australian, South African, Kenyan, Palestinian, Iraqi,...not one .  There's no Bahamishman.

That's so cool!  Lately, I've been interested by English history, both the people and the language.

A) From my general education in the English language within English schools. So while "I am an American" works grammatically, "I am an English", does not (in the same way that "I am a Spanish" does not work either). This is because the words English and Spanish work as both nouns and adjectives, but their form (ending in '-ish'), is  primarily an adjectival form. Therefore, the addition of a suffix, -man or -woman, is absolutely necessary to make a statement of national identity grammatical in this case.

B) I have an interest in Zulu history and culture. The Zulu for the Portuguese is 'u Putugezi'.

"Englishman or Englishwoman are the historic usages. Englishman is the origin of the Zulu word for the English 'u Ngishmane'."

Not sure where you are taking that from but I have this-

"Old English Engliscman, from English (n.1) + man (n.). Related: Englishmen. Englishwoman is from c. 1400. Englander "native of England" is from 1820; in some cases from German Engländer. Englisher is from 1680s. Englishry is from late 13c. in Anglo-French as "state of being English;" from mid-15c. as "the English people or faction.""

www.etymonline.com/.../englishman