Also, more on-topic: I'll admit that I'm inclined to associate shorthand with lower intelligence and less skill as opposed to proper grammar, and that it influences me to shy away from shorthand users. But that association in my mind is less shorthand and more the fact that, as a rule based off of my own experience, players that use shorthand also seem to communicate less frequently and be less reliable than those who use proper grammar. Show me a reliable, communicative shorthand player and an uncommunicative, unreliable grammatician, and I'll ally with the former.

@President

Agreed 100%

dlaczego ta rozmowa jest po angielsku?
(stick that in your Google Translate an' smoke it...!)

just mixing it up a bit... I agree a bit with most of what's being said here. Actions speak louder than words, though - keep your eyes on the board... :)

I didn't read the thread. But I'm' in agreement - I'm generally loathe to trust someone who doesn't use proper English. That being said, that's often because they communicate far less.

my, what a load of linguistic imperialist swine we have in this forum tonight :)

as someone said a while earlier, I'd suggest brushing up your Mandarin instead of wasting all these evenings on here :D

@abgemacht Sorry mate but I refer google translate as one of the WORST translators. If it satisfies you though, I'm happy about it ^.^ French offer was a joke, I thought you would realise from "sacre bleu!" phrase xD

Anyway I personally suggest you to learn Turkish, that's my native language and sadly there is no "middle eastern language" since there are many languages spoken in Middle east. I hope my suggestion and imposing my own language to you annoys you enough :D

Secondly I sadly confess that if anyone is judging people regarding how they speak in such an international environment, I'm afraid there is a lot for these people to learn about communication... Hope these people learn if only they could have dealt with prejudices everyone would be happy now ^^

Lastly, the game creators speak English --> irrelevant
most people speak English --> irrelevant

English is spoken by the most powerful countries in the world --> *silence* A RACIST or at least SUPREMACIST comment huh? I like arguing stuff but I wasnt really expecting such a reaction. Yet I really wonder how come someone like you who does not aware of what he says can be a moderator in this forum.

Of course how you measure the power is clearly another issue. Yet irrelevant in this topic.

Anyway back to the point I can simply get 7 Swahili people to play a game in Swahili in this website and I do not think there is anyone, with a sound mind, can prevent this game. I can start a topic in the forum in Greek and no one can have a valid reason to prevent this, unless I'm being racist/supremacist (see your post as an example) or profane, etc.

Abgemacht? (<.< you know what your name means I hope, oh it is German *-* )

@ Nebuchadnezzar: iyi aksamlar, kardesh. Nasilsin? Turkce cok guzel ve cok zor... :)

To be fair, I think he was talking about in generic games - of course if you join a game with seven people who speak Swahili, it would be normal to speak Swahili. But the reason to speak English (in that most people speak it) is in general, otherwise people won't understand you. I think that was the point he was trying to make. As for the other comment, I would just add 'some of' and all would be well...

Okay, I wasn't paying attention to the first half of the sentence when I wrote the second. "But the reason to speak English (in that most people speak it) is in general, people won't understand you if you don't."

+1 - Nebuchadnezzar
English is a very widely spoken language, but it is nowhere near the most spoken language; Chinese trumps it by almost 3-fold (My language for the win!) But as Neb pointed out, irrelevant. This thread topic is regarding language use, not language choice.

Chinese trumps English almost three-fold - in the world. Not on this website. It's all about demographics, man. But irrelevant :)

This is true. The stat was meant to counter the reasoning that English should be a standard due to it being the most commonly spoken language.

Damn. I take the morning and afternoon off and look at the great thread. I'll have to read all the replies, but colloquialisms (like wanna and ain't and y'all) and some short hand is fine. Not everyone is on a computer or a college grad with perfect grammar, but I draw the line at no capitaliAtion and punctuation from native English speakers.

@Neb

"French offer was a joke, I thought you would realise from "sacre bleu!" phrase"

I know, which is why I responded with languages that I think *would* make sense to learn.

"Anyway I personally suggest you to learn Turkish, that's my native language and sadly there is no "middle eastern language" since there are many languages spoken in Middle east. I hope my suggestion and imposing my own language to you annoys you enough :D"

Actually, someone in my lab is from Turkey and the language sounds very nice. If I had time, I might ask her to teach me some phrases. And, I know that Middle Eastern isn't a language, which is why I said a *form* of Middle Eastern, as in, a language spoken in that area.

"Lastly, the game creators speak English --> irrelevant
most people speak English --> irrelevant"

Again with the misquoting. I said most of the *members* speak English. And why is this irrelevant? If I walked into a Spanish website, I wouldn't demand everyone spoke English.

"English is spoken by the most powerful countries in the world --> *silence* A RACIST or at least SUPREMACIST comment huh? I like arguing stuff but I wasnt really expecting such a reaction. Yet I really wonder how come someone like you who does not aware of what he says can be a moderator in this forum."

No, this is not racist. It is simply a fact that the US is the world's post powerful single country. Additionally, it is a fact that many other countries (such as India and China) use English for business and technology even though that isn't their native language. I'm sorry if the truth offends you.

"Anyway back to the point I can simply get 7 Swahili people to play a game in Swahili in this website and I do not think there is anyone, with a sound mind, can prevent this game."

They wouldn't. In fact, it happens all the time. Recently, there have been German, Portuguese, and on other games for non-English speakers. Nothing is wrong with this, nor did I ever imply there was.

"Abgemacht? (<.< you know what your name means I hope, oh it is German *-* )"

Yes, I am aware. I even know what it means. And, I didn't even use Google Translator : )

OK. All caught up. I donIt give a fuck what language is used in any given game or thread. Just use it to the best of you ability. Colloquialisms, slangs, and not racist , homophobic, or sexist profanity is fine by me. But 1337 to the point of obscurity and lack of *any* punctuation or capitalisatipn combined with disorganized thoughts that even Yoda would have trouble following... Geez.

@gigantor, you dont see the point mate. There is NO PROPER LANGUAGE here. You cannot just claim that "English" is the official language here. ıf you wanna reach most people you may prefer English. If you wanna improve your German you can speak German with others but no one can say "people should speak PROPER GERMAN in games". The language and the style is just up to people and this topic is for telling people what they think about their style.

But if someone starts to say "I think everyone should speak PROPER ENGLISH" or just "ENGLISH" then he is crossing the line.

Yet what is totaly unacceptable is the reason abgemacht gave why English is the proper language to communicate.

Do you speak English because the people in the most powerful country in the world speak English? That's not only absurd but also supremacist. And whatever the proper language or style to use in the games is, that's an improper style to use in this forum -especially by the admins-.

It's all about which power you have. If you're a power like Turkey, you want people to believe that you aren't the smartest and that you'll just attack everyone, so you type in shorthand. However, as Germany, you want people to believe you're smart and a good ally, so you type fully. I'd say in general you would rather appear smart than anything else, so usually I type with capital letters as well as lowercase ones.

It's just another diplomatic tool, and its good to be able to do both.

@Neb

Now you're just being silly. I gave two very good reasons why English is the primary language on this site. You simply chose to ignore both of them.

At no point did I ever, ever say you can't speak other languages here. Nor did I say there's anything wrong with people (non-native) who can't speak English every well.

Your argument against me is completely baseless and rather hysterical.

There is a distinction to be made, I think at this juncture, between people who use improper grammar because English is not their first language, people who use improper grammar because they're poor writers, and people who intentionally use shorthand. You can usually tell the difference between the former and the other two. The second two are annoying, the first generally speaking is not. The issue I have is with the latter two, although I won't actually say anything about it, or let it affect who I ally with, at least not consciously.

@Mafia

I agree and I think I've made that very clear to everyone except Neb.

And yes, I totally do see the irony of making a post like that full of unnecessary commas and poorly phrased sentences.

@Neb: I'm not saying you have to speak English. I'm saying if you speak Turkish to me in a game, I'm not going to understand and therefore it's not going to do you any good. And that's true for the majority of users on this site. English is, for the moment, the global language. It's not mandatory, but a lot more people will understand you if you use it. And we're not saying you HAVE to speak proper English, we're saying that (if you speak English) we prefer that you use proper English.

"Yet what is totaly unacceptable is the reason abgemacht gave why English is the proper language to communicate. "

No it isn't. There has to be a single common language which everyone speaks, to make sure any two random people in the world can successfully communicate with each other. Like it or not, in our time, that language is English.

The reason this is so has much to do with the USA winning two world wars in a row, and becoming the most powerful nation in the world. There are people in this world, mostly americans, who don't speak any other language than English. So to speak to them you'll need to learn English yourself. Or you choose to ignore them.

The thing is, these people have become too powerful to ignore. One can afford to be unable to communicate with people that only speak Swahili, or Polish, or some other not-so-common language.

The choice of common language is changing. In medieval times, it used to be French, because France was a very powerful nation. At some point during the 1600s Dutch stood a chance, because that was the golden era of Dutch naval economy. Likewise, Russian and Chinese are bound to provide an alternative to English in the near future.

i personally think its ridiculous when someone takes typing so seriously. most people dont have time to sit and really capitalize. i certainly write properly in real life, but i rarely capitalize in diplomacy writing.

i guess a good argument against me is by saying Typing properly helps one learn how to type. I guess so. But it slows me down just a bit when I have about 5 mins break from work.

Plus, sometimes I find people who speak other languages, and I would speak with them for fun. Like I'm currently speaking German with someone in my league game.

What is so hard about pressing the shift key? Even so, at least you form sentences with periods.

@Draug: what do women's menstrual cycles have to do with this?

aaaahh, you are talking about AY-MEHR-IKAN English as the global standard. Okay, now I get it... ;)

Just cranking you lot up, it's clearly pretty easy, looking at the dialectic on here...

Personally, I like to use the best English I can, and I kind of expect others to do so as well. Being able to spell properly and use correct grammar and punctuation is a sign of intelligence. It is a status symbol, by which we can separate the geniuses from the mentally impaired.

If someone uses lots of slang, colloquialisms, and grammatic mistakes, I will perceive him as less intelligent. Or he's not putting as much effort into our communication as I consider necessary. In both cases, his chances of becoming my faithful ally decrease. This is not a concious decision I make, but a subconcious judgement.

For non-native English speakers it is different. If they don't want to be judged by their use of language, they should mention somewhere at the start of the game that they are non-native. But since the majority of players is English/American or speaks English as well as them (or better!), that's my basic assumption.

For the record, my mother language is not English.

my last message was for abgemacht actually ^^

again as a response to abgemacht's message,

I didnt argue about first and second points you made, because third one was extremely unacceptable.

First one is ridiculous, the creators cannot be a reason to speak English in this game. I really cannot see that you are giving ANY strong arguements to defend this point at all... Besides Kestas name sounds to me like Greek and indeed he may be Greek, then why dont we speak Greek or at least if he were, would we speak Greek in here?

Secondly, I never say everyone must speak another language other than English, we both know that. I'm glad that you come to my point which is people should speak the language they want to.

I would like to know why do you think native speakers should speak proper English in the game whereas non-natives dont? Besides I really wonder how can you distinguish a native speaker pretending to be non native from, good non native speakers...

My point is simple, if you still cannot get it let me reiterate:

Anyone can speak any language in any style at any level, no matter if translated via a lousy online translator or not. NO one can impose a standard for language for natives or for non natives.

And your last statements have moved towards my point, or they were always close to it, whichever you claim...

My problem is you claiming that everyone should speak English to communicate USA is the most powerful coutry in the world. That's a completely RUDE and SUPREMACIST and totaly UNACCEPTABLE to be heard from a reputable ADMIN!

I'm afraid you cannot see the point why I am mad. It is not that you claim the most powerful nation is the USA. Anyoen can claim any nation is the most powerful. Just take off your blinders my friend. There is no such objectively "the most powerful country" in the world. It changes from person to person...

So why am I mad? Because you said that, WE must speak ENGLISH because the USA is the most powerful nation in the world.

Excuse me but that's clearly SUPREMACIST and unacceptable.

And I personally think that you should apologise to the WHOLE forum about it...
Right?

@ Neb: wow, chill out... :)

First it's Erdogan telling your countrymen in Germany not to assimilate, then it's your power-hungry Army generals posturing and playing Top Gun with the Greeks. Less orta kahve and more sishas are in order, I think... :)