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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

English (Traditional) vs English (Simplified)

That meme is such a load of hogwash. In many ways, US English is closer to "traditional" than UK English. They've both diverged somewhat from what they were in the 17th century. Neither form has been "simplified" in any way.

As for the Union Jack: the UK has at least 3 rather different languages (English, Gaelic, Welsh), possibly a few more depending on how you count the different kinds of Gaelic.

Using a country flag to represent a language has always struck me as being silly. Only rarely do they map 1-to-1.

It's entirely a joke based on the two different versions of "Chinese" offered on most websites, it's not really meant to be taken seriously. But I've heard that there's an island in New England somewhere whose local accent is closest to Elizabethan English.

Tangier Island off of Virginia, in the Chesapeake:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180206-the-tiny-us-isla...

Also, for what it's worth:

> Some people have characterised Tangier’s way of speaking as ‘Elizabethan’ or ‘Restoration’ English, but that’s nonsense. Languages aren’t static and the Tangier dialect has changed a lot because of its isolation. It’s a distinct creation of its own," Shores said.

Perhaps you’re thinking of Ocracoke, North Carolina[0]

[0]https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190623-the-us-island-th...

Yeah, but there is a real difference between simplified and traditional Chinese characters. Traditional are more ornamental/complicated while simplified are ... simplified/minimalist .

Honest question, what's the meaning behind this joke? Is it just referencing the fact that American English drops "u" in the spelling of e.g. "color"?

It's primarily a reference to various language selection dropdowns offering "Chinese (Traditional)" (which is used in Taiwan) and "Chinese (Simplified)" (which is used on the Chinese mainland). That difference arises from Mao-era simplification of many of the most common hanzi characters to make them easier to write or distinguish.

Mixed with, yes, the variant spellings and word choices (e.g. chips/crisps/biscuits) that make it apparent to British English readers when something is American.

I think my confusion is more from the implication that variant spellings imply "simplification"—even at a glance, simplified and traditional hanzi differ greatly in complexity, whereas I don't see how "chips" is any simpler than "crisps", even as a joke....

EDIT: Of course, it doesn’t matter one bit in the grand scheme of things—feel free to ignore my pedantry over a silly joke :-)

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