Re: [wg-review] Multilingualism

[Eric Dierker <Eric@HI-TEK.COM>]

Thank you for pinting this out, in case there is any confusion.  Whether it is right or
wrong, and regardless of how nations protect thieir cultural integrity or if it is the
result of the great English colonization, the North American prolifertaion or the simple
fact that the internet came from english speaking America -- English is it.

This cannot ever be the issue.  The issue is education and outreach.  You can be a big
fat ugly American waving your cash and insisting that everyone understand you, or you can
act like Peter Thrush and chair your position with dignity and respect for our friends
with a different language as thier base.  You can take reasonble steps to attempt to help
everyone understand.  You can resist squirming in your seat when a heavily accented
gentlmen takes great time to express himself in english.  You can work at and try to
locate services which will allow translation.  You can be friend to all and not stand on
your right to speak english in a clipped and quick fashion as regrettably but publicly
obviously our NC chair does.

This article is right.  But wanting to be understood by such wonderful and diverse
peoples as from Africa, South America, Asia, Europe and all the wonderful Islands not to
mention Scandinavia and that strange way they talk out of New Zealand and all I missed,
that is the joy.  It is the diversity that is the spice and within that diversity is the
understanding.

It is exactly here at this exact place where we can learn from one another.  Think what
us Norte Americanos can learn, from a Southeast Asian if he can only understand our
problems and remind us how lucky we are to have all we have.

Education, Outreach and Multilingualism is all about how we choose to use the internet.
It is like bridging the gap between a parent and a teenager, same language any where in
the world - not!  My teenage daughter has more in common with a teenager from Egypt and I
more in common with a father from Tibet.  And yet the biggest danger for all is the
failure to communicate.  Therefor the greatest goal is to communicate and to understand
each other.  I have great hopes of getting the written and recorded simulcasts not only
in english which helps greatly, also in a few other languages.

I could be tecnically wrong, but on a policy basis I think I am right in saying that as
long as the French and the Quebec people participate in meetings and the lists, by thier
own laws they must provide interpretation.  (Yes that is a challenge Mr. Morfin)

I will be rude here but with purpose, there is mandate and money for some of our fine
Arabic brothers and sisters to provide such interpretation yet they are not doing so on a
wholesale basis.

Excuse me my friends from Latin America but are you suggesting to the rest of the world
that within 20 countries you cannot figure out how to pool the money for translation into
some type of latin/spanish/porteguese.

Of three translators I recently was priviledged to befriend in Southeast Asia I found
that the cultural problem with women was a larger communication divide than language.
"How could they actually say the things a man said to me to me, being a women?"

So you see my good friend Sotiris.  It is not the language we speak but the effort we
make to include man, woman and child of our wonderfully diverse world into this great
Internet.  This is why I beg continuation of this group into the implimentation phase of
Education, Outreach and Multilingualism.

If I go on too much it is because I am obsessed with the concept of inclusion.

Sincerely,


Sotiropoulos wrote:

> An interesting article regarding the proliferation
> of English usage:
>
> World: U.N. delegates overwhelmingly prefer to use
> English
>
> The Associated Press
>
> UNITED NATIONS (March 25, 2001 1:11 p.m. EST
> http://www.nandotimes.com) - Years ago, English
> and French were considered the twin languages of
> the diplomacy business. But French is losing
> ground, if the United Nations' new guidebook is
> any indication.
>
> For the first time last year, countries listed in
> the U.N. "blue book" - a directory of permanent
> missions to the United Nations in New York - were
> asked to list the language in which they prefer to
> receive correspondence.
>
> Overwhelmingly, it was English.
>
> The countries were given a choice of English,
> Spanish or French because the other three official
> U.N.languages - Russian, Chinese and Arabic -
> cannot be read by most word processing programs.
>
> Of the 185 members that responded, 130 preferred
> English, 36 chose French, and 19 took Spanish.
>
> English has apparently gained ground in recent
> years partly because new countries formed after
> the fall of the Soviet Union prefer it, with only
> a few exceptions.
>
> In Asia, Laos and Cambodia said they preferred
> French but Vietnam, also a former French colony,
> chose English. Luxembourg took French, but
> Liechtenstein took English. Most Arab nations did
> the same.
>
> Brazil, whose native language, Portuguese, is more
> closely related to Spanish, picked English. Italy
> did, too. Romania, which also uses a Romance
> language, chose French.
>
> Only Canada listed two languages. In purely
> diplomatic form, it chose both English and French.
>
> Source:
> http://www.nandotimes.com/global/story/0,1024,500467265-500714363-503952987-0,00.html
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