-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Alex, in my experience (being married to a woman that was born and raised in Brazil), the ability to communicate between Brazilians and Portuguese people depends on education level. College educated people have a large enough vocabulary to understand each other and smooth over the pronunciation differences. If you talk to people on the street in both countries this is not so.
I think if the goal is to make OOo as broadly accepted as possible, then two different language packs are appropriate. In the same sense I'd argue that different language packs for en_US and en_GB should be a no-brainer. I experienced the differences between the two first hand, being trained in German schools for en_GB and now living in the US. - From a marketing perspective it should be most effective to localize as much as possible. Make users feel at home and don't put up extra hurdles of communication. I guess the remark regarding education is true for British English vs. US English as well. However, I guess each local project would need to muster the resources to do so. Kind regards, Kaj P.S.: I'm saddened that there is so much history and obviously bitterness attached to this subject. Alex Fisher wrote: > On Friday 18 August 2006 21:07, Charles Schulz wrote: >> Hi, >> >>>> You also know that a >>>> native-lang project is language based, not country based. >>> So why is there a Brazillian Portuguese project and a Portuguese >>> Portuguese project? >> Because Brazilian and Portuguese are two very distinctly evolved forms >> of the same language, and came to be considered as two distinct languages. > > Which I find to be a little strange. I know and have worked with Brazilian > and > Portuguese. At one time I started a conversation relating to the differences > in the two forms of Portuguese. Interestingly, neither of the people (one > Brazilian, the other Portuguese) regarded their language as a different > language. They agreed there were minor differences, primarily in the area of > vocabulary. But they both agree that that is the only area of difference, and > even then it is minor. They both regularly spoke together in Portuguese, had > no major problems, even though they occasionally used different words. They > at lest would disagree with your assertion above. > > Now, I have been involved in small ways with this project for quite a few > years now (almost since the inception of the Marketing project in fact), and > I quite well remember the way these two Portuguese projects started. The > Brazilian group was the first (and the first Portuguese localization. At a > later stage, the Portuguese from Portugal started to complain that the PT_BR > localization was not good enough for them. Primary problem was vocabulary > based.... and so the PT_PT NL project came into being.... > > Let us now consider the various dialects of the English language. US English > differs from English English in several ways. Vocabulary is one area. > However, there are also noticeable variations in spelling, grammar and even > in syntax. Additionally, there are differences in deixis. US visitors to > England would have the same problems as US visitors to Australia. If they > simply use the same form of English that they are used to, they will be > regularly misunderstood. I drove taxis for many years, and believe me it was > often necessary to mentally "translate" what US tourists were telling me (I > got fairly good at it after a while). I also had to think carefully and > rephrase what I wanted to tel them, just to make certain that there was no > misunderstanding. > > In short, the point I am trying to make is that the differences between US > English and GB English (not to mention Australian English, which is still > almost the same as the GB form) are roughly the same as the differences > between the two forms of Portuguese. So in fact the argument for an English > NL project is the same as the argument for the different Portuguese NL > projects. US English *is* different, IMO in sufficient ways to make the > request for an English NL group as valid as the request for a separate > Portuguese (Brazilian) group. >>>> Now, could we just switch to some other topic? >>> Anytime you want to. >> Thank you, Ian. >> >> Charles. >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > - -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://conficio.blogspot.com/ ================================================ | We teach software one screencast at a time | ================================================ http://www.conficio.com/ Tel: +1 (781) 632 5773 - Fax: +1 (781) 207 9159 Conficio P.O.Box 761062, Melrose, MA 02176 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFE5cJcRDUvrJRNjTARAmHcAKCP0+sNNMymlmBINoknOi8iSkqA0ACfQyd1 u7zDdeZ1M8tjVGlQJVfU/Qg= =vj0L -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
