RE: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Erland, Probably the reason that the Brazilians and Italians did not concern them selves it that they spoke another romance language. While there is a bit of difference between Italian and Spanish, Portuguese is much closer and most educated Brazilians can understand a lot of Spanish. Many of the common words are different but once you can recognize this small vocabulary, you can understand a lot of Spanish even if you can not speak it. Carl -Original Message- From: Erland Sommarskog [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2000 12:46 PM To: Unicode List Subject: Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ? Elliotte Rusty Harold [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I've held my tongue in this flame-fest so far, but I'm afraid I can't keep silent any longer. Unlike citizens of some larger countries the Danes and the Dutch have no illusions that the world is going to speak their language. They willingly accept that the mountain isn't coming to them, and they're going to have to go to it. I can't speak for the Dutch and the Danes, but as I've noted my fellow countrymen do expect that everyone else speak English. In a world that gets smaller every day, we are quite lucky that there is a lingua franca, even if that lingua franca is English. English is the language most commonly used for communication between speakers with different native languages. But it is by no means the only one. I occassionally go on holiday trips to vaious places, and there has yet to be a voyage, where the only foreign language I have used is English. Even in Korea, where one would expect that English is the only western language people would ever learn, I actually had an exchange in French with a native. (Korean is not a language that I know. I did learn to read Hangl before I left, but that's all.) I was on this bus excursion in the south of Argentina, and the guide asked "is there anyone here who does not understand Spanish?". I was by no means the only person in the bus who did not have Spanish as my native language; there were plentyful of Brazilians and Italians in the company, but I was the only one who considered to make myself heard. (I didn't; I'm mildly interested in tour guides, and the only reason I took this tour was because this was the only way to get to the glacier. Anyway, while Spanish is a language I only half-know, I grasped most stuff of what she said, even if the Argentinian phonlogy confused me at times.) -- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Paul Keinanen wrote: In Finland in order to become a civil servant, get an academic degree or even pass the matriculation exam you have to pass tests in both Finnish and Swedish [...]. Being able to pass tests in non-native languages does not count as bilingualism, as any American who managed to learn enough French and German to qualify for a Ph.D. (in the old days) can tell you. About 7 % of the population in Finland speaks Swedish as their mother tongue and I would estimate that 90 .. 95 % of those living on the South coast of Finland are truly bilingual, i.e. you can not tell from the Finnish accent that their mother tongue is Swedish. However, the situation is different on the West coast and in the archipelago. Therefore the official use of Swedish in Finland is essentially a byproduct of decolonialization, correct? -- There is / one art || John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Elliotte Rusty Harold [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: When I was in Denmark, one evening I ate dinner in the hotel next to a couple of French businessmen. They communicated with their Danish waiter in English, quite easily, then went back to conversing in French. Scenes like that are repeated around the world thousands of times every day. That simplicity is possible when everyone shares a language. Now imagine what happens if the waiter, instead of learning English in school had happened to learn German and Norwegian. And the French businessmen had learned Spanish and Italian. That is not an imagination. It is happening. Not the least to people who think English is enough. Many years ago I was in Greece with my mother. At some occassion we passed a place where there were a lot a water in the street. We were curious on what was going on, so we asked a local. However, he knew neither English nor German nor French nor Swedish which were the languages that me and my mother mastered. But he claimed that he knew some Spanish. Or let me take another anecdote. I was in Soifa, and stayed in a private room. The charming landlady explained to me were the facilities were, and that she herself was to sleep in the kitchen, because she already had one room occupied. She did this in the only language she knew: Bulgarian. I know a wee bit of Russian and just another wee bit more of Polish. But, together with her careful and gentle gesturing, that was enormous help. The moral is simple: the more languages you know, the better the odds that you will able to communicate. They'd have been reduced to a lot of gesturing and trying to decode a menu in not particularly comprehensible Danish. When I'm on travel I am occassionally presented a menu in English. This is not at all as helpful as it may sound. Why? Because I may not always know the names of the dishes in English, but I usually have a Swedish dictionary for the local language with me. And I for one much rather have the menu in Danish than English... Kan jeg få et smørrebrød, tak? -- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Ar 21:53 -0800 2001-01-02, scríobh Asmus Freytag: There won't be. All evidence (and there's lots of it here in Ireland where we have English-medium and Irish-medium schools) shows that, in general, children who are bilingual do BETTER in school than monolingual children. My own personal attempt at explanation is that the rapid acquisition of a full second language (and culture) during that time might have bound some of the capacity that otherwise could have expressed itself in improved analytical scores. The alternative conclusion would be that the analytical test measured an innate skill largely unrelated to and unaffected by my ongoing scientific training. With this experience as a background, I've been very wary in accepting any purported study results in this area. But you were NOT a child when you took the tests, were you? Language acquisition ability reduces as one ages, in general. Rather sharply as adolescence sets in. Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland Mob +353 86 807 9169 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Vox +353 1 478 2597 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
I would like to see any statistics tending to prove that pupils learning more languages have worse results in maths or science than the unilingual ones (let's say a comparison between HK pupils and the US ones ;-)). There won't be. All evidence (and there's lots of it here in Ireland where we have English-medium and Irish-medium schools) shows that, in general, children who are bilingual do BETTER in school than monolingual children. I grew up in Slovakia. By default every Slovak child grew up with two languages: Slovak and Czech. In fact, so much so, we did not even think of Czech as a foreign language. Additionally, many children in my home city of Bratislava grew up learning Hungarian and German as well. We had to study Russian starting in the third grade. I studied German since the second grade (I did not study Hungarian, though, as I said, many others did). I did very well at school, as did many of my classmates. I was also an avid reader as a child (still am, for that matter) and was able to learn many things on my own. I really fail to see how learning more can make you a poorer student. It just comes with the territory, so to speak. And with the attitude: A Slovak proverb says: "As many languages you know, that many times you are a human being." In my personal experience, learning languages from early childhood was an advantage, not a disadvantage. At the age of 29, I left Slovakia, spent 6 months in Austria. In that time, I took two months of intensive Italian (a language I did not study before), then moved to Rome, enrolled to Gregorian University, and was ready to study with no difficulties. Cheers, Adam === Whiz Kid Technomagic === http://www.whizkidtech.net/ The resource center for webmasters and web users Winner of the Starting Point Hot Site award Winner of the Lighthouse Award Home of the Web Magic Award
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Ar 2001-01-02 21:53 -0800, scríobh Asmus Freytag: There won't be. All evidence (and there's lots of it here in Ireland where we have English-medium and Irish-medium schools) shows that, in general, children who are bilingual do BETTER in school than monolingual children. My own personal attempt at explanation is that the rapid acquisition of a full second language (and culture) during that time might have bound some of the capacity that otherwise could have expressed itself in improved analytical scores. The alternative conclusion would be that the analytical test measured an innate skill largely unrelated to and unaffected by my ongoing scientific training. With this experience as a background, I've been very wary in accepting any purported study results in this area. There is another possibility, here. The exercise of learning other languages, and the connections the other languages make possible, may serve to boost one's abilities in other areas. The discussion also reminds me of the need for both written and aural training, the fact that one barrier to this in the past has been the great expense of systematic training recordings, and the possibilities of those costs dropping as DVDs with capacities for 20 hours of material come on-line, as we type. (Now, if we could just develop ways to absorb that 20 hours worth within a few minutes... :B-) John G. Otto Nisus Software, Engineering www.infoclick.com www.mathhelp.com www.nisus.com software4usa.com EasyAlarms PowerSleuth NisusEMail NisusWriter MailKeeper QUED/M My opinions are probably not those of Nisus Software, Inc.
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
On 12/31/2000 11:47:37 AM Alain LaBonté wrote: À 05:40 2000-12-31 -0800, Darya Said-Akbari a écrit: Hello Alain, Now think there would be one guy from Iran and this guy would say that not english or french but farsi should be the real universal language. Think that farsi is spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, ... . What would be the difference for you. I think it would make a big difference for you. [Alain] The idea was to say that there is no such thing as a universal language, I believe. (I've monitored this thread only sporadically, so forgive me if I repeat things already said, or if I have misunderstood any points previously made.) I think we could all agree that English is a very important language for communication around the world, and that it is likely the closest thing to a universal language. I agree with Alain, though, that it is not, and that there is no single universal language. I agree with Darya that English got to where it is more or less by accident of history and that, all other things being equal, Farsi or Mongolian could also have been candidates. But I don't think the issue that Alain was originally raising was whether English deserved to be the universal language, as opposed to any other language. I think the point he was wanting to get across, and a point I would want to support, is that we live in a very multilingual world (whether you understand that to mean people that speak more than one language or simply that many languages are spoken), that people want to communicate in *lots* of different languages, and therefore that we need to continue developing information technologies so as to better support the multilingual reality of the world we live in. - Peter --- Peter Constable Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA Tel: +1 972 708 7485 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Hi, Why do we discuss the issue whether english is the universal language or not. Unicode stands not for english as the universal language but for all people on this planet to talk in any language they like. Let the Chinese read the internet in Chinese, the Iranians in Farsi and so on. I really dont know where the problem is here. regards Darya [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: On 12/31/2000 11:47:37 AM Alain LaBont wrote: 05:40 2000-12-31 -0800, Darya Said-Akbari a crit: Hello Alain, Now think there would be one guy from Iran and this guy would say that not english or french but farsi should be the real universal language. Think that farsi is spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, ... . What would be the difference for you. I think it would make a big difference for you. [Alain] The idea was to say that there is no such thing as a universal language, I believe. (I've monitored this thread only sporadically, so forgive me if I repeat things already said, or if I have misunderstood any points previously made.) I think we could all agree that English is a very important language for communication around the world, and that it is likely the closest thing to a universal language. I agree with Alain, though, that it is not, and that there is no single universal language. I agree with Darya that English got to where it is more or less by accident of history and that, all other things being equal, Farsi or Mongolian could also have been candidates. But I don't think the issue that Alain was originally raising was whether English deserved to be the universal language, as opposed to any other language. I think the point he was wanting to get across, and a point I would want to support, is that we live in a very multilingual world (whether you understand that to mean people that speak more than one language or simply that many languages are spoken), that people want to communicate in *lots* of different languages, and therefore that we need to continue developing information technologies so as to better support the multilingual reality of the world we live in. - Peter --- Peter Constable Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA Tel: +1 972 708 7485 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
At 4:53 AM -0800 12/31/00, Michael Everson wrote: Ar 07:48 -0800 2000-12-30, scríobh Patrick Andries: School curricula are quite crowded already. Every extra language you add is less time for math or history or science or the native language. And where do you find the teachers for all these extra languages? I would like to see any statistics tending to prove that pupils learning more languages have worse results in maths or science than the unilingual ones (let's say a comparison between HK pupils and the US ones ;-)). There won't be. All evidence (and there's lots of it here in Ireland where we have English-medium and Irish-medium schools) shows that, in general, children who are bilingual do BETTER in school than monolingual children. I don't dispute that, and I do approve of teaching children a second language from a very early age. Bilingualism is a very good thing. The question is, can you teach them a third? a fourth, a fifth? At what point does the system overload? In my American high school we took two languages plus English (nothing in grammar school unfortunately), and the third language demonstrably came at the expense of science. Other schools may do better or make different trade-offs. But, at best, you might expect typical students to learn two languages besides their native tongue. If those three languages are English, Spanish, and Chinese, they can still talk to less than half the world's population in their preferred language. Some people on this list can handle ten languages or more, but even in these extreme cases; there are probably more people they can't talk to than they can. When I was in Denmark, one evening I ate dinner in the hotel next to a couple of French businessmen. They communicated with their Danish waiter in English, quite easily, then went back to conversing in French. Scenes like that are repeated around the world thousands of times every day. That simplicity is possible when everyone shares a language. Now imagine what happens if the waiter, instead of learning English in school had happened to learn German and Norwegian. And the French businessmen had learned Spanish and Italian. They'd have been reduced to a lot of gesturing and trying to decode a menu in not particularly comprehensible Danish. As has been pointed out, this list could not exist if we all spoke only our native tongue and a few other randomly chosen languages. It's because we have English in common that we can communicate despite our different backgrounds and education. Having English (or any other language) as a common medium of translation makes life simpler. This is actually a very common pattern in software design. When faced with a tangled mess of many-to-many connections between objects, you can clean it up by creating one intermediate object and letting all the other objects communicate only with the central object. However, creating a new language is much harder than creating a new class. People have tried, and the world rejected their creations. Rightly or wrongly English has succeeded and Esperanto has failed. In order for the world to communicate effectively and cheaply, there needs to be a lingua franca. At this moment in history, that language is English. In the future it will probably be something else. But having a universal language makes it a lot easier to travel, conduct business, do science, create art, and take part in any other activity that involves many participants from many different cultures and languages. A universal language should not supplant other languages, but it is a good thing, and it does make life simpler and more pleasant than it otherwise would be. -- +---++---+ | Elliotte Rusty Harold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Writer/Programmer | +---++---+ | The XML Bible (IDG Books, 1999) | | http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/ | | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764532367/cafeaulaitA/ | +--+-+ | Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/ | | Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/ | +--+-+
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Ar 07:48 -0800 2000-12-30, scríobh Patrick Andries: School curricula are quite crowded already. Every extra language you add is less time for math or history or science or the native language. And where do you find the teachers for all these extra languages? I would like to see any statistics tending to prove that pupils learning more languages have worse results in maths or science than the unilingual ones (let's say a comparison between HK pupils and the US ones ;-)). There won't be. All evidence (and there's lots of it here in Ireland where we have English-medium and Irish-medium schools) shows that, in general, children who are bilingual do BETTER in school than monolingual children. The Americas being one of the most unilingual place in the World...(if we except California ?). And Arizona. And Florida. And New York (City). Trilingualism and more is I'm afraid just too much to ask of most people who aren't full-time language professionals or naturally gifted with languages. Actually, all human beings are naturally gifted with languages, so long as they are introduced to those languages young enough. Like well before 10. Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland Mob +353 86 807 9169 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Vox +353 1 478 2597 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
on 31/12/2000 18:12, John H. Jenkins at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 4:53 AM -0800 12/31/00, Michael Everson wrote: Ar 07:48 -0800 2000-12-30, scríobh Patrick Andries: Trilingualism and more is I'm afraid just too much to ask of most people who aren't full-time language professionals or naturally gifted with languages. Actually, all human beings are naturally gifted with languages, so long as they are introduced to those languages young enough. Like well before 10. This is really a bit part of the problem IMHO. In the US, we don't even *start* teaching foreign languages to children until their in their teens at best, and for the most part foreign languages are treated as "foreign," and not something to use in everyday conversation about the home. -- = John H. Jenkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://homepage.mac.com/jenkins/ Yes this is correct, John, When languages will be teach as a tools to communicated to other? as a open mind peace process... When languages will be teach during a scientist, mathematical or geographical lesson?... It is important that much people as possible listen the possibilities to communicated and develop the possibilities to wrote in other system as well as Hebrew, Latin, Korean, Japonesse, Thay, Mongolian or other This subject on this unicode list are important and very interesting as We know why unicode must be well develop. Have a very good new year evening and see you next millenium NiceGuy :-) ;-) :-? °-) l ~!° °-° ^!^ !~ ~!¹ ~!° °° (*!*) Guy-A. Schockaert, Designer Graphique, UDB, HFDIA, FSTD, Design for the World Past President Icograda 1999-2001 International Council of Graphic Design Associations Ad hoc Design s.p.r.l. Atelier conseil en communication visuelle Venelle aux Quatre Noeuds 98 B - 1150 Bruxelles - Belgique T +32 02 770 65 42 F +32 02 770 14 02 Hand phone +32 0475 76 33 22 E.mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] :-o :-/ :-P :-D :-| :- :-)8 °.-) ,¹-) .-) :-} *:-) (:)-) This document is for the personal and private attention of the addressee and should be read by the addressee only. Ad hoc Design accepts no liability and/ or responsibility whatsoever for all and any consequences arising out of but not limited to the receipt by a party, other than the addressee, of this communication. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately thereof by telephone. Kindly destroy this communication immediately. Any form of reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication of this communication is strictly prohibited. www.icograda.org -- Let's meet in South Africa! At the ICOGRADA Congress, Continental Shift 2001 When? On September 12-14, 2001 You didn't register? Contact Ripcord Promotions on: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 05:40 2000-12-31 -0800, Darya Said-Akbari a écrit: Hello Alain, after your explanation I dont know what we should discuss now. Did you expect such a reaction from all the friends in this list? They all like to tell their experiences to each other. And once you read them you can find a lot of interesting stories. Stories that I have read in english. Now think there would be one guy from Iran and this guy would say that not english or french but farsi should be the real universal language. Think that farsi is spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, ... . What would be the difference for you. I think it would make a big difference for you. [Alain] The idea was to say that there is no such thing as a universal language, I believe. [Darya] Let me say this to you, it is english because the past made it this way. It could be also mongolian. What we have now is the result of our human being history on this planet. And as a side effect the world simplest language has been established. [Alain] This seems to be debatable. Here is what sent me a person of Slavic origin on this list (as he sent this to me privately I don't uncover his name, unless he wants to do so) : Now there is a point that most people seem to be overlooking in the discussion - i.e. that English is objectively a difficult and highly impractical language. To give you an example, in my Institute, which is a scientific entreprise and in which knowledge of foreign languages is essential - out of 20 persons with academic titles and working as researchers some 15 have English and often only English as their foreign language, some 5-6 have German, 4-5 have French, 3-4 have Russian and 1 has Italian (this is my case, I cover Italian, English, Russian and to a degree French). [...] However, the major point is the following - although 15 of 20 have English as a foreign language - ONLY 2-3 are able to function in English on ALL levels, i.e. comprehension, reading, speaking and writing - however, almost all the 15 have studied English for ten years or more. In the case of German, 4-5 of the 6 function on all levels, and in the case of French o[r] Russian all levels are represented, for the most part. However, when one looks at the number of years spent in learning the languages, as I said English was studied for over 10 years with catastrophic results, French, German and Italian usually for 5 to 10 years with much better results, and Russian usually only for 2-5 years, with excellent results (although this is also due to the fact that Russian, as a Slavic language, [...] [Darya] In a way that is good for all english native speaking people. But that is not important. And do you know why? Let me explain it to you. You can even speak the same language with your own countrymen and its possible that you really dont understand them. So, it is not important what you say, but it is important what you mean. The 'what you say' is our language (take english, french, ...), but the 'what you mean' is our brain our soul our conversation our behaviour our stories and lots more. So the language is only a simple tool like a car that you can use or not. [Alain] I have a dificulty to follow you here. Are you telepath? If so (sincerely), I would like to know your secret. I am telepath too, but I unfortunately can't control that gift at all, vene if I have tried for decades (I am still trying). [Darya] Now give me the answer why english, why french? Why not farsi? [Alain] I already said this: I do not believe in a universal language. Not more French than English, not more Farsi than French. If there were to be a universal language it should be one that is not the mother tongue of anybody on earth, like esperanto (although this one is definitely biased toward Indo-Euroepan languages, so I do not preach for it -- although I learned it, but stopped to use it -- it was elementary anyway -- some years ago). I said -- in this thread, I think -- that diversity was a law of nature and I also think that the microsecond there would be a universal language it would already have begun to divide. It is but normal, nature is wise in this way. [Darya] By the way, I hope no one in this list has attacked you personally. Dont be sad that french is not the universal language, it shares its fate with all the other world languages. And those will also survive. [Alain] I have no wish that French becomes the universal language as I do not believe in that, as I said from the beginning. I am sure that Venusians, if they exist, do not speak French nor English... (; So universality would be very much parochial in the universe in this way. [Darya] For me its also interesting to discuss this issue from Quebec out, where this territory is neither french nor english but originally from the indian tribes in this area. What about their languages? [Alain] You will say that I exaggerate but the bare truth is that in Canada, the Amerindians who preserved their language the
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Bon jour Alain, I honestly had not the strength to read your whole email. But there are several marks I recognize. One that you are from Quebec and that Quebec has a french history. Second that your name sounds really french. So I imagine that you are native french speaking human being on this planet. I am like you a multilingual human being and the reason I am here in this list is, that I have the dream that the last tribesman in the last corner of the amazon jungle or iranian desert is able to use the internet one a day. And I think all here in this list have this dream. Now it would be unfair from me when I would go into a deeper discussion with you, until I really understand what you mean. So please tell me in four five sentences, what you want to say. I promise you that I will not be unfair in our upcoming discussion. Best regards Darya Said-Akbari Alain LaBontXX schrieb: Is English the best marketing and communication tool? According to the latest figures supplied by GlobalReach (see http://www.glreach.com/globstats/index.php3), during the year 2000, English content of all Internet messages worldwide (web queries and mail) dropped below 50%. It is clear that, as the net goes global, it also goes multilingual. The Internet was born in English but it has become quite obvious that those who attempted to promote it through the use of English only slowed down its development rather than accelerating it. Once again, we are discovering that localization is the key for the international dissemination of any tool, and more especially when that tool is designed to facilitate communication. It is well known that anyone who is serious about pursuing commercial endeavors has to use his customer's language. This policy was especially pushed by firms that sought expansion through the development of international markets. In the old days, the success of firms such as IBM rested mostly on this approach. IBM translated all technical manuals, offered seminars and training in over twenty languages. IBM went as far as translating push button labels on its hardware and even coining new foreign words. That was the case for instance with "ordinateur", which is now the French word for "computer". Let us not forget that IBM often offered computing equipment that was relatively backwards from a technical standpoint with respect to its competitors' and also far more complicated to use. For instance, the Burroughs 5000 computer, which was released in 1960 was far more advanced that any of its IBM counterparts. Yet, Burroughs, with far superior hardware and software racked up 8% of the market at the most when it was the second largest computer manufacturer... The success of Microsoft mostly relied on the same approach. Probably inspired at first by Apple, Microsoft went to great lengths to provide fully localized operating systems and application software. As far back as 1995, Microsoft had already 60% of its market outside English-speaking countries. Again, few people and analysts note that this tremendous success rested less on the quality of Microsoft products than the capability of the company to sell in its customers' tongues. Even though Microsoft has been accused of unfair competition and shady business practices, it has remained for very long the only microcomputer software vendor that seemed to be really concerned about the needs of its international customers to function in their own respective tongues. Many Internet companies have now come to realize the importance of languages other than English. Very early on, Yahoo, for instance, adapted to international markets its search engines and on-line services by systematically translating textual information, redesigning screen and indexing foreign companies registration entries in their corresponding country's national languages only, thereby pushing aside systematically all attempts to make English a de facto "international" language. Five years after its birth, Yahoo is now operating in 24 countries... The use of English on the Internet The Internet is supposed to facilitate international communication, not to preclude it. Yet, it is surprising to find out that many Internet users believe that restricting expression to English only on the net is necessary to bridge our differences and make it possible for us to fully understand one another. Is English really adequate in this context? English is the native tongue to a bare 6% of the world population and, even though it is widely studied, over 70% of the world population has no knowledge of it. If 20% or so of the world population has some knowledge of Englishas a second language, those of us who travel a lot can testify that fluency in English in non-English speaking countries is just wishful thinking. If English may be understood well enough for us to check into a hotel, order a meal or tell a cabby where to take us, it does not often
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
At 7:23 PM -0800 12/29/00, Patrick Andries wrote: However, the questions -- as I see them -- are : should they all speak only English as a foreign language, why do they learn only one foreign language (just next to them there are 100 millions native German speakers...) If people have the interest, time, and resources to learn more languages, that's great; but I certainly don't think it should be expected or required. Learning a language is a major undertaking, and there are other things in life besides languages. Just where and when are people supposed to learn them? School curricula are quite crowded already. Every extra language you add is less time for math or history or science or the native language. And where do you find the teachers for all these extra languages? Perhaps people can learn extra languages as adults, but we all have jobs, families, politics, volunteer work, and many other important commitments. I think universal bilingualism is the best we can hope for, and substantially better than what exists today. By the way, I can't speak for the rest of Scandinavia, but Denmark at least does have a large number of fluent German speakers, particularly in south Jutland where they receive German TV. The world is definitively multilingual (about everybody speaks more than one language, often three -- this approximation holds true to a few percentage points) but that does not mean the world is always speaking English and another language... It is this simplistic vision that many people condemn. I'd like to see that claim backed up a little. You're coming from Canada, and Quebec in particular, which is possibly the most universally bilingual place in the Americas. And yet the claim has been made in this thread that even there 70% of the population can't speak English well enough to carry on a simple phone call. (I'm not sure I believe that statistic either, though. It's certainly not my experience of Quebec where so far I've met exactly one person whose English was worse than my French, and he was a recent immigrant from Africa.) Certainly the world does not always speak just English and another language. Often they're speaking just English, or just Spanish, or just Mandarin, or just Yanomamo, or just whatever their native language is. If they do speak two languages, then I'm saying we should be glad of that, and focus on the ones who don't speak a second language at all. Trilingualism and more is I'm afraid just too much to ask of most people who aren't full-time language professionals or naturally gifted with languages. -- +---++---+ | Elliotte Rusty Harold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Writer/Programmer | +---++---+ | The XML Bible (IDG Books, 1999) | | http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/ | | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764532367/cafeaulaitA/ | +--+-+ | Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/ | | Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/ | +--+-+
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
On Sat, 30 Dec 2000, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: I'd like to see that claim backed up a little. You're coming from Canada, and Quebec in particular, which is possibly the most universally bilingual place in the Americas. Actually not. Officially bilingual countries like Canada and Belgium are so because their citizens are in fact mostly monolingual. Actual bilingualism is usually higher in countries with only one official language. Trilingualism and more is I'm afraid just too much to ask of most people who aren't full-time language professionals or naturally gifted with languages. In Europe and North America, yes. In India and Africa, it's downright ordinary. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore --Douglas Hofstadter
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
- Message d'origine -
De : "Elliotte Rusty Harold" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
At 7:23 PM -0800 12/29/00, Patrick Andries wrote:
However, the questions -- as I see them -- are : should they all speak
only English as a foreign language, why do they learn only one foreign
language (just next to them there are 100 millions native German
speakers...)
If people have the interest, time, and resources to learn more
languages, that's great; but I certainly don't think it should be
expected or required.
As a matter of fact, people actually don't chose : they are simply taught
these languages by schools or their living environment (Africa, India).
I obviously disagree on the expected or required part.
Just where and when
are people supposed to learn them? School curricula are quite crowded
already. Every extra language you add is less time for math or
history or science or the native language. And where do you find the
teachers for all these extra languages?
I would like to see any statistics tending to prove that pupils learning
more languages have worse results in maths or science than the unilingual
ones (let's say a comparison between HK pupils and the US ones ;-)).
Not a
I think universal bilingualism is the best we can hope
for, and substantially better than what exists today.
Again, this may be true (it is actually the case in many countries) but it
does not mean universal English-X bilingualism, neither should it since most
contacts are not with native English speakers (only around 6% of the world's
population).
The world is definitively multilingual (about everybody speaks more than
one
language, often three -- this approximation holds true to a few
percentage
points) but that does not mean the world is always speaking English and
another language... It is this simplistic vision that many people
condemn.
I'd like to see that claim backed up a little.
I looked briefly for a quote from Claude Hagège who mentioned some
interesting facts on this but couldn't find it.
I think, however, that it should be possible to prove that most of the world
is multilingual.
http://www.unine.ch/irdp/UTOPIES/gerth.htm ("The Third World (1/2 of the
world) is multilingual as a necessity"), it is indeed well-known that
multilingualism is ordinary in Africa and Asia (and does not always involve
English, think of India, Indonesia, Israel, Zaire, South Africa or the
Maghreb). These are also the nations with the highest birth rates.
You're coming from
Canada, and Quebec in particular, which is possibly the most
universally bilingual place in the Americas.
The Americas being one of the most unilingual place in the World...(if we
except California ?).
But Québec is indeed one of the most *multi*lingual places : we have, for
instance, one of the highest survival rate of Indian aboriginal languages of
any province or state, as well as one of the longest retention rate of the
immigrants native language in the Americas.
Certainly the world does not always speak just English and another
language. Often they're speaking just English, or just Spanish,
or just Mandarin, or just Yanomamo, or just whatever their native
language is. If they do speak two languages, then I'm saying we
should be glad of that, and focus on the ones who don't speak a
second language at all.
Focus on the unilinguals in order to do what ?
If most of the world is multilingual, which I stated as a fact, it does not
mean that I approve of imposing a single universal second language to all
of them...
Trilingualism and more is I'm afraid just too
much to ask of most people who aren't full-time language
professionals or naturally gifted with languages.
This is simply not true : it is a matter of usage not of "talent", it is
quite common in many places in the world and not necessarily among the most
educated people (see South Africa were many (most?) Blacks will speak
several Bantu languages, English and/or Afrikaans).
P. Andries
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
On Fri, Dec 29, 2000 at 07:23:11PM -0800, Patrick Andries wrote: However, the questions -- as I see them -- are : should they all speak only English as a foreign language, why do they learn only one foreign language (just next to them there are 100 millions native German speakers...) and could they not automatically switch to English when a foreigner is perceived (and imagine for a brief moment that the person may actually speak their own language, a Belgian in the Netherlands, a Finn in Sweden) ? In Denmark, where I live, people generally learn more than one foreign language in school. I had 3 foreign languages (en, de, fr) , and I attended high school as as math-phys student. The language students in high school have more languages than that. High school attandants (aged 16-19) today may have a number of languages to pick from, including en, de, fr, ru, es, and Latin. Usually people having attended Danish high school have had 3 foreign languages. Whether they then can speak it is another question. keld
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 13:19 2000-12-30 +0100, Darya Said-Akbari a écrit: Bon jour Alain, I honestly had not the strength to read your whole email. [...] Now it would be unfair from me when I would go into a deeper discussion with you, until I really understand what you mean. So please tell me in four five sentences, what you want to say. I promise you that I will not be unfair in our upcoming discussion. [Alain] The text, as I said many days ago, was not from me (and I was never able to know who was the actual author). I posted it because it was talling favourably about Unoicode, but it was also talking in bad terms about English while its message was to say that English was not the universal language that so many assume it to be. Perhaps -- and I agree -- the way to say that was not pedagogic nor diplomatic at all, but it indicated a frustration that is felt by many on the net -- English also being seen explicitly or implicitly as an agressor by non-English speakers. I should perhaps not have posted it as I was perceived as the author (I had not indicated from day 1 that the text was not mine, and that is of course my fault). It is now almost established that the author was an English-speaking native or at least somebody who masters it almost perfectly, which is obviously not my case. In passing, here is a counter-example of an aggression against my language, French (now some will say it is normal, the site is in Canada): http://www.idiotdriveralert.com/ « Important notice: The official language of this site is English/Anglais. Any posts or comments en francais will be deleted. Sorry. For further information, see the FAQ page. » I'm used to that kind of offensive statements against the use of my language or others. It is possible that the author does not even think it is offensive -- the FAQ is milder -- but it is explicitly offensive to me. Alain LaBonté Québec
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Alain LaBonté [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's certainly not my experience of Quebec where so far I've met exactly one person whose English was worse than my French, and he was a recent immigrant from Africa.) [Alain] Then I can only say that you have never been East of the St-Laurent boulevard in Montréal or have traveled in a bubble outside of Montréal if you did so. You have an extremely superficial knowledge of Québec, I'm sorry to say. You never know. Elliotte might have been simply trying to say that his French is really, really bad. :-) -Doug
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 13:18 2000-12-30 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit: « Important notice: The official language of this site is English/Anglais. Any posts or comments en francais will be deleted. Sorry. For further information, see the FAQ page. » H!!! another Aussie who received culture in British Columbia, land of the multiple murders. Happy New Year. Reciprocally, Alain __ Vous avez un site perso ? 2 millions de francs à gagner sur i(france) ! Webmasters : ZE CONCOURS ! http://www.ifrance.com/_reloc/concours.emailif
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Elliotte Rusty Harold [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I've held my tongue in this flame-fest so far, but I'm afraid I can't keep silent any longer. Unlike citizens of some larger countries the Danes and the Dutch have no illusions that the world is going to speak their language. They willingly accept that the mountain isn't coming to them, and they're going to have to go to it. I can't speak for the Dutch and the Danes, but as I've noted my fellow countrymen do expect that everyone else speak English. In a world that gets smaller every day, we are quite lucky that there is a lingua franca, even if that lingua franca is English. English is the language most commonly used for communication between speakers with different native languages. But it is by no means the only one. I occassionally go on holiday trips to vaious places, and there has yet to be a voyage, where the only foreign language I have used is English. Even in Korea, where one would expect that English is the only western language people would ever learn, I actually had an exchange in French with a native. (Korean is not a language that I know. I did learn to read Hangûl before I left, but that's all.) I was on this bus excursion in the south of Argentina, and the guide asked "is there anyone here who does not understand Spanish?". I was by no means the only person in the bus who did not have Spanish as my native language; there were plentyful of Brazilians and Italians in the company, but I was the only one who considered to make myself heard. (I didn't; I'm mildly interested in tour guides, and the only reason I took this tour was because this was the only way to get to the glacier. Anyway, while Spanish is a language I only half-know, I grasped most stuff of what she said, even if the Argentinian phonlogy confused me at times.) -- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
On Sat, 30 Dec 2000 06:16:38 -0800 (GMT-0800), John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 30 Dec 2000, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: I'd like to see that claim backed up a little. You're coming from Canada, and Quebec in particular, which is possibly the most universally bilingual place in the Americas. Actually not. Officially bilingual countries like Canada and Belgium are so because their citizens are in fact mostly monolingual. Actual bilingualism is usually higher in countries with only one official language. In Finland in order to become a civil servant, get an academic degree or even pass the matriculation exam you have to pass tests in both Finnish and Swedish, although the mandatory Swedish exam in the matriculation exam is currently debated. About 7 % of the population in Finland speaks Swedish as their mother tongue and I would estimate that 90 .. 95 % of those living on the South coast of Finland are truly bilingual, i.e. you can not tell from the Finnish accent that their mother tongue is Swedish. However, the situation is different on the West coast and in the archipelago. Pupils in schools are required to learn one or two foreign languages, of which English has usually been the first one. However, nowadays more and more parents put their children to classes with more "exotic" language (typically French, German, Spanish or Russian) as the first foreign language and English as the second foreign language by motivating that the children will learn English from the media pressure anyway :-). Trilingualism and more is I'm afraid just too much to ask of most people who aren't full-time language professionals or naturally gifted with languages. In Europe and North America, yes. In India and Africa, it's downright ordinary. Returning to the topic of this mailing list, in the 7 bit character set era, we had a common character set only with Sweden but not with any other neighbouring country. With the introduction of ISO 8859-1 only created a common character set also with Norway, but this character set does not support the Sami languages spoken in the Northern parts of Finland, Sweden and Norway, neither does it fully support Estonian and of course not Russian. Hopefully Unicode will become popular in our neighbouring countries, since this would simplify data exchange a lot.
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
At 10:28 AM 12/30/00, Alain =?UNKNOWN?Q?LaBont=E9=A0?= wrote: [Alain] Then I can only say that you have never been East of the St-Laurent boulevard in Montréal or have traveled in a bubble outside of Montréal if you did so. I'm reminded of an incident in the Jardin de Botanique in Montréal--a fellow was playing the _erhu_ (a Chinese bowed instrument) and selling tapes and CDs. He was from China (according to the CD jacket), but spoke unaccented urban west coast North American English (I'm guessing Vancouver). He was trying to explain to some Francophone customers that the CD was a better buy than the tape. His French was if anything worse than mine (if that is possible), and the customers could not understand his English. I could have translated what he was saying into Spanish, but that wouldn't have helped matters. :-) Lest we forget, French is *the* lingua franca, literally. Darwin, Tolstoy, and many others include long passages of it untranslated. English nobility spoke it by preference for maybe 500 years, even when they warred with France, and IIRC Russian nobility spoke it up to the bitter end. Many people in Africa still speak it as a colonial left-over. Had things turned out even a little bit differently, we'd be having this conversation about the hegemony of French, in French, and the o-e ligature would be part of the 7-bit character code. -- Curtis Clark http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/ Biological Sciences Department Voice: (909) 869-4062 California State Polytechnic University FAX: (909) 869-4078 Pomona CA 91768-4032 USA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
"Patrick Andries" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: May I add that this is precisely the reason that makes so many Scandinavians and Dutch unsufferable : they cannot imagine speaking anything else than English to a foreigner (often not even their own language). I've held my tongue in this flame-fest so far, but I'm afraid I can't keep silent any longer. Unlike citizens of some larger countries the Danes and the Dutch have no illusions that the world is going to speak their language. They willingly accept that the mountain isn't coming to them, and they're going to have to go to it. In a world where you can get from any major city to any other in less than 48 hours (and often a lot less) and where we routinely communicate with people around the globe from minute-to-minute, the old European ideal of learning to speak every language you're likely to come into contact with, even a little, just isn't practical. In a world that gets smaller every day, we are quite lucky that there is a lingua franca, even if that lingua franca is English. In different times and various places, the lingua franca has been Greek, Latin, Arabic, French, Russian, and other languages; but today it's English. There are obvious historical and political reasons English has become the de facto choice, even though other languages would almost certainly have been better choices from the perspective of ease of learning and use. I think Denmark, the Netherlands, and the other Scandinavian countries have done a very good thing in producing a populace that's largely fluent in English. If a person speaks the native language (or in a few cases, languages) of their country plus English, then they have the basic linguistic tools they need to survive and prosper in today's world. Anything else is gravy. Learning languages is important for many reasons, but is it so important that we should spend our lives doing to it to the detriment or exclusion of music, art, commerce, science, love, and everything else? We may get a kick out of learning Dutch before going to the Netherlands, or Japanese before going to Japan, and that's good; but we simply can't expect this of every person who visits foreign countries or needs to talk to foreigners visiting their own country, whether they're an astronomer or a cab driver. The existence of a lingua franca means that the world can communicate more easily and more effectively than it could without one. Most of the participants on this list are multilingual to some extent or another. For myself, I can get by in four languages including French, and I'm one of the less multilingual people here. But let's face it: we're weird. The average citizen of any country has neither the time, money, nor interest to learn more than two languages; nor should they have to. -- +---++---+ | Elliotte Rusty Harold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Writer/Programmer | +---++---+ | The XML Bible (IDG Books, 1999) | | http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/ | | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764532367/cafeaulaitA/ | +--+-+ | Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/ | | Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/ | +--+-+
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
- Message d'origine - De : "Elliotte Rusty Harold" [EMAIL PROTECTED] À : "Unicode List" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Envoyé : 29 déc. 2000 20:52 Objet : Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ? "Patrick Andries" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: May I add that this is precisely the reason that makes so many Scandinavians and Dutch unsufferable : they cannot imagine speaking anything else than English to a foreigner (often not even their own language). I've held my tongue in this flame-fest so far, but I'm afraid I can't keep silent any longer. Unlike citizens of some larger countries the Danes and the Dutch have no illusions that the world is going to speak their language. They willingly accept that the mountain isn't coming to them, and they're going to have to go to it. There is no denying that these people often have to speak another language. However, the questions -- as I see them -- are : should they all speak only English as a foreign language, why do they learn only one foreign language (just next to them there are 100 millions native German speakers...) and could they not automatically switch to English when a foreigner is perceived (and imagine for a brief moment that the person may actually speak their own language, a Belgian in the Netherlands, a Finn in Sweden) ? The world is definitively multilingual (about everybody speaks more than one language, often three -- this approximation holds true to a few percentage points) but that does not mean the world is always speaking English and another language... It is this simplistic vision that many people condemn. Bonnes fêtes et meilleurs vœux [I hope the digraph goes through] Season's greetings and best wishes, P. Andries
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
"Patrick Andries" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: May I add that this is precisely the reason that makes so many Scandinavians and Dutch unsufferable : they cannot imagine speaking anything else than English to a foreigner (often not even their own language). How true. An English-speaking person who moves to Sweden to work has a hard time to learn Swedish, because everyone insists on speaking English with him. And when a Swede goes over to Helsinki he is likely to approach people in English - which may lead to the bizarre situation of two people with Swedish as their mother tongue communicating in broken English. (In Helsinki there are plentyful of Finland-Swedes, but Sweden-Swedes are only dimly aware of there are people in Finland who have another mother tongue than Finnish.) ...on the other hand, if the foreiger is a dark-haired person coming from the Middle East, Africa or South America to live on social welfare(*), the Swedes are very upset if they don't learn to speak Swedish properly. (*) That's my sarcastic description of what some of fellow-countryman who are a bit xenophobic think. (Myself, I'm not really like that. My own idea of a good holiday trip is that not speaking English exepct as a last resort.) Speaking first the language of the local people ? Good. At least some language. When I am in Helsinki, I don't approach people in English, and Finnish I don't know, so... And, of course, sometimes it can be a bit absurd. On a restuarant outside The Hague I actually managed to pretend to be Dutch for a short while, thanks to my friend who covered up for me. But while I can understand some Dutch, I cannot express myself in that language. And while that level of knowledge could be useful in a country like Spain or Bulgaria where knowledge of English is not universal, it is of course plain ridiculuous in the Netherlands. -- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm not in love. It's not even a phase I'm going through.
RE: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
"Carl W. Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My vote is for Portuguese. Because it was re-latinized it is closer to the Latin roots that any other Romance language. Thus it makes a great linga franca. Learning French unfortunately is learning two languages, the written and the spoken. Not true with Portuguese. You don't know anything about Portoguese phonology, do you? You may think spoken French is weird, but Portuguese isn't far behind. (My sincere apologies to any navtive speakers of this, eh, flexible langauge.) (Besides, the Romance language I've seen being claimed to be closest to Latin is Roumanian, but I guess the real answer must be Sard.) -- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm not in love. It's not even a phase I'm going through.
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
- Message d'origine - De : "Erland Sommarskog" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alain LaBonté [EMAIL PROTECTED] poste un message très longe: Is English the best marketing and communication tool? Oh, but it is not only the English speakers. May I present some nine millions Swedes to assist them? That is, most of my fellow countrymen appears not to be able to even consider the possibility of communicating with in any other language than Swedish or English. And Swedish is only used in a confined context. The French are very impoular in Sweden, because "they don't speak French". (Truth is most people in France I suppose you meant "they don't speak English". speak English, but they often prefer if you make a token attempt to speak French first. If you French is not good enough, they will swift promptly.) May I add that this is precisely the reason that makes so many Scandinavians and Dutch unsufferable : they cannot imagine speaking anything else than English to a foreigner (often not even their own language). (Myself, I'm not really like that. My own idea of a good holiday trip is that not speaking English exepct as a last resort.) Speaking first the language of the local people ? Good. P. Andries [the name is Dutch...]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Alain:
I usually lurk, but I would like to throw in my two cents now.
For the record I am getting frustrated with your postings, NOT
because I don't think there Anglophone bigots in the world (I know
there are) BUT because I don't think the Unicode list is where they
"hang out."
The people at the Unicode are working very hard to develop standards
to make sure every possible language is fairly represented on the
Internet. Internationalization is technologically very difficult, and
as somewhat of an amateur, I commend their efforts to get all the
many details right.
To continually point out to THIS list that there are non-English
speakers in the world is redundant, and ultimately counterproductive.
So again, I ask - other than pointing out that there are non-English
speakers in North America and around the world, what message would
you like to send to Unicode?
Merci beaucoup.
Elizabeth J. Pyatt
À 15:45 2000-12-20 -0500, John Cowan a écrit:
Alain LaBonté scripsit:
Just as
an indication, Québec, a 7.5-million-people island of French speakers
which is surrounded by an ocean of monolithically English-speaking
community of 300 million users of this language public-wise (I mean
outside of homes), does not speak English (at least not enough to
understand a simple question on the phone and answer it) in a proportion
of approximately two thirds.
[John]
I suggest that there are ideological reasons for this which do
not apply to the rest of the world, which does not feel their
native languages under such a threat as you describe, and feel
freer to learn other languages as a matter of individual
utility.
[Alain] There is absolutely no ideological reason for this, in
spite of the well-known cliché. On the contrary, everybody here
would like to know English, even those who hate it as not being nice
to hear (there are of course exceptions, but they remain exceptions,
I must tell you -- the trend among independentists is to say that
all Québecers should at least learn English and Spanish as a second
and third language, and perhaps Portuguese as a fourth one -- Québec
independentits being objectively those by which NAFTA passed in
Canada; when the issue was discussed the rest of the country was
divided on it while in Québec the North-American union was widely
supported, regardless of political opinions -- the soverigntists
were in power in Québec -- they still are, and currently go beyond
this in preaching a single currency throughout the Americas,
horrifying a lot of Canadians-outside-Québec).
A former independentist Québec Premier (Jacques Parizeau, not to
name him, and he is among the most vocal of "separatists") already
said: "if I ever see a guy who does not even try to learn English, I
will kick kim in the ass".
That said, the learning of a second language beyond a primitive
level is not given to everybody, you must admit it. I would say that
it is easier to learn a third language because after the second one
you have gained enough confidence.
Now all Western languages are relatively near one to each other
(a caricature with a bottom of truth: "English is a dialect of
French, which is but bad latin originally spoken by a Germanic tribe
and which only got refined"), but this is far to be the case with
languages not in the Indo-European group, and in this case, I
infinitely doubt that more than a tiny minority of these people will
even be able to align two words in a row in English and even
understand what they are saying or writing... To me this is the bare
reality, and perhaps most Americans, even more than the other
peoples on earth, will agree with this. (;
Cases like Michael Everson or Scott Horne are the admirable and
noble exception which confirms the rule, as we say in French
("l'exception qui confirme la règle").
Alain LaBonté
Québec
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer
Penn State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED], (814) 865-0805
228A Computer Building
University Park, PA 16801
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 05:45 2000-12-21 -0800, Elizabeth J. Pyatt a écrit: So again, I ask - other than pointing out that there are non-English speakers in North America and around the world, what message would you like to send to Unicode? [Alain] I did answer this question many times since yesterday. Reread my messages. I have nothing to add. I sent this text but I never thought it would generate so many reactions. I add that it is not my text but I can see that in addition to the provocation it perhaps contains truths that many do not want to see at all... If I had known I would not have sent this text to this list... But anyway, it is done, it was read, it probably led to the effect that the actual author -- almost certainly an English-speaking native -- wanted to produce. Alain LaBonté Québec
Re: L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Ar 05:45 -0800 2000-12-21, scríobh Elizabeth J. Pyatt:
Cases like Michael Everson or Scott Horne are the admirable and
noble exception which confirms the rule, as we say in French
("l'exception qui confirme la règle").
Well, according to Jane Hill, linguistic anthropologist at the University
of Arizona, people like me are genetic anomalies. Nature selected for
people not to be able to learn languages easily after a certain age,
probably to protect community integrity in early hominids (always be able
to spot the outlander).
I always liked the X-Men too.
Glad Solstice to one and all from Ireland, where they've just discovered a
new passage at Newgrange,
Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
Mob +353 86 807 9169 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Vox +353 1 478 2597
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
- Original Message - From: "Alain laBonté" [EMAIL PROTECTED] I add that it is not my text but I can see that in addition to the provocation it perhaps contains truths that many do not want to see at all... If this is your conclusion, then you did not understand the responses you received. Perhaps if they'd been in French the comprehension would have been improved. ;^)
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
If you don't know who wrote, then why was it posted?? I truly doubt a native English speaking person wrote it I wouldn't trash myself, so why would that person trash their self??? Besidees, this discussion has gone on long enough in what is suppose to be an Unicode forum. how about we just drop it and call it history??? Alain LaBonté wrote: À 13:26 2000-12-20 -0800, Rick McGowan a écrit: The question that I keep asking is who wrote this missive, and if Alain didn't write it, where did he get it? That's the most basic question I had. [Alain] I'm still trying to know myself. I don't have the answer. If I get it, I'll let you know for sure. The only clue I have is that it is very likely that he or she is an English-speaking native. Alain LaBonté Québec __ Vous avez un site perso ? 2 millions de francs à gagner sur i(france) ! Webmasters : ZE CONCOURS ! http://www.ifrance.com/_reloc/concours.emailif
RE: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Alain,
My
voteis for Portuguese. Because it was re-latinized it is closer to
the Latin roots that any other Romance language. Thus it makes a great
linga franca. Learning French unfortunately is learning two languages, the
written and the spoken. Not true with Portuguese.
Carl
-Original Message-From: Alain LaBonté
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 2:00
PMTo: Unicode ListSubject: Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais
est-il une langue universelle ?À 15:45 2000-12-20 -0500,
John Cowan a écrit:
Alain LaBonté scripsit: Just
as an indication, Québec, a 7.5-million-people island of French
speakers which is surrounded by an ocean of monolithically
English-speaking community of 300 million users of this language
public-wise (I mean outside of homes), does not speak English (at
least not enough to understand a simple question on the phone and
answer it) in a proportion of approximately two
thirds.[John]
I suggest that there are ideological reasons
for this which donot apply to the rest of the world, which does not feel
theirnative languages under such a threat as you describe, and
feelfreer to learn other languages as a matter of
individualutility.[Alain] There is absolutely no
ideological reason for this, in spite of the well-known cliché. On the
contrary, everybody here would like to know English, even those who hate it as
not being nice to hear (there are of course exceptions, but they remain
exceptions, I must tell you -- the trend among independentists is to say that
all Québecers should at least learn English and Spanish as a second and third
language, and perhaps Portuguese as a fourth one -- Québec independentits
being objectively those by which NAFTA passed in Canada; when the issue was
discussed the rest of the country was divided on it while in Québec the
North-American union was widely supported, regardless of political opinions --
the soverigntists were in power in Québec -- they still are, and currently go
beyond this in preaching a single currency throughout the Americas, horrifying
a lot of Canadians-outside-Québec). A former
independentist Québec Premier (Jacques Parizeau, not to name him, and he is
among the most vocal of "separatists") already said: "if I ever see a guy who
does not even try to learn English, I will kick kim in the ass".
That said, the learning of a second language beyond a
primitive level is not given to everybody, you must admit it. I would say that
it is easier to learn a third language because after the second one you have
gained enough confidence. Now all Western languages are
relatively near one to each other (a caricature with a bottom of truth:
"English is a dialect of French, which is but bad latin originally spoken by a
Germanic tribe and which only got refined"), but this is far to be the case
with languages not in the Indo-European group, and in this case, I infinitely
doubt that more than a tiny minority of these people will even be able to
align two words in a row in English and even understand what they are saying
or writing... To me this is the bare reality, and perhaps most Americans, even
more than the other peoples on earth, will agree with this.
(; Cases like Michael Everson or Scott Horne are the
admirable and noble exception which confirms the rule, as we say in French
("l'exception qui confirme la règle").Alain LaBontéQuébec
[langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Is English the best marketing and communication tool? According to the latest figures supplied by GlobalReach (see http://www.glreach.com/globstats/index.php3), during the year 2000, English content of all Internet messages worldwide (web queries and mail) dropped below 50%. It is clear that, as the net goes global, it also goes multilingual. The Internet was born in English but it has become quite obvious that those who attempted to promote it through the use of English only slowed down its development rather than accelerating it. Once again, we are discovering that localization is the key for the international dissemination of any tool, and more especially when that tool is designed to facilitate communication. It is well known that anyone who is serious about pursuing commercial endeavors has to use his customer's language. This policy was especially pushed by firms that sought expansion through the development of international markets. In the old days, the success of firms such as IBM rested mostly on this approach. IBM translated all technical manuals, offered seminars and training in over twenty languages. IBM went as far as translating push button labels on its hardware and even coining new foreign words. That was the case for instance with "ordinateur", which is now the French word for "computer". Let us not forget that IBM often offered computing equipment that was relatively backwards from a technical standpoint with respect to its competitors' and also far more complicated to use. For instance, the Burroughs 5000 computer, which was released in 1960 was far more advanced that any of its IBM counterparts. Yet, Burroughs, with far superior hardware and software racked up 8% of the market at the most when it was the second largest computer manufacturer... The success of Microsoft mostly relied on the same approach. Probably inspired at first by Apple, Microsoft went to great lengths to provide fully localized operating systems and application software. As far back as 1995, Microsoft had already 60% of its market outside English-speaking countries. Again, few people and analysts note that this tremendous success rested less on the quality of Microsoft products than the capability of the company to sell in its customers' tongues. Even though Microsoft has been accused of unfair competition and shady business practices, it has remained for very long the only microcomputer software vendor that seemed to be really concerned about the needs of its international customers to function in their own respective tongues. Many Internet companies have now come to realize the importance of languages other than English. Very early on, Yahoo, for instance, adapted to international markets its search engines and on-line services by systematically translating textual information, redesigning screen and indexing foreign companies registration entries in their corresponding country's national languages only, thereby pushing aside systematically all attempts to make English a de facto "international" language. Five years after its birth, Yahoo is now operating in 24 countries... The use of English on the Internet The Internet is supposed to facilitate international communication, not to preclude it. Yet, it is surprising to find out that many Internet users believe that restricting expression to English only on the net is necessary to bridge our differences and make it possible for us to fully understand one another. Is English really adequate in this context? English is the native tongue to a bare 6% of the world population and, even though it is widely studied, over 70% of the world population has no knowledge of it. If 20% or so of the world population has some knowledge of Englishas a second language, those of us who travel a lot can testify that fluency in English in non-English speaking countries is just wishful thinking. If English may be understood well enough for us to check into a hotel, order a meal or tell a cabby where to take us, it does not often allow us to go much beyond addressing our most immediate needs. True, English has been widely adopted as the international language for science but can those of us who attend international conferences honestly tell us that foreigners can make themselves understood in English as well as we can? Haven't we noticed that - apart from a few exceptions - even highly educated professionals whose mother tongue is not English have a much harder time to address our questions and more especially when their work is being questioned and criticized? Are we blind to the post-conference syndrome that affects most of the participants who speak English as a second language when they congregate and regroup as soon as the plenary session is over to communicate freely in their own native tongues ? In the hard sciences and in technology, when Powerpoint slides and transparencies can compensate for the lack of fluency to present an experimental setup, a pilot plant or a bunch
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Ar 06:56 -0800 2000-12-20, scríobh Alain LaBonté : Is English the best marketing and communication tool? But I suspect he didn't write it. It looks very much like the kind of thing an enthusiastic second-year university student would write as a term paper. Yet, it is surprising to find out that many Internet users believe that restricting expression to English only on the net is necessary to bridge our differences and make it possible for us to fully understand one another. It certainly would be surprising to find this out. I certainly don't know anyone who thinks it's the way to go. As a minority, what right do native English speakers have to foist English upon a world majority? This is one of the points that I found particularly offensive. (John has already mentioned the Nazi noise.) I'm happy speaking Spanish and Irish and French and Danish and German and English and yeah, some other languages too. I know plenty of speakers of those languages, and of many others, who are happy enough speaking English in various situations. Lots of them are proud of their English, and, considering some of the more challenging features English presents to learners, that's pretty justifiable. Because they have devised the Internet? Yes. It's all true. All 400 million of us native speakers of English have conspired together to devise the Internet for the purpose of destabilizing and wiping out all the other languages. Scientific creativity feeds on language and language structures as the linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf has clearly shown. The rhetoric here also alerted me to the term-paperishness of this essay. Imposing the exclusive use of a one and unique foreign language on a high level professional makes him aphasic. Our writer should look up the facts of aphasia. The imposition of English goes very much with the development of the simplistic, manicheist and strongly biased anglo-american mind. Uh, right. I suppose that what the writer means by "manicheist" is "Manichaean", a particular kind of dualistic Christian philosophy. While I am indeed partial to the advaita nondualistic philosophies of Buddhism and Hinduism, I would point out to the writer that dualism is common in many non-Anglo-American cultures. Yin and Yang spring to mind. American-inspired netiquette is mostly aimed at making comfortable a society that is opened only to itself. Yes, I certainly enjoy receiving spam in Korean and Chinese. It's such a pleasure not to have to put up with "netiquette", isn't it. Well that's about enough. A book which *is* interesting is Robert Phillipson's _Linguistic imperialism_, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-437146-8 Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland Mob +353 86 807 9169 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Vox +353 1 478 2597 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Everson opined: But I suspect he didn't write it. It looks very much like the kind of thing an enthusiastic second-year university student would write as a term paper. If Alain wrote that diatribe, he should have said so to avoid any such questions. Otherwise, it should not have been posted without the author's permission, and not without at least being attributed so we-all know to whom we should direct our criticisms. In any case, I would have been happier had Alain provided an introduction to say why on earth he posted it to the Unicode list. While I'm not offended personally, I can guess there are people on this list who would be offended by some of what the posting contained. Rick
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Alain,
ok, but why is this pertinent to this list and what is it you
are asking Unicode to do or stop doing?
tex
"Alain LaBonté " wrote:
À 11:13 2000-12-20 -0500, John Cowan a écrit:
Alain LaBonté [in fact, not me] wrote:
[author unknown]
Is English the best marketing and communication tool?
[John]
This diatribe would perhaps have more force (though not be
as widely intelligible) were it written in something other
than English.
[author unknown]
70% of
the world population has no knowledge of it
[John]
Reliable figures in this field are notoriously hard to come by,
but I suspect this one is inflated.
[author unknown]
From 1880 up to the second world war, multilingualism - not
monolinguism - was the rule. Every participant would present
his work in his own native tongue.
[John]
Now this is definitely inflated. It is notorious that 19th
century Russian science was conducted almost entirely in German,
with honorable exceptions. And the participants were
restricted to Western European nations almost entirely,
avery different situation from today's.
[author unknown]
The new language Gestapo that patrols the Internet to blast traces of
languages
other than English,
[John]
Now this is both silly and offensive, in addition to invoking
Godwin's law ("when the Nazis are mentioned, the
debate is over").
I yield to no one in my enthusiasm for America-bashing, but to
compare intellectual arrogance with political imperialism,
state terror, and the physical extermination of whole peoples
is going much too far.
--
There is / one art || John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com
to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
[Alain] Btw this text is not from me (I still try to know who is its author).
That said, what you say about the Godwin's law (thanks for the
reference, I had not heard about it) is absolutely of age in Québec these
days (you know, somebody who is not using terms that are "toitally and
dogmatically politically correct" here is being told names and considered a
nazi, to the point where innocents are condemned for just telling the bare
truth even with nuances. I will skip this discussion as this would lead us
too far, as you say.
To come back to the text I posted, I think one should make abstraction
of the details and consider it is giving us a quite accurate portrait of
reality.
Considering what you contest, if you say that the figure of 70% of the
world population having no knowledge of English is inflated, I must say
that you probably don't live on the same planet where I live... Just as an
indication, Québec, a 7.5-million-people island of French speakers which is
surrounded by an ocean of monolithically English-speaking community of 300
million users of this language public-wise (I mean outside of homes), does
not speak English (at least not enough to understand a simple question on
the phone and answer it) in a proportion of approximately two thirds. And
all these people -- we are perhaps among the most TV-cabled people -- have
access to all American broadcast TV networks, online, as we share the
Eastern North American Time zone. If these people, so, who are exposed all
the time to an English-speaking sea, have this profile, I personally can
imagine that a figure of 70% of the world not having a knowledge of English
appears to me underevaluated, on the contrary of what you say.
Alain LaBonté
Québec
--
According to Murphy, nothing goes according to Hoyle.
--
Tex Texin Director, International Business
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] +1-781-280-4271 Fax:+1-781-280-4655
Progress Software Corp.14 Oak Park, Bedford, MA 01730
http://www.Progress.com#1 Embedded Database
Globalization Program
http://www.Progress.com/partners/globalization.htm
---
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 15:26 2000-12-20 -0500, Tex Texin a écrit: Alain, ok, but why is this pertinent to this list and what is it you are asking Unicode to do or stop doing? I answered this at 15:12 but you probably did not see it yet. Alain
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 10:29 2000-12-20 -0800, Rick McGowan a écrit: In any case, I would have been happier had Alain provided an introduction to say why on earth he posted it to the Unicode list. [Alain] Because Unicoders should be happy about it when it speaks about DNS internationalization and the like. Simple. But I should have wondered that it says things in a frustrative way that a lot of people do not want to even hear. Those people should at least be sensitive to the frustration expressed. « Mais il n'y a pas plus sourd que quelqu'un qui ne veut pas entendre. » Alain LaBonté Québec __ Vous avez un site perso ? 2 millions de francs à gagner sur i(france) ! Webmasters : ZE CONCOURS ! http://www.ifrance.com/_reloc/concours.emailif
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 13:07 2000-12-20 -0800, Michael \(michka\) Kaplan a écrit: I have not seen a posting from you that would answer Tex's questions. The entire post was inflammatory, and given the fact that you do apparently associate it with your own feelings vis-a-vis French/English in Quebec it even becomes to some degree self-serving. [Alain] You have the right to think so. Everytime somebody posts a document, there is always a message. So to a certain poiut we can say -- even in your case -- that any message sent by somebody is self-serving. [Michael] So, lets try again, shall we? :-) For the record, please count me in as one of those who was offended personally (as discussed earlier by Rick). 1) Why is this pertinent to the Unicode list? [Alain] Reread this (the reason why I sent it to the list): [unknow author] The Chinese, along with many other Asians wonder why some people dare talk about an international Internet as long as the Chinese have to type addresses in Latin characters. So, they have devised their own addressing system that uses ideograms. Some experts think that as long as the Unicode standard does not become universal, there is a distinct risk for various countries to go their own way for domain addresses and other details important enough to give birth to separate networks that will no longer be cross-communication compatible. Therefore, internationalization must permit people to fully localize not only contents but also interfaces. If we had forgotten all about it, the Internet is here to remind us that the only thing that truly deserves to be qualified international can only transcend national borders because everyone would tend to make it his own. [Michael] 2) What is it you are asking Unicode to keep doing or stop doing (which will be clearer once you answer #1). [Alain] I had no intent of asking anything, but since you provoke me, I found something with which I wholeheartedly agree: International forums and discussion groups should welcome contributions in all languages if their participants were really seeking the best and most interesting contributions. [...] If people want the best from the Internet, they have to invite back the best by first realizing that original thoughts automatically entail the use of original modes of expression. I know... You don't want to hear about it. It leads to total chaos. Like the actual world. And Unicode helps the world keeping this chaos (chaos being one possible intepretation, not mine, as I think the opposite: nature diversity is the most divine attribute of the universe and if Babel had not existed we should have invented it, as otherwise we'd better be like molecules of a same, dull gas). Alain LaBonté Québec
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
The question that I keep asking is who wrote this missive, and if Alain didn't write it, where did he get it? That's the most basic question I had. Rick
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Actually, Alain, there are numerous ways in which such a wonderful point
could be made without offending people. I am certain you could think of
dozens of ways that someone might offend you with a particular approach for
what might otherwise be a good a point. Perhaps the next time you could
imagine those dozens of ways and then perhaps just take excerpts from the
unattributed article?
Maybe worth a thought? :-)
MichKa
Michael Kaplan
Trigeminal Software, Inc.
http://www.trigeminal.com/
- Original Message -
From: "Alain LaBonté " [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "Unicode List" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 1:08 PM
Subject: Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
À 13:07 2000-12-20 -0800, Michael \(michka\) Kaplan a écrit:
I have not seen a posting from you that would answer Tex's questions. The
entire post was inflammatory, and given the fact that you do apparently
associate it with your own feelings vis-a-vis French/English in Quebec it
even becomes to some degree self-serving.
[Alain] You have the right to think so. Everytime somebody posts a
document, there is always a message. So to a certain poiut we can say --
even in your case -- that any message sent by somebody is self-serving.
[Michael]
So, lets try again, shall we? :-)
For the record, please count me in as one of those who was offended
personally (as discussed earlier by Rick).
1) Why is this pertinent to the Unicode list?
[Alain] Reread this (the reason why I sent it to the list):
[unknow author]
The Chinese, along with many
other Asians wonder why some people dare talk about an international
Internet
as long as the Chinese have to type addresses in Latin characters. So,
they
have devised their own addressing system that uses ideograms. Some
experts
think that as long as the Unicode standard does not become universal,
there is
a distinct risk for various countries to go their own way for domain
addresses
and other "details" important enough to give birth to separate networks
that
will no longer be cross-communication compatible. Therefore,
internationalization must permit people to fully localize not only
contents
but
also interfaces. If we had forgotten all about it, the Internet is here
to
remind us that the only thing that truly deserves to be qualified
"international" can only transcend national borders because everyone
would
tend
to make it his own.
[Michael]
2) What is it you are asking Unicode to keep doing or stop doing (which
will
be clearer once you answer #1).
[Alain] I had no intent of asking anything, but since you provoke me, I
found something with which I wholeheartedly agree:
International forums and discussion groups should welcome contributions
in all
languages if their participants were really seeking the best and most
interesting contributions. [...] If people want the best
from the Internet, they have to invite back the best by first realizing
that
original thoughts automatically entail the use of original modes of
expression.
I know... You don't want to hear about it. It leads to total chaos.
Like the actual world. And Unicode helps the world keeping this chaos
("chaos" being one possible intepretation, not mine, as I think the
opposite: nature diversity is the most divine attribute of the universe
and
if Babel had not existed we should have invented it, as otherwise we'd
better be like molecules of a same, dull gas).
Alain LaBonté
Québec
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Forgive me for responding in English; I would be afraid to try out my impoverished (and never rich) French after so many years of neglect. There are figures (not necessarily reliable figures) for English use and knowledge in David Crystal, *English as a Global Language.* From what I remember, 30% limited knowledge of some dialect of English seems like a reasonable number. This in comparison with ~25% *fluency* in Chinese. (By the way, anyone who presumes that English is the only language used in public discourse throughout the US hasn't been to my grocery store, where English is in a 30% minority to Spanish - though the Spanish speakers are kind enough to speak English to us Anglos. And this is in the Northeast.) As for the rest of the article posted, let me simply point out that to describe any ethnicity as universally "simplistic" in thought demonstrates a gaping ignorance of the intellectual history of the culture so described. Patrick Rourke [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
You know, here in America, the silly season usually starts some time in summer. When the air conditioners break down. Sarasvati, are your fans moving enough CFM? - Mark Leisher Computing Research LabCinema, radio, television, magazines are a New Mexico State University school of inattention: people look without Box 30001, Dept. 3CRL seeing, listen without hearing. Las Cruces, NM 88003-- Robert Bresson
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Mark Leisher kindly inquired: Sarasvati, are your fans moving enough CFM? It's been so cold in California of late that I had Dave disconnect my fans last night in a vain attempt to warm my freezing diodes. Obviously a rash move. Dave, please reconnect my faa... Daisy iz az Daisy duhz. -- Sa
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
At Wed, 20 Dec 2000 13:08:52 -0800 (GMT-0800), Alain LaBonté [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [Alain] I had no intent of asking anything, but since you provoke me, I found something with which I wholeheartedly agree: International forums and discussion groups should welcome contributions in all languages if their participants were really seeking the best and most interesting contributions. [...] If people want the best from the Internet, they have to invite back the best by first realizing that original thoughts automatically entail the use of original modes of expression. So, one paw, most people are incapable of learning another language, but on the other, forums should be in many languages, so people have to know a dozen languages to understand them. Hmm. The use of a forum is limited to its participants' ability to understand the messages on that forum, including the language. A forum that mixes English, Russian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Greek and Chinese in equal proporation will be of little use to many people; the signal to noise ratio will be over 1/6 or 2/5 for most people. So 7 different forums will appear with s/n rations approaching 1, and anyone wanting to communicate in multiple languages can subscribe to multiple forums. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED] off vacation)
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Is the suggestion of multilingual forums really that different than having off-topic threads in a forum? The threads/languages just become self-selecting groups. My only concern would be that subjects would be in a different language from the body and it would be hard to know which messages to read. (Anyone noticing the irony in the 2 comments above? ;-) ) Actually, I didn't find the suggestion of multiple internets all that bad, although there would need to be some cross-over capabilities. There are already other proposals for splinter groups, for higher bandwidth or greater security. As more of my web searches return irrelevant pages, splintering starts to look good. Put all the porn on its own net... What's wrong with an all French net? When I watch TV, the station doesn't suddenly change languages... (Well most of them don't...) Of course it should all be in Unicode. I am not advocating an all ISO 8859-15 net... Cheers, tex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, one paw, most people are incapable of learning another language, but on the other, forums should be in many languages, so people have to know a dozen languages to understand them. Hmm. The use of a forum is limited to its participants' ability to understand the messages on that forum, including the language. A forum that mixes English, Russian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Greek and Chinese in equal proporation will be of little use to many people; the signal to noise ratio will be over 1/6 or 2/5 for most people. So 7 different forums will appear with s/n rations approaching 1, and anyone wanting to communicate in multiple languages can subscribe to multiple forums. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED] off vacation) -- According to Murphy, nothing goes according to Hoyle. -- Tex Texin Director, International Business mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] +1-781-280-4271 Fax:+1-781-280-4655 Progress Software Corp.14 Oak Park, Bedford, MA 01730 http://www.Progress.com#1 Embedded Database Globalization Program http://www.Progress.com/partners/globalization.htm ---
Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?
Alain LaBonté [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: À 10:29 2000-12-20 -0800, Rick McGowan a écrit: In any case, I would have been happier had Alain provided an introduction to say why on earth he posted it to the Unicode list. [Alain] Because Unicoders should be happy about it when it speaks about DNS internationalization and the like. Simple. But I should have wondered that it says things in a frustrative way that a lot of people do not want to even hear. Those people should at least be sensitive to the frustration expressed. I don't think it's the frustration that we don't want to hear, but the whining and the hyperbole that distort the author's point. As a white, male, middle-class, non-handicapped, English speaker, I know there are a lot of frustrations and discriminations in life that I have been lucky not to have to endure. I would like to think I try to see the other guy's point of view and be sensitive to his frustration at least some of the time. But it really doesn't help the other guy's cause if he starts accusing me of being some kind of evil conspirator because I am white or male or because I speak English. I speak English and (with variable success) Spanish, and so if (for example) I need to communicate with Michael Everson, then based on his formidable repertoire it appears we have two possibilities. If I need to communicate with someone who speaks English and French, we really only have one choice. This is my fault for not knowing French as well, but it is nevertheless the way things are. I did try to read Alain's all-French response, and I understood perhaps 60% or 70% of it, but I must say that his (presumably) improved expressiveness in French did not adequately compensate for my reduced comprehension. This is in contrast to the Jacques Derrida example. To get back to the internationalized DNS point, of course we Unicoders are happy that the author sees Unicode-based solutions as the answer to the DNS problem. That's not news to us, of course; we knew it all along. But it's important that the *right* Unicode-based solution be picked, because if there are problems someone will find a way to blame them on Unicode. It's also important not to raise expectations to the point where the general public believes Unicode is the answer to every possible i18n problem, such as cultural conventions and keyboard input of Han. You know how the general public can be -Doug Ewell Fullerton, California
