On 2018-09-20 17:16, Kevin Kenny wrote:
On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 9:55 AM André Pirard <a.pirard.pa...@gmail.com
<mailto:a.pirard.pa...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Belgium speaks 3 official languages and their very official
borders *have been* mapped.
This subject was presented several times on this list and "raised"
a total lack of interest.
Especially regarding the need to define a language boundary type.
The most similar country regarding languages is Switzerland.
But they did not care to define borders, AFAIK.
Same for USA, Canada, etc.
"Did not care to define" is an odd way of putting it. USA cannot map
official language borders because USA has no official language or
languages. The majority language is, obviously, US English, but there
is no legislation making it official nor requiring government business
to be transacted in English. We also have a long and ugly history of
nationalists suppressing minority languages, but generally speaking,
the laws that the nationalists claim to be enforcing do not exist.
"English as official language" legislation has been introduced in
virtually every session of the Congress, and has never passed. The
movement to make English official goes all the way back to 1780, even
before the war of American independence was concluded.
Your comment is very friendly and welcome, but, unless each and every
case is like what you say, let us first keep the discussion to whether
OSM should implement language borders and how.
Best regards / meilleurs voeux / (sorry, I don't speak Flemish)
How nice, but what even most French typing persons cannot do is
correctly type "vœux".
Not supported by Windows. Ubuntu/Debian.Linux/Unix are needed to type
<compose-key> o e ;-)
Пока ;-)
I suppose one could tag 'official languages' of US jurisdictions that
sort of have them. Until recently, California and Massachusetts had
laws on the books requiring public schools to teach classes only in
English. (Arizona still does, but California and Massachusetts
repealed their laws in the last couple of years and have reinstated
bilingual education.) Dade County, Florida had a well-publicized local
law that forbade transportation signage in any language but English,
requiring Spanish-language signs to be taken down. About half the
states have laws requiring that the edicts of government must be
published in English (but not requiring that it be used to the
exclusion of other languages). Nebraska's legislation after the First
World War had the effect, briefly, of banning all foreign-language
instruction in the state's schools (and Heaven help those who wished
to prepare for travel abroad!).
It is true that in the US, one can expect to find street signs in
English (augmented possibly with one or more minority languages), but
that is usually a matter of practicality rather than formal policy.
I suppose that one could also, as an example, draw an official
language border around the Navajo Nation and indicate that Diné bizaad
and Spanish, as well as English, are official languages of its
government, but that again opens the whole debate about how to
domestic dependent nations, and it is accurate to state that I don't
care to reopen that debate today.
Best regards / meilleurs voeux / (sorry, I don't speak Flemish)
Kevin
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