Elaine,
In fact, ISO has three official languages: English, French, and (putatively) Russian. English is probably the most widely used language for IT standards in ISO and many such standards are not published in French. Most non-IT standards do seem to be published in both English and French (frequently on facing pages, or parallel columns, in the same document). ISO's policies say that Russia is responsible for translating any standards into Russian that it wishes to translate.
I do not believe that this set of facts is evidence that French is, or is not, the 'second language' of the standards world. It is in ISO, but the French might conclude that French is first there and English is second ;^) I have no data available to me to suggest what is the second-most widely used language for international standards after English, so I could not argue for or against French being that language.
ISO published (publishes?) a Vocabulary standard (try searching on www.iso.org) in many parts, some of which are directly related to IT standards. I would not be surprised if that standard contained both English and French terms and definitions, but I've never investigated.
Hope this helps, Jim
At 04:13 PM 11/8/2004 Monday, E. Keown wrote:
Elaine Keown Seattle
Dear List,
Thanks for the answers about font designers. They were all very interesting.
At the U.N. and in some countries, they have 'official languages.' The U.N. has 5, I think. Singapore has 4, several African countries have 2-3, and so forth.
Does either the ISO or the IEC have official languages? Whether official or not, is French the 'second language' of the standards world?
And also, is there a bilingual or trilingual standards glossary?
A glossary is a small-ish dictionary, frquently focused on a narrow topic.
I'm about to translate something into technical French.....I still didn't purchase a technical French dictionary because the ones I've seen didn't have enough computer terminology.
Thanks Elaine
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Jim Melton --- Editor of ISO/IEC 9075-* (SQL) Phone: +1.801.942.0144
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