🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4448@aipna.ed.ac.uk>, reiter@aifh.ed.ac.uk writes:
> I just received this announcement of a new BITNET mailing list for networks
> in Latin American and the Caribbean.  I haven't bothered to translate it into
> English - I assume if you can't read Spanish, you probably won't want to
> subscribe!


I've had some form of network access for most of the last 10 years. In
all that time I've only seen a handful of articles in a language other
than English. Considering the number of countries on the net it seems
odd to me that I only see English in the news groups.

Is English used for posting local news in non-English speaking
countries? Or is Engish only used when posting news with World
distribution?  Does the dominance of English on the net hurt the nets
acceptance in the world?

Or am I suffering from a sampling error caused by my location?

-- 
              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
   bpendlet@dsd.es.com or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or hellgate!esunix!bpendlet

                         Tools, not rules.

In article <1991May28.172900.11325@dsd.es.com> bpendlet@dsd.es.com writes:
>In article <4448@aipna.ed.ac.uk>, reiter@aifh.ed.ac.uk writes:
:
>I've had some form of network access for most of the last 10 years. In
>all that time I've only seen a handful of articles in a language other
>than English. Considering the number of countries on the net it seems
>odd to me that I only see English in the news groups.
>
>Is English used for posting local news in non-English speaking
>countries? Or is Engish only used when posting news with World
>distribution?  Does the dominance of English on the net hurt the nets
>acceptance in the world?
:

   I think that the answer to this issue is simple.  For _practical_
reasons we need a common language to communicate in a global
network, and we have only one such laguage. 
   Local news are posted (at least in the European countries I know)
in local language(s), with ocasional English on the side.
   Now why should the dominance of the common language, which we all
more or less understand, be adverse to the nets acceptance.  What a
better way to form a gloabal community and bring down local
isolation and xenophobia. 

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun

In article <1991May29.095807.17756@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes:
   :
   >Is English used for posting local news in non-English speaking
   >countries? Or is English only used when posting news with World
   >distribution?  Does the dominance of English on the net hurt the nets
   >acceptance in the world?
   :

      Now why should the dominance of the common language, which we all
   more or less understand, be adverse to the nets acceptance.  What a
   better way to form a global community and bring down local
   isolation and xenophobia. 

   Prof. Timo Salmi

I'm all in favour of a common language but I think standardising on the
current state of English is aiming rather low. It would be better, and in
the long run result in a more expressive language, if the other languages
were allowed more 'air time'. I'm not suggesting you post in Finnish but if
you had a very particular meaning to express and could do so better in your
own language then you should do so (providing a translation of course) so
that we can all learn.

Words are assimulated anyway but if we can accelerate the process so much
the better. Believe me the English would love the rest of the world to 
speak our language (perhaps someday even the Americans ;-) but merging is
much more sensible than wholesale migration.

BTW The net has its own language anyway, and there is no reason why
this should be restricted to daft acronyms IHMO.

Lets have a smorgasbord of opinions and le mot juste not just a word.

Kevin