Re: Emacs i18n

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>]

Alexandre Garreau wrote:

>> Anglo-American beat French to world dominance, accept it.
>
> Nobody told in this thread French had any world dominance.
> Although you may note that the concern about english is
> often raised by french people

They are the ONLY people who EVER brings this up.

> and maybe for some sort of inconscious nationalism or
> rempent national aversion toward english due to that
> previous context, the concern stays valid, and you cannot
> cancel an argument validity due to the people who raise it.

We WANT the French-speaking people, and they are here already
as we clearly see, but this isn't the 70s anymore where there
were one "expert" on the same subject in every god damned
country who had read a couple of 12 books on the subject and
wrote a nice summary on in, resembling pretty much exactly
what some other dude did in some other country reading his 12
books! The langauge of science and technology IS English, it
if had been French I would have written the same thing, only
in defense of French - but it _isn't_ French, and everyone
understands that - even the French, as we clearly see - but
unlike everyone else, the French pretends or do not accept
this in some places of their minds, so they bring this up over
and over, #$&%@!

>> There is no miniature world of computers where everyone
>> speaks French or any other language who badly needs
>> translations, drop it.
>
> There is

THERE IS NOT, and whatever fraction there is is getting
smaller by the day, it isn't a place were you yourself would
like to be restricted to, so why ever would you like that for
your compatriots that are, BTW, fully capable of learning
English just like everyone else? In fact, the French language
is much closer to English than a lot of other languages, there
is no disadvantage at all in any sense or in anyway, and we
see this every day when we speak English to people from the
French-speaking world!

> not only in france, but any non-germanic place I have been
> through. English, just like french, is a difficult language

No, because of popular culture, technology, and proximity of
languages it is very easy for anyone these days to learn
English, if the have any ambitions whatsoever with science and
technology they already know English before they even enter
the university?

> with lot of vocabulary. You’re living is a small-world
> utopia that’s nowhere near even realistic.

We live in the same world of science and technology where the
language is English, maybe it made sense in the 70-80s to
translate the man pages or whatever (the French were the only
ones who got close BTW, that said French programmers today are
typically _not_ using that old, incomplete, un-updated stuff
were you have to wonder - even if it was perfect, which it is
not and cannot be, so no disrespect to the translators - even it
if was perfect they'd still have to wonder about what
everything is, what is interface, hash algorithm, API, proxy, client-server,
raster, shading langauge, checksum, compression with the use
of tagged chunks, Alice and Bob in French? why aren't the
English-language software options congruent with ... wait,
what terms are we using, even? The French or the English?
(Oh, I know Alice and Bob - Abelard et Héloïse, n'est-ce pas?)

> Even those who *fluently* speak english are commonly *tired*
> with it.

No, that is true only in the initial, beginner phase, then on
the contrary one gets tired of reading it in a language that
is _foreign_ to it, the _native_ language is always the best
and the native language in the science and technology world is
English, US English in particular.

> Even I, and actually anybody because that’s natural, would
> choose to read something in their native(s) language(s)
> rather than a foreign one

English isn't foreign here, it is the native language of
the field.

> Just to be sure, you’re a native speaker of english right?

Hahaha :) Are you kidding, I'm Swedish! That said, these
rantings are to be put on my account solely, I'm sure many of
my countrymen who reads this thinks I'm insane or something...
ha :)

> or have you tried to work in mandarin

This instant, in another buffer I have a friend on IRC from
ROC and he speaks better English than me (he thinks that at
least :)) and I was a CS student when Sweden offered courses
free of charge (now they do that only to EU contrives) so every
course, taught in English, was like 50% people from China!
I lived in a student house for 7 years with a configuration of
Chinese people ALWAYS present at one time or the other,
EVERYONE spoke English, all the books were in English, exams
were in English, the Chinese guys were sometimes a weird bunch
to deal with on an everyday basis but the problem was _never_
their or mine or anyone else's (certainly not the French who
were also there, but in much smaller numbers) NO ONE had any
problem whatsoever with the English, trust me!

> on the ground that its syntax is said to be simple and
> flexionless, to say it’s as easy as in your native language?

I'm not saying I or anyone else is as good with English as we
are with our own languages, except for when speaking of one
thing - technology. The language is of course not perfect, how
could it ever be, but it is "good enough for government work",
good enough for the intended purpose. (I don't think my
English as in English in general is that good actually, maybe
my ROC friend is right.)

> otherwise, do you have studies showing the opposite?

We don't need studies, we have something stronger, reality.

> There are everywhere teachings of CS in english *as
> a special matter*, that’s a way to *train* for english
> because that training is *needed* because it is nonnatural,
> and it is a difficulty and people try lowering it by
> confronting to it... yet most of courses are in the national
> language, not english.

Not here. But that's OK, I'm not saying all universities that
teach technology must necessarily do everything in English
this very instant. But that's were we are heading anyway.
In the 70s everyone wrote their PhDs in their own languages.
Now people even write their BSc in English. There will only be
more and more of this and that's a good thing. Those who don't
will be at a disadvantage. Those who do not know _any_ English
will be at such a disadvantage they won't be able to
contribute or acquire information in a way that make them even
belong, sorry.

> Some vocabulary obviously comes from english, and
> englishisms are present more often than not, but the
> grammar, phonology, orthography, syntax, and most of
> vocabulary we use stay our national (or even sometimes, with
> luck (that means not in france) the local one) language.

Yes, of course, but it isn't about that, it is about English
as a tool to communicate about technology, it isn't about the
beauty of the language, I'm sure some of the things I write
would make a Grammar School teacher blush, but that's OK, it
is at this point unavoidable and perhaps that will always be
like that, even, but even now and long before I write this
people have collaborated on zillion projects speaking English -
and French and Russian also, and Swedish even - only these
languages didn't make it to the #1 position that English has,
right here and right now - so instead of translating, if you
want to help "your" people (not necessary IMO, but OK) what
you should do is became English _teachers_, not translators,
and teach the very, very rare technology GENIUS who can do
EVERYTHING with a keyboard but cannot speak or write a word
of English - I don't believe these people exist in their
miniature worlds consisting of themselves and equally
language-blind friends hacking the Pentagon and Fort Knox - but
if you find them, YES, do us all a favor and tech them English
so we all can be helped by their marvelous work, and maybe
help them a bit as well hehe :)

> emacs is only for programmers and CS-ists

Yes, but it is much, much broader than that, you don't have to
be a programmer, it is enough to have a smartphone and
smart-TV and god damn computer, this has already contributed
A LOT to how people speak English, Germans at 20 for example
speak much better English than I did, when I was 20 (and then
I thought Germans couldn't speak English at all, maybe), so
NO, it is not necessary for you to be an Emacs user or
programmer, everyone that uses technology is benefited
tremendously for knowing English and it works both ways,
technology makes you better at English (ordinary English,
between humans) as well, because English is not the langauge
of just nations like the US, England <3, Australia <3 and so
on, it is also the language of TECHNOLOGY, so make people
COME, don't work on things that will make them NOT COME @%&#$!

> That would be the kind of "user-friendliness", btw, that may
> have an effective impact on making more women or minorities
> join CS, and moreover less occidental, as that concern has
> come more into fashion recently.

Women are already almost 100% binary and they are better at
communicating than men some would say so they would have no
problem because of the English language to join the tech world
and if we take a look on reality this has been the case for as
long as I don't know.

As for minorities that have historically had a position of
disadvantage the more technology and the more English to them
the better!

PS. ha :) stop it...

-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal