Emacs i18n

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 5:24 PM
> From: "Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor" 
> <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs i18n
>
> Thibaut Verron wrote:
>
> >> Anglo-American beat French to world dominance, accept it.
> >> It happened everywhere, including diplomacy,
> >
> > Don't diplomats have interprets?
>
> They used to speak French, now they speak English.
>
> We see traces of this in for example the Euro Vision Song
> Contest where they tell the score in English and French.
>
> But numbers don't lie, pick up a book from your bookshelf and
> have a look, find a ISBN number with 13 digits (a so-called
> ISBN-13, they start with 978- or 979 which is the GS1 prefix),
> and tell me, what is the number immediately following the
> GS1 prefix - i.e., the 4th number?
>
> Please, just deal with it and go on, this is so embarrassing
> every time it comes up :(
>
> > You've clearly never been to France. :)
>
> I've been to France, I've been to Belgium, I've met French and
> Belgian programmers, French and Belgian students, French and
> Belgian activists [1] (that has nothing to do with computers,
> even), they _all_ speak very good English! Just like you two
> guys do!
>
> > More seriously, a lot of people in China and Japan,
> > including in the software industry, do not speak English.

It would be an opportunity to civilise them.  So that one day, they can do
what the East Germans did.

> Wrong! They do, and they do even more and better for each
> year, and the very small group who don't, well, they have
> a HUGE problem that should be fixed by them putting ALL their
> efforts learning English as soon as possible - it is
> *impossible* to be a tech/science person 2021 and not knowing
> English - luckily, this isn't the case, but if there were more
> people like you translating stuff not even then could you
> ever, ever do it to any extent that would mean a positive to
> those very few who don't know English, it would be a NEGATIVE
> since they would only have access to a small fraction of the
> material available, and in the worst case they would be
> deluding themselves thinking they are so great, while actually
> living in a bubble 10 000 miles behind everyone else!
>
> Luckily this isn't the case at all - French tech people and
> French people in general have no problem whatsoever mastering
> English, they want to do it, they benefit from it, everyone
> else benefit from it, and most of all, it is the REALITY that
> we have that everyone needs to accept for their own benefit!
>
> Speak French to people on the street all you want - of course
> - but the language of science and technology 2021 is English,
> Anglo-American, and to a large extent American English (writhe
> "color" in source, not "colour", however write that in the UK
> tabloids, by all means). It _is_ English and I don't care who
> had a lousy colonial empire or not...

If you want to function in tho world, you got to learn english.
Otherwise you are on your own.  Good luck with that!

> > Translations would be very useful for them.

Then they should do it.  Or pay someone to do it.

> No, on the contrary, it would be a negative to them.
>
> > And all over the world, a lot of students who do not feel
> > confident with English treat the lack of available
> > translations as a significant hurdle, or even a barrier.

This would not solve the problem of doing real work.  Nobody
would care about that piece of software if not written in english.
I wonder how we never got any programming languages not in the
english language.  Because all those people were either living
in the United States or the United Kingdom.  Could be that the
French are still in denial in accepting such fact.  They were the
original developers and authors of computing technology.


> 100% incorrect.
>
> > Your replies in this thread strike me as unusually hostile.
> > Why is it such a big problem that some want to translate the
> > emacs help and manual?

I do not see a problem.  The problem is who would do it !

> Yes, because I've heard this so many times before, all the
> incorrect arguments, and it is bit provoking that it is ALWAYS
> the French who brings this up no matter what e-mail list or
> what tent on G8 in Rostock you are on! Every meeting, start
> with a vote which the French guys insist on (despite speaking
> English), French people propose French as the language (what
> a surprise) and then get voted down 21-4, 14-3, 45-11
> every time.
>
> Why aren't the Russian, German and so on people who are also
> part of huge language and language groups making this "French
> case" you think?
>
> Can it be that they are a bit more modest with respect to
> their own language? Or do they simply understand like everyone
> else what a huge benefit it is to them _and everyone_ with
> a common langauge for science and technology, and they are
> enthusiastic about learning this for their own
> information-input but also the ambition to give their own
> information-output?

Perhaps they cannot stand the fact that their Napoleon got
swept onto his back by the british, and then had to wait for
the british to save them from hitler.

> Which, BTW, is exactly like the French are, so why on Earth
> keep up with this charade?
>
> #@$%&!
>
> PS. ha :)
>
> [1] https://dataswamp.org/~incal/blog/index.html
>
> --
> underground experts united
> https://dataswamp.org/~incal
>
>
>