Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!kdr From: kdr@doc.ic.ac.uk (K D Rigotti) Newsgroups: comp.society.development Subject: Re: The languages of the net. (was Re: Mailing list for networks in Latin America) Message-ID: Date: 30 May 91 14:57:17 GMT References: <4448@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <1991May28.172900.11325@dsd.es.com> <1991May29.095807.17756@uwasa.fi> Organization: Department of Computing, Imperial College, London. Lines: 34 Nntp-Posting-Host: dirty.doc.ic.ac.uk In-Reply-To: ts@uwasa.fi's message of 29 May 91 09:58:07 GMT 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