Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site terak.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!noao!terak!doug From: doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: Other languages on the net Message-ID: <276@terak.UUCP> Date: Mon, 21-Jan-85 16:26:47 EST Article-I.D.: terak.276 Posted: Mon Jan 21 16:26:47 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 24-Jan-85 19:33:28 EST References: <37@osu-eddie.UUCP> <319@scc.UUCP> <266@calmasd.UUCP> Organization: Terak Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ, USA Lines: 25 > I'm curious as to why the only language on usenet is English. Doesn't this > go to Europe? Or is it assumed that most people on the net have English in > common and that's the most practical language to use? Because English is God's own language -- check out the Bible, it's written in English and all of God's words are in English :-) To be a bit more serious, we Americans so dominate computing right now that English is sort of a de facto standard, kinda like MS-DOS. It's also a case of the "squeaky wheel getting the grease"... Americans don't see the point of learning other languages (refer to humorous opening line) while Europeans have found that being multi-lingual is definitely useful to them. We don't speak their language, but they speak ours. (The French take *enormous* exception to this lop-sided state of affairs). And the non-Europeans who don't speak English generally don't use an ASCII-compatible alphabet (no Russian, Greek, Japanese, or Chinese characters). Hmmm, what does the A in ASCII stand for???? By the way, English *is* the official language of aviation. Even the control tower operators in Moscow communicate with Aeroflot pilots in English. (There's always an exception -- Quebec allows tower controllers to communicate in French with French-speaking pilots) -- Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug