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From: dorai@titan.rice.edu (Dorai Sitaram)
Newsgroups: news.groups,soc.culture.misc
Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: soc.culture.german
Message-ID: <5218@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 22 Feb 90 17:16:19 GMT
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In article <1472@serene.UUCP> lyled@pnet12.cts.com (Lyle Davis) writes:
>I think a soc.culture.german conference would be a desireable conference.
>
>I would suggest, however, that messages within the conference be required to
>be in English; to allow messages sent in German would sharply reduce your
>potential "market" of users.  There are many users of German extraction who
>would be interested in their ancestral home, yet do not speak or read the
>language.  Certainly, you would not want to exclude them.
>
>On the other paw, most German students, I understand, do speak and read
>English.

I think the above posting is very clear in stating which language is
expendable.  I'm not sure that's quite healthy.  How about letting
each poster post in German or English as s/he wants, and whether s/he
provides a translation is also up to him/er?  To make German the
expendable language in its own group is unfair, and to allow English
postings freely is fair enough without having to push it by demanding
"English-only."

I know there are several instances of "English-only" (or something
very close to it) in many of the soc.culture groups, and reasons for
the cannibalization of "local" languages seem to be that there are few
or no posters from the geographic area in question (Arabia, China,
India, Srilanka, Turkey, etc.) or that the geog'l area has too many
mutually incomprehensible tongues for them all to be accommodated
(India, Nordic).

In contrast, the Latinamerican group seems to have hit upon the best
solution of all.  Postings fly freely and amicably in both English and
Spanish (with a bit of Portuguese on the side).  In fact, one often
notices follow-ups in a different language from the original posting.
This highlights the fact that there are lots of folk out there who may
not be totally comfortable writing a language but understand it
handsomely.

I therefore would suggest caution before imposing _any_ restrictive
language requirement such as the one proposed by Lyle.  BTW, would
Lyle have the nerve to advocate "English-only" in soc.culture.french?
:-] :-]

--dorai

ps: BTW, I like your postings a lot, Lyle.  Keep them coming.
--
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It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.
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