Le lundi 18 février 2013 à 09:16 +0000, Liam Wyatt a écrit :
So... Apparently this is where you are expected to
write something that
convinces people you have a firm grasp of English. Unfortunately, this is a
written test, not an oral test - because an oral test might be quite
useful. I know many people from my own country and other
English-native-speaking countries that are officially literate but when
asked to speak in a formal setting (or even semi-formal situation like
Wikimania) are incapable of clear enunciation, diction, grammar,
intonation, accent and speed. Certainly, they can be understood by *other*
native English speakers but they have no concept of how difficult it is for
non-native speakers to understand them.
Perhaps a mandatory class for native speakers before the conference
entitled:
"Speak English, like, more good 'n stuff for all y'all. Mmm'kay?"
And why not propose an "introduction to esperanto[1] and why it would be
by far a beter solution than using english in all international
conferences" ?
Seriously, there's so much time and energy spended to learn English (but
any native langage would give you problem, I suppose) as a second/third
language around the world for such a poor result that even someone who
have no problem to write an academic text can't be understood by other
non-natives when he speaks oraly.
This would really be an interesting topic in fact. Clearly the English
language is strickly pushed by/for economical reasons, not because it's
an efficient communication tool like it's suggested in an answer by
geni[2] to "New proposal for a wiki Project!" to preserve minority
languages.
So reasons why we use English on this list is obvious for now, but
promoting a constructed international auxiliary language and aiming (as
a long term project) to make it the default language for Wikimedia
mailing lists and international meetings, to me it sounds like it would
fit with the “imagine a world in which every single human being can
freely share in the sum of all knowledge” goal.
Now I hope no one will read this message as a diatrib against English, I
think every language have is genius[3] and I don't believe there are
better or perfect language. But I do believe that for specific goals
some languages may be more or less fitted.
So please, really don't take this message as an attack against anything
or anyone, I love you all! I just hope we may better understand each
other through a communication mean more fitted to our community
diversity. :)
[1] Or any language as efficient for international communication the
community would prefer (and you know it can't be a native one).
[2] To be fair, here is the relevant quotation :
As language
minorities mostly live in rural areas they are perfectly
adapted to their environment and in their linguistic world/lexicon
>there are more concepts and ideas than people from the cities have.
English can deal with concepts ranging from the Australian outback to
the housing projects of Detroit to CERN. Minority languages can only
be compared logarithmically (assuming they have the concept of
logarithms).
[3] As in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_%28literature%29 . And by
the way, to my mind this sounds like an important point in favor of
defending language diversity, in the same time as you promote
international communication through a constructed languag.