+1 with Ravi

For example, a year back a wrong proposal was sent to Unicode consortium that wanted Grantha script being encoded in Unicode but at the expense of damaging Tamil language in long term.

The incident Ravi mentions came about because of a similar situation - faulty understanding by external organisations that failed to consult with native language communities. Led to months long discussions, wasting everyone's time - just because the unicode consortium didnt pause to check with the stakeholder community.

Language in India and a citizen's involvement with his language is complex, diverse and many times unusual or interesting.

+1 to this too. In India where various hues of linguistic nationalism are dominant (especially in the south for languages like Tamil) and language heritage is long and linguistic pride is fierce, a WMF blogpost with such words and one that suggests at changing how language should be used has the potential to turn into a long drawn out and ugly dramafest.  when i said "burnt in effigy" in the earlier mail, i meant it literally - the passion that language generates in this part of the world is such.

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:35 PM, Ravishankar <ravidreams@gmail.com> wrote:
Ashwin,

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:08 PM, Ashwin Baindur <ashwin.baindur@gmail.com> wrote:
The aggressive/offended tone in a couple of posts on this thread distresses me. I humbly request that all respondents may please tone down any agression you may feel. Gerard is trying to understand Indian culture in good faith. He has made some assumptions that he is keen to explore. May I request that we please discuss maturely without getting offended? We need to not only AGF but be CIVIL also. The same points can also be made politely.

Every time there is a difference of opinion, some one starts this be CIVIL message. I don't feel anything un-CIVIL in anyone's message. So, please don't distract the TOPIC.

Srikanth,

//You need to work with someone who knows the language to the purest of its form, knows it in and out, and also knows technology. I doubt you'd've come across MANY of those at either WCI or the Hackathon.//

While I agree with your view that even people not well versed in one language can donate their technical skills, it is important that the project as a whole takes in to account the views of people who know the language well.

For example, a year back a wrong proposal was sent to Unicode consortium that wanted Grantha script being encoded in Unicode but at the expense of damaging Tamil language in long term. The Central Government passed it to Unicode consortium and it was about to approve it. Only at the last moment could we intervene and after months of discussion and wasting precious hours by both Sanskrit scholars and Tamil scholars + Technocrats, the proposal was held. If only Unicode consortium or Central Government had asked for the opinion of learned scholars of language, this situation could have been avoided. So, while lack of proficiency in a language need not be an impediment for technical contribution, we should not assume that it is enough for projects of varying nature.

Ravi


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