>> I do, however, like the idea of representing
languages with images
>> of famous contributors in that language; this could be used in
>> lots of places writing about Wikipedia. I'd suggest Shakespeare,
>> Hugo, Cervantes as the obvious English/French/Spanish ones.
>> I don't know who would be appropriate for the others.
This is my favourite suggestion just for the flair it shows ;) It would
probably work better in the French wikipedia, in which language expressions
like "langue de Shakespeare" are more common. (The usual people, as far as I
can tell, are Molière, Cervantes, Goethe, Cicéron, Homère, and Zamenhof -
seriously, I read a Le Devoir article that called it "la langue de
Zamenhof"... :)
Seriously, though, I think the plainest solution - simple text links - are
best. Perhaps for completeness we could include both foreign and
own-language forms in different contexts. I don't think there's anything
wrong with just saying French - Spanish - German in an article head in the
English wiki (and of course Anglais - Espagnol - Allemand on the French one,
etc.), and then on the front page saying French - français, Spanish -
español, German - Deutsch. IOW, exactly what we have now, as far as I can
tell.
May I suggest Coluche or Desproges ? I supposed these
are not known by canadians ? I don't see why french
langage would be represented by a French man. By the
way, we write "français" for the language and
"Français" for the french man. These two words are
absolutely not interchangeable. That's both grammar
flaw and countrycentrism.
Ça me semble que dans une liste on devrait mettre une majuscule comme ça:
- Anglais
- Français
- Espagnol
- Latin
- Espéranto
n'est-ce pas? Mais de toute façon, in English we try not to say "the
Frenchman" if referring to an indefinite person; that's sexist. We say "a
French person." But I don't think you were trying to be sexist - all this to
say that we should cut each other a little slack when dealing with languages
not their own.
Matt (Montrealais)
Montreal, Quebec