[Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again

[Mark Williamson]

In addition, I have a feeling that article overstates the English
abilities of the average non-native internet user. Yes, lots of people
have a very (very!) basic command of English, but that is not the same
as functional bilingualism. A user may happen to know the name for a
horse, but what are the chances a casual user from Peru knows the name
for an anteater, a giraffe or a jellyfish?


On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know a horse, but yesterday it took for me five minutes to remember
> sparrows were the bird's name I would have liked to mention. .
>
> It helps to make this discussion helpful to some extent that native
> English speakers remind it is sometimes not so easy as you the native
> expect foreign learners. It's no sarcasm at all. Really.
>
> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 6:32 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Gerard Meijssen
>> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> When you think that Commons is bad in supporting other languages, try to
>>> find pictures of a horse on the internet in other languages like Estonian,
>>> Nepalese ... It is not the same at all as when you are looking for images
>>> in
>>> English.
>>
>>
>> Don't most Internet users know enough English to be able to search for
>> "pictures of a horse" in English?
>>
>> (According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage),
>> yes...  "Most Internet users speak the English language as a native or
>> secondary language.")
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