[Foundation-l] A simple question on languages.

[Aphaia]

On Jan 25, 2008 10:26 PM, Mido <mido.architect at gmail.com> wrote:
> Regarding Apahia comment about Arabic inclusion in the press release
> languages
>
>
> On Jan 25, 2008 1:02 AM, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Here the mere stats about native language speakers or the size of
> > project doesn't make a sense. We need a stats of literal communication
> > ability including L2. An interesting example is the Arabic language
> > case I guess ... there we may find a large community but good at
> > another more influential language(s).  Arabic people have a large
> > population, but for Wikimania 2008 Mido said to me English would be
> > the first and only working language for the whole team  --- including
> > the local team: typing Arabic he said (and if I don't misunderstand)
> > was annoying even for native speakers and "slower" than English and
> > because of diverse Arabic dialects English sometimes was used as
> > lingua franca among the Arab(!), at least in the Middle East, so
> > although I convince Arabic language is an invaluable addition to the
> > press release set and whatsoever, I am inclining not to think it a
> > part of necessary language kit unless we are under a pressing need to
> > involve many Arabic speakers.
> >
>
> I may have to object here, being used widely among some people who got used
> (because of many reasons) to have most communications in English, does NOT
> make the language itself invaluable to include "especially" in press
> releases.

I agree we need to issue press releases about Wikimania in Arabic as
well as in English. You may have missed my exception  "unless we are
under a pressing need to
involve many Arabic speakers" and a conference we'll hold in an Arabic
speaking location is definitely the case. Or if a survey is going to
do on Arabic language speaking areas, a press release about it should
be in Arabic (so I think the recently released press release is better
to translate into languages as much as possible: we sure will have a
multilingual survey, though we don't know which languages will be
exactly targeted though). But in a general context, there are even a
few, languages more widely used for communications as the second
languages, so I am skeptical Arabic is always a must.



-- 
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD