FreeLists / arachne / [arachne] Re: [arachne]

["Samuel W. Heywood" <sheywood@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 13:03:02 +0200, Robert Riebisch wrote:

> "Samuel W. Heywood" wrote:

>> English is not *the* language of the net and it isn't even *the* official

> For international projects *it is*.

Depends on whatever group of nations is working on the international
project and on whatever language(s) they should happen to agree upon
to use for their publications and other papers.  It happens to turn out
that English will most often be the "de-facto" language for
international projects where English-speaking nations are involved.  It
happens to turn out that way just because most of the project
representatives from English-speaking nations are not as well educated
in other languages as are the project representives from
non-English-speaking nations.  There is a big difference between a
situation that exists only by "de-facto" and one that exists by official
policy.  You need to review your understanding of the meaning of the
verb *is*.  If you could do a good job at analyzing and interpreting the
true meaning of *is*, then you might become smart enough to get elected
as President of the US, just like Bill Clinton.

>> language of the United States of America.  Many attempts have been made

> Where did I declare such?

You did not outright declare that, but you seemed to insinuate that English
is a more "official" language than it really *is*.

>> How would you like it if some tyrants should try to force you to speak
>> some language other than yours?

> That's exactly what Patrice does with his French page!

That is not what he is doing.  He is merely trying to point out that
Arachne is attracting some very favorable and noteworthy interest in
France.  Most of the well educated native speakers of English know
at least enough French to grasp some things about the general drift
and gist of the article.

The original and first developer of Arachne, Michael Polak, sometimes
posted messages on the Arachne List in his native Czech language.
Nobody ever criticised him for doing that, even though only a
comparatively very few of the well educated native speakers of English
are able to comprehend much of anything written in the Czech language.

Sam Heywood
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