FreeLists / openbeos / [openbeos] Re: AW: Re: AW: Locale Kit

[Steve Peter <speter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Let's face it, it is only when you can completely ignore gender - make 
> it truely irrelevant - that you have true equality (but I can't 
> imagine why you'd want that).

Grammatical gender and natural gender are not the same things. You are 
confused.

> What appears to be the fly in the ointment in this case is those 
> strange little 'accent' thingies some of the southern european 
> languages seem to need. Are they really necessary, or can they be 
> ignored ? - and why are they needed anyway when languages such as 
> English, American and Australian get along fine without them.

Are you trying to be a troll, are you just very narrow-minded, or is 
this an attempt at humor? While you're at it, don't forget Canadian, 
New Zealandese, and Gibraltarian.

> In terms of planning for the future - does it really matter?  
> Languages have a habit of dying out with disuse: The Gaelic languages 
> are gradually dying out from the British Isles, Cornish died a couple 
> of decades ago, only a few sheep now speak Welsh - and a handfull of 
> highlanders the old Scot's Gaelic ('Gallic' they call it). Across most 
> of the (civilised) world, English has become the dominant language in 
> business and commercial life. Minor languages like French, Spanish and 
> Italian will probably become irrelevant soon. Most of India seems to 
> be learning Enlish so they can pinch our jobs, so in a few decades 
> there'll just be English and Chinese. But the Chinese are learning 
> English, so give it a generation and only English will stand as an 
> important everyday language - leaving Latin for scientific and legal 
> use, and other languages as folk curiousities. Might as well just sort 
> in ASCII and wait patiently while the rest of the world falls into 
> line.

Please at least break out your history books. Latin was in the very 
situation you describe for English, when English was a very minor 
language spoken by a bunch of Germanic barbarians on a very 
insignificant island. It morphed into what you call "minor" languages 
like Spanish (ever heard of Latin America?). Indians have been learning 
English since England invaded, but it hasn't diminished Hindi, Bengali, 
Malayalam, or any of the thousands of indigenous languages yet.

Steve