[openbeos] Re: AW: Re: AW: Locale Kit
- From: Steve Peter <speter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 13:17:25 -0500
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
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