Dana S Emery writes:
rhys> Show me someone who wants to communicate daily in 16th
rhys> century English or Japanese in e-mail, and you may
rhys> convince me.
You may have intended that as a rhetorical Q, but I am
interpreting it as a challange. >:-)>
Linguistic scholars, Classics Scholars, and Early Music
scholars/enthusiasts are 3 categories that come to mind
immediatly, all employ mail-lists and/or newsgroups and
are doing research which commands respect, if not some
degree of support.
I have to agree with Dana.
Basically what it all boils down to is that a small number of people will
complain if they can't communicate in 16th century English via e-mail.
However, in the long run, a lot of people will be very pleased to know
that they can. Its the second group that we should look out for.
Just as an aside, the UofMn English Dept. already offers courses that
deal with various markup languages and how they can be used in terms of
preservation of texts, production of new texts, etc etc. The people involved
with that work would love to be able to send e-mail in 16th century English
to each other. I'd be willing to bet money on that.
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Neophytos Iacovou
Honeywell Systems & Research Center
iacovou(_at_)src(_dot_)honeywell(_dot_)com
Minneapolis, Mn, 55418