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Re: Stopping at two (was: Two official work languages is smarter)

2014-03-10 07:56:03
In practical terms. I walk into a room discussing (just picking a wg or bof
at random) "tunneling compressed multiplexed traffic".  Suppose I knew
anything about this and had some slides:
 - what language would those slides be in?
 - what language would the draft that the slides are talking about be in?
 - In what language am I talking about the draft or the slides?
 - The people running to the mike telling me that I, in fact, do not know
anything about this, what language do they speak?

If the answer to all these questions is English, what does this flexibility
mean?
If the answer is that there will be a whole bunch of languages, how are we
going to communicate?

English is not my native language, but I don't see an alternative. People
all over the world learn English as a second language. More so than any
other language. Unless you want to get us all speaking Esperanto or lojban,
English is the most practical.

Yoav



On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 5:41 AM, Chaitanya Dhareshwar 
<chaitanyabd(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com
wrote:

Good point A, in fact the internet being representative of an infinitely
vast variety of languages the Internet Engineering Task Force should
reflect this flexibility. While English can remain the primary language for
documentation the IETF itself should be language agnostic.

Best,

*Chaitanya Dhareshwar*

Linkedin <http://in.linkedin.com/in/chaitanyabd> | Blog<http://cbd.vcio.in> |
Skype: chaitanyabd
Mobile: +91.9820760253


On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 7:42 AM, Andrew Sullivan 
<ajs(_at_)anvilwalrusden(_dot_)com>wrote:

On Sun, Mar 09, 2014 at 04:37:56PM +0000, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:
I recommend allowing another second official
language will solve a lot of native English speakers problems.

Why stop at two?  I think we should simply dispense with the idea that
we need an official language.  That way, we can talk past each other
without any undue effort on anyone's part.

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs(_at_)anvilwalrusden(_dot_)com



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