On Friday 18 August 2006 21:07, Charles Schulz wrote: > Hi, > > >> You also know that a > >> native-lang project is language based, not country based. > > > > So why is there a Brazillian Portuguese project and a Portuguese > > Portuguese project? > > Because Brazilian and Portuguese are two very distinctly evolved forms > of the same language, and came to be considered as two distinct languages.
Which I find to be a little strange. I know and have worked with Brazilian and Portuguese. At one time I started a conversation relating to the differences in the two forms of Portuguese. Interestingly, neither of the people (one Brazilian, the other Portuguese) regarded their language as a different language. They agreed there were minor differences, primarily in the area of vocabulary. But they both agree that that is the only area of difference, and even then it is minor. They both regularly spoke together in Portuguese, had no major problems, even though they occasionally used different words. They at lest would disagree with your assertion above. Now, I have been involved in small ways with this project for quite a few years now (almost since the inception of the Marketing project in fact), and I quite well remember the way these two Portuguese projects started. The Brazilian group was the first (and the first Portuguese localization. At a later stage, the Portuguese from Portugal started to complain that the PT_BR localization was not good enough for them. Primary problem was vocabulary based.... and so the PT_PT NL project came into being.... Let us now consider the various dialects of the English language. US English differs from English English in several ways. Vocabulary is one area. However, there are also noticeable variations in spelling, grammar and even in syntax. Additionally, there are differences in deixis. US visitors to England would have the same problems as US visitors to Australia. If they simply use the same form of English that they are used to, they will be regularly misunderstood. I drove taxis for many years, and believe me it was often necessary to mentally "translate" what US tourists were telling me (I got fairly good at it after a while). I also had to think carefully and rephrase what I wanted to tel them, just to make certain that there was no misunderstanding. In short, the point I am trying to make is that the differences between US English and GB English (not to mention Australian English, which is still almost the same as the GB form) are roughly the same as the differences between the two forms of Portuguese. So in fact the argument for an English NL project is the same as the argument for the different Portuguese NL projects. US English *is* different, IMO in sufficient ways to make the request for an English NL group as valid as the request for a separate Portuguese (Brazilian) group. > > >> Now, could we just switch to some other topic? > > > > Anytime you want to. > > Thank you, Ian. > > Charles. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Alex Fisher Co-Lead, CD-ROM Project OpenOffice.org Marketing Community Contact Australia/New Zealand http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/
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