On May 26, 2007, at 7:02 AM, dhbailey wrote:
dc wrote:
Andrew Stiller écrit:
Put this down as another example of the French wanting to go it
alone (words like "logiciel"--for "software"-- are another example
of that...)
And that's not all!! They also insist on using their own strange
words for "dog" , "horse", and just about anything. Believe it or
not, they actually have a whole language of their own! This is
utterly ridiculous, of course.
Dennis
And wanting to have menus appear in their native language? How absurd
is that? Help files written by native French speakers, so that the
language actually communicates something to them? What's the world
coming to? :-)
These kinds of hysterical overreaction were not unexpected. Let's take
it in little baby steps:
The Italian for software is software. The German for software is
Software. Do I sense a pattern? Oh, well no: the Spanish for software
is programa (how did they ever come up with that?) and the Russian is
programma. The French words cheval and chien grew up naturally from
obvious Latin ancestors, but logiciel, numériseur and the other French
computer terms were imposed by a committee, who quite obviously went
out of their way to make these terms as unlike any other language
(especially the dreaded English) as possible. This is not language, it
is politics.
All of us know that if MakeMusic were to develop a French edition (as
IMO it should, Spanish too), it would immediately be denounced as
cultural imperialism--as has, for example, Google's world literature
project. God forbid the French should ever borrow anything from the
British or (shudder) the Americans. As for Berlioz, I would certainly
welcome the advent of an English-language version, if only to give
Finale and Sibelius some much-needed competition. I leave it as an
exercise for the reader to figure out why Berlioz has failed to do so,
when they would so obviously profit by it.
I considered writing this message in French, in which I am fluent--but
I wanted the whole list to understand it. 'Nuff said.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://www.kallistimusic.com/
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