2010/9/10 Praseed Pai <[email protected]> > >You say, you are interested in localization and then whine when someone uses > >vernacular >language? I suppose, Kochi is not the HQ of Britain. So what the > >hell, if someone uses >Malayalam? > > > I am a software developer and i was interested in the post from a software > compatibility point of view. i was closely following the thread and use of > malayalam ( with inadvertant use of big fonts - i could not understand that > was also part of the problem. That prompted > me to use the "Shouting" term. ) hampered my comprehension.
When we talk about localisation, we are not interested in software compatibility, but enabling our people to use computer in their own language. It is more about that politics (not vote bank politics, politics in its original sense), than technology for many of us. > >Praseed wrote > >For technical communication , i think English is a better language. > > > >Sebin wrote > >Its just a perception. You may be comfortable in English. Not me though. So > >whenever, I >want to explain a point to my satisfaction, I would use my > >mother tongue. It is not my >fault that, somebody living in this part of the > >world doesn't know or even doesn't care about >the native dialect. > > > I do agree that to convey deepest feeling , every one ought to use their > mother tongue. The latter part of the prose shows your "Lingustic" adamancy. > My mother tongue is konkani , should i use that for communication here after > ? I am not interested because , to earn a good living , the use of English > language for public communication is a must. Once you have mastered english , > for most people love for their native language is a facade. ( if we meet in > person , we can talk about it ) You are ignoring so many people who earn a decent living without having to be experts in English communication. Just look around yourself for teachers, many government employees, business men ... For them, computers are just tools for communication and acquiring knowledge and information. It is only corollary that you might be seeing those who cannot converse in English with contempt. Do you even consider those who cannot speak English as human beings? > > > > >If you did pass a malayalam 2nd paper in school, that itself makes it clear > >that, you know >to at least read and comprehend. Then why and what is this > >fuzz about? > > > When you have got a beautiful language with 26 alphabets and words heavily > borrowed from all other major languages , it will be the best language for > technical communication. From a emotional perspective , using the native > language is better. I assume Technical stuff do not posses emotions You are heralding your ignorance in every single line. Just look how great Japanese technology has grown using Japanese. When English typewriter could not fit all their characters, they developed their own type writer. We did surgery on on our language and removed those "ugly" characters and made it "beautiful" like our "master's" language. It was ultimate show of slavish thinking by us. On the other hand, Japanese showed great knowledge and skill. Even now, we are not ready to embrace our traditional characters when computers are capable. We are still living in typewriter era and our slavish mentality for "beautiful" characters live on. > > > > > I agree. But should I take it for granted that, every grand dady in this > >forum is a Keats or >a Shelly? If you could not understand, its just fine. > >You could ask politely for it. Is it that ?>every Gnu/Linux user in Kochi > >are proficient in English? > > > My statement had two parts > > a) Why can't you explain in English ? > It is a personal request But the second part made it more like an order. > b) It seems like shouting to me > Mahesh aravind cleared the confusion here by bringing in the issue of > large fonts ( inadvertant use by Tom ) > > When you read it together , i might have offended your "feeling" . Pls. do > remember that i also "gave" a "stick" for you to beat me ! > > > > >@Praveen > >When you were replying to Mahesh Aravind , i happen to see you coming up > >with >excellent english prose. So , i think you should do some soul > >searching for your Linguistic >"chavunism". I assume either you are a > >swathanthra malayalam computing fellow or a >DTP person. > > > I mentioned SMC because , it is natural for every human to be more emotional > with the cause they are after. In kerala , there is a implicit "expectation" > from everybody that "One should practice what they preach". so , Writing in > malayalam becomes a (implied )compulsion to be a proponent of SMC ( That is > true for every political cause. ). > > I Like the SMC initiative because it might be useful for some to overcome the > technical "barrier". The implementors will learn a lot about language > encoding which might help them to earn a better living. I saw a great > initiative from Tripunithara school some time back in localizing a software ( > I forgot his name , he comes to our usergroup ). Your promise of "better living" by learning encoding implies computers are only for computer engineers or software developers, that is an elitist thinking. > > The down side is > > It might lessen the motivation to learn English and it will be > their road to "poverty" hmm. It is the classical reason given for using only English in computers. I think this fear is so deep that, even after they are good in English and have a very good job, they are afraid to use computers in Malayalam. May be they are considering it as lesser status. Learn English might be a good reason for a student who aspires for a job that requires English, which means many students. But how about those who have a job? From today, would every one ilug Cochin with a job start communicating in Malayalam? > > > @all > This was Linux user group once. Now it has become Libre user group. Most > probably > people like Sebin will bring in the usage of Malayalam as the "official > language" into this ,using a post like that of mine as a pretext. Freedom > and the love for their native > language , there is a inherent paradox if you look deep. Why shoud we mix > both ? I did not get the paradox, but the question is interesting - a different way of asking the same question I raised in my last mail. I asked should we ban Malayalam here. You are asking should we make Malayalam as the official language. Interesting twist ... > So in future we might come across this > > Let posts be in English. if some one wants to do "private" > communication , > they have got the freedom to use their mother tongue. In this case , Malayalam > should be given importance as it is the primary language of most of the > people here. > You can also post in Hindi , Swahili , Oriya and Bengali etc , if you wish. hmm. English is public communication, universal language of Kochi and Malayalam is private, great! > > @Sebin > You opened a stuff which every one ( at least me! ) in this forum thought as > a closed issue. if you get some gratification by scoring some brownie points > by unleashing this > "terror" (aka rude words ) , you are given the permission. My only request is > on a chance encounter , you should not get physical. Unless every member of the list thinks it is closed, it is not a closed topic. Everyone may not be in a position to reply within an hour of your mail, so it might take days to reply. Even though I have a good Internet access, it took me some days to get back to you on this, because I was traveling. -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as they follow the rules: laws and constitution. _______________________________________________ Indian Libre User Group Cochin Mailing List http://www.ilug-cochin.org/mailing-list/ http://mail.ilug-cochin.org/mailman/listinfo/mailinglist_ilug-cochin.org #[email protected]
