At 07:06 PM 8/27/98 -0400, Fernando Cabral wrote: > > >Mac Oglesby wrote: ... etc
Sorry to prolong the off-topic thread, but ... I don't really read Portugese, although I can generally catcgh the the gist from other romance languages, but I do enjoy the linguistic diversity and like the idea that this list isn't 100% english. The monophones should bear in mind that there are a number of other widely spoken languages and the fact that they can't read everything doesn't mean that others can't. Mentioning Mandarin, Hindi, Xosha or whatever is a red herring. There are several European languages that English speakers ought to be familiar with for reasons of cultural proximity, including French, Spanish, German, Latin, ...the list fades off rather than terminates. So if Jorge posts in Portugese some people will read it, others will pass over it. He knows that. But there are people in the world who don't speak English, or at least don't write it comfortably enough to post something coherent. Can't they ask questions, too? There will be some who can understand them and they will probably get an answer. If one were to post something in Albanian there is probably nobody on the list that can read it, and it would be ignored. So what. No harm done. I think postings in any language should be tolerated -- either read or ignored. Jack Aubert
