On Mon, Jun 12, 2000 at 05:31:58AM -0800, Alain wrote:
> Personally I am all in favour of pictograms everywhere, as far
> as possible (it avoids many linguistic problems, in particular in
> multilingual environments -- such as airports). It requires, unfortunately,
> a lot of education, as most of them, beyond a certain number of elementary
> ones, are not obvious nor intuitive at all. But it is worth the effort,
> this kind of education.
[David]
Why? By that time you've started to make a language - one that can't
be written in Braille, can't be easily displayed on those dot-matrix
light signs, and can't be spoken ("Passports?", "Look out!"). The only
advantage I can see is it being an easier sell than a real language.
[Alain] It is much lighter than having to provide indications, say, in 12 languages (most common example: toilets).
On VCRs it seems a good prcatice (outside the USA, at least).
In Canada, on keyboards, it avoids putting bilingual indications for functions, and to have to produce different versions showing English first then French, or French first, then English.
With more than 2 languages, precedence becomes problematic. As an example of language precedence, an actual case: at the Toronto Airport Radisson Suite Hotels, my prefered hotel in Toronto (so far! but it could change...), they recently introduced a multilingual voice mail system. In Canada, French and English are the two official languages of the country (and most probably at this hotel the majority of the customers speak Englsih and French, with a high concentration of French speakers). In general in Canada you are presented with a choice of language where you indicate your option by pressing a specific key on the telephone keypad (1 English 2 French -- or the reverse in Qu�bec). At this hotel, French is the 5th choice. It is offensive, I can assure you (I would not have been offended in Taiwan, of course).
Pictograms avoid such problems. I just gave an indication of where it can be very useful, and be a peace factor.
Alain LaBont�
Qu�bec
