On Apr 13, 2006, at 11:40 AM, mouss wrote:
Matt Kettler wrote:
And even us US folks do have encoding issues. After all, English is
not our
official language here in the US,
what do you mean here? what would be your official language?
The US doesn't have an official language.
By default, it is assumed to be English for most things, but it's not
"Official". And, in some regions within the US, official govt signs
and documents come in various languages (the reasons why this is true
has to do with liability and legality; since there's no official
language, you can't just pick _one_ language to publish your forms in,
and be done with it; if you do, you're neglecting significant minority
populations (and in some regions, those can be quite significant, such
as spanish speakers in southern Florida or southern California), which
then makes you vulnerable to law suits saying that you're
discriminating and/or being negligent toward those significant
minorities who aren't required to speak English, because English isn't
an official language).
In order to simplify this, some states have tried to enact official
language legislation. Florida tried it. Someone put "Make English the
official state language" on a ballot. The Cuban-American population in
southern Florida got mad, and put "Make Spanish the official state
language" on the ballot. Neither one passed, but the Spanish one got
more votes. This pretty much silenced the "English as state language"
movement in Florida, as their plan almost backfired on them.
I don't remember any other state trying it since. The states where
there wouldn't be any opposition don't need to make it a law ... and in
states like California where it could matter (reducing costs in govt
overhead by eliminating multiple languages and the requirement for
multilingual workers), the "English as state language" supporters are
afraid of what almost happened in Florida.
So ... sorry for the long winded explanation, but that's what he was
saying.
