Le lundi 18 février 2013 à 09:16 +0000, Liam Wyatt a écrit : > So... Apparently this is where you are expected to write something that > convinces people you have a firm grasp of English. Unfortunately, this is a > written test, not an oral test - because an oral test might be quite > useful. I know many people from my own country and other > English-native-speaking countries that are officially literate but when > asked to speak in a formal setting (or even semi-formal situation like > Wikimania) are incapable of clear enunciation, diction, grammar, > intonation, accent and speed. Certainly, they can be understood by *other* > native English speakers but they have no concept of how difficult it is for > non-native speakers to understand them. > > Perhaps a mandatory class for native speakers before the conference > entitled: > "Speak English, like, more good 'n stuff for all y'all. Mmm'kay?"
And why not propose an "introduction to esperanto[1] and why it would be by far a beter solution than using english in all international conferences" ? Seriously, there's so much time and energy spended to learn English (but any native langage would give you problem, I suppose) as a second/third language around the world for such a poor result that even someone who have no problem to write an academic text can't be understood by other non-natives when he speaks oraly. This would really be an interesting topic in fact. Clearly the English language is strickly pushed by/for economical reasons, not because it's an efficient communication tool like it's suggested in an answer by geni[2] to "New proposal for a wiki Project!" to preserve minority languages. So reasons why we use English on this list is obvious for now, but promoting a constructed international auxiliary language and aiming (as a long term project) to make it the default language for Wikimedia mailing lists and international meetings, to me it sounds like it would fit with the “imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge” goal. Now I hope no one will read this message as a diatrib against English, I think every language have is genius[3] and I don't believe there are better or perfect language. But I do believe that for specific goals some languages may be more or less fitted. So please, really don't take this message as an attack against anything or anyone, I love you all! I just hope we may better understand each other through a communication mean more fitted to our community diversity. :) [1] Or any language as efficient for international communication the community would prefer (and you know it can't be a native one). [2] To be fair, here is the relevant quotation : >>As language minorities mostly live in rural areas they are perfectly >>adapted to their environment and in their linguistic world/lexicon >>>there are more concepts and ideas than people from the cities have. > >English can deal with concepts ranging from the Australian outback to >the housing projects of Detroit to CERN. Minority languages can only >be compared logarithmically (assuming they have the concept of >logarithms). [3] As in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_%28literature%29 . And by the way, to my mind this sounds like an important point in favor of defending language diversity, in the same time as you promote international communication through a constructed languag. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
