[Theforum] Re: [Admin] Re: langs (was: 17320)

Martin martin at members.evolt.org
Tue Nov 13 01:05:00 CST 2001


Madhu Menon wrote on 13/11/01 7:52 am

>Agreed. German is spoken in many countries, including Germany and Austria. 
>French is spoken in France, Algeria, and Vietnam. Spanish is the official 
>language in 21 countries. English is... well, you get the idea.
>
>Instead, we should simply list the language by its name, like "Español", 
>"Français", etc.

And is that Quebecois Français, or Français as spoken in the Elysee 
Palace?
And is that Español as spoken in Spain, or that spoken in the other
20 countries?

And does it matter? Are they different enough to be significant?

Conventional wisdom says 'yes', but I don't know. In Gaelic it
does make a difference between Scots Gaelic and Irish. They're
more divergent than (say) UK, US and Australian English.
(although I would like a territory-appropriate lang
setting for the benefit of screenreaders, particularly where
an article is clearly in UK English)
But I don't have enough Spanish or French to know if
that's the case there.

Cheers
Martin

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