RE: XRI requirements - and overdefensiveness in OpenSourceLand...

[Arved Sandstrom <Ar...@chebucto.ns.ca>]

At 07:21 AM 7/17/00 +0200, Paulo Gaspar wrote:
>
>> Point being, we have not necessarily adequately captured culture
>> and respect
>> when we employ English. I'm thinking that the broad use of English, which
>> exemplifies current American mores, is maybe always not so good. Maybe we
>> should respect attempts to use native languages. I am personally
>> capable of
>> reading French and German, and responding in kind (sometimes
>> brokenly), and
>> of course I can do Estonian. :-) Portuguese is beyond me. :-)
>
>Estonian is beyond me.
>=:o)

It should be beyond most reasonable people. We have 14 verb cases, and 
pronounciation that defies belief. :-)

We also don't need pronouns. We can compress sentences into one word. :-) 
And we have some nice umlauts: try pronouncing "o~un" properly, or "po"an", 
or "raukusno~drameelsus". :-)

Actually, Italian won a prize back in the '30's for being the world's most 
mellifluous language. Estonian was second.

>I think English is still the easier one. I have learned rudiments of German
>and Dutch but these are so difficult for a latin. But even being a latin,
>English was much easier to learn for me than French.
>
>As many Portuguese, I also understand Spanish and Italien. Still, nothing is
>so easy learning to speak without too much mistakes as English.
>(Although impossible to speak like a native.)

Don't even try understanding English speaken in rural areas. Can't comment 
on England, but if you listen to Newfoundland speakers, Maine speakers, or 
speakers from a number of different Nova Scotian areas, you can't understand 
what they are saying. _I_ have lived in Nova Scotia practically all my life, 
but I still can't understand some of these people. :-)

Your English is good. Despite that, I'm surprised to hear you say it's easy 
to use. Heavy media exposure, maybe?

Arved

Senior Developer
e-plicity.com (www.e-plicity.com)
Halifax, Nova Scotia
"B2B Wireless in Canada's Ocean Playground"