[governance] Communication Challenges [Brainstorming]

[Daniel Pimienta]

>Translation in just a few languages is not fair against all other languages.
And then obliging everybody to use a single 
language which is understood by less than 15% of 
world population (see note below)  is fair?

Facts in languages are stubborn but not linear.

Source: http://ethnologue.org/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size
- The 8 more spoken languages cover close to 40% of the world population.
- The 77 more spoken languages cover close to 80% of the world population.
- Most international organizations have set the 
obligation to use a combination of languages for 
debates (European Union, where you live Rudi,
is the most exigeant by law ...although not always complying in the facts :-)).

The use of linguistic intercomprehension (which 
is not, indeed, the same as human translation and 
cannot be expected to be so at a cost
1000 times lower) between say, for example, 
Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, 
Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and...
why not Dutch :-) to make it 10 will probably, at 
a moderate cost, make life easier to a very large 
proportion of the members without
being unfair with the 6000 other existing 
languages ... of which probably less than 15% have a written form.
And to keep precise we are not talking software 
translation of document for which this technic is 
unaceptable (except if human intervene
to fix the product) but only applied to 
communication where flexibility is more acceptable and even wished.

Technology and computing services readyness 
evolve always faster than society readyness...
and we have been having this sort of discussions 
since the 80's while the digital world has change drastically in the period and
will still change more in the coming years.

<http://translate.google.com/?hl=es&tab=wT#fr/en/Au%20plaisir%20de%20voir%20les%20esprits%20%C3%A9voluer...>Au 
plaisir... de voir les esprits évoluer 
:-)<http://translate.google.com/?hl=es&tab=wT#fr/en/Au%20plaisir%20de%20voir%20les%20esprits%20%C3%A9voluer...>.
=================================

Note: this is an estimated the figure for the 
world population capable to meaningfully understand and express in English.
Obviously in highly educated groups (and still 
more in ICT educated groups) this percentage 
could go around 50%... but certainly
not close to 80%. And yes statistics on languages 
are hard to obtain and agree, as definition of "meaningfully" are still quite
subjective (maybe there is a hope with Magnetic 
Resonance Imaging  to see that obstacle solved in the near future!).


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