Tue Sep 2 15:49:34 1997 - Message No. 1368
From: Michael Dipper

Subject: Re: Usage of german language


Hi !

On Tue, 2 Sep 1997, H.G.Pagendarm wrote:

> I am surprised that Stephans announcement of a local meeting written
> in german language seems to cause trouble.
> 
> I'd like to throw in my two cents:
> Eventually it is worth to consider to allow non-english postings in the lists.
> I do know some lists which are multi-lingual. In particular, in case such as
> this when the interest of the  message is rather local it would probably make it
> easier for those guys who have a hard time in writing English.
> Given that everybody knows how to read English, writting may be a more 
> demanding task.
> With a little luck this could even attract more contributions.

Seems that I have to say some words here :-)))

First of all I want to point out, that the whole and only truth about
postings in the list may be found in the official rules under
http://home.pages.de/~atic/xrv-list/rules.html.

I think, that posting in different languages makes absolutely no sense. If
people don't understand you, the get tensed about the content of your mail
and want to get the "message". So they ask for a translation. This means,
that every mail will appear twice, once in the original language and at
least once more in english.

Of course I accept if some readers (including me :-) ) are poor in
english. Every fair reader will accept special technical terms written not
in english, if he sees that the writer doesn't know it better. A short
discription in english can help then and perhaps somebody else can provide
the correct translation for the others. Grammatical mistakes should not
produce any flames by the @ community :-)

Referring the german meeting announcement: I have no problem to write a
mail for such a local event in german, but I would suggest to put some
words in the mail, like:

"This mail invites for a meeting in Frankfurt and thus is only of
interest for german readers, so I continue in german (more easier for 
me ....)"

This kills the tension in non-german readers, although english would be
more nice and allow *everybody* to follow the discussions.

However, my main aim would be to stay FRIENDLY and TOLERANT !
Different languages shouldn't end up in any angry discussions.

Greets,      --- Micha ---

-- 
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 Michael Dipper   Mozartstrasse 25    Email: dipper@isd.uni-stuttgart.de
                  71640 Ludwigsburg     Web: http://home.pages.de/~micha/ 
                                      phone: +49-171-5324829
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dipper@normans.isd.uni-stuttgart.de