[WSIS CS-Plenary] Language issues on the Plenary list...

[Robert Guerra]

let's remember that for this summit the official languages are ALL of 
the following:

english, spanish, arabic, chinese, russian and yes ..french as well.

The call to move from "words" to specific actions - has been stated 
many times on this forum before.

I commend the actions of the ICV, CONGO, CRIS campaign, APC, Panos 
and other groups that have taken the task on to find resources and 
funding to help facilitate, organize and help with logistics. 
Complaining is easy, finding support - of any kind - is quite 
difficult and a challenge....but one must try.

The issue of translation, better said the lack of it  - is well 
known, and recognized . There have long been calls to do "something" 
so that  two of the major official UN languages - spanish, and french 
- be accommodated.

Ronald in his earlier message seems to indicate that the "call to do 
something" has been heard, not one, twice, but way too many times. In 
that I agree. That being said - what to do... How can we move from 
"defining the lack of a language translation resource" to 
"implementing a solution" ...be it a short term or long term one...?

The solution - a potential one - might closer than most people 
think...Just think about it - do we really think that this is the 
first time "Translation of mailing list traffic from one language to 
another" has been raised? I don't think so...

Has anyone bothered to do a bit of research on this ? why do i say 
this..well, if they had they would have come up with contacts, 
projects and potential resources that COULD be of help in this 
particular situation.

For example - just going a google search on "translation mailing 
lists" reveals that this issue has been raised on the "Mistica" 
mailing list for months..

MISTICA: Re: Auto-translation techniques
http://funredes.org/mistica/castellano/emec/produccion/memoria12/0130.html
http://funredes.org/mistica/castellano/emec/produccion/memoria12/0117.html

Mistica seems to have developed a system - already in place - that 
translates automatically between english, spanish and yes French. 
I've taken the liberty of cc'ing Daniel Pimineta from Mistica to get 
his comments to know if  their "solution" might be of assistance to 
this list. If it might be -  then it would indicate that the ICT 
tools we so much talk about can in fact be used to assist communities 
from that are linguistic divided (at least to a certain extent) be 
allowed to communicate.


regards

Robert








At 9:57 AM -0400 4/3/05, Ronald Koven wrote:
>Dear All --
>
>I think this message to Djilali is extraordinarily sweet and kind.
>
>He does not hesitate to beat up on anyone and everyone who dares express
>him/herself in the world's main vehicular language, and in rather insulting
>terms at that.
>
>One might note that his complaint is only about people not speaking his own
>language, French -- never in defense of Spanish Portuguese, Arabic,
>Chinese, Russian, etc.
>
>Djilali, vous devez cesser de pleurnicher. C'est tjrs la meme rengaine. On
>a compris que vous n'etes peut etre pas douŽ pour les langues. ‚a devient
>du spam (pour parler franglais) a la longue. Parlez nous plutot de choses
>qui avancent les problematiques de fond auxquelles nous sommes confrontŽes.
>
>Yours in exasperation over having my mailbox constantly cluttered with the
>same complaint from the same source,
>
>Rony Koven
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Plenary mailing list
>Plenary at wsis-cs.org
>http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary


-- 
###
Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>
Privaterra - <http://www.privaterra.org>