RE: [ga] Public Comment Period: NARALO MOU
At 13:10 14/07/2007, Debbie Garside wrote: The problem is, where do you stop. India has 22 Official languages. Canada has Ineut and Cree in some provinces. The problem is pretty simple to address, because it is networked with many other technical, political, societal habitus, agreements, treaties. There are several definitions of what a language may be that may conflict. There are clear definitions of language usages. I suppose that we should ask Martin Boyle you know well. Martin is the GAC UK representative, and certainly one of the world/European top specialists in that area (he specialized in e-commerce, represented EU during the Tunis round, and through his agreement with David Gross co-fathered/permitted this way the current IGF formula). He knows very well the ICANN community. IMHO the target is to be objectively and legally more efficient. This probably means two main things: to respect sovereignties (because they structure the whole human society) and to prevent languages from being perceived or used as technical barriers to trade, along WTO rules. This is the action point documented in my http://mltf.org/070622-prop.pdf open business coopetition proposal which raises the most support. Comments show that the problem can both be not-enough and too-much languages. A position English mother tongue people may have difficulty to feel: beyond a reasonable number of languages (6 for the UN, far more for trade), if there is no direct translation system permitting face to face dialogues, too many languages are perceived as a way to promote English as a lingua franca (a koine). This is a problem, you know very well, is a conceptual confusion between "content languages" as per ISO TC37 about terminology, lingistics, semantics, pragmatics, etc. and "administrative/business languages", as per ISO TC46 that are languages the required use of which, in the considered country or area, is not a WTO technical barrier to trade. Best. jfc > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > [mailto:owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roberto Gaetano > Sent: 14 July 2007 08:13 > To: 'JFC Morfin'; 'Jeff Williams'; ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: RE: [ga] Public Comment Period: NARALO MOU > > JFC Morfin wrote:Correct. I am afraid you miss ".pm". Definitly North American. Definitly French as an official language.> > Unfortunately, in 2003 .pm (Saint Pierre et Miquelon) was > reassigned to the European region, being a French Overseas > Territory (or Department, I might be wrong, JFC will know > better than me). Territory. However, the definition of ICANN regions seemed to be under reevaluation? As a French @large, I am certainly in favor of ICANN regions to be based on geography as the Internet priority is to the users and real usages, before regalian issues. This is a consequence (IMHO) of the importance acknowledged to the civil and business societies. > > But nevertheless I share JFC's reasonment, also the fact that > language is a local cultural element often reflected in local rules. > For instance, Italy has one single official language, which > as you could guess is italian. However, in some regions, > local languages are accepted also for official documents, > like, for instance, French in Val d'Aosta and German in Alto > Adige (Südtirol). > > Cheers, > Roberto > >
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