Re: List of regional contacts up, please revise!

On Fri, 2004-11-19 at 07:01, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Josh Berkus wrote:
> > I'm also wondering about Asia. Unlike Europe, SE Asia (at least)
> > does not tend to share common "second lanugages" so I'm wondering if
> > recommending a contact in Japan or India is any better than
> > recommending no contact at all.
>
> Europe does not really share common second languages either, and I'm
> somewhat amused about the language assignments some people are trying
> to make in this thread. Nevertheless, I think the easiest policy is,
> if someone wants to cover a particular area, let them cover it, period.
> Geopolitical judgements are best done by the affected individuals.

I disagree... Most European countries currently have a very clearly
defined second language - not always the ones that people might expect
either; Hungary and the UK were somewhat exceptional for differing
reasons. This isn't true of individuals, but is currently true of entire
countries - of course, journalists either do or do not speak particular
languages. My information about languages was taken from published
analyses I had read in the past about preferred business languages in
Europe, not on any prejudice or opinion. I'm glad that amuses you, it
wasn't the most amusing thing I'd read...but useful to know.

My main point was about how we cover the countries that don't have
specific cover. Discussing a plan to address that issue is bound to make
me sound like a racist bigot, especially from an essentially unilingual
person as myself. I see that, but say that racism forms no part of my
viewpoint.

BUT: 100 million Europeans are not covered - yet we do actually in many
cases support translations for those countries. I've not heard an
alternative suggestion mentioned as to how we might reach out to those
countries.

If there is one, then I will quickly defer to it.

--
Best Regards, Simon Riggs