[wg-review] Multilingulaism in ICANN

[Pilar Luque <pluque@nic.es>]

Daer all,



After MR BURTON'S petition, and at Mr STUBBS' insistance on 18/01/01,
please find enclosed resume of discussion on Multilingualism as
promised:

1.You cannot ask non-native English speakers for all of the
following:
    - be as fast as native English speakers to understand
      all subtle issues in ICANN process
    - be as comfortable as as native English speakers in the anglo-saxon
      way of doing, with all procedures, term of references, etc,
      all what is inherent to this cluture they do not dominate
    - be equally skilled on all legal matters of common law
    - compete with native English speakers companies for new gTLD
    - pay for ICANN, either directly, or indirectly
    - and volunteer on their spare time to translate ICANN system
      and documents into local languages
There is an abismal difference betwen UNDERSTAND english texts and
DISCUSS in public in English...


2.  ICANN IMPORTANT documents (SPECIALLY THOSE FOR PUBLIC COMMENT) need
to be translated at least into Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish,
German and French so that representation is fair and participation is
higher.  It is INCONCEIVABLE that any organization representing or
claiming to be
world wide would not have several languages available.  To do otherwise
is cultural imperialism.

3. The ccTLD Constituency of the DNSO has already taken steps towards
Multilingualism by volunteer translators.  It would be a way to start
which would solve the problem of overburden of translations.  The whole
of the DNSO should follow such example so that the ICANN Board can be
influenced towards such a move.

4.  The U.N. Nations approach towards Multilingualism should be one of
the basic aims of the ICANN process.

5.  English-mother tongue speakers should make the effort when
expressing themselves in meeetings or dicussions lists to use plain
English.

6.  A research into software transaltions products for discusiion list
should be done.



7.  An effort should be made to train ICANN participants into a better
knowledge of the basic ICANN technical jargon.

8. Multilingualism should be a point to be considered in the new Names
Council Budget and Names Council Business Plan.

THEREFORE IT SHOULD BE DECIDED:

1. BUSINESS PLAN FOR SLOWLY INTRODUCING MULTILINGUALISM IN THE WHOLE OF
THE ICANN PROCESS
2. STUDY OF THE BUDGET REQUIRED
3. WHICH LANGUAGES SHOULD BE INTRODUCED


Comments please.

Regards,


Pilar LUQUE (ES-NIC)
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