Re: [wg-review] Re: [cctld-discuss] Multilingulaism in ICANN

[Sandy Harris <sandy@storm.ca>]

Maria Stepanova wrote:

> > 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...

All true, but I don't think trying to make the whole process multi-lingual
is a solution. I'm told the bylaws say ICANN operates in English. That should
stand.

> > 2.  ICANN IMPORTANT documents (SPECIALLY THOSE FOR PUBLIC COMMENT) need
> > to be translated

Yes.

> > at least into Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish,
> > German and French so that representation is fair and participation is
> 
> If we look at United Nations as an example we could find the
> following languages: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish.
> I have nothing against Japanese and German but absence of Russian
> seems to me not very good idea.

We could argue about the languages. Here are the top five by various criteria.
Numbers are from whatever sites I could find that gave numbers. I am not certain
how accurate any of them are.

Percent of Internet users?
http://www.glreach.com/globstats/index.php3

English is at 47%, nothing else over 10%, all other Europen languages combined
under 30%. Next four are Japanese, Chinese, German and Spanish in that order,
all in the 5 to 8% range.	

Number of speakers?
http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/top100.html

Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi, Bengali are top five.
Next five: Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, Chinese (Wu)

Countries using it as an official language?

I know Spanish tops this list and have been told Arabic is second.
English, French and Russian must rank fairly high, but I've been
unable to find data.

Importance as a lingua franca?
English owns this category. Nothing else is even close.

Working overseas as an English teacher, I saw situations where Russians
were translating manuals to English for Persian customers and Arabs
learning English so they could read the manuals for Japanese equipment.

We see the same thing on this list. Some of the advocates of a multilingual
policy cannot communicate with each other except in English.

Published estimates
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/11/wallraff2.htm
for the number of speakers of English as a second language range from 98
million (about as many as native speakers of German) up to several 100
million (more than any language except Mandarin). 
 
> > 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.

It is inconceivable that we not communicate some things in other languages,
or that we not make some effort to involve people who don't speak English.

> > 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.

No.

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

Yes.

> > 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.

Yes.

> > 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

Remove "the whole of" and I'll heartily agree. With that phrase in there, I'm
opposed. 

> > 2. STUDY OF THE BUDGET REQUIRED
> > 3. WHICH LANGUAGES SHOULD BE INTRODUCED

Yes, but:

    4. Where to introduce other languages.
    5. How to ensure good bi-directional communication with other language
        groups, including those for whom translation by ICANN is not
        economical.

The last is important. We almost certainly aren't going to have ICANN doinf
translations to languages in the second 50 of the top 100 list:

http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/top100.html

say Malay, Swedish, Tagalog, ... with under 20 million speakers, but we do
need to involve some of those people if this is to be a world organisation.
How?
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