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

["Sabine Dolderer/Denic" <dolderer@denic.de>]

Dear Pilar,

On 22.01.01 12:25 Pilar Luque <pluque@nic.es> wrote:
> 
> 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...

I agree with you that there is a disadvantage for non English speakers BUT 
you should face the fact that a lot of things are discussed in face2face 
meetings and there you have either to spoke the discussion language or use 
simultanious translations. The common discussion language in the internet 
is by history (or accident ;-) 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.

Even if you translate the documents you will have one which is the "legal 
base" and as somebody having later to deal with the document you have to 
read and understand the "legal base" and therefore at least your laywers 
will read and discuss with you the English version and they will use the 
translated version only as reference.

> 
> 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.
> 
I am happy that people are doing this job and I think it is important that 
decided documents are also available in different languages. This helps 
people starting with the ICANN stuff to come to speed very soon and helps 
also the international public to understand better what ICANN does. But I 
think translations should be done on a voluntary basis and I would 
appriciate if ICANN put links to this translations on their official 
webside.

> 4.  The U.N. Nations approach towards Multilingualism should be one of
> the basic aims of the ICANN process.
> 
I don't want that discussion in ICANN which are the "supported" and which 
are the "unsupported" languages.

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

I agree totally with you.

> 
> 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.

Agreed.

> 
> 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.

In summary I am against using multible languages in the discussions and 
papers besides voluntary translations. I would suggest to solve the 
problems for the nonnative English speakers to set up rules which help 
them to work with their specific problems in the ICANN process. This 
includes rules for ICANN to

- define where and when discussion papers have to be published
- define timeframes which are sufficient for discussions
- define decision periods according to that timeframes

Regards,
Sabine

> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Pilar LUQUE (ES-NIC)
> --
> ccTLD Constituency of the DNSO
> Discussion Mailing list
> 
> 
Sabine  Dolderer 
DENIC eG
Wiesenhüttenplatz 26
D-60329 Frankfurt

eMail: Sabine.Dolderer@denic.de
Fon: +49 69 27235 0
Fax: +49 69 27235 235

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