The key I believe is a balanced mixture of ethics and convenience. When
correspondence relates to in-game information everyone should be able to
understand and logically english would then be the norm. Not because it is
spoken by the americans but because it is the primary world language. (in 25
years we might use spanish for this reason:-)) Accepting this approach
would ofcourse oblige all americans to refrain from the use of parochial
slang:-).
With regard to out of game exchanges, I am of the opinion it really doesnt
matter that much which language is used. I for one would not care if the
flames directed at Oleg/Greg would be conveyed in Swahili. When Italians
start rattling in italian and the french stubbornly continue in french, most
americans will be at a loss. Still it happens on many zones/domains on each
off which you have to subscribe to in order to get access. When this happens
and it doesnt happen all too often the list is simply used as the most
covenient tool, the alternative would be to assemble all the Lords' e-mail
adresses for instance. As a matter of fact most of the Dutch correspondence
went on in private , the list was only used to start it off.
Funnily enough most of the conversation centered on the question whether
others, in the Dutch language domain, would be able to understand what some
of the Lords were putting forward. In fact some of these Belgians expected
the other not to be able to surmise what they were saying:-). For those that
are interested: the Belgians were using an old west-flemish dialect. That
dialect dates back to the old low german dialects spoken along the North sea
coast line around the time of the great migrations and which were heavily
influenced by the frisian language. In fact some consonants of frisian
language variants have been handed down until the present day, not only in
the west flemish dialect but also in the english language. That is the
reason english is part of the anglo-frisian language group. So with a little
exercise and use of old english you might have been able to figure out what
they were saying :-). I myself am of the west-frisian tribe, so I guess I
had an advantage here.
And to Andrew: no the Belgians do not have to put up wth flak and bigoted
anti-Belgia slur. The Dutch and belgian peoples have been neighbours and
friends for over 1500 years. The jokes we throw at each other are very
similar to those exchanged between the scots and the english. It is, lets
say a national pass-time and they emanate from roughly the same historical
background. The belgians and the scots are the elder civilations and both
holland and england came into the ascendancy much later. So there are some
rivalries. Also the belgians have a better comand over standard high dutch,
the variant we developed as culture carrier, better than we do. So we make
jokes about each other so what :-)
PeBe
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Mordekai <apenney@lpr.com.au>
Aan: Michael Cofran <thunder@napanet.net>
CC: g2-list@pbm.com <g2-list@pbm.com>
Datum: woensdag 8 september 1999 7:58
Onderwerp: Re: First Musketeer Victory! Artemis Captured
> > Why?? Where does it say the list has to be in English???
> >
>
> Chill out Andrew. We aren't attacking your language. Its just that we
> don't understand it. Beleive it or not, a VAST majority of the players
> subscibing to this list also do not understand it.
Sorry I'm having trouble typing due to laughing so much. I'm
Australian (That's is Australian not Austrian as someone recently
said) and only speak English.
My long term opponents, the Lords often get flack for their language
and also have to put up with odd bigoted anti-Belgian slur.
Sorry if it came across as a bit serious. (Must learn to put more
smiley's in). There again as Olgreg (I love that name whoever coined
it) has found out several times, subtle humour on the list often goes
astray and ends up insulting somebody.
In fact one of the Lords and I (Hi Kurt) are having a rather 'frank
and open' (read swearing and screaming) discussion on this
insult issue at the moment but that one is X-rated due to foul
language so I won't go into it here
Love to all in the good old US of A.
Andrew
PS I forget have you given Granda and Panama back yet??
Sorry Sorry Joke Joke :-)