What is en_US ?
David G. Miller
dave at davenjudy.org
Thu Jun 14 04:54:48 UTC 2007
Ed Greshko <Ed.Greshko at greshko.com> wrote:
> Tim wrote:
>> > Well, English already does that. I don't know if others adopt words
>> > from other languages, like it does. I wasn't aware of there actually
>> > being new languages developed, other than colloquial jargon.
>>
>
> Sure. The Japanese do it all the time. But when they write them out they
> use the Katakan script to indicate that it is an adopted word.
On the other hand, the French fight it tooth and nail. They even have a
national government department charged with defending the French
language. You can get in trouble if you publish something in French
that includes forbidden words (e.g., le Big Mac, le weekend). A rather
vague memory of an article explaining how difficult technology has made
the life of those charged with keeping French French has it that
computers are "le computique" and a program bug is "le bogue". Lots of
other official words that are just close enough to the (original)
English version. When a new word comes along, the office either decides
some existing word is the appropriate translation or coins a new word to
capture the new concept. It will be interesting to see how well they do
over time.
Cheers,
Dave
--
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce
More information about the fedora-list
mailing list