NationStates Jolt Archive

Distinguish colleagues,

there is one new proposal I would like to draw your attention to.
The honourable representativ Gemfish from the region Sout East Asia made the proposa:

"Lingustic Diversity" (the author wrote it that way - otherwise you don´t find it)

"Description: This bill promotes the tolerance of languages other than a country’s official language/s and its citizens’ right to use languages other than this language/s, as well as the acceptance of all native languages in the communication of the world community.

RECOGNISING that language is intrinsic to the culture and ideology of a individuals and communities.

REALISING that in the mass usage of particular languages, minority languages are prone to die out, whereby a vital aspect of the culture and identity of the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=people&v=56">people</a> is irrevocably lost.

This bill carries the following recommendations:

1. An appropriate percentage of each nation's budget to be directed to the preservation and stimulation of endangered languages.

2. Where a nation possesses indigenous language/s, opportunity is to be provided for these to be taught in appropriate educational institutions.

3. An interpreting service to be provided for United Nations correspondence with member nations in their native language/s. The United Nations and the nation requiring the service will jointly fund this.

A language tells a thousand words."

We are welcoming this proposal. Since the UN should represent all nations not only the English-speaking nations we especially welcome the recognition of other leagues which paragraph 3 points out.

Even if that only leads to a more symbolic recognition of other languages we consider this highly important as a message to all nations and their leaders that the UN wants to be really inclusive and wants to adress the concerns of all countries, regardless of what they language are and how good the English is which their leaders speak.
I´m calling on all nations to support this proposal to show their will and determination to build an inclusive UN for all.

Sincerely yours


Marc Smith, president of Kybernetia

I like this proposal.
Would you like to specify the percentage of the budget to be allocated for the presevation of languages?
Another suggestion would be a UN advisory panel to determine if a country has a language that qualifies and to oversee it's protection.

Linguists estimate that there are anywhere from 4,000 to more than 10,000 distinct languages still spoken. Many linguists give a figure of 6,000-7,000, more or less following the lead of the reference work Ethnologue: Languages of the World.

What makes it our responsibility to ensure that languages which our citizens will never use are taught in our nations? Cultures, like many other things, evolve with time, and to stimulate a language artificially out of concern for some kind of ethnocentric holocaust is simply absurd. Languages die out because it is no longer beneficial to speak them. If only you and one other person speak Jubunga, why should anyone else learn Jubunga? The language might be "preserved" in that people still speak it, but it won't see use aside from letters written between those three people, assuming they even know the others exist.

People in this forum have made it abundantly clear that even the major languages of the world aren't being spoken correctly. We'd much rather see this money be put towards educating people about speaking the major languages, and let the smaller ones be left to the academics who wish to study them.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel M. Hillaker
Minister of Foreign Affairs

This Proposal fits in rather nicely with our own Election Languages Act.

Election Languages Act
A resolution to increase democratic freedoms.


Category: The Furtherment of Democracy
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: United Morgan

Description: This Resolution shall apply to all UN members regardless of whether or not they have an official language or languages.
The United Nations recognises that during elections some citizens are unable to vote because they don't understand the native language.
It is the responsibility of national governments to overcome this in the name of democratic freedom.
It is therefor requested that any citizen who is not fluent in the native language be allowed to bring a translator as designated by the citizen to the voting area to aid them in exercising their right to vote. The designated translator may not be affiliated with a local candidate.

Voting Ends: Wed May 26 2004

sfgsdfgsdfg

A language tells a thousand words.

We respectfully submit that is a language has only got a thousand-word vocabulary, that it is pretty useless and should be allowed to die out.

Otherwise, we occupy a position somewhere between that of Sophista and this document. What position exactly that is we're not sure of yet.

You can't force diversity.

Language is fluid, if it dies out it's probably because it is not needed anymore.

In other words I agree with Sophista

Desdemona,
UN representative,
The Black New World
Do you know what ‘gay science’ is?
Meet The Reps (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=132588)

Latin hasn't been spoken as a first language in a millenia and a half, and it hasn't been lost. Gaelic survived a deliberate attempt by the English to wipe it out. Modern languages can be recorded and preserved for posterity.

We simply do not see the need for this. It is legislation for legislation's sake.

Latin hasn't been spoken as a first language in a millenia and a half, and it hasn't been lost. Gaelic survived a deliberate attempt by the English to wipe it out. Modern languages can be recorded and preserved for posterity.

We simply do not see the need for this. It is legislation for legislation's sake.

Well bugger me sideways - we agree on something.

Ich wird auf (schlecten) Deutsch sprechen. Niemand wird mich verstehen, aber das ist velleicht meine Punkt.

RECOGNISING that language is intrinsic to the culture and ideology of a individuals and communities.

REALISING that in the mass usage of particular languages, minority languages are prone to die out, whereby a vital aspect of the culture and identity of the people is irrevocably lost.

Ja, du hast recht. Wir mussen nicht nur auf Englisch sprechen. Man muss andere Kulturen lieben. Je weniger anderen Sprechen man spricht, desto dummer man sein muss.

1. An appropriate percentage of each nation's budget to be directed to the preservation and stimulation of endangered languages.

Wuerde null Prozent gut sein?

2. Where a nation possesses indigenous language/s, opportunity is to be provided for these to be taught in appropriate educational institutions.

Warum sagt die Vereinigten Nationen, was die Schulen lehren soll?

3. An interpreting service to be provided for United Nations correspondence with member nations in their native language/s. The United Nations and the nation requiring the service will jointly fund this.

Das ist velleicht gut, aber es scheint natuerlich. Ich denke, wir brauchen kein Resolution.

...the UN should represent all nations not only the English-speaking nations...

Eh. NationStates war auf Englisch geschriebt. Haben wir genug Spielers? Es scheint so.

Listen up, ye lot of cod swillin' bildge rats. This is an impossible bill 'ta pass! Yar, if me grandfather Captain Riggins was still alive, he'd order ya all ta walk the plank!
Use yer dirt-adled brains ta think fer a minute. How do yer define a language, after all? I don't think that my boswell of a crew be speakin' quite the same kinder English as ye all, so it comes the question: be it a dialect, or be it a different language?
Dividing up booty amongst yer mates is one thing, but dividing langauges from dialects is quite another. It can't be done. If a bunch of you dry-landers move into Saltspray, and ye all be speakin' yer weird form o' English, does that mean we gotta spare some of our hard-earned treasure just to perserve the same wood-masted language? How silly does that all sound. Yar, come back to us all when you can tell me what be dialect and what be language, then we might listen to ye. Perhaps First Mate Chomsky might be interested in yer ideas.
Leave it to a mainlander to come up with swill like this....


-From The Bow, First Captain Barnacle Bob of Saltspray

@Satin,

I´m going to answer you in English in order to make your point clear to a broder ordiance.

"Quote:
RECOGNISING that language is intrinsic to the culture and ideology of a individuals and communities.

REALISING that in the mass usage of particular languages, minority languages are prone to die out, whereby a vital aspect of the culture and identity of the people is irrevocably lost. "


Ja, du hast recht. Wir mussen nicht nur auf Englisch sprechen. Man muss andere Kulturen lieben. - Translation: Yes, you´re right. We don´t have to speak English, only. You havet ot love other cultures"- well: I don´t think you have to love other cultures, but you have to respect them. That is what the UN is or at least should be all about: respect, cooperation and work for world peace and not stupid resolutions regulating the national labour market.


"Quote:
1. An appropriate percentage of each nation's budget to be directed to the preservation and stimulation of endangered languages.
Wuerde null Prozent gut sein?" - Would 0% be enough"

We are not the author of the resolution. But we welcome that the author did not specify the amount. That would infringe national souvereignity. Furthernmore: you can´t generalize it. Some languages are spoken by a very small group, others by a bigger one. Due to that the amount of money spent by the government can´t be determined by the UN. That´s the duty of the souvereign nation state.

"Quote:
2. Where a nation possesses indigenous language/s, opportunity is to be provided for these to be taught in appropriate educational institutions.
Warum sagt die Vereinigten Nationen, was die Schulen lehren soll?- Why are the UN telling what the schools should be teaching?"

We think that this is a civil rights issue. The denial of teaching traditional and minority language is a violation of civil rights and the Charta of the UN. Therefore the right of the people to speak their traditional language and the possibilty to learn them in school ought to be protected.

"Quote:
3. An interpreting service to be provided for United Nations correspondence with member nations in their native language/s. The United Nations and the nation requiring the service will jointly fund this.
Das ist velleicht gut, aber es scheint natuerlich. Ich denke, wir brauchen kein Resolution. - That maybe good, but es seems natural. I think we don´t need a resolution."

I disagree. As a matter of fact: There isn´t such a service at Nation states. Therefore we see a resolution as very useful to push and pressure to get one.

"Quote:
...the UN should represent all nations not only the English-speaking nations...
Eh. NationStates war auf Englisch geschriebt. Haben wir genug Spielers? Es scheint so." Hey, nation states was written in English. Do we have enough players, don´t we? It does seem to be the case."

It is clear that the main language is and ought to be English, due to the fact that is spoken and understood around the world. It is the "lingua franca" of our time. However recognition of other languages is important in our view. The world is not an English-speaking world only. After all: there are more people speaking Han-Chinese than any other language of the world. The UN shall open up and try to get new players around the world. A translation service and a formal and at least symbolic recognition of other languages maybe helpful to do so.
We are considering drafting our own resolution regarding the translation service and the formal recognition. Paragraph 3 of the resolution.
("3. An interpreting service to be provided for United Nations correspondence with member nations in their native language/s. The United Nations and the nation requiring the service will jointly fund this.") was the main reason we supported it. The real UN recognizes all languages and has 6 working languages in which all documents have to be translated. That are: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic.

We think that the Nation states UN shall take over this but expand the number of languages to nine: adding Portugese, Japanese and German into the group.

We are also thinking the UN should support and assist countries to find region in their language, if they which to. Such regions to exist, e.g. Deutschsprachige Region is a german-speaking region. But such regions maybe hard to find for a newcomer. Thereforre we suggest UN assistance and support for such regions, who reflect the diversity of the real world. Nation states should also reflect that diversity.

Sincerely yours

Marc Smith, president of Kybernetia

P.S. sehr schlechtes Deutsch. Da müssen wir aber noch mal üben *g*

Italiano! :!: :!: