Re: Just a Little Explanaton for Veering (RE: Blueberry/Unicode/ XML)

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

At 10:30 PM -0400 7/11/01, John Cowan wrote:
>Elliotte Rusty Harold scripsit:
>
>> FMI, has anyone seen a widely distributed XML application that crosses
>> national and linguistic borders 
>
>Why are those the ones that count?
>

They're certainly not the only applications that count. I never said they were. But I am curious if there's any case where someone chose some language other than English. Seriously, I was asking a question and hoping to get an answer. 

Frankly it's hard enough to talk publishers into putting up with the limited number of non-Roman and non-English examples I include in my books (which are still substantially more than you'll find in any other XML book published in English). And in the couple of dozen translations of my XML books into various languages and scripts, exactly one translator has taken the time to translate the examples as well as the text. I was hoping that if there was an XML application designed in something other than English then I might be able to use it to discuss some of these issues.  

>Anyway, why should English maintain its current position as de facto
>international language for the next several thousand years?
>

I doubt it will.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ 
|          The XML Bible, 2nd Edition (Hungry Minds, 2001)           |
|              http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/              |
|   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764547607/cafeaulaitA/   |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
|  Read Cafe au Lait for Java News:  http://www.cafeaulait.org/      | 
|  Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/     |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+