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From: kanze@lts.sel.alcatel.de (James Kanze US/ESC 60/3/141 #40763)
Subject: Re: Why is France systematically excluded?
In-Reply-To: georgeh@www.comet.chv.va.us's message of Sun, 25 Aug 1996 00:37:29 GMT
Message-ID: <KANZE.96Aug27174012@slsvhrt.lts.sel.alcatel.de>
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References: <> <4v6kr7$88o@mars.worldonline.nl> <4vd31o$3es@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
	<3219DAC6.1322@crcg.edu> <4vi9r0$v4@fbi-news.Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE> <
	<danpop.840926594@news.cern.ch> <8187cc$13251d.23e@news.comet.net>
Date: 27 Aug 1996 15:40:12 GMT

In article <8187cc$13251d.23e@news.comet.net>
georgeh@www.comet.chv.va.us (George F. Hardy) writes:

|> In article <danpop.840926594@news.cern.ch>, Dan.Pop@cern.ch (Dan Pop) says:
|> >
|> >In <4vk4f6$d4r@cisun2000.unil.ch> jmosar@ulys.unil.ch (Jon Mosar) writes:
|> >
|> >>who ever said that the common net-language is english ??????
|> >
|> >Please enlighten us, what is the common language on the net?

|> Common, as in "every day" and "used by most".

Or "frequently occuring".  If this was the meaning meant, then the
statement should be: "English is *A* common language on the net."  And
in this case, I don't think that anyone would dispute the fact.  English
is commonly used on the net.

The original poster used the definite article "the", however.  Which
would seem to suggest: 1) that there is a single common language on the
net (which is false), and 2) that he was using "common" in the sense of
shared (e.g.: what do all net users have in common).

In this sense, there is no common language on the net, anymore than
there is a common language in the world.  There are many different
languages, some occuring more frequently than others.

|> Absolutely,
|> English is the "common" language of the Net, and, in fact,
|> the world's international discussions.

I wasn't aware that you were present at all of the world's international
discussions.  At a high level, the language used will generally depend
on the subject matter: where money is involved, English predominates, as
it does in most engineering fields.  In other domains (art, culture,
cuisine), English still is often second to other languages.

At a lower level, I'm American, my wife's Italian, and we speak French
together.  In our travels to places where we don't speak the language
(mostly eastern Europe), we've generally found German to be the most
useful language, with, surprisingly, Italian second, being widely spoken
in the coastal areas of ex-Yugoslavia and being useful in Spain.
-- 
James Kanze         Tel.: (+33) 88 14 49 00        email: kanze@gabi-soft.fr
GABI Software, Sarl., 8 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
Conseils, tudes et ralisations en logiciel orient objet --
                -- A la recherche d'une activit dans une region francophone

