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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Writing Japanese vs. Esperanto
Message-ID: <elnaDwwuFD.2sp@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <4v08hq$9ss@sunburst.ccs.yorku.ca> <4vcevt$9l0@grootstal.nijmegen.inter.nl.net> <elnaDwLtG5.MKo@netcom.com> <7fk9upd3wa.fsf@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 17:40:25 GMT
Lines: 34
Sender: elna@netcom23.netcom.com

sdlee@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) writes in a recent posting (reference <7fk9upd3wa.fsf@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>):
>
>However, there  is a subtle  difference between  the  Internet and the
>international telephone system.  Telephones can  be installed and used
>for  speakers   of any  language  without  any   changes in the design
>(assuming that   the voice quality   is not too intolerable  to remove
>phonemic features between the  speakers).  However, the Internet isn't
>that simple.   There  are  problems  with coding   and  *manipulating*
>languages other than English.   Most software can only handle  English
>or at  most  single-byte,   left-to-right languages.   Languages  like
>Arabic (written  from right to left, with  a cursive script), Japanese
>(needs 2 bytes per character) and Chinese may not get good support.
>
Of course, there are still problems with internationalizing the
internet; but these are being dealt with, and many solutions are
already in place. It is just a matter of time before all writing
systems can be handled with ease.

But this still avoids the issue of international communication: if
Arabs can exchange information with Arabs, Japanese with Japanese, 
etc, what language will be used between Arabs and Japanese, or 
Hungarians and Chinese, etc?

I advocate universal trilingualism-- if our educators would 
encourage (require) students to learn their native language,
then Esperanto, and then a third language of their choice, then
all well educated persons would be able to communicate with one another,
and immense cultural diversity would be preserved, likely even
expanded.
-- 
Miko SLOPER                   elna@netcom.com         USA  (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la          ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna   fax (510) 653 1468 
Centra Oficejo de la     Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail
Esperanto-Ligo de N.A.      Write to above address or call 1-800-828 5944
