Languages in PS

[Willen Dragonlezard]

Moogie say :
because people don\'t want


I\'m not agree with the sentence \"we dont want\" because a lot of people can\'t speak and understand english language very well so a website in french or other language is very important for this player.

[buddha]

Think of Hyplaa as a port city.  Like port cities all over the world, you can\'t really control what\'s being spoken on the streets.  This offends lots of people, but it\'s something you simply have to live with.  Businesses (/help, NPCs) work in the mother tongue, mostly, but everywhere else it\'s catch as catch can.

I\'m glad some people agree with me, and I\'m disappointed (but I respect)  by those who don\'t.   However, I have to point this out:  I started this thread simply to say \"Hey, I\'m willing to help Spanish and German speakers as best as I can.\"  Then a few people essentially barged in and went off on what amounts to an anti-immigrant rant.  Why did you bother?  I didn\'t knock on your door.  Are you so offended by the notion of multiculturalism that you just have to walk up to me on the street and say so?  Let me go about my way!  Leave me alone!  I\'m just trying to help.  You can sit in your linguistically homogenous cave all day and complain about \"those people\" but the rest of us are just trying to get along.

I deal with this type of xenophobia every day where I live.  For your sake, just walk away.  You are never going to prevent Spanish from being spoken in Hyplaa Plaza.  If that offends you, start a \"White\'s Only\", ooops, I mean \"English Only\" tavern in Ojaveda.

Caym: William Shatner killed Esperantu.  Blame him.

Moogie: you may be right because I don\'t think I\'ve ever come across a Zelphirien, but que sera sera.

[TheRedMonk]

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. English only in /shout and the Help channel.

I think it\'s great that the shout channel is English only, but why the Help channel? Non-English speaking people will probably have a much greater need for help considering how they, other than the regular questions, might have questions regarding translations or things like that. Having a bilingual GM that can help with translations and give explanations to things, should allow non-English speaking players to integrate more quickly.

Now of course we couldn\'t expect all languages to be covered on the help channel, but the more the better right?

Let me know if I\'m completely wrong here...

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by Willen Dragonlezard
[...] a lot of people can\'t speak and understand english language very well so a website in french or other language is very important for this player.

Does anyone realize that not everything on the internet is meant to tailor to everyone in the world?

[Harkin]

I feel like some people don\'t understand, english as a whole is an easy language, and due to my great knowledge of the english language it has become very easy for me to learn my second language of German, which in large is also an easy language to learn, but like every other language i get confused with the whole use of genderized objects

i dont care what people speak or how they speak it, but in large I feel in this game people should at least try english as the main language, as a good learning experience and also the ability to create a community as a whole without any language barriers

[buddha]

As an example I present Jayose.  Even as  native speaker, I found it hard to get the right combination of words for him.  (They may have changed this).  So when a Spanish speaker is trying to say \"can I have to scroll?\" and says instead \"gives me the scroll\" or something to that effect they will be frustrated.

In real life I have had people walk up to me and ask me to translate. Why not in PS?  Jayose doesn\'t understand accents very well, I happen to.  Think of being an American listening to a Cockney, sometimes they are hard to follow, even though they are speaking English.  If they come find Mulla and ask \"could you help me\" I can try.   I don\'t see that as destructive to the game experience at all.  In fact, I like practicing my spanish skills!

[Seytra]

OK, I\'ve been accused of being narrow-minded three times if my count is correct. Also, I was misinterpreted and also I don\'t see any conflicts in my sig and any of my posts, especially not my first one (be it on ths forum or on this thread).

So I\'ll start off with \"xenophobia\" and \"multiculturalism\" vs. \"official languages\". The way I see it, if anyone moves to a place that has another language than they do, they are obliged to learn the language of that place, and use it. Why? Simple: because otherwise they will never be able to integrate. Don\'t confust \"integration\" with \"everyone being equal\", because they\'re by far not the same.
Refusing to learn / use the language of the place leads to parallel societies, something which is extremely bad, as any expert on culture and society can tell you. I\'m not \"anti immigrant\", as I think exactly the same way about people from my country who move elsewhere. I\'m \"anti separatism\", and that wholeheartedly, and therefore agree 100% with Moogie on the Zelphirien case (and all the similar ones). And no, I don\'t want to make everyone be equal. IMO, everybody is entitled to their own beliefs and ways of life, but only to the extent to which it doesn\'t harm integration, i.e., participating in the community.
Example: If you wish to paint your rooms with catholic symbols, and also wear them all time, then fine. If you, however, only talk to catholic people, then not fine. Same for any other thing you can imagine. Diversity is good but, like everything else, it must not be overdone, for it will be turning into something bad if overdone. Language barriers aren\'t anywhere near good, they\'re totally and utterly bad.

As for my sig va. the post, and the people who accuse me of whining about the content that I can\'t access:

The purpose of the Internet is communication. The purpose of communication is getting information accross. The purpose of a website is to communicate to as many people as possible.
Therefore, it is much more efficient to post information in english than in any other language, because for the same effort (approximately), a way greater number of people can be reached.

I\'m not feeling \"left out\", BTW, and there is no reason to attack me personally for disliking tha fact that some information might simple be inaccessible to me. Really, I couldn\'t care less. The only thing that I care about is getting the information I require. It\'s no different from getting a 404 error on the only websearch hit.

Therefore, I\'m just saying that it is a stupid thing to post information that has relevance beyond the usual \"family\" homepage in another language than english, if you would be able to do it in english with reasonable effort. I am not expecting anyone to learn english for just that purpose, though it might actually be a good idea if you really care about distributing that information. Anyway, I totally don\'t expect anyone to learn english just for PS, and if you read my posts carefully, you\'ll find that I didn\'t say anything else.

Furthermore, english is a very easy language to learn, for the reasons that have been stated already. If chinese becomes as important as english is ATM, this will indeed be a hell of a lot harder to learn, yet it would be stupid to not learn it, for the reasons I outlined.

Anyway, as Moogie / Gronomist have clarified the requirements, or rather the lack of requirements, I\'ll narrow the scope of my posts to the forum, the help and shout channels, and designate them as \"recommendations\" and \"wishes\" of what I see as \"best practice\" WRT the other forms of interaction, therefore in agreement with Harkin.

Edit: Since buddhas post was posted while I was typing:

This way is perfectly fine with me, because it will further learning in both ways. It would not be fine if you would be offering to create localised groups in PS, be it official guilds or not, or encouraging use of native languages in PS, or supporting \"convenience\" translations. Obviously, I have misunderstood your original post\'s intention.

[buddha]

Seytra:

1.  I think your count is correct.

2. \" Refusing to learn / use the language of the place leads to parallel societies, something which is extremely bad, as any expert on culture and society can tell you. \"

False.  It\'s viewed as bad to many Western Academics, but many people, including those who are very religious (I am not) whole-heartedly embrace having a parallel society.  Think of the Amish in the United States.  They are neither violent nor xenophobic, but have a way of life completely disparate to the standard American fair.  Your statement is too general.

3. (a) \" Diversity is good but, like everything else, it must not be overdone, for it will be turning into something bad if overdone.\"  (b) \"Language barriers aren\'t anywhere near good, they\'re totally and utterly bad. \"

(a) True (b) False.  The first is for society to self-regulate.  The second is has no real basis.  For instance, language barriers can be \"good\" in times of war.  You don\'t want your enemy knowing what you are saying.  Thus, your claim is empty, though I undestand why you said it.

4. \"The purpose of the Internet is communication.\"

False.  The internet has many purposes.  I use it to get data for my research, for instance.  That is not communicating. This is too broad of an assumption.

5. \"Therefore, I\'m just saying that it is a stupid thing to post information that has relevance beyond the usual \"family\" homepage in another language than english, if you would be able to do it in english with reasonable effort. \"

I am a mathematician. Should I not post equations on the internet to avoid excluding non-mathematicians?

6. \"Furthermore, english is a very easy language to learn, for the reasons that have been stated already.\"

I think most linguists would beg to differ with this one.  Any experts out there?

7. As to intellectual poverty.  You may consider that you are subjecting yourself to it by expecting homogeneity.   As I mentioned, I am a scientist.  Because of that, I am quite used to being wrong.  But I have also had moments where I did NOT accept standard practices and forced the establishment to re-think their assumptions.  This is because I think differently than some others.  Look up the Saphir-Worf hypothesis, if I spelled it correctly.  Multiple languages encourage multiple trains of thought and multiple approaches.

8. \"In fact, I think it sucks very badly to have all these non-english content on the internet. It adds to redundancy, and the information I need might simply be written in any of the multiple languages I don\'t understand.\"

I think this is why people have accused you of being narrow-minded.  And I hold to that.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by buddha
2. \" Refusing to learn / use the language of the place leads to parallel societies, something which is extremely bad, as any expert on culture and society can tell you. \"

False.  It\'s viewed as bad to many Western Academics, but many people, including those who are very religious (I am not) whole-heartedly embrace having a parallel society.  Think of the Amish in the United States.  They are neither violent nor xenophobic, but have a way of life completely disparate to the standard American fair.  Your statement is too general.

Of course they (religious people) do! It\'s because they don\'t want to mix so that they won\'t be confronted with differences and new ideas. It\'s the very thing I see as bad, so it\'s proving my point.
As for the Amish: if they were to move into a city, and start to demolish buildings and removing roads (i.e., performing a special sort of ghettoization), even if they had bought them previously, would that be good? What about the person living in the middle of it due to not wanting to sell their home (until it becomes unbearable to live there)?
The amish aren\'t a \"parallel society\" IMO, because they are more or less like a separate state. I\'m talking about areas in which people from multiple cultures / whatever are living.

Originally posted by buddha
3. (a) \" Diversity is good but, like everything else, it must not be overdone, for it will be turning into something bad if overdone.\"  (b) \"Language barriers aren\'t anywhere near good, they\'re totally and utterly bad. \"

(a) True (b) False.  The first is for society to self-regulate.

It\'s for society, any society, to work, and this is something that is universally seen as \"good\".

Originally posted by buddha
The second is has no real basis.  For instance, language barriers can be \"good\" in times of war.  You don\'t want your enemy knowing what you are saying.  Thus, your claim is empty, though I undestand why you said it.

I honestly can\'t see any good in war. And besides that, the language barrier has increasingly no meaning in war, that\'s why all communication in war is being encrypted, and decrypted by the \"enemy\" side. If the only pro-language barrier is that it is supportive for war, then this IMO is another reason to get rid of it!

Originally posted by buddha
4. \"The purpose of the Internet is communication.\"

False.  The internet has many purposes.  I use it to get data for my research, for instance.  That is not communicating. This is too broad of an assumption.

No, utterly true. \"Communication\" can very well happen asynchroneous. By writing a website, or publishing information, I am communicating to each and every reader of it. Exchange of information, any type of information, is communication. Communication can be uni- or bidirectional, but it still is communication, so the assumption is valid.

Originally posted by buddha
5. \"Therefore, I\'m just saying that it is a stupid thing to post information that has relevance beyond the usual \"family\" homepage in another language than english, if you would be able to do it in english with reasonable effort. \"

I am a mathematician. Should I not post equations on the internet to avoid excluding non-mathematicians?

You\'re deliberately confusing language with content. Mathematics has the beauty of having standardised notation, for the exact purpost of being intellegible by everyone regardless of language. If you, however, wish to help others understand the mathematics you post, then it is your wish to give additional information, and to the largest number of people, so if you can only write the text once for whatever restrictions, would you choose english or gaelic, provided that you\'re capable of writing in both?

Originally posted by buddha
6. \"Furthermore, english is a very easy language to learn, for the reasons that have been stated already.\"

I think most linguists would beg to differ with this one.  Any experts out there?

It\'s backed by my own experience and the experience of others, as well as grammar. However, I\'m nowhere near competent on this one, so yes, any experts?

Originally posted by buddha
7. As to intellectual poverty.  You may consider that you are subjecting yourself to it by expecting homogeneity.   As I mentioned, I am a scientist.  Because of that, I am quite used to being wrong.  But I have also had moments where I did NOT accept standard practices and forced the establishment to re-think their assumptions.  This is because I think differently than some others.  Look up the Saphir-Worf hypothesis, if I spelled it correctly.  Multiple languages encourage multiple trains of thought and multiple approaches.

Can you provide a link and / or a summary of that hypothesis?
I don\'t think that language has anything to do with the way a person thinks, especially because psychology works perfectly well regardless of language. The only thing that multiple languages might support is that people will need to think about things for themselves because they cannot access the information. However, while occasionally something valuable might come out of that, most of the time it will simple be reinventing the wheel, i.e., furthering waste of time. I, too, like to create solutions without looking at how it was previously done, but by far not in all cases. Following that logic, it would lead to immense scientific advances to take from scientists every possibility to communicate. However, history proves that science has advanced faster and faster, proportionally to the ease of communication.

Originally posted by buddha
8. \"In fact, I think it sucks very badly to have all these non-english content on the internet. It adds to redundancy, and the information I need might simply be written in any of the multiple languages I don\'t understand.\"

I think this is why people have accused you of being narrow-minded.  And I hold to that.

Would you please care to elaborate why that makes me narrow-minded?
1) it does add to redundancy, there can\'t be any doubt about that.
2) the information may very well be unattainable for me if it is provided only in one of the minir languages, especially those that don\'t have a decent online translator available

So what is wrong with that? If I were to replace \"me\" by \"the majority of people on the internet\", which is also true, would that make said majority narrow-minded, or just me for posting this fact?

[Caym]

Originally posted by buddha
6. \"Furthermore, english is a very easy language to learn, for the reasons that have been stated already.\"

I think most linguists would beg to differ with this one.  Any experts out there?

Well I\'m not an expert at all, but I\'ve been studying english linguistics for 2 years and that must be the most difficult subject I ever had to learn ! Phonetics/phonology, grammar, syntax, etc. are not the funniest subjects to study either...
I\'m totally amazed when I see such things as \"english is easy to learn\" or \"people are too lazy to learn it\" etc...
Hellooo, learning to speak a foreign language, even poorly, takes YEARS. It took me 10 years of studies, travelling half the world away to speak english like I do, and that\'s still not enough to be called fluent, and you come here and say anyone can learn english in, like, 2 weeks during their free time ?! Welcome to reality !
Sure it\'s not _the_ hardest language to learn (I\'m not even sure you can say that because it depends A LOT on how your native language is close to the one you\'re trying to learn - and I\'ve tried ancient greek, russian, polish and spanish), but I wish people would show a bit more respect to those who dedicated years of they life just to be able to talk with you here.
Which also proves that your reproaches to people posting here and whose native tongue is not english are absurd. If we took all that time to learn english, it\'s obviously because we think that being able to speak that language is very important to communicate with people all over the world. Well I didn\'t, I\'m sure I would have somehow found a use for those ~5600 hours.

As for the Zelphirien thing, it\'s nonsense. First, if anyone has problems with this guild here is not the place to discuss it, and then the french website has no connection whatsoever with the Zelphirien guild.
And I don\'t see how a \"hidden, separated community\" would have got its place on the official website (and why it would take time to interact with people here).
I saw that Seytra and buddah have been evoking the influence of cultural difference in wars. My opinion is that the difference in itself is not the root of conflict, it\'s this weird idea that we humans all have : everything or everyone that is different is an enemy.

[Vorcrean]

Originally posted by Mooggie
does anyone else find all the Zelphirien people are like this hidden, seperated community with almost no connection to the rest of us? I hate that. I don\'t want our community split because people don\'t want to mix and speak a common language.

no more no less than other guilds. As far as I am concerned, the Blitzer, the Ordo, the Feline Lair... are \"hidden seperated communities\" as well. (but i reco i never took the time to visit their website, which i\'ll try to do as soon as i can)

I\'m perfectly aware that some players feel uneasy with Zelph speaking mainly french between themselves. Just be sure that every Zelph player really wants to be as implicated as possible in the PS\'adventure. Please be nice and keep in mind that many french people do not receive a proper training in foreign language. But all the french players I know (& as one of the French Forum admin, i know quite a lot) are committed to speak and improve their English as much as they can.

And just to be supportive with Caym, learning English is not as easy as it may seem at the first place. I\'ve been learning it for about 15 years, I lived for a full year in London and spent the equivalent of a second one in other English speaking places and still have some problem.
And even if you speak a perfect Oxford it takes some times to get an understanding of written slang as you sometimes read it on the shout canal.
\"coz I got a STR 45 aint gonna uze me fists\" might be hard to translate to \"Since I have 45 in Strength, I think it might be a better idea to buy a weapon instead of using my bare hands\"

PS is a great projet, and since we commit to it and want it to be the perfect MMORPG (boo EQ, Wow... ;-) ) it sometimes lead to unnecessary tensions.

And final words: yes we wanna be a part of the whole PS community, coz it wont be fun if we were only playing in our little sandbox.

[Harkin]

I see many interesting points here.  First, English I feel is an easy language outside the slang and all the other made up stuff, but isn\'t a language just made up anyway? So anyway, depending on how you look at it, the average person growing up in America takes english class every year in school, basically until their 18 about. Then we look at post highschool, the use of the english language and the meaning of every word can take years, as it takes americans about 16 years to learn, growing up in a english speaking country. So think about that, before saying 15 years to learn english is a long time, 15 years to learn about perfect a foreign language I feel is a reasonable amount time, as it takes usually about just as long to learn your native language.

I also see a great reason to make the majority of content available on the internet to english, as said before so that the widest amount of people can understand it.

I know I\'m an idiot but why don\'t we all start speaking \"Galactic Basic\"? Maybe it\'ll be easier on all of us!

[Foresteer]

Originally posted by lynx_lupo
First, english is one of the easier languages to learn. Sure it doesn\'t have much rules, but it also doesn\'t have sex, \"bending\" (and numerical) modifications to nouns and verbs (sorry for the bad english ). If you want something hard, learn hungarian or one of the chinese <-.

actualy english is comparitevly one of the hardest to learn... granted \"american english\" has ceased to use proper grammer of the old english and been abberviated so far thats its actualy pretyy easy to grasp

And ok granted grom i wasn\'t aware of that.. americans still can have an elitist view as its if nothing else STILL close-minded and ignorant of us to expect everybody to learn our language just so we dont heaven forbid learn another XD

(sidenote i am kinda tired my copatriots thinking the world is our all you can eat buffet table meant to cater for us.. not pointing any fingers at anyone here, as you guys do seem to mostly exceed the norm)

I mean i am for ever one mostly speaking the same language.. but if you force everyone to learn the same language you are pushing us closer and closer the the NWO many of us are spending our lives fighting :/ ... so i am more for everyone speak the same few langauges not the same ONE language

I mean why not learn a few of the \"standards\" of online activity as well (german, english, japanese, polish as spanish?) if we expect them to learn ours lets at least also put forth the effort and learn something they would know (most of the world unlike us is increasingly multi-lingual)

the world is diverse.. i would immediately commit suicide (not really i would pick up a firearm and proceed to \"redivercify\" by killing the current one nation earth but whatever ) if we all blended together under one flag and one language and one culture.. i mean the world would be ever suckier then it is now

Analogy there are many tasty soups... force them to use the same ingredients (same lagnuage) and man you get a buch of \"differnet\" boring soups that are all the same and bland... it would be the same as eating the same meal every meal for the rest of your life (having things to much the same over to long a length of time is proven to drive humans insane as well)

in closing a summary: They learn a language you learn a language.. eventauly ya\'ll will speak the same language and you both be smarter for it (plus you can converse with others without forcing them to be just like you.. i mean i could talk to myself if i wanted that).

I just think its a moderation issue.. if most moderators only speak english they can only moderate english.. therefore make everyone speak english and they can always be watched and monitered

[lynx_lupo]

Every person is perfectly able to learn at least 2 foreign languages to an acceptable fluent extent. I don\'t think one global language would destroy others (more than they diminish now), the cultural consciousness is too high.

[Tarachnul]

Example: If you wish to paint your rooms with catholic symbols, and also wear them all time, then fine. If you, however, only talk to catholic people, then not fine. Same for any other thing you can imagine. Diversity is good but, like everything else, it must not be overdone, for it will be turning into something bad if overdone. Language barriers aren\'t anywhere near good, they\'re totally and utterly bad.

your definiton of diversity is skewed look it up(not insulting you...at least not purposely)

First, english is one of the easier languages to learn. Sure it doesn\'t have much rules, but it also doesn\'t have sex, \"bending\" (and numerical) modifications to nouns and verbs (sorry for the bad english ). If you want something hard, learn hungarian or one of the chinese  <-.

wow...just wow... english as a whole is perhaps one of the most difficult languages to learn as it is one of the extremely few languages that DOESNT have a sex-dependant variable in its structure, its grammatical systems are semmingly random at times and it is RAMPANT with redundancies or things that only work SOME of the time...thus making it more difficult for non0native english speakers to get around it than a language WITH the sex-dependancies...i could go on for awhile so im just going to stop myself now....

7. As to intellectual poverty. You may consider that you are subjecting yourself to it by expecting homogeneity. As I mentioned, I am a scientist. Because of that, I am quite used to being wrong. But I have also had moments where I did NOT accept standard practices and forced the establishment to re-think their assumptions. This is because I think differently than some others. Look up the Saphir-Worf hypothesis, if I spelled it correctly. Multiple languages encourage multiple trains of thought and multiple approaches.

yes i BELEIVE you did spell it right(my spelling went to hell after AP Biology,and french i suppose as well, anyways it SOUNDS right) and if i might add nice referance

just a few comments

regards

-Tarach