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Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 10:32:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Tetanurae@aol.com
To: PhyloCode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu
Subject: Re: Fw: languages in PhyloCode
--Boundary_(ID_jT/Hq33ZqqWtEi6+9c31MA) Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Philip D. Cantino wrote: > On the other hand, I strongly oppose Pete Buchholz's > proposal (above), seconded by David Marjanovic. These six languages > have presumably been chosen as the official languages of the UN > because they are the most widely spoken. However, the key question > for us is what proportion of the world's systematic biologists (or > perhaps biologists in general) CAN'T read a particular language. > Scientific publications should be written in a language that a > maximal number of the likely readers can understand, even if it isn't > their first language. Although the undesirable (to most Americans/Europeans) combination of Arabic and Chinese is possible it would in my opinion be extremely unlikely. I doubt any new rules allowing this would really change the way people have been doing things in the past: using English 90% of the time, even if just a sentance or two. Perhaps mandating using English and the author's choice of one of the other five languages would be a little bit better. Pete Buchholz --Boundary_(ID_jT/Hq33ZqqWtEi6+9c31MA) Content-type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit <HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>Philip D. Cantino wrote: <BR><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">On the other hand, I strongly oppose Pete Buchholz's <BR>proposal (above), seconded by David Marjanovic. These six languages <BR>have presumably been chosen as the official languages of the UN <BR>because they are the most widely spoken. However, the key question <BR>for us is what proportion of the world's systematic biologists (or <BR>perhaps biologists in general) CAN'T read a particular language. <BR>Scientific publications should be written in a language that a <BR>maximal number of the likely readers can understand, even if it isn't <BR>their first language. </BLOCKQUOTE> <BR> <BR>Although the undesirable (to most Americans/Europeans) combination of Arabic and Chinese is possible it would in my opinion be extremely unlikely. I doubt any new rules allowing this would really change the way people have been doing things in the past: using English 90% of the time, even if just a sentance or two. <BR> <BR>Perhaps mandating using English and the author's choice of one of the other five languages would be a little bit better. <BR> <BR>Pete Buchholz</FONT></HTML> --Boundary_(ID_jT/Hq33ZqqWtEi6+9c31MA)--