Re: [Translation-i18n] gettext with non-en source language
Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> In the next decades and starting very soon, the world's most
> understood languages will be Chinese and Hindi, and especially those
> two will have a huge influence on the IT world. And only the people
> who don't read Chinese on Hindi are blind to that.
>
> It is very short sighted to not take that into account.
Chinese and Hindi the most understood languages of the world? I doubt that.
Languages have in the past spread 1. through conquests, 2. through culture
(music, literature, cinema, ...). China (PRC) is an aggressive state (*),
but IMO it will not conquer the U.S. nor Europe in the next 50 years;
and India is not an aggressive state. Chinese culture is mostly unknown
in the rest of the world. Indian culture spreads out, but very slowly;
Bollywood will take a long time to replace Hollywood.
The influence of languages is large in IT world if 1. the language is
wide-spread in general, or 2. the language is wide-spread in IT, or
3. the top computer scientists come from a culture that speaks this
language. Neither the Chinese nor the Hindi language fits these criteria.
Bruno
(*) Don't forget that 3000 students were murdered by the government of the
"People's Republic of China" in June 1989!
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