Slashdot Mirror
Quebec Websites Must Include French
Arcanix writes "This story at MSNBC explains how the Quebec government is suing companies who do not post French versions of their web sites."
French-speakers are notoriously protective of their language. And this isn't new; I talked to a Quebec photography studio two, maybe three years ago that was going through the same thing. They really do prosecute sites for this. Guys: your meme-complex is doing fine in meatspace, it can fend for itself on the net.
BOSTON (AP) - The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has passed a law making use of the local accent mandatory for all purposes.
"We are tiahed of all these tourists coming from places like Quebec, Brazil, England, and New Yawk. We can't understand a word they say," said Governor Cellucci.
Locals support the measure. "Fucking tourists. Can't understand them. And they stop their cahs at red lights!" said one Boston resident.
Under the new law, it is a felony punishable by 15 years in prison for not being understood. The law also makes it legal to brutally beat those with strange accents.
No visitors in the Bay State that we asked could speak clearly enough for an interview.
Eastern Canadians...
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You've found the perfect solution. Any site in Quebec need only post a link to the babel-fish, which will serve a translated version of the site. And VOILA, instant (albeit really ugly) compliance.
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I'm living in Quebec and about a month from starting up Yet.Another.Useless.Portal. What I'm curious about is what kind of idiot would go and stool a site for being english-only ? (I know, a french idiot.. ha.. ha..) I really don't plan on writing in two languages because quite simply, if you're ever slightly computer literate, you'll know enough english to get along. French people who use french computer terms should be shot.
Back to the subject though, what if the business operating the site resides in Quebec, but the server itself is colocated in Ontario for example ? What if only the admin lives in quebec ? How the hell can they prove any of this anyway ? Do they plan on shipping a bunch of mounties to my apartment to check that the box is actually in my living room ?
They also state in the article that they only enforce bilingualism for businesses and not personal sites. Where do they cut the line between a personal site and a commercial one ? Slashdot doesn't sell anything, would it fall under personal or commercial ? Well they have banners advertising commercial products so does that make Slashdot a commercial venture to the government's eyes ? A taxable venture at least.
Yet another stupid move from the one-legged french nazi prime minister. I can't wait to move out of this crazy country-wannabe.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Speaking as a so-called 'pure-wool' francophone, I completely agree: this stupid and useless law only serves to make things even more complicated for Quebec companies wishing to have a meaningful presence on the Web. In fact, the entire set of laws protecting french is an anachronism in a world governed by openness! If you want a further example of stupidity, the minister responsible of enforcing these laws not long ago blasted companies making video games for the N64, PSX and Dreamcast, as well as for PCs, complaining that there are no french versions of these games! What economic incentive could these companies possibly have for producing such versions? I think this is a good thing anyway, it might even help youngsters learn english better than they currently do in our sub-par public schools. Young adults entering college for the most part do not know how to write or read english, let alone speak it, in a world where it is absolutely necessary to know at least two mainstream languages. I do believe english fits well in that category, doesn't it? This racist, nationalist government is so afraid of losing its power over culture that it is deliberately restricting our rights as individuals. We're supposed to have a Charter of Rights, but it is nothing like the First Amendment, which is sacred for you lucky Americans. I am deeply ashamed to call myself a Quebecer, and can't wait to move down south, as soon as I find a job in the good old US of A...
Personally, if I ran one of these websites, I'd just run my entire website through a free web translator such as babelfish, go translate, or freetranslation, to name a few. Then just paste the result into an obscure directory on my site, and put a link to it.
Sure, these wouldn't be very good translations, but it'd probably be enough to scare off any stupid provincial official.
- Is it legal to link to English-only sites?
- Does Babelfish count?
- Quite a few Internet protocols rely on English keywords, notably HTML itself. Does Quebec also require that the tags in a webpage be translated to the French equivalents?
Hint for the humor-impaired: don't take this too seriously.Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
It's FRENCH, dude, not some Martian Language from Outer Space. Many americans can sift through a bit of french and understand. Also, don't forget the 52 million people in France that also speak french, and the millions of other European countries that also understand French.
With what you wrote, you sound like a French American! HAHAHA =)