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Do You Own Your Native Language?
l2718 writes "In a new take on the reach of 'Intellectual Property,' the Mapuche Indians of Chile are accusing Microsoft of linguistic piracy. Their lawsuit alleges that Microsoft needed permission from the tribal elders before translating its software into Mapuzugun, a project which was co-ordinated with the Chilean Ministry of Education." From the CNN Money article: "The Mapuche took their case to a court in the southern city of Temuco earlier this month but a judge ruled it should be considered in Santiago. A judge in the capital is due to decide in the next two weeks whether Microsoft has a case to answer. 'If they rule against us we will go to the Supreme Court and if they rule against us there we will take our case to a court of human rights,' said Lautaro Loncon, a Mapuche activist and coordinator of the Indigenous Network, an umbrella group for several ethnic groups in Chile."
The actual name of the language is Mapudungun.
Someone should sue them for using English. What the hell is their problem ?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
How small is small? There are 604.349 Mapuches (2002, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche) in Chile, which translates to 4% of the population. There are quite a few Mapudungun dictionaries (I own one) and many, many places in Chile have Mapudungun names (Puyehue, Llanquihue, etc.). It is only spoken by the Mapuches (I don't remember the last time I heard someone speaking Mapudungun), but it is widespread, even if us chileans don't realize it. From reading local newspapers, the reason that this "tribe" (as many people here are calling it) does not like that Microsoft has invented a written version of a language that is originally only spoken. The way it is currently written is by a "spanishization", meaning that latin letters are arranged so that when you read the word in spanish it sounds like the original word in Mapudungun (there are some Mapudungun sounds that don't exist in spanish, thus they had to "invent" letters like the umlaut). Anyway, I digress. The point is that Microsoft had to invent a way of writing Mapudungun, and since this language isn't modern, they also had to invent new words (email, configuration, etc). I think that they are complaining that this was not done in a public manner.
Yes, I'm a Mapuche, I live in Chile and I am very proud of it. I currently live in the south of the country (and yes, I have Internet, I use Linux... hell I'm a geek too) Well, I didn't expect that Slashdot would cover this, but since Microsoft is involved... :-)
I have to say that I love my roots and my fathers teached me both Spanish and Mapudungun since I was a child. And, as you can see, I have been trying to learn English and French, but that doesn't mean that I don't like my natives languages.
As you can see in the article, some of our leaders think that Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to translate Windows XP to our own language. But speaking by myself, I have a different view, because I'm younger maybe? Anyways, I believe that they should be able to do it if they want, given of course that they respect our language and they don't degrade it and I think that is the fear that our leaders have: that Microsoft embrace, extend and extinguish Mapudungun.
But I repeat, the are only my POV, not from the Mapuches as a whole. Many people older than me may think different and me and be a lot more conservatives.
PD: You are right about the camera thing. As a matter of fact, my own grandmother still believes that the camera may consume her soul. Of course I don't believe that, but I don't think is a good idea to try to persuade her, since she is very old.
PD2: Sorry for my bad english, fellow Slashdotters.
Think before you mod. Adding inflections left and right does not archaic English make.