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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."
My initial reflex would be to say that you cannot own a language. Then again, however, what if you invented a language? What if I wrote a book claiming that I invented Elvish? Could whoever holds the copyright for Tolkien's work sue me?
And what about accents? If I start using an accent on a show, and it begins to be associated with me. Then, someone else uses it. Can I sue them?
I am not sure, but I think that the answer is this:
A language is a way for people to communicate. That is, it is a system known to both of them, using which they can send each other messages. One can patent such a system to prevent others from using it. I am not sure, but I do not think that the tribe patented their language. Therefore, I doubt that they have any grounds on which to sue.
The iffy area, of course, is when does one have to pay royalties? If I create a language, patent it and teach it to you, and then, you teach it to your friend, do you or he have to pay me royalties? Here, I am not sure.
What if Micky$oft hadn't included Mapudungun as a language option?
What repercussions of anti-Mapudungun fudd would we be seeing? Would the story read, "Microsoft sued for racial profiling against the Mapuche?" Would we also see quotes from the Mapuche tribe saying, "Microsoft is nothing more than language bigots for not recognizing our people, and their language as part of the human race?"
Either way, I'm not surprised this story came about, and I won't be surprised if it happens again in the future. One way or another, I can't help but think this all boils down to...money.
Shane
Not quite.
The government (or, more specifically, the 'Office Québécois de la Langue Française') used to require that a french version was available for non-entertainment software (the case that broke this law was when Windows 98 was delayed a few weeks because the French version wasn't ready at the same time as the English one was).
More recently, though, they have required that all software that did not come with a French version include a French-language instruction manual. This includes console games, and for the longest time, stores received hundreds of copies black-and-white shoddily translated game manuals for consoles, at game launch (not included in the boxes). Made it a huge pain to track all of them and to hand them out to customers.
Game companies have figured it out, though, and now most include bilingual manuals in-box.
Incidentally, the term "language police" is quite offensive to francophones such as myself, as well as anyone who has realized that French in Quebec actually was very well in danger of being wiped off by the deluge of English signs and companies up until the Quiet Revolution, and even, to a lesser extent, since then. There used to be a time where you could not be served in French in any businesses in Montreal, nor were there any French-language signage. I dare say that if it weren't for the "language police", it probably still would be the case.
While some of their tactics are quite heavy-handed, most of their actions are in fact very reasonable and help make Quebec a great place to live, in both official languages.