This is bullshit. The reason we have copyright laws in the first place is because it has been judged impossible for content producers to out-compete pirates, because the pirates do not have to pay for the production of the content in the first place.
Wrong, the US has copyrights and patents to encourage progress in the arts and science. Section 8 - Powers of Congress of the USA Constitution specifically states "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Congress may give for a limited period of tyme a copyright or patent monopoly to thus encourage progress.
Of course you may be talking about how things are elsewhere but in the USA government is supposed to be limited to what's specifically enumberated in the USA Constitution. Admittedly government as gone way passed that point.
Hey, we'll import your prescription drugs and you can import our tax free CDRs/DVDRs and we'll call it even:)
I don't know about this, I think there is a tax on blank CDs/DVDs as there is and has been one on both blank cassette tapes and vhs tapes. It's just not noticable as the tax isn't itemized or anything.
Ah. I see. You're an atheist -- without belief in god or gods. Not an agnostic at all.
Yes, I am an agnostic. Breaking agnosis: a, without; gnosis, knowledge. Agnostic, one without knowledge. That precisely describes me, I am without knowledge. The one area I may, or may not as I don't have the belief, disagree with other Agnostics is that it is unknowable if god(s) exist. I don't know if that if one or more exists it is unknowable. I suppose you could say I am both atheistic and agnostic as I have neither the belief nor the knowledge of the existence of any diety.
. There's a distant member of my family that had a bicycle accident, name of David, who also suffered a TBI.
That's what happened to me, I was riding my bike from the campus of the college I attended after class when I was hit by a moving van, one of those apartment mover types. The driver had a history of causing accidents, he was diabetic but didn't take care of it. The thing about my injury was that my head wasn't even hit, I had my backpack on my back and the van's sideview mirror hit the backpack. The TBI was caused by the sudden violent movement when I was sent flying then hitting the ground.
First, do you hold any fraction of a belief that there is a god, or gods? In other words, do you believe there is a deity or deities, anywhere, of any type, regardless of how closely they might or might not cleave to the various religious ideas prevalent today or in the past?
No I do not believe there is any supreme diety. Nor do I believe one does not exist. I have no belief one way or the other, though I would like to know.
Second, as (presently, it appears to me) you seek to hold onto the central position between there might be a god or gods, and there might not be a god or gods, can you tell me why you find the odds for the two cases to be relatively balanced?
I don't seek to maintain this central position you describe, as I've stated before I want to know if a supreme diety exists or do not exist. Nor do I find the odds of one existing or not to be balanced. Actually if I had to choice either way with the I have I'd have to say one does not exist as I sense no evidence one does exist. I won't even use Pascal's Wager to say a supreme diety exists. What was left out is what version of one or more exists. There's a multitude of different gods each with different characteristics so how can a person decide which one to believe in? And remember some of them are jealous and don't want any other diety worshipped. So you're up shit creek if you pick the wrong one. Actually as far as I'm concerned any "God" or gods that requires faith to be "saved" isn't worth being worshipped much less respected.
can give me the reason(s) that you think it is essentially, equally likely that there is, or is not, a god or gods, that in turn showing how the comparison to the invisible pink unicorn presumably fails.
Can you show me where I make this comparison?
I've really not encountered very many agnostics who are open to discussion; that does tend to get them thrown into my prefab "agnostics are copouts" box, but in those cases, I don't feel very apologetic about it... they just feel like people who have taken politically correct behavior to an intellectually dishonest extreme to me.
Maybe it will be easier to understand my position by knowing where I come from. Though my mom was and is Roman Catholic and we went to church at least some when I was little, I don't recall how much though, I considered myself myself as having converted to Buddhism before entering my teen years. I continued studying not just Buddhism but most other major religions including comparitive religous classes in college, even though my major was Computer Engineering. Eventually I came up with my own beliefs made up of Buddhism, Christianity, and Wicca along with other Pagan beliefs. However a little over ten years ago I had a serious accident in which I wasn't expected to live but ended up surviving a Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI. Afterwards, though I still recall what they were I no longer believe in the beliefs I had prior to the accident. And because spirituality was important to me I've been seeking to learn if there is anything there, metaphysically. I even kept up going to a spiritual groups I was a member of before the accident which was located at a small metaphysical bookstore. And I was most comfortable or at ease there than in many other places, the only place I was as comfortable if not more was where I was getting therapy in a neuropsycologist's office.
Bring it all together, and you get "atheism" - without belief in god(s).
The suffix "-ist" means one who is or does. So, an atheist is one who is without belief in god(s). Atheists don't believe in god(s).
And the second:
So, literally, atheism means "without belief in a god or gods."
Depending on how it is looked at "don't believe in god(s)" and "believe there is no god(s)" may be the same, and the definitions I provided basically used the second or "does not exist". I however admit they are not the same as one says "do not believe in god(s)" and the other says "believes there is no god(s)". One is open ended and the other is definite.
In the case of agnostics, they do this so as to try to stake out an imaginary middle ground between belief and lack of belief. There is no such middle ground, and agnostics are upset by this idea because, I think, they're trying to avoid the issue.
Now you're doing what yopu accuse me of doing, there is a middle ground and not all agnostics seek to avoid the issue. I along with other agnostics seek to confront the issue, we don't hide from or avoid the issue. Along with others I seek to gain the knowledge of whether there is or is not a supreme diety, soul, or spirit. I have studied religions both on my own and in college and very much want to know if they exist, but since I don't I call myself agnostic, without knowledge, or faith. I used to believe but I lost those beliefs are I survived an accident when it would of been better if I hadn't. Know how you hear about those who've had NDEs, Near Death Experiences, say in a coma and/or after an accident? Yet, like I said above I used to have spiritual beliefs but then I had an accident which put me in a coma and I had none of those experiences. While in the coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived, if I could talk to them now I'd give them an earful of how it hasn't been any miracle, that in fact it's been the opposite. I can only think if I still had faith it'd be so much easier, that it was part of some plan, instead I'm thinking maybe I was delusion before.
if they can't standardize their own written language thier culture may be distroyed.
Then they should do this. As I see it, Microsoft's contribution can be discarded entirely or perhaps they could try and mine it for good ideas. It seems to me that what they are trying to do is get Microsoft to pay for this parallell effort and I don't see that Microsoft should have to do this and certainly not that it is a human rights issue that Microsoft should have to do it.
They are trying to standardize a written language, I've read of five different projects to do this. And they aren't trying to get MS to do it either, MS and the Chlean government went ahead and did it themself without getting input from the tribe. The tribe wants that input.
Chinese create a new alphabet, no forget that, new ideograms for written English then expects you to use the them instead of the Roman Alphabet.
Then let them. This _is_ basically what we did to them when we started transcribing Chinese words into our own alphabet and I still don't see why it should be a human rights issue that we should be forced not to have done that.
Ah but the Chinese aren't required to use Romanized Chinese writing, whether pin ying, Wade-Giles, or any other romanization system. Actually on the mainland, Mao started a program to create Simplified Chinese characters. In traditional Chinese ideograms one ideogram may have several strokes, whereas in the Roman or Latin alphabet the greatest number of strokes is four, for "W", and there are more than 66,000 ideograms in Chinese. Now the average Chineses will never use most of them as they only need about 3000 to have conversational skills.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I had thought it was merely that they translated into a language which already had a written form. I didn't realize this was the first time the language had become written. I can see how people would be upset about that.
Guess I should have read TFA a little closer. =)
Actually neither article linked to said anything about there not being a written language. I only found out the language was only oral after doing some research and reading info from links others provided. It would of been better if more info had been provided but to do that would require more work.
I don't need to defend this position extensively, it is a done deal in the atheist community. I'm just letting you, and others who are similarly confused, know what the actual situation is. You can check it out -- actually do some research -- and learn something, or you can continue on in ignorance. Your call.
The wiki article has been closed because it is filled with misinformation? How about some dictionary definitions then:
Merriam-Webster:atheist; one who believes that there is no deity.
Cambridge International Dictionary of English: atheist; someone who believes that God or gods do not exist. Compare agnostic: someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, whether a god exists:
Although he was raised a Catholic, he was an agnostic for most of his adult life.
American Heritage: atheist; One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.
That was but three definitions I provided that use the root or stem "believe" in the definition of "atheist", here's a list of definitions from 16 other dictionaries. Now where's your research? No, you don't need to provide it, but if you want to correct or convince me I am wrong then I need to see it.
How are they any worse off now than they were before any writing systems existed for their language?
I don't know that they are worse off before though they still don't have an alphabet or a writing language. As language and culture is intertwined however, if they can't standardize their own written language thier culture may be distroyed.
And, no, if the Chinese decided to make an alternative Norwegian dictionary,
This isn't what I meant, instead try this: Chinese create a new alphabet, no forget that, new ideograms for written English then expects you to use the them instead of the Roman Alphabet.
That said, PART of the "scandal" here is that Microsoft has taken advice from the Government. Aucan Huilcaman, the agitator I mentioned before is complaining that
The Mapuche language is ours, so bugger off.
The Government has no business choosing an alphabet for our language.
Microsoft has no right to take decisions about mapuche culture based on government's advice - it should ask us[1].
I agree this is an incredibly idiotic stand, but Huilcaman uses every oportunity to bash the "foreign invaders" he gets... even if he's completely off base, like in this case. It works in part because many of his followers don't have an education and are easily fooled.
Why are the Mapuche off base for wanting controll of their own alphabet? Or for asking for input on decisons regarding their culture? Seems to me what's off base is demanding others to do what you say as long as they aren't harming you.
Language is often seen as a virus or, more correctly, a symbiote of homo sapiens. Its not IP, its a evolved communication tool. No permission is neccesary. When does a baby in thier culture (or anyones culture for that fact) have to ask permission to learn a language? IMHO its just thier (probably poor) community attempting to leech a few bucks from M$.
This has nothing to do with the Mapuche wanting a few bucks from MS, what it is about is whether they have control of what their language is. The Mapuche has no written language, their language is strictly oral, spoken. If they have no written language why should MS or the Chilean government decide what written language they will use?
If any particular input turns out to be unwanted by the language community, it will get rejected anyway so the only loss is for whoever shelled out to make that input.
Ah but is it's being used, say MS issues a version of Windows with a version of written language, that will become the defacto standard. They want to be consulted not dictated to. Let me ask you this, would you like it if the Chinese dictated to you what your language will be?
Also, software piracy is extremely high in Chile. MS knows this, and I doubt they expect to sell more than a couple of copies of Windows to the Mapuches.
So, in fact, MS is doing the right thing, and those assholes are just getting in the way of people trying to help them.
There are more than 500,000 Mapuches so they are a potentially sizable market. However what they want is a voice in standardizing their language, the Mapuches do not have a written language so what the Chilean government and MS are doing is forcing them to use the written language the government and MS says they will use. They don't wanted to be told what the language will be, they want a say in their own language.
I have lived in Chile for a better part of my life and know first hand how the Mapuche's are treated, they are the original natives of Chile and they are pretty much treated as second to third class citizens.
The Mapuche are may be the oldest people still living in Chile but it appears they weren't the first living there. The oldest known settlement in the Americas is Monte Verde in Chile which has been dated to 12,500 BP (Before Present, which means it's was there before the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska existed), yet archeologists still don't know who settled it. And I noticed in the article you provide a link to it says the Mapuche have been there for 10,000 years, 2500 years after Monte Verde.
I guess they really don't like Microsoft. Maybe someone should find out if they're interested in a version of Linux localised in their native language?
Ah, they don't have a standard written language, their language is oral or spoken. The Chilean government and MS are basically saying this is how your language will be standardized.
I would say that this is a human rights issue that favours Microsoft. It should be a basic human right to be allowed to communicate with other humans, and so anything that would prevent others from translating something to your language should be cast out.
It is not about communicatons, er the use of thier written language and who can or can not use it. They do not have a written language but they want to be able to standardize a written language. If MS goes ahead and creates it's own standard form they don't have any input, that is what they want. They don't want to say who can and can not use it, only what the standard form will be.
I personally know and talk a language that is going extinct (mix of Venetian, German and Slav and it is VERY old.) and would definitely NOT want a corporate entity fubaring it even more and faster.
I hope you'd want the language documented though so it can survive. That's what groups like Ethnologue are trying to do, document and record languages so they will survive. More than 4000 languages are threatened with extinction.
Well, if it's an actual spoken language that has been documented anywhere, that argument becomes absurd.
The problem is the language only a spoken language, it is not a written language, so the Chilean government and MS are dictating to them what their written language will be. They don't want to be dictated to about their own language, they want to make their own standardized written language.
What the Mapuche are doing here seems downright stupid if they actually want their language to survive.
What would be stupid is if they were to allow someone else to dictate their language. Current they do not have a standardized written language and they should be the ones who decide how the language will be standardized. And with 500,000 users the language doesn't face much risk of going extinct.
There are currently no less than three proposals for a standardised Mapudungun writing system
I didn't see anything about any proposals to standardize Mapudungun writing on either the wiki page or the cnn article and the wki page for Mapudungun doesn't mention anything about standardizing the written language. Could you provide me with a link on this? In another part of the thread I said how I support MS in releasing a Mapudungun version of Windows but if there are three proposals for a standard then I need to amend my statement. The Mapuche Indians themselves need to agree on a standard themself and not have anyone else force feed them.
think of the ongoing criticism the standardisation of Catalan has provoked, and the extreme reaction from Valencian speakers
Speaking of the languages of Spain, imagine what the reaction to the use of the Basque language Euskara would be.
I don't think the french government is going to hassle you for being unable to speak French either, they certainly didn't hassle me when I was over there having the audacity to speak English and occasionally say 'merci' in what is likely a very poor accent (I did German in high school). Burger of ham is quite a cool phrase anyway.
Ah, but try to use Breton or any of the other languages spoken in France. While you may not get hassled by using them you may not find anyone who knows them either. Some areas are better than others in the use of languages other than French. Some areas are seeing a resurgence in the local language, such as Gaelic in some Celtic regions.
The French do try to regulate their language, but not for foreigners (I don't see them nuking Canada for screwing with the language..)
Ah but Québécois are protective of their language.
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Still, they have a habit of taking crap and actually making it pretty decent. At least to my experience.
Can you name one thing MS has taken that was crappy and made it "decent"?
FalconThis is bullshit. The reason we have copyright laws in the first place is because it has been judged impossible for content producers to out-compete pirates, because the pirates do not have to pay for the production of the content in the first place.
Wrong, the US has copyrights and patents to encourage progress in the arts and science. Section 8 - Powers of Congress of the USA Constitution specifically states "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Congress may give for a limited period of tyme a copyright or patent monopoly to thus encourage progress.
Of course you may be talking about how things are elsewhere but in the USA government is supposed to be limited to what's specifically enumberated in the USA Constitution. Admittedly government as gone way passed that point.
FalconHey, we'll import your prescription drugs and you can import our tax free CDRs/DVDRs and we'll call it even :)
I don't know about this, I think there is a tax on blank CDs/DVDs as there is and has been one on both blank cassette tapes and vhs tapes. It's just not noticable as the tax isn't itemized or anything.
FalconAh. I see. You're an atheist -- without belief in god or gods. Not an agnostic at all.
Yes, I am an agnostic. Breaking agnosis: a, without; gnosis, knowledge. Agnostic, one without knowledge. That precisely describes me, I am without knowledge. The one area I may, or may not as I don't have the belief, disagree with other Agnostics is that it is unknowable if god(s) exist. I don't know if that if one or more exists it is unknowable. I suppose you could say I am both atheistic and agnostic as I have neither the belief nor the knowledge of the existence of any diety.
. There's a distant member of my family that had a bicycle accident, name of David, who also suffered a TBI.
That's what happened to me, I was riding my bike from the campus of the college I attended after class when I was hit by a moving van, one of those apartment mover types. The driver had a history of causing accidents, he was diabetic but didn't take care of it. The thing about my injury was that my head wasn't even hit, I had my backpack on my back and the van's sideview mirror hit the backpack. The TBI was caused by the sudden violent movement when I was sent flying then hitting the ground.
FalconFirst, do you hold any fraction of a belief that there is a god, or gods? In other words, do you believe there is a deity or deities, anywhere, of any type, regardless of how closely they might or might not cleave to the various religious ideas prevalent today or in the past?
No I do not believe there is any supreme diety. Nor do I believe one does not exist. I have no belief one way or the other, though I would like to know.
Second, as (presently, it appears to me) you seek to hold onto the central position between there might be a god or gods, and there might not be a god or gods, can you tell me why you find the odds for the two cases to be relatively balanced?
I don't seek to maintain this central position you describe, as I've stated before I want to know if a supreme diety exists or do not exist. Nor do I find the odds of one existing or not to be balanced. Actually if I had to choice either way with the I have I'd have to say one does not exist as I sense no evidence one does exist. I won't even use Pascal's Wager to say a supreme diety exists. What was left out is what version of one or more exists. There's a multitude of different gods each with different characteristics so how can a person decide which one to believe in? And remember some of them are jealous and don't want any other diety worshipped. So you're up shit creek if you pick the wrong one. Actually as far as I'm concerned any "God" or gods that requires faith to be "saved" isn't worth being worshipped much less respected.
can give me the reason(s) that you think it is essentially, equally likely that there is, or is not, a god or gods, that in turn showing how the comparison to the invisible pink unicorn presumably fails.
Can you show me where I make this comparison?
I've really not encountered very many agnostics who are open to discussion; that does tend to get them thrown into my prefab "agnostics are copouts" box, but in those cases, I don't feel very apologetic about it... they just feel like people who have taken politically correct behavior to an intellectually dishonest extreme to me.
Maybe it will be easier to understand my position by knowing where I come from. Though my mom was and is Roman Catholic and we went to church at least some when I was little, I don't recall how much though, I considered myself myself as having converted to Buddhism before entering my teen years. I continued studying not just Buddhism but most other major religions including comparitive religous classes in college, even though my major was Computer Engineering. Eventually I came up with my own beliefs made up of Buddhism, Christianity, and Wicca along with other Pagan beliefs. However a little over ten years ago I had a serious accident in which I wasn't expected to live but ended up surviving a Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI. Afterwards, though I still recall what they were I no longer believe in the beliefs I had prior to the accident. And because spirituality was important to me I've been seeking to learn if there is anything there, metaphysically. I even kept up going to a spiritual groups I was a member of before the accident which was located at a small metaphysical bookstore. And I was most comfortable or at ease there than in many other places, the only place I was as comfortable if not more was where I was getting therapy in a neuropsycologist's office.
FalconFrom the first link you provided:
Bring it all together, and you get "atheism" - without belief in god(s).
The suffix "-ist" means one who is or does. So, an atheist is one who is without belief in god(s). Atheists don't believe in god(s).
And the second:
So, literally, atheism means "without belief in a god or gods."
Depending on how it is looked at "don't believe in god(s)" and "believe there is no god(s)" may be the same, and the definitions I provided basically used the second or "does not exist". I however admit they are not the same as one says "do not believe in god(s)" and the other says "believes there is no god(s)". One is open ended and the other is definite.
In the case of agnostics, they do this so as to try to stake out an imaginary middle ground between belief and lack of belief. There is no such middle ground, and agnostics are upset by this idea because, I think, they're trying to avoid the issue.
Now you're doing what yopu accuse me of doing, there is a middle ground and not all agnostics seek to avoid the issue. I along with other agnostics seek to confront the issue, we don't hide from or avoid the issue. Along with others I seek to gain the knowledge of whether there is or is not a supreme diety, soul, or spirit. I have studied religions both on my own and in college and very much want to know if they exist, but since I don't I call myself agnostic, without knowledge, or faith. I used to believe but I lost those beliefs are I survived an accident when it would of been better if I hadn't. Know how you hear about those who've had NDEs, Near Death Experiences, say in a coma and/or after an accident? Yet, like I said above I used to have spiritual beliefs but then I had an accident which put me in a coma and I had none of those experiences. While in the coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived, if I could talk to them now I'd give them an earful of how it hasn't been any miracle, that in fact it's been the opposite. I can only think if I still had faith it'd be so much easier, that it was part of some plan, instead I'm thinking maybe I was delusion before.
Falconif they can't standardize their own written language thier culture may be distroyed.
Then they should do this. As I see it, Microsoft's contribution can be discarded entirely or perhaps they could try and mine it for good ideas. It seems to me that what they are trying to do is get Microsoft to pay for this parallell effort and I don't see that Microsoft should have to do this and certainly not that it is a human rights issue that Microsoft should have to do it.
They are trying to standardize a written language, I've read of five different projects to do this. And they aren't trying to get MS to do it either, MS and the Chlean government went ahead and did it themself without getting input from the tribe. The tribe wants that input.
Chinese create a new alphabet, no forget that, new ideograms for written English then expects you to use the them instead of the Roman Alphabet.
Then let them. This _is_ basically what we did to them when we started transcribing Chinese words into our own alphabet and I still don't see why it should be a human rights issue that we should be forced not to have done that.
Ah but the Chinese aren't required to use Romanized Chinese writing, whether pin ying, Wade-Giles, or any other romanization system. Actually on the mainland, Mao started a program to create Simplified Chinese characters. In traditional Chinese ideograms one ideogram may have several strokes, whereas in the Roman or Latin alphabet the greatest number of strokes is four, for "W", and there are more than 66,000 ideograms in Chinese. Now the average Chineses will never use most of them as they only need about 3000 to have conversational skills.
Ne how,
FalconNe how ma?
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I had thought it was merely that they translated into a language which already had a written form. I didn't realize this was the first time the language had become written. I can see how people would be upset about that.
Guess I should have read TFA a little closer. =)
Actually neither article linked to said anything about there not being a written language. I only found out the language was only oral after doing some research and reading info from links others provided. It would of been better if more info had been provided but to do that would require more work.
FalconI don't need to defend this position extensively, it is a done deal in the atheist community. I'm just letting you, and others who are similarly confused, know what the actual situation is. You can check it out -- actually do some research -- and learn something, or you can continue on in ignorance. Your call.
The wiki article has been closed because it is filled with misinformation? How about some dictionary definitions then:
That was but three definitions I provided that use the root or stem "believe" in the definition of "atheist", here's a list of definitions from 16 other dictionaries. Now where's your research? No, you don't need to provide it, but if you want to correct or convince me I am wrong then I need to see it.
FalconI do not know whether you can read Spanish. If you do, the Spanish Wikipedia article on the subject is rather accurate
No, I don't know Spanish but I'm planning on taking Portuguese, I'm hoping to spend a year in Brazil in a study abroad program.
FalconMaybe they see it as an inferior language that their ancestors saddled them with and they don't want others to have to bother with it.
Why else would they not want anyone else to use it?
I didn't read anything in either article about them not wanting anyone else using thier language. Where did this come from?
FalconHow are they any worse off now than they were before any writing systems existed for their language?
I don't know that they are worse off before though they still don't have an alphabet or a writing language. As language and culture is intertwined however, if they can't standardize their own written language thier culture may be distroyed.
And, no, if the Chinese decided to make an alternative Norwegian dictionary,
This isn't what I meant, instead try this: Chinese create a new alphabet, no forget that, new ideograms for written English then expects you to use the them instead of the Roman Alphabet.
FalconThat said, PART of the "scandal" here is that Microsoft has taken advice from the Government. Aucan Huilcaman, the agitator I mentioned before is complaining that
I agree this is an incredibly idiotic stand, but Huilcaman uses every oportunity to bash the "foreign invaders" he gets... even if he's completely off base, like in this case. It works in part because many of his followers don't have an education and are easily fooled.
Why are the Mapuche off base for wanting controll of their own alphabet? Or for asking for input on decisons regarding their culture? Seems to me what's off base is demanding others to do what you say as long as they aren't harming you.
FalconLanguage is often seen as a virus or, more correctly, a symbiote of homo sapiens. Its not IP, its a evolved communication tool. No permission is neccesary. When does a baby in thier culture (or anyones culture for that fact) have to ask permission to learn a language? IMHO its just thier (probably poor) community attempting to leech a few bucks from M$.
This has nothing to do with the Mapuche wanting a few bucks from MS, what it is about is whether they have control of what their language is. The Mapuche has no written language, their language is strictly oral, spoken. If they have no written language why should MS or the Chilean government decide what written language they will use?
FalconIf any particular input turns out to be unwanted by the language community, it will get rejected anyway so the only loss is for whoever shelled out to make that input.
Ah but is it's being used, say MS issues a version of Windows with a version of written language, that will become the defacto standard. They want to be consulted not dictated to. Let me ask you this, would you like it if the Chinese dictated to you what your language will be?
FalconAlso, software piracy is extremely high in Chile. MS knows this, and I doubt they expect to sell more than a couple of copies of Windows to the Mapuches.
So, in fact, MS is doing the right thing, and those assholes are just getting in the way of people trying to help them.
There are more than 500,000 Mapuches so they are a potentially sizable market. However what they want is a voice in standardizing their language, the Mapuches do not have a written language so what the Chilean government and MS are doing is forcing them to use the written language the government and MS says they will use. They don't wanted to be told what the language will be, they want a say in their own language.
FalconI have lived in Chile for a better part of my life and know first hand how the Mapuche's are treated, they are the original natives of Chile and they are pretty much treated as second to third class citizens.
The Mapuche are may be the oldest people still living in Chile but it appears they weren't the first living there. The oldest known settlement in the Americas is Monte Verde in Chile which has been dated to 12,500 BP (Before Present, which means it's was there before the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska existed), yet archeologists still don't know who settled it. And I noticed in the article you provide a link to it says the Mapuche have been there for 10,000 years, 2500 years after Monte Verde.
FalconI guess they really don't like Microsoft. Maybe someone should find out if they're interested in a version of Linux localised in their native language?
Ah, they don't have a standard written language, their language is oral or spoken. The Chilean government and MS are basically saying this is how your language will be standardized.
FalconI would say that this is a human rights issue that favours Microsoft. It should be a basic human right to be allowed to communicate with other humans, and so anything that would prevent others from translating something to your language should be cast out.
It is not about communicatons, er the use of thier written language and who can or can not use it. They do not have a written language but they want to be able to standardize a written language. If MS goes ahead and creates it's own standard form they don't have any input, that is what they want. They don't want to say who can and can not use it, only what the standard form will be.
FalconI personally know and talk a language that is going extinct (mix of Venetian, German and Slav and it is VERY old.) and would definitely NOT want a corporate entity fubaring it even more and faster.
I hope you'd want the language documented though so it can survive. That's what groups like Ethnologue are trying to do, document and record languages so they will survive. More than 4000 languages are threatened with extinction.
FalconWell, if it's an actual spoken language that has been documented anywhere, that argument becomes absurd.
The problem is the language only a spoken language, it is not a written language, so the Chilean government and MS are dictating to them what their written language will be. They don't want to be dictated to about their own language, they want to make their own standardized written language.
FalconWhat the Mapuche are doing here seems downright stupid if they actually want their language to survive.
What would be stupid is if they were to allow someone else to dictate their language. Current they do not have a standardized written language and they should be the ones who decide how the language will be standardized. And with 500,000 users the language doesn't face much risk of going extinct.
Falconanyone who has realized that French in Quebec actually was very well in danger of being wiped off
What of Ottawa and American Indian languages such as those from the Iroquois Confederacy, aren't they threatened as well?
FalconThere are currently no less than three proposals for a standardised Mapudungun writing system
I didn't see anything about any proposals to standardize Mapudungun writing on either the wiki page or the cnn article and the wki page for Mapudungun doesn't mention anything about standardizing the written language. Could you provide me with a link on this? In another part of the thread I said how I support MS in releasing a Mapudungun version of Windows but if there are three proposals for a standard then I need to amend my statement. The Mapuche Indians themselves need to agree on a standard themself and not have anyone else force feed them.
think of the ongoing criticism the standardisation of Catalan has provoked, and the extreme reaction from Valencian speakers
Speaking of the languages of Spain, imagine what the reaction to the use of the Basque language Euskara would be.
FalconI don't think the french government is going to hassle you for being unable to speak French either, they certainly didn't hassle me when I was over there having the audacity to speak English and occasionally say 'merci' in what is likely a very poor accent (I did German in high school). Burger of ham is quite a cool phrase anyway.
Ah, but try to use Breton or any of the other languages spoken in France. While you may not get hassled by using them you may not find anyone who knows them either. Some areas are better than others in the use of languages other than French. Some areas are seeing a resurgence in the local language, such as Gaelic in some Celtic regions.
The French do try to regulate their language, but not for foreigners (I don't see them nuking Canada for screwing with the language..)
Ah but Québécois are protective of their language.
Falcon