Proposal: Language code "de-DE-trad"

[Torsten Bronger]

On Mittwoch, 13. Februar 2002 17:47 schrieben Sie:
> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002 16:19:55 +0100, J.W. wrote:
> > Also, this revision is opposed by a majority in the population. A pol=
l
> > made in 6 major newspapers in 200 resulted in 98% voting to take back=
 the
> > revision, or to ignore it.
>
> If this is the case, then how did this come to be adopted?  The German
> speaking nations are all (presumably) democracies, which presumably als=
o
> means that their respective governments can't get away with something l=
ike
> this.

Sometimes the government doesn't ask.  And since it wasn't about taxes,
there wasn't enough protest to make it undone.

<suppressanger>presumably...</suppressanger>

> And if this is the case, what is the likelihood that the government aft=
er
> the next elections will toss it out?

None.  It's difficult to explain, but such things go a very long way.
Remember: Many countries are involved.  And as far as cultural issues are=
=20
concerned, Germany itself consists of some 15 countries.  All must agree.=
 =20
That last (and first) reform of 1996 went also a very long way.  And taki=
ng=20
into account that the reactions were all but positive, we can expect the=20
next reform in German speaking countries when we reach Alpha Centauri.

> What are the substantive differences that would be noticed by, say, som=
eone
> who studied German for 3 years in high school 28 years ago?

Not very substantial, but recognisable.  My estimate is that every fourth
sentence contains a difference.  But that's just a rough guess.

However, a text marked as "new", but in fact "traditional", is badly
hyphenated.  And spellchecking with a wrong word list can also be very
annoying, even if it's only "a little bit wrong".

Bye,
Torsten.