A few hums

todd glassey todd.glassey at worldnet.att.net
Wed Jul 23 09:08:28 CEST 2003


So the issues with multiple languages are

    1)    people that don't speak English as their primary language MAY find
it hard to understand English Dialog spoken too fast in a public forum.

    2)    people that don't speak English as their primary language may not
have an equal participation opportunity because of the language issues and
so they are slighted by the IETF's participation process...

    3)    people that likewise don't speak English as a primary language may
miss any number of the nuances and any local colloquialisms that are used in
technology disclosures...

The analysis of this is pretty simple.

    Some people that are not Native English speakers MAY suffer herein...
but this is subjective and dependant on the individuals perceptions and
experience in speaking local dialects and technical English...

What's the solution? - That's actually pretty simple too. The basic question
here is whether the IETF can afford to take on a publications process that
encompasses more than one language. And the answer is obviously NO if it is
to retain any of its current flavor. So with that said, the also obvious
answer is that in a meeting where one does not understand any of what is
said, those individuals need to pose a question to the chair or the speakers
to qualify their commentary more. Or just to explain themselves such that
all understand the commentary. And this is more a rule of order than
anything else it seems to me...


Todd

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Iljitsch van Beijnum" <iljitsch at muada.com>
To: "Pekka Savola" <pekkas at netcore.fi>
Cc: <problem-statement at alvestrand.no>
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 1:29 AM
Subject: Re: A few hums


> On woensdag, jul 23, 2003, at 08:45 Europe/Amsterdam, Pekka Savola
> wrote:
>
> >> I think in many cases this is
> >> exacerbated when people (try to) speak too fast. [...]
>
> > Indeed.
>
> > However, *I* at least don't have any problems with understanding fast
> > speaking, *as long as* the speaker is a native speaker (or close
> > enough),
> > i.e. can speak in a way I'm used to hear English spoken.  I'm not sure
> > how
> > big a problem this is for most folks.
>
> I don't know if people come to IETF meetings who find it difficult to
> follow English when it is spoken clear but fast. Speed in itself isn't
> a problem for me, as long as I get a few moments to let everything sink
> in before I'm required to react. However, speaking fast and still
> articulate well is something that is hard even for native speakers. And
> the people who speak the fastest usually use the most "uhm", "ahhh",
> "errr" and so on so it really doesn't help anyway.
>
> > But when someone with e.g. a strong French or Japanese/Korean accent
> > tries
> > to speak fast, then everyone is lost immediately..
>
> Yes, this is often the case although there are also many people with
> accents that don't get in the way.
>
>



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