On Thu, 2007-06-14 at 00:04 +0930, Tim wrote: > On Wed, 2007-06-13 at 14:37 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote: > > I'd like to enter a small caveat > > about the use of the description "en_US" > > when there is no other version of English on offer, > > eg when installing Fedora. > > Possibly not *now*, but lays the framework for easier inclusions, later? > Or, at least, is an accurate description of what *that* is. > > I can imagine that there could be advantages if your docs say en-US, > rather than just EN, for doing spell-checking, and so on, when you have > software that supports other EN variants. > > It seems a rather strange thing to complain about, that something > specifically describes itself, rather than vaguely does so. > I was just teasing before, but actually language is a part of every countries cultural identity. Buried in the constructs, the usage and the means of expression are clues to historically significant processes in the culture. And while I think that it would solve a lot of confusion and misery if we all spoke the same language, it would be a shame if we somehow forgot all that made us what we are. From farming, mining, fishing, metal work, and the technologies of the past spring the constructs of our future. Not all of it is good, but the strongest lessons for individuals and for cultures and countries are those lessons with the greatest impact on us. Generally that means strife, injury or failure. Success is so fleeting and so seldom reflected upon, that it doesn't seem to move us forward as much as a few failures that we have to study not to repeat. And those lessons, too are encoded in the language, much as en_US vs en_GB captures the conflict that split our cultures. We no longer have such a dramatic split (I think), but the memory on both sides of how that came to pass, and its costs in lives, and in conflict should help us to not repeat the mistakes of the past or at least we can all hope so. Regards, Les H
