h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Banning of Non English British Languages
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Legal Documents
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/148.htm
I know that the British governments have listed both Welsh and Irish as minority languages in relation to this charter but I don’t know the about Scots, Cornish or Manx.

Welsh Language Act 1967 (unable to find on-line copy)
Welsh Language Act 1993
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1993/Ukpga_19930038_en_1.htm

I believe that Irish is mentioned in the Good Friday Belfast agreement (http://www.nio.gov.uk/issues/agreement.htm), in which the UK agreed to give Irish the same status in Northern Ireland as it has in Eire. Although at the moment I don’t think there is any specific legislation.

Scots again has no special protection but the Scottish parliament is preparing a Gaelic language Act at the moment.

Cornish also has no special protection in the UK.

Manx

Although there are no special laws relating to the use of Manx the I.O.M. government dose have an Office for the Manx Language.


Minority British Languages as a first Language
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Welsh, Irish, Scots & Manx are all spoken as a First language with children learning English as a 2nd language, but with the exception of Welsh the number of people doing so is very small.


What I think is wrong with the h2g2 policy of banning these languages.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Unlike television or radio, the web offers the chance of not just broadcasting information but of allowing discussion and peer to peer communication. h2g2 was set-up to take advantage of this facility to communicate, now I do not expect h2g2 to publish information in all the various British languages as it is targeted at the whole of the UK but I do expect it to allow British Citizens to communicate with each other in the British Language that is there first and native language. It goes against my sense of fair-play to force to do otherwise and I hope the editors will feel the same when they have thought it through.

And as to moderation of British Minority Languages …

As I understand it (reading between the lines of Jims and other editorial postings) the Moderation tools are contained within a web-page. Therefore, it should not prove impossible to hire Moderators from the areas where the languages are spoken natively, you only need one mod for each language, English speaking mods could refer post for later moderationw hen the appropriately equipped mod came on duty.

sorry, in my last poting I meant to say

... o hire Moderators in the areas where the languages are spoken natively ...

Thanks for carrying the torch for the other British languages, Happy. I spent much of my childhood in an area of Wales where English is very much a second language. I'd be interested to see how an English-only 'Sense Of Place - Gwynedd' would fare! I'd also be prepared to bet that it wouldn't take long for Cornish to appear on any SOP site for the Duchy. So does this mean that different rules will apply to different DNA sites, or that large parts of the UK are to be ignored? Has it occurred to anyone at the BBC that people in the 'Celtic fringes' are licence payers too?

Parrferris (English through-and-through!)

...what i really like about America
is that on any given day, i can order breakfast in turkish,
buy gas (that's petrol) in spanish
and buy my daily bread in german...

ooops !! sorry ...wrong thread

alec.

FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENT:

Henceforth all monetary references must be converted to pounds sterling before posting.

Any future mention of dollars, euros, wooden nickels or any other 'forrin' currencies will be deleted with extreme prejudice and a stern e-mail form-letter WARNING will be issued to the offending non-compliant researcher.

Our moderators do not have time to calculate exchanges, nor can they be expected to keep up-to-date on such bouncey currencies as the mexican peso or the 63 cent Canadian Looney.

It takes little imagination to see that if we allow researchers to engage in rampant speculative inflationary practises here, it could result in a world economic crisis. So, just as we have eliminated the problem of world harmony and understanding with our recent "Edicts of the One and Only True Babble" we will be watching the colour of YOUR money very, very closely.


peace
~jwf~

Do you remember how things were before the opening of the Channel Tunnel?

"Fog in the Channel: Continental Europe is cut off"

HappyDude,

I object to you describing Irish as a British language. Please be more careful with your terminology. Scots Gaelic might be described as British, because it is spoken in Britain. Irish is not. It is, however, spoken in the UK, which is what you really meant.

So, according to the house rules, if I try to explain for example the Swedish way of celebrating Midsummer, and I find a site in Swedish with very nice pictures, and I post an URL purely because of the pictures, because most of my h2g2 friends don't understand Swedish anyway, then it gets moderated?

The most likely place to find good pictures illustrating Swedish traditions are, of course, Swedish sites, but unless there is an English translation they aren't acceptable?

And I very much recent the wording in the HouseRules, placing 'foreign' sites in the same cathegory as illegal and/or offensive sites!


Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, sites which are in languages other than English, or sites which may offend our users.
</quote>

Hear, hear, Titania! The rule about banning non-English sites should be reworded so that it does not imply that they are disreputable.

Happy Dude,

Manx_is_extinct - how many more times! Anyone claiming to be a fluent Manx speaker should be locked up! Sorry.

Gnomon,
It appears that Irish and English people have a different idea of what is and isn't British. I've started an entry on the British Isles, intended to clear up such matters of terminology - I may come back to you about this.

Gnomon, for the interpretation of that rules see the thread which I quoted in posting #158.

"As always, we'll take each case on its own merits.
But any site with an English version of the non-English pages would be ok."
(F75100?thread=184172&skip=60&show=20)

and the previous 20 in that thread.

There won't be a re-wording, the only thing to hope for are the merits of the case.

I am not suggesting a change in policy. I am suggesting a rewording of the rule, which I consider to be offensive at present. As it stands, it says that any foreign language site will automtically be assumed to be on a par with pornographic, racist and other offensive sites.

F75100?thread=184172 post #14 might be of interest.

Well, I've yikesed the House Rules page. We'll see what results that gets. At least I have to get an official reply that way.

Now, that's a decent move!

Impressive!
It is not yet hidden though.

BBC is big heavy organisation and wil in the near future allow foreign langages on H2G2, but I want BBC ceefax back on my tv, it is "removed" from BBC one and BBC two, because of BBCi on BBC Digital.

BBC "stopped" Ceefax for non-digital and European viewers. I feel that is realy bad, because they are best with the latest news. I do not want view lastest news on CNNtext or the internet!

BBC remember that the swtch to digital tv should be by 2010 and in 2002!

> "If everyone who's got their virtual knickers in a twist over this rule were to channel their energy into protesting about something that really, cosmically speaking, *mattered*, we could wipe out poverty or famine or child abuse at a stroke."

Over two hundred h2g2ers signed the online petition against torture. I note that people are still being tortured, so EV's opinions of our power would seem to be a little exaggerated. "Think global, act local", they say. This is a local issue of freedom of expression, and it's reasonable for people to try and influence this decision.