Making technology speak your language (fwd link)

[Don Osborn]

Dave, Phil, all,

It is an unusual state of affairs but likely due to the size of the organizations? (In which some parts work at counterpurposes to others on issues less central to the organization functioning?) Some of the people high in the Unicode consortium are in Google and MS (despite publicity sometimes way out in front of reality) has done some significant things wrt expanding character ranges of fonts for example. 

Don't forget open source in the mix, which traditionally has had a lot more going on for more languages even if the coverage is uneven and updates sometimes lag (function of user driven model in cases of some less widely spoken languages).

Is the "war" the French expert spoke of really focused on internationalized domain names (IDN)? Or languages as a whole? Reasons given?

Thanks...

Don

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology
> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Dave Pearson
> Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:34 AM
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Making technology speak your language (fwd link)
> 
> Thanks for this Phil. Today I was at a meeting in UNESCO HQ in Paris
> listening to a French Internet expert describing the “war” Google and
> Microsoft are waging against the presence of languages on the Internet.
> Meanwhile, my colleague Bill was in a different part of the building
> listening to a Microsoft presentation illustrating all the good things
> they are doing to ensure their presence!
> 
> Dave Pearson
> SIL International
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology
> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Phillip E Cash Cash
> Sent: 23 February 2010 17:43
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: [ILAT] Making technology speak your language (fwd link)
> 
> Making technology speak your language
> 
> Tuesday, 23 February 2010
> UK
> 
> Microsoft and UNESCO are working together to help people across the
> globe access technology in their own languages.
> 
> According to recent reports, one of more than 7,000 languages spoken
> on Earth disappears from the face of our planet every 14 days;
> forgotten languages take with them often unrecorded cultural
> traditions, language-specific histories and thousands of years of
> knowledge.
> 
> Half of the languages spoken around the world today are expected to
> die out by the end of the 21st century.
> 
> Technology has brought this world many fantastic - and live-saving
> inventions. It has also been influential in the segregation and
> isolation of millions of people who can't speak or understand the
> dominant languages used in the computing world.
> 
> UNESCO is working with a number of technology partners to ensure
> native languages are not lost.
> 
> Access full article below:
> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/making-
> technology-speak-your-language-1908197.html