[NA-Discuss] Language

Tue Jun 5 16:17:28 EDT 2007

I would put forward that official languages should be used, otherwise  
as Luc has mentioned  in the past .. it can be a slippery slope.

As for spanish / french - Stats are in order ... ti have been able to  
find indicate that 12% of the US population speaks spanish, as  
opposed to 15.3 % who speak french in canada.

As a Canadian, i'd been keen that other languages also be given  
status.  For one, Indigenous languages are official in parts of our  
country (NWT, Yukon & Nunavut ) as well our census indicates that  
chinese (mostly cantonese) , Italian , Greek, italian, etc.  The  
larger question really depends on ICANN and what resources it might  
be willing to give. That's a question I can't answer.

Right now we have more french speaking ALS in the region then we have  
spanish. Perhaps that might change in the future. When it does, then  
i suggest we modify the OP so that spanish is added to French &  
English as our official working languages.

saludos a todos.

Roberto
---
Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.ca>
Managing Director, Privaterra
Tel +1 416 893 0377

Refs:

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=CA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_in_the_United_States
http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/ 
lang/contents.cfm

Canada. 32,507,874. Indian 800,000 and Inuit 32,000 ethnic total  
(1993): 146,285 first-language speakers (1981 census). 4,120,770 non- 
English or French first language, or 15.3% (1991 census). National or  
official languages: English, French. Literacy rate: 96% to 99%. Also  
includes Afrikaans (2,353), Armenian (20,053), Assyrian Neo-Aramaic  
(5,000), Belarusan (2,280), Bulgarian (2,276), Central Khmer,  
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Corsican, Czech (27,038), Danish (29,807),  
Eastern Panjabi (214,530), Eastern Yiddish (49,890), Estonian  
(15,295), Finnish (39,069), Greek (143,892), Haitian Creole French  
(12,317), Hebrew, Hungarian (86,835), Icelandic, Irish Gaelic,  
Italian (514,410), Iu Mien (100), Japanese (43,000), Judeo-Moroccan  
Arabic, Kashubian, Korean (73,000), Lao, Latvian (15,000),  
Lithuanian, Macedonian (12,464), Maltese, Najdi Spoken Arabic  
(20,000), Northern Kurdish (6,000), Nung, Plains Indian Sign  
Language, Polish (222,355), Pontic, Portuguese (222,870), Romanian  
(16,356), Russian (31,745), Scottish Gaelic (3,525), Serbian (7,966),  
Sinhala (3,004), Slovak, Slovenian (6,415), Southwestern Caribbean  
Creole English, Spanish (228,580), Standard German (470,505), Swedish  
(21,591), Sylheti, Tagalog (158,210), Tongan, Turkish (5,179),  
Turoyo, Ukrainian (174,830), Vietnamese (60,000), Vlax Romani, Welsh  
(3,160), Western Farsi (15,000), Western Panjabi, Yue Chinese  
(250,000), India and Pakistan (280,000), speakers of many European  
languages. Information mainly from W. Chafe 1962, 1965; SIL 1951– 
2002. Blind population: 27,184. Deaf population: 1,704,551. Deaf  
institutions: Many. The number of languages listed for Canada is 89.  
Of those, 85 are living languages and 4 are extinct.

On 5-Jun-07, at 12:30 PM, Eduardo Diaz, PE wrote:

> Jacqueline is right. Spanish should be included. Even though Puerto  
> Rico is
> a commonwealth of the US, the 4 million people that live here  
> communicate in
> Spanish.
>
> Eduardo Díaz
> President
> ISCOPR
> www.isocpr.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: na-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> [mailto:na-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of  
> Jacqueline
> A. Morris
> Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 12:08 PM
> To: 'John L'; 'Robert Guerra'
> Cc: 'NA Discuss'
> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Voting Update
>
> Given that Puerto Rico is in NA - should you add Spanish now  
> anyway? There's
> one ALS from Puerto Rico - ISOC PR.
> Jacqueline
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John L [mailto:johnl at iecc.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 11:48 AM
> To: Robert Guerra
> Cc: NA Discuss
> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Voting Update
>
>> - Official languages: The USA (as stated by congress) is English,  
>> Canada's
>
>> official languages (at a federal level) are English and French
>
> The US has no official language.  But English is the de facto national
> language.
>
> In the discussions I've heard, we agreed that if ICANN reorganized the
> regions to put Mexico into NA, we would add Spanish as a working  
> langauge.
>
> R's,
> John
>
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>
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