Belgium

[Anne POSSOZ]

On Apr 26, 21:19:48 Marc Eberhard wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 05:08:17PM +0200, Anne POSSOZ wrote:
> > What are the views of the other "minorities" in this list?
> > At least french speaking ones...
(...)
> I'd say, that a minority in another country typically speaks the official
> language of that country. So they should have no problem to participate in
> discussions going on in the language of that country in question. On the
> other hand, they will also most likely join the mailing list(s) of their
> original countr{y|ie} and thus form a very efficient crosslink between
> countries. As has been pointed out, the chapter idea comes from legal points
> of view. I think splitting by language would divide the community into too
> many too small parts. Thus bundling forces in country chapters is probably
> better.

Oh! Maybe some can learn from the others how some european contries
are on the language matter.
Switzerland has 3 official languages: German, French and Italian
(there is a 4th, Romanche, language that is not official)
Belgium has 3 official languages: Deutch, French and German
(although German is a real minority).
For those reading french, there are interesting pages at:
http://www.ciral.ulaval.ca/alx/amlxmonde/Langues/3cohabitation_Etatsbilingues.h
tm
and more specifically for french language:
http://www.ciral.ulaval.ca/alx/amlxmonde/Langues/2vital_inter_francaisTABLO.htm

So there, it is absolutely not the case that people speaks "the"
official language as there is none... In that sense, it is different
from local languages in countries like France or Spain...

And so, there IS a problem to participate in discussions. It is not
rare at all that english is the language to communicate, although
english is not one of the official languages.

That was all the reason of my language question.
You can also read emails from Marc Schaefer on that matter.

				Anne

-- 
 Anne Possoz   Service Informatique Central Tel : (41/21) 693.22.49
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne (Switzerland)