Belgium

[Marc SCHAEFER]

On Wed, 2 May 2001, Marc Eberhard wrote:

> On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 01:15:35PM +0200, Anne POSSOZ wrote:
> > 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)
> 
> Romanche is offical as far as I know.

This changed a few years ago: now all 4 languages are national and
official. Before, only German, French and Italian where official: you
couldn't use Raeto-Rumantsch/Romanche to communicate with the Federal
Authorities. Now you can. 

Funnily, the official WWW server of the Swiss Confederation Federal
Authorities is also available a foreign language which is English :)
Also, that WWW server continues to use the old `official' languages
meaning and only has some texts available in three languages.

Now, in my opinion, we should start FSFE in the more convenient language
which is precizely English, and local chapter languages should be decided
on basis of the country's requirements. In addition, nothing prevents a
local chapter from using one or more of the translations made by other
local chapters.