Re: Examples of language changes in websites

Hi Yvette,


> http://www.heritas.nl/wcag/language.html 

first of all, I'm not sure if 'Cadeaushoppen' is an English term (CMIIW),
sounds either Dutch or like a made-up word to me. -- So, with due respect, I
think that this topic is nearly absolutely irrelevant for the WAI work since
you only address a phenomenon known in many (European) countries, where
anglicisms still become more popular from year to year.

I also wonder what you intend with your article, do you want to ban
anglicisms from your language? This ain't a WAI task. Do you want to get rid of them
in all languages except English itself? This ain't a WAI task, either. Do you
want to encourage authors to highlight each non-native term either visually
or semantically (or both)? This just won't do (and IMO ain't needed, either,
since it ain't your task to block the natural flow of language -- or is it)?

The entire issue is a thing you should leave to each publisher, and you
should instead simply do it better, if you are that concerned about the use of
anglicisms (or whatever else) -- me, I often use English terms at work (since
there often are no other sufficient terms for some things; even take 'email',
should I say 'elektronische Post'?), but when creating articles or using my
native language (German), I use them rarely since I know how to articulate.

Next, better suggest how to associate external sources (e.g. hyperlinks)
using other languages than their referrer, and even this is a problem the HTML
WG has solved or is about to solve. It doesn't matter to me if I misunderstood
you, but the entire topic is a thing I've no comprehension for since there
are IMHO only people pinning down what is natural. It's a self-regulating
phenomenon, or do you fear the Dutch language will disappear in 2004?

Last but not least, I agree (although I didn't see any corresponding and/or
explicit statement in your article) that Web site owners may encounter
problems using an x language soup on their sites, but this is a thing where neither
you nor the WAI WG has any bearing on, this maybe requires only some common
sense. And maybe you started a biased analysis, scrutinizing only
international companies.


Best regards,
 Jens.


PS.
Please excuse the provocative tenor in this post, but I claim there are
above all several constructive assertions.


-- 
Jens Meiert
Interface Architect

http://meiert.com/

Received on Thursday, 4 December 2003 03:19:51 UTC