Language Tempest At Orkut 948
Quirk writes "Reuters is carrying an article outlining an ongoing headbutting session between English-speaking users of Goggle's orkut and the Portuguese-speaking users of Brazil. The orkut site has more than 769,000 members; 41.2% are Brazilians and 23.5% are Americans. The sites are now mostly in Portuguese, and English-speaking users are complaining that the service is intended to be in English. Orkut is a service meant to develop by way of invitation, and the Brazilians claim since they are inviting their Brazilian friends it doesn't make sense to communicate in English. Brazilian internet users averaged an estimated 13 hours and 51 minutes in May, eight minutes more than for Americans."
Article text posted here for your convience (Score:3, Informative)
But perhaps none of the battles has been so personal as the one being fought on the Internet.
Thousands of Brazilians have become devotees of Orkut (http://www.orkut.com [orkut.com]), a popular new social-networking site from Web search leader Google Inc.
Orkut allows members to organize themselves into online communities of friends, and friends of friends, to discuss everything from chess to sandwiches.
But the rush of Brazilians to join Orkut and rival social networking sites has upset some online users, who complain of a proliferation of messages posted in Portuguese, Brazil's native tongue.
Some users have even started communities specifically for people to air their gripes on this issue.
The United States has at least 153 million Internet users, compared with Brazil's 20 million. Still, Orkut said Brazilians dominated its membership roster in June, outnumbering Americans for the first time.
The site says it has more than 769,000 members, making it one of the largest and most popular of its type on the Internet. About 23.5 percent of the users are from the United States, while another 41.2 percent are Brazilians.
Iranians are a distant third place at about 6 percent.
SELECTIVE MEMBERSHIP
Orkut, named after Google software engineer Orkut Buyukkokten, made its debut in January and is still in the testing stages. Part of its allure is its exclusivity -- one can only join at the invitation of another member.
"Orkut maps one's social prestige, and Brazilians are by nature gregarious," said Beth Saad, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo's School of Communications and Arts.
Although more than one-fourth of Brazilians live in poverty, those who can afford Internet access have become avid Web surfers.
In terms of time spent on the Internet, Brazilians edged out the United States in May for the second month in a row, according to Ibope/NetRatings. The market researcher estimates that Internet use for Brazilians averaged 13 hours and 51 minutes in May, eight minutes more than for Americans.
The number of Brazilian visitors to community sites and online diaries rose 14.6 percent to 3.5 million in May from January, Ibope/NetRatings said.
Tammy Soldaat, a Canadian, got a sample of Brazilian wrath recently when she posted a message asking whether her community site on body piercing should be exclusive to people who speak English.
Brazilian Orkut users quickly labeled her a "nazi" and "xenophobe."
"After that I understood why everyone is complaining about these people, why they're being called the 'plague of Orkut,"' she said in a site called "Crazy Brazilian Invasion."
John Gibbs of Mountain View, California, has founded a community called "So many Brazilians on Orkut."
"When the average Orkut user goes to look at community listings to see what's out there, he'll see a list populated with pretty much all Portuguese communities," Gibbs said. "This is highly frustrating since Orkut is not a Brazilian service."
But Mateus Reis, a publicist who lives in Sao Paulo, said users should be free to write what they want, in the language of their choosing.
"Since we can invite anyone we want at Orkut, and my friends are Brazilians, it doesn't make sense talking to them in English," Reis said in Portuguese. "I use the language I know."
His compatriot Pablo Miyazawa has a more moderate view.
"Brazilians have the right to create anything they want in any language they want," Miyazawa said. "The problem is to invade forums with specific languages and write in Portuguese. Brazilians are still learning how to behave in the Net."
AN INTERNET FORCE
The Brazilians' ardor for the Internet extends to other community-based sites, and Web ent
Language barrier (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Language barrier (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Language barrier (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Language barrier (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Language barrier (Score:5, Funny)
Você americanos sujos pensa de que você possui tudo, e Slashdot, mas é justo não assim.
Fure seu hegemony internacional e seu McDonalds e seu Hollywood onde o sol não brilha.
Pela maneira, eu sou amor o Mac Grande e esse Julia Roberts!
Re:Language barrier (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Language barrier (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Language barrier (Score:5)
Couldn't care less.
Re:Language barrier (Score:5, Interesting)
"Would you bring ice cream to the picnic?"
"I don't care to." - (I don't mind)
It's still used that way in parts of the midwest US.
Re:Language barrier (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole issue will go away as soon as Orkut opens to the public and the Brazilians become minority users.
Re:Language barrier (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Language barrier (Score:3, Insightful)
Only relatively small group of people use English as native language.
Re:Language barrier (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that caveat, I would say that more people on Earth speak English than any other language. If the goal of the site is to create the largest international audience possible and help them to converse with each other, then English is the
Re:Language barrier (Score:4, Informative)
See www.slashdot.jp [slashdot.jp] and so on.
--
Evan
They havn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
But that could be a solution for Orkut. Just have users select a language when they sign in, and shield them from everything not in that language -- if they choose. They could also set things up so users can let the system know what languages they can speak, and if they would be interested in receiving machine translated communications.
Re:They havn't. (Score:3, Interesting)
I just had a thought. Lets assume that over the next couple of years machine translation becomes routine in all areas of the internet, and that the internet continues to expand across the globe and into homes and schools. No matter what language you speak, most people speak a different language. Machine translated language could quickly become a substantial fraction of all text anyone reads. In effect machine translation could become the single biggest "language" on the i
Re:what the fuck are you talking about. (Score:4, Funny)
Looks like English is that "half" language. ;)
Take slashdot for an example (Score:5, Insightful)
Why Fight? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm in a restaurant, and the people at the table next to me are speaking Korean, it doesn't affect the conversation at my table in the slightest.
I guess we could all switch to Esperanto, the Unitarian Univeralist of languages.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not knowing anything about Orkut, and not reading the article (surprised?) I would suggest that they handle this like they handle their existing site - offer it in as many languages as they can/want and let the users live with the choices.
There's no reason to offer a site like this in just Englis
Re:Why Fight? (Score:5, Funny)
Do you have Korean inlaws? (Score:5, Funny)
I speak from experience. :-)
Re:Why Fight? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why Fight? (Score:5, Insightful)
its more like the persons sitting next to you at the table, begin to try and speak to you in korean, and then expect you to be able to bend over backwards to communicate with them.
No, it's like the people at the table next to you start speaking to you in Korean, and because you don't know Korean you make a complaint to the management of the restaurant. There is no expectation on the English-speakers to bend over backwards, or do anything at all.
But even that analogy isn't quite correct. I think the English speakers are upset because they are creating forums in the hope of developing communities of people they can be a part of, and their forums end up being overtaken by Portugese speakers. And so they are excluded from their very own creation.
Well, the English speakers have a point (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that there are just too many languages for a person to speak them all. Most people have trouble with more than 3 or 4, even if taught from birth (it gets more difficult later) and 15-20 is pretyt much the limit for even exceptional people.
Thus there is no reaonable way you can expect everyone to know Portuagese, or any other language. However you can have a reasonable expectation that most people will have at least a functional proficency in English. Thus, if you wish to communicate with a worldwide audience, English is the language you should choose.
I'm not saying people should always have to use English on the Internet, but it IS rather annoying to have people expect you should know their primary language when they want to communicate. I've had this problem in MMORPGs. People want to speak to you in French or Japanese or Korean or Spanish and so on. Problem is it is just unreasonable to ask a person to try and learn every one of the hundreds of languages on this Earth, much less the reality that most people DON'T know more than 1 or 2 languages.
However, it's a fair bet most people have at least a basic English proficiency, and thus should be the prefered choice for online discourse if you intend to reach a worldwide audience.
Re:Well, the English speakers have a point (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to assume that when somebody speaks to you in a non-English language that they are either (a) expecting you to know their language, or (b) demanding that you learn their language.
I don't think either of these assumptions is true. They're just trying to communicate the best way they know. If you can't speak their language you could politely say so ("sorry, I don't speak Portugese/French/etc."), or just say nothing.
Nope that is bad manners (Score:4, Insightful)
Just starting to babble in your own language to someone who may or may not speak it is the hight of impoliteness. You always ask in the local language wether someone else speaks your language or another mutual language. How am I supposed to know that your speaking god knows what or even asking me a question? You might be warning me that I am about to step into some dog shit or a nutcase.
The only exception perhaps is english in holland. You can pretty much take it for granted that nobody in the world speaks dutch and english is pretty much a second language to us. We also don't really mind, we are a small nation in a big world and either we speak english or become like the french. Easy choice eh?
Anyway this is all about speaking in the real world. Personally I think it would greatly help if people tried to speak in english on the net. Why? Esperanto or whatever is deader then dead dodo on the day of the dead. Bury it already. The net is about exchanging information easily and accross the world. Bit hard if we are going to keep up the existing language barriers. Imagine if everyone on /. posted in their local language. It would die an instant death. Most amazing are the anti-socials who go to an english forum then post a question in their own language and wonder why no-one responds.
Re:Well, the English speakers have a point (Score:3, Interesting)
However, English is slowly on the way out. This is nothing new, it has occupied a place taken by Greek, Latin, classical Arabic, French in different areas of the world and times of history. Simply, on a global scale.
The choice of international language is mostly due to social dynamics, and the rise of China as an economic power is going to have consequences. Either they learn English, or we learn Chinese (besides I've been told that some parts of Chinese are quite easy - not the writing of course...). Span
Re:Well, the English speakers have a point (Score:5, Informative)
However, it is correct that Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken native language on earth. However, it's also worth noting that nearly all of those native speakers live in one country, and most of the rest live in countries are adjacent or very nearby.
Native English speakers, on the other hand, live in many countries all over the world. The largest geographically contiguous block are in the United States and Canada, but they are also in many other countries.
The numbers on native speakers of English and Spanish are also accurate if outdated; they are roughly equal.
However, it's when you bring in all of the non-native speakers that English shows its international dominance. English is by far the most widely spoken second language in the world. Nearly all speakers of Spanish, Mandarin, and Hindi are natives, but there are more non-native than native English speakers in the world.
With regard to the language of Diplomacy, you're wrong there, too. French *was* the language of diplomacy for many years, but is so no longer and has not been for decades. It was replaced by English. If French is in fact the official language of the UN (you don't cite a source, but I'll take your word for it; I'm too lazy to cite sources tonight myself), that's the only place left in diplomacy where that is still true. Go to any embassy or consulate in the world and you can probably find someone on the staff who speaks English; you'd be hard put to find someone on the staff who speaks French, unless:
A) It's located in a Francophone country;
or
B) It's a French embassy or consulate.
I know a number of people who speak Japanese as a second language, a few who speak Mandarin and/or Cantonese as a second language, a couple who speak German as a second language and a few who speak Spanish as a second language, but the only French speakers I know are all natives. French just is not a terribly important international language anymore. That's not a criticism, just an observation; French is only important in Francophone countries.
Re:Well, the English speakers have a point (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why Fight? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. Brazillians are entering established communities and spamming them. It'd be much different if they set up their own communities.
So it's like the people at the table next to you sat down at your table and started yelling at you in Korean. No shit you're going to complain.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:5, Informative)
I know that your trying to be sarcastic, but I did find this to be true. I did an 11 country tour of Europe a while back and I never had any problems communicating in English. If one person couldn't understand me, a passerby would eventually over hear and graciously translate.
I doubt this would be the case if I spoke chinese, japanese, hindi, or in orkuts case, portugese.
Of South America, I've only traveled to Chile and Venezuala, but my experiences their were even more english friendly. People would insist on speaking English so as to brush up their skills. I speak far more Spanish here in Miami than I ever did in South America.
I'm not saying English 'should' be the most universaly accepted language, but it does seem to fit the role pretty good.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why Fight? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.lojban.org/
or, if you are more visual, you might want to check out bliss-symbols.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:4, Informative)
As an Orkut member I do find the behaviour of some of its users annoying (Orkut-wide and community-wide spamming by a very small handful of people, people who ignore the rules of the communities that they join, etc) but I find that it's not that inconvenient compared to what I've got out of my Orkut experience. I've made at least a dozen real-world friends that I regularly go out with, and several more that are online only at this stage, and that's only after three months' membership.
Yes there are plenty of Brazilians on the site, and yes, they do have a tendency to join every community that even half interests them (it's like some people play a game of "let's see how many communities I can join", and they seem to do the same with collecting friends too) but that's not just a trait exclusive to them: users of other nationalities can be just as bad.
I'll also point out that Portuguese isn't the only non-English language used on Orkut. I've seen several, including ones that you wouldn't immediately think of, such as Arabic.
Live and let live is what I say. On Orkut and elsewhere.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:4, Interesting)
For the most part, though, they speak English.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:5, Informative)
Well I'm an Orkut member and I'll tell you what the problem is. The problem is that your inboxes are constantly filled with Portugese spam that is sent to "foo community." Every community has its share of Portugese spam. Whether it's US specific or not. It's really annoying. An easy fix would be language specific communities, but everyone is too lazy to join thoses...
Re:Why Fight? (Score:4, Funny)
That's pretty much the root of every human-related problem I've ever encountered.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:5, Informative)
If the Brazilians were nice enough to fork and create groups that discussed topics in Portuguese, it wouldnt be a big deal. Orkut should have an upgrade right now, providing an "official group language" field for groups, so one can tell if they're joining the "Simpsons - English" or "Simpsons - Portuguese" groups. But many of the Brazilians walk in, act like they own the place, and hijack Orkut. I dont use it anymore for this reason.
Re:Why Fight? (Score:4, Informative)
It already does in a way. When you create a new group you can select the interface language. This does, however, not show up when you're not the community's creator.
If you join a community that has a Spanish interface, chances are communications there will be in Spanish.
I agree though that this doesn't really help with the problem at hand which is people taking over English-speaking communities and flooding them with foreign-language content (which is probably one of the rudest thing you can do on Orkut, as far as I am concerned - it's not that hard to start your own community).
Google's Orkut dev team should probably have a look at this when they redesign the community section (and they should really really implement sub-categories while they're at it).
Re:Why Fight? (Score:3, Interesting)
Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know how many languages you can curse in, but from my experience Americans, French, Polish and Mexican (and mostly every other nationalyty) online players are just as annoying. I am yet to see a group of tennagers that can not be described as "Rude, arrogant, xenophobic, obnoxious", Americans most of all. I left the "racist" out because I believe it is out of place, specially for Brazilians (unless you believe "American" is a separate race - "gringo" means mostly "American" but can also be used for "foreigner").
Re:Why Fight? (Score:4, Funny)
Microcosm (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microcosm (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast forward to 2004, Orkut, a community that was originally primarily english speaking recieves huge influx of brazilian "immagrents" The english speakers argue that their community was by and for English speakers. The brazillians argue that they were invited and that the community is now also theirs.
Notice a parallel?
maybe Im missing something (Score:3, Insightful)
Just a thought
our just desserts (Score:3, Insightful)
oh, and it's not Goggle...
Re:our just desserts (Score:4, Informative)
Re:our just desserts (Score:3, Insightful)
Texto do artigo para seu convience (Score:4, Funny)
SOCIEDADE SELETIVA Orkut, nomeado após a Software Engineer Orkut de Google Buyukkokten, feito seu debut em janeiro e está ainda nos estágios testando. A parte de seu fascínio é seu exclusivity -- um pode somente juntar no invitation de um outro membro. o "Orkut traça o prestige social de one's, e os brasileiros são pela natureza gregarious, " Beth dito Saad, um professor na universidade da escola do sao Paulo's das comunicações e de artes. Embora mais de um quarto dos brasileiros vivam na pobreza, aqueles que podem ter recursos para o acesso do Internet têm surfers de correia fotorreceptora avid tornados. Nos termos do tempo gastados no Internet, os brasileiros afiaram para fora dos estados unidos em maio para o segundo mês em uma fileira, de acordo com Ibope/NetRatings. O investigador de mercado estima que o uso do Internet para brasileiros calculou a média de 13 horas e de 51 minutos em maio, oito minutos mais do que para americanos. O número de visitantes brazilian aos locais da comunidade e aos diários em linha levantou-se 14.6 por cento a 3.5 milhões em maio de janeiro, Ibope/NetRatings dito. Tammy Soldaat, um canadense, começou uma amostra do wrath brazilian recentemente quando afixou uma mensagem que pergunta se seu local da comunidade na perfuração do corpo deve ser exclusivo povoar quem falam o inglês. Os usuários brazilian de Orkut etiquetaram-na rapidamente um "nazi" e "xenophobe." "After que eu compreendi porque todos se está queixando sobre estes povos, porque they're que está sendo chamado o 'plague de Orkut, "' disse em um local chamado o brasileiro "Crazy Invasion." John Gibbs do Mountain View, Califórnia, fundou uma comunidade chamada o "So muitos brasileiros em Orkut." "When o usuário de Orkut da média vai olhar listas da comunidade para ver para fora what's lá, he'll vêem uma lista povoada com muito bonito todas as comunidades portuguese, " Gibbs dito. os "This estão frustrando altamente desde que Orkut não é um service." brazilian; Mas Mateus Reis, um publicist que viva no sao Paulo, os usuários ditos deve estar livre escrever o que querem, na língua de seu escolher. "Since nós podemos convidar qualquer um que nós queremos em Orkut, e meus amigos são brasileiros, ele doesn't fazem o sentido falando a eles em inglês, " Reis d
But what about... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But what about... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But what about... (Score:4, Informative)
Properly spelled it would have to be 'oorkut' though.
Re:But what about... (Score:4, Funny)
solved (Score:5, Interesting)
I think what would be more intresting is the rate at which amercians populated orkut vs brazilians
That seems fine (Score:3, Informative)
And of course, it also seems perfectly valid for others to set up Portuguese-only, French-only, or whatever-only communities.
I belong to some English-only communities, and to some Portuguese-only communities.
Those are the only two languages in which I am capable of contributing. I guess I could probably follow discussions in Spanish or French, and I could probably get the gist of what was being said in Italian, but I am not capable of responding in any of these lan
Re:solved? (Score:3, Insightful)
I strongly believe that a great many problems (especially wars, terrorism, etc) could be solved by people just getting to know each other better. Seeing that while yes, there are differences between them (some irreconcilable, perhaps), there are also a great many similarities; we're all human, after all.
If you can get the general population to realise that actually, there's nothing to hate or fear of people just because they're different, you'd f
heh (Score:5, Interesting)
Half the reason I like forums on the internet is I don't know anyone there and I don't have to.
I can pop in, post some shit, read some responses and then go back or not.
I don't want to go on the internet with people I already know from real life. I go on the internet to get away from that. Just show up, discuss something and then leave. Like a bar or something.
Re:heh (Score:3, Insightful)
FOAF [foaf-project.org] is an effort by Dan Brickley/Libby Miller/Many others to create an open way to describe people - the world wide FOAF as opposed to the WWW. It shows the power of RDF in a practical (and fun!) way.
Now, Lets say I'm Google. I spend millions on maintaining my marketshare with R and D; I'm going to realise sooner or later that go
Well (Score:5, Interesting)
1) an attempt to prevent the service from growing to fast. Most websites grow slowly, and that can help them fix problems. But with Gmail, everyone was going to get an account as soon as possible. So the invite system helped them moderate growth. Somewhat.
2) It made a gmail account something precious. And made people want it. It was good marketing.
I actualy got invited to orkut (intrestingly by my autopr0n.com usernmae, rather then my real name). It was pretty annoying, and I gave up on it quickly.
Two separate sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yikes I hope you said this wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh I don't like french, filter french people. I don't like americans, filter americans.
Humans are talkers and we need to talk, there is just one hurdle remaining and that is a common language (love is but aids is killing that one plus gf tends to be rather unsupporting of me going talking to that blonde with the intrestting tits^
More American Arrogance? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:More American Arrogance? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sick of hearing this stereotype because all one has to do is look at a globe and it becomes obvious why we're not so fluent in other languages. It's not most of the USA can drive in a day and land in a country with a different national language. With the exception of Mexico (which gets so much tourism from us that English is relatively well understood) we have to hop on a plane at >$700 a ticket to visit a non-english speaking country. That's no small chore. I've been to Brazil twice, and each time it cost me $1,200 just for the ticket AND 24 hours transit time.
All it takes is a little understanding, yeesh.
Re:More American Arrogance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry but geography is a pretty poor excuse. You could always have tried harder at school. =P
Seriously though, from my experience it is more a matter of education than geography.
Being English, English is surprisingly my first language. But I picked up much more French and German at school than I ever did in my adult life despite latterly travelling to both countries and indeed working and living in both for a time. And with a half-decent background in Latin I find most languages with their roots in Europe to be pretty easy - and that applies for countries I've never been to such as Brazil, for example. Learning something is never a handicap - not learning something is.
Personally I think it's a cultural problem faced by the U.S. as a whole. As an observer it seems to me that American schools revere sports much more than they do anything else. You need to worship jocks less and geeks more IMHO, but surely that's de rigueur here at
Re:More American Arrogance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More American Arrogance? (Score:4, Insightful)
The rest of the world doesn't care if the average American can speak their language as well as English. What they care about is that the average American tourist visiting their country can't speak anything but English, is reluctant to even learn even two words of Mexican/French/Spanish/German/Italian/whatever, yet expects everyone else to be able to understand what they're saying to them.
You know, I didn't detect that sort of attitude from NanoGator. All he did was offer an explanation why things are the way they are - I can drive for an entire week and remain within English speaking areas - except for isolated pockets in cities, I would have to drive over 1000 miles to reach a non-English speaking area (Mexico). No wonder most people don't pick up a second/third language. I also don't know that your stereotype is accurate - it may be that you remember the obnoxious tourists, but the nice ones may have been German or something. I haven't been to europe, but when I go, I'll happily butcher 3 or 4 romance languages, then speak some passable German.
Re:More American Arrogance? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More American Arrogance? (Score:3, Interesting)
Realizing that wasn't going to satisfy you cynical bastards, I kept looking and:
Courtesy of the BBC -- "British 'world's worst tourists'" [bbc.co.uk]
As I'd recollected: Germans the favorite, followed by American, Japanese and Italians.
It's not intended to be an *English* service... (Score:3, Insightful)
The English-speaking peoples of the world need to understand that outside the internet (and soon to be inside) they are a minority in the world. 1/6 of the world speaks Chinese, about the same proportion speaks Hindi, and just under that speak Spanish. While it is common to speak English, it is not the be-all-and-end-all, and people need to start accepting that.
The world needs to understand (Score:4, Insightful)
So, this leads to a problem, how to communicate with the world. We all have different native languages. Well there has been, and is, a solution. English, while not even close to the largest primary language is by FAR the largest second language. Nearly every industralized nation, and many third world nations, teach English as well as their native tounge.
Thus English is the international language. All air traffic control is done in English (so no matter where a plane comes form or goes to the crews can communicate), Likewise bussiness is conducted in English when there is a language disparity. If a Japanese bussiness does bussiness with China, English is usually the language of exchange since Chinese is very rare in Japan, and Japanese is very rare in China.
So when one wishes to speak to an international audience, on the Internet for example, English is the best choice. Demanding that people learn your native tounge is unreasonable, as there are so very many (hundreds, if not thousands) languages out there. It is beyond the capability of any one person to learn them all. Even the most talented translators usually don't know more than 20, and they are extreme cases.
wanh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wanh (Score:5, Funny)
Noticed this else where too (Score:4, Interesting)
It's silly. The internet is global - the first W in WWW stands for World, and the last time I checked English was not the offical language of this planet.
Those who are complaining should either mellow out or learn Portuguese.
Re:Noticed this else where too (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Noticed this else where too (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because the server is available, doesn't mean you have a right to use it. You're a guest. Abide by the owner's requests or go find somewhere else that's more accommodating. Or, better yet, set up your own server run by the rules you find ideal.
Forget Portoguese... Indian is the future(?) (Score:3, Interesting)
---
Let me just paste from what I dropped into IRC a while back
This is translated from a Dutch 'popular science' magazine (Kijk, for the Dutch viewers)
There are many languages in the world. Scientists estimate the number to be around 6,000.
A few languages are doing very well. Chinese is the biggest language (in terms of numbers of speakers), and will remain so for some time to come. Tamil, Bengal and Malaysian are quickly gaining ground, as is Arabic.
In contrast are languages (among which many regional African ones) of which on average one 'disappears' every day.
A surprising find is that English isn't doing very well either. it is expected that by 2050, only 5.5% of the world's population will speak the language at all.
Speakers in % of the world's population per language:
1950
English : 9%
Spanish : 5%
Hindi/Urdu : 4.5%
Arabic : 2.25%
2050
English : 5.5%
Spanish : 5.3%
Hindy/Urdu : 6%
Arabic : 5.2%
Young speakers (age 15-24) in 2050 (x 1,000,000):
Mandarin-Chinese : 166.0
Hindi/Urdu : 73.7
Arabic : 72.2
English : 65.0
Spanish : 62.8
Portuguese : 32.5
Bengal : 31.6
Russian : 14.8
Japanese : 11.3
Malaysian : 10.5
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With regards to Orkut : As already stated.. don't bother visiting the Brazilian pages if you can't read them anyway.
Vice-versa, if the Brazilian would want English readers to read it, write in English.
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With regards to the French : None of the doctors/nurses who helped a friend who was in a car wreck in France knew English. 'nuff said.
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With regards to the web as whole : English rules and will rule for a long, long time to come.
Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
This Orcut thingy, therefore, may be good or bad, but since they are a closed (secret) society I see no way to judge it. I just walk away, not to be back any time soon.
If you (or anyone) want an invite.. (Score:4, Interesting)
(I'm not implying you want to join, of course
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally, though, Orkut's model presumes that "you are nothing, we are everything". I don't like that. If I can't join (or leave) on my free will, I don't want it. I want to be in control of my life.
Granted, there are many cases when people must cooperate (and ask each other) to do something. If I want to check in some change on sf.net I'd better ask for write access to the project's CVS. That is understood, because there is a real need to state my cause, and if I am wrong with my changes other people will be inconvenienced.
But why would anyone be denied an access to a glorified bulletin board? That I can not understand. And I see no reason to restrict access for non-members. For example, hide names & emails of everyone; make it read-only; make sessions short... But as it stands, I see none of it and therefore I see no reason why it may benefit me (or anyone else, to that matter). So why should I bother someone who I don't know asking him|her|it to vouch for myself? That was discussed to death on K5 recently.
The Brazilians just aren't jaded yet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Once the Brazilians figure out how lame and useless these social networking things are, their numbers will drop.
Re:The Brazilians just aren't jaded yet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless you have a majority multilingual ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless you have a majority of the visitors / participants that are multilingual capable, you have to separate the content of a web site by language.
I say this from experience on several newsgroups, then forums over the years.
It starts out simple: people who are early adopters often speak English, and can read English (e.g. programmers, ...etc. who know English anyway). Then as technology spreads among the less techno-elite, people who do not know English well want to express themselves in their native language.
In languages that use a non Latin character set, there is a phase where internet communication uses Latin characters to represent their own language. I have seen at least Hindi and Arabic written in Latin alphabet, with some modifiers. (Even some Euro languages lost some characters, like Scandinavian and Germanic languages, where the "O" in Torvalds lacks the stroke in the middle, and the "A" with the small circle, ..etc.)
There are various "dialects" used in these Latinized alphabets, and people learn one version or the other depending on where they learn it first.
This becomes a transitionary phase on these forums, where people will express themselves using this Latin based alphabet to represent their own language.
Then later, as their own language becomes more wide spread and accepted, more people get to use computers and the internet, and they perhaps do not know any language other than their own. This leads to them demanding that only their native language be used in forums that are about their country/society/language/...etc.
Anyone who speaks a "foreign" language in those forums is reminded that the primary language is such and such, and not to confuse others. Some take this as a matter of national pride, some take it as mere courtsey, others take it as common sense, and yet others take it as a mere form of communication. Depends on who you are, your outlook, and your biases.
That is what I have seen in several newsgroups/forums over the years.
So, this is the phase that Orkut is at right now.
Eventually, they may have to separate the content by language. Although there are barriers here, because Orkut is about "networking", and not just "discussions".
It would be interesting to see how this turf war gets resolved eventually, at least for those who are like me who like to observe the new frontiers that the internet have defined/merged/melted/setup.
P.S. In Canada for example, where there are two large groups speaking two languages, a majority of web sites give the option on what language to use at the very beginning. Forums are separated into two languages on many sites. There is a minority who are bilingual and can (and do) participate in the two camps. I imagine Hispanics in the USA, and Spanish speaking Anglos do the same on some forums.
Read that wrong (Score:3, Funny)
Gotta take my eyes away from the screen for a bit...
Wow, Orkut really is popular in Brazil (Score:3, Interesting)
I sent him a message - hopefully he remembers me and responds. I just thought it was sort of cool to re-find him that way
Orkut has a much more annoying language problem (Score:3, Interesting)
It's crazy seeing all these Japanese Orkut users [orkutwatch.com] (there are quite a few) posting to each other in romaji and broken English.
Tendência muito natural (Score:5, Interesting)
(espero que tenha bastante brasileiro por aí com pontos para moderar. abraço.)
Re:Tendência muito natural (Score:4, Insightful)
Happens everywhere, not only in Orkut (Score:3, Insightful)
The great majority of the americans tourists come to Brazil without knowing a single word in Portuguese, which happens to be Brazil's official and only language. (this also apply to tourists from other countries as well)
And i've never seen any brazilian complaining when a american tourist go, let's say, to a restaurant and try to speak in English with the waiter, although he's not talking brazilian official language. (and this happens a lot)
I think it's the same situation.
Oh, i also think that orkut-based spam in Portuguese sucks. But it sucks because it is spam, and not because it's not in English.
I have and Orkut account! (Score:4, Funny)
This should be a business decision (Score:3, Insightful)
Linguistic Descrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
This statement is incredible:
Intended by whom? Since when are discussion forums "intended" or "required" to be exclusively in English. Is enabling communication not the point of the Internet?If these were French Canadians talking about "language preservation" in Canada, most English speakers would think they were absurd. Now, when the situation is reversed, English speakers think they have the right to behave in the same absurd way.
These English speaking Orkut users are really being unfair. The fact that they cannot read Portugese is a result of the English speakers' ignorance and not the fault of the Portugese speakers. The Portugese speakers should be able to post in any language they like. If the English speakers do not like it, they can learn Portugese or use translation software to get an idea of what was said.
These English speakers had better get a clue. Online, you are exposed to the whole world, not just your boondock neighborhood. People speak lots of languages. If they choose to remain ignorant, they should not blame others for that chosen ignorance.
Re:Linguistic Descrimination (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the problem with people in general: They want things cushy for themselves, even if it means a great inconvenience for a lot of other people. I've seen it in whites, latin-americans, blacks, americans, europeans, south-americans, asians, homosexuals, heterosexuals, religious people, athiests, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, skinny, fat, tall, short, and everyone in between. In fac
Ashamed to be a brazilian (Score:4, Interesting)
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"The Brazilians in Orkut"
For some reason I still do not grasp entirely, Orkut became a craze in Brazil. Nothing against the site, I also am a member, but suddenly everyone is talking about it. It became so pop, even Veja [Brazil's most important magazine] published an article about it.
Thus far, that's ok. However, most of these people have not joined it to know people, or to take part in the discussion groups. They are only going to make a ruckus out of it.
Dont ask me how this nonsense began exactelly, but all of a sudden I started getting emails inviting me to "join the brazilian movement in Orkut". It seems the idea was that we should invite other brazilians to enter in the site, to make the number of brazilians bigger than that of Americans.
For what, you ask? Ah! It seems that someone named Gary, supposedly an american, somehow insulted the brazilians there. He said that we were a bunch of dicks who start speaking portuguese in american groups, something like that.
And to prove that we are not ignorant indians, but educated and intelligent people, which better reply of the one than... to beat the USA in sheer statistics?
The Saga continues, and it seems that Gary person was banished. However, "Gary's followers" started showing up.
One of the countless messages I received came from one of these followers. I found interesting as the such individual had a nazi-styled photo, and had poor english. Tracking his messages, I found he spoke portuguese! It seems he had studied in Brazil (huh?), therefore things were like that.
But that was just the beginning! Now, whenever I log in, I receive dozens of messages telling me I should change my photo to a flag of Brazil in the september 7th [brazilian independence day], or that I should change my photo to a flag of Iraq (?), or change my photo to a pic of the twin towers in the 4th of july!
Seriously, why is our concentration of stupidity so high? I check the profiles of the senders of those childish messages expecting to find 15-year-old brats, and find 30-year-olds.
Why can people from Iran, Japan, Slovenia, India, etc, keep civil, while we get in this nonsense? Ah, this bloated ego of ours... or, more precisely, our inferiority complex.
And again, the joke is on us.
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Iran? ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Iran number 3 on Orkut! Hello! THAT is the story I wanna read!
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Not an Issue to Me (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no reason multiple languages can't coexist in one forum. I suppose others are annoyed when they're the linguistic minority for a change though. Seriously, get over it; maybe you'll actually learn something new, even if it is only a word.
Re:sounds like people need to learn some net etiqu (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't a flame, it's just a heads-up that it's small things like this that make others regard Americans as arrogant.
Re:Surely Google can address this technologically (Score:4, Interesting)
Not being an Orkut user, it doesn't really matter to me however. I think it would be great if google would post a confirmation request as part of the user submitting the posting in Portugese, or Big5, that states in 'English' something along the lines of:
Your posting appears to be in Launguage Below the preview of your posting, is a BabbleFish translation of your posting in English. As the creator of the group you are posting to has indicated that English is the prefered language for the group, the BabbleFish translation is what will appear. If you wrote this in a language other than Language please select the correct language for your source post, so we can show you what may be a more accurate translation of your posting. The Moderator has indicated that if someone posts to this group in a language other than english, or includes profanity in the post, that post is subject to being deleated.
Likewise for other languages as identified relavent to the group being posted to, and it's language preferences.
For groups where 'any' language may be appropriate, a request to identify what language the user is posting in (defaulting to the language preference of the user) and a warning that the translation to other languages may not be completely accurate, would probably suffice.
Then again, if I just stir up the coals a little bit more, perhaps I will get more people fighting. Ah well, crazy talk.
-Rusty
Re:Typical Slashdot anti-American bias... (Score:3, Insightful)