I think that a better case to make wrt internationalization is that it is hard to see how a pure ASCII document is ever going to provide a satisfactory description of a protocol that is based on unicode. > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of John C Klensin > Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 1:52 PM > To: tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Cc: 'JFC \(Jefsey\) Morfin'; 'Paul Hoffman'; ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: Translations of standards (was: RE: ASCII art) > > --On Monday, 21 November, 2005 10:11 -0800 Thomas Gal > <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> I understand this. But it restricts RFC to the sole English > >> (ASCII) language. > >> Translating RFC as an authoritative text is therefore > impossible. jfc > > > > Well there's a reason pilots and sailors and other > people who's > >business is truly international use english. We can't legitamately > >expect technical issues to be drafted in every language > (just like we > >can't expect pilots to all know 5 > > languages) either. While I believe in the cultural and > intellectual > >value of different languages in exposing different > viewpoints and ways > >of thinking I don't believe there's anything technically > oriented that > >*can't* be expressed in english as well as any other > language. It just > >so ... > > Nor > > do I have the personal motivation to translate a technical > document > >to hungarian or spanish though I could, because, fluent or > not, that's > >still REALLY hard and depending in any way on being technically > >colloquial in many languages, and doing a good job at it. > > That's not to say that anyone won't welcome translations of > >important documents, but perhaps that's a much better job > for the UN > >then the IETF. > > Tom, let me take this a step further. Almost every other > international standards body, ISO and ITU included, end up > with an authoritative version in one language for technical > standards and then with translations that are considered less > authoritative. I.e., if the translation disagrees with the > original authoritative version, the latter controls -- there > is no battle among translations as to which version is the > most accurate. Even then, the best of the translations are > validated by the well-known, but difficult, time-consuming, > and expensive, process of having independent parties prepare > back translations to the original language, followed by a > careful technical > comparison of the two. For the most technical standards, > translation is typically waived because it is generally > assumed that, if one is going to get conformance and > interoperability --and be sure one knows what that means-- > then there had best be only one version, rather than > standardized interpretations of it. > > And the belief that any of this really has anything to do > with whether the base document is expressed in ASCII or not, > or whether its figures use ASCII artwork or images in some > conventional or standard form, is, to be polite, a stretch: > remember that ASCII is inadequate to express all of English > accurately. To use your example because it is handy, while > more characters than those in ASCII are needed to properly > write Spanish or Hungarian (as with English), one cannot > write any of the three, or French, without those characters. > Things would get much more interesting with Chinese, > Japanese, or Arabic, but, again, the form in which figures > are expressed is the least of the issues. > > john > > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf