Re: tlug: kanji or romaji for Japanese? (was: parallel-port IDE)

["Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" <chak@example.com>]

Scott Stone <sstone@example.com> wrote,

> On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> >     Scott> I think that this is what someone once meant by the 'babel'
> >     Scott> concept - human languages tend to diverge into more and
> >     Scott> more fragmented languages instead of converging on one
> >     Scott> language.
> > 
> > I don't see this.  Definitely so, in programming languages.  But in
> > human languages we're converging.  To the extreme displeasure of
> > anti-Unicode fanatics and the French Academy, I might add.
> 
> I'm not talking about languages WRT computers, I'm talking about languages
> in general.  Look at all the different dialects of German spoken in
> Germany, and the different dialects of English spoken in America.  Human
> language is divergent, I tell you.

There are many dialects of German today, but there have
always been many and I don't think they are getting more.
And as a consequence of more or less centrally organized
education at least many (definitely not all) Germans can
speak and understand Hochdeutsch (the official language)
-- that was definitely different at times where people were
less mobile and didn't have mass communication.

Manuel
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