[vip] linguistic and cultural support

[iftakhar shah]

excellent e-mail contents.
 
Iftikhar
Pakistan

From: jean-michel bernier de portzamparc <jmabdp at gmail.com>
To: IETF <ietf at ietf.org>
Cc: vip at icann.org; internet users contributing group <iucg at ietf.org>; precis at ietf.org
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 7:06 PM
Subject: [vip] linguistic and cultural support


Dear all,
We, nicknamed "JEDI"s (Jefsey disciples), have often tried to make the IETF understand and respect the implications of linguistic, cultural, political, economical diversities on protocol definition. Jefsey obtained the RFC 4645, 4646, 4647 consensus he wanted.  We also obtained the IDNA2008 consensus which was necessary to warranty the internet stability, its capacity to support any diversity by subsidiarity, and the emergence of the IUI. We still have a problem with the IETF/Unicode relations, the WG/PRECIS, the IDNA IAB work, the ICANN/VIP work on variants, extension of the punycode algorithm to support French and and the orthotypography (scripting syntax) of most of the other languages, etc.

May be this quote will help some of our colleagues to understand better why the IETF is to "influence those who design, use and manage the internet" for it to offer users with a better multilinguistic support.

“We live in a global world,”... 
“We have to understand that world if we … are going to be able to not only defend this country, but to extend our relationships to others so that we can work together to defend the world that we live in.”
“The reality is that we have to reflect the nation we live in and we have to reflect the world we are a part of." 
“Languages are the key to understanding that world.”... "It’s also critical to the effectiveness of current U.S. military operations." ... 
"If we are going to advance stability in some of the countries we are fighting in today, we have to be able to understand what motivates those countries, what motivates their people, and to understand their culture, beliefs, faiths, ideologies, hatreds and loves". 
“So it is crucial to our national security to be able to have a strong language ability”.

-  Leon E. Panetta (8/23/2011). US Defense Secretary.

Mr. Panetta speaks on behalf of the USA, but I believe that if his understanding may be late, it is also true for every other nation. 

Multilinguistics, as Jefsey defined it from our IETF experience, is the cybernetics of the linguistic diversity. How languages and cultures can be adequately be supported and result in positive synergetic feed backs. Its key recipe seems to be first based upon a true network linguistic neutrality. One does not need to have more than one language to be a multilingist, one just need to understand and/or research how to better support linguistic and cultural diversity. 

As Mr. Panetta stated, it is critical to stability and effectiveness in our global world. 
Portzamparc.
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