> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard A. O'Keefe [mailto:ok at atlas.otago.ac.nz]
> Sent: maandag 4 februari 2002 22:58
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: RE: Toch weer antwoord: RE: Antwoord: Squeak
> Internationalization (vo orheen: Re: AW: AW: -- Whats this 
> 'AW:' mean?)
> 
> 
> G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl wrote:
> 	I thought that Bliss was introduced as an alternative
> 	language system for people with a spastic problem.
> 
> That is the niche in which Blissymbolics has survived,
> but it is not at all what it was created for.
> Bliss had seen war in Europe, and believed that the division of
> languages was part of the problem.  He wanted to make a notation
> that *anyone* could communicate in.  The "Bliss boards" you see
> these days are a tiny fragment of the system he devised.
>
The dreanm he did share with Esperanto and Ino?

> 
> 	I think that I even can remember one Dutch word that could not
> 	be translated in American English: gezellig. 
> 	
> In one sense, translation is always impossible.
> The English word "the" doesn't seem to have an *EXACT* translation in
> any European language; "the" in places where it shouldn't be 
> and missing from places where it should is a very common sign that an 
> author is not
> an American with a European name but a real European.
> What of it?  Enough of the meaning of a _text_ can usually be 
> got through.
> 
> One method of translation is incorporation.  Words like
> "taonga", "iwi", and so on are very commonly found in New 
> Zealand newspapers
> and nobody bothers to translate them.  If it became important 
> to a group of American English speakers to talk about "gezellig", they 
> would probably learn what it meant and then use the Dutch word.
>
> I agree on that: doggybag, OK, IQ, TV, SHIT, FUCK, are normal Dutch words
these days  

> 
> 	Don't you expect to meet this time that kind of cultural context
> 	problems?
> 	
> What kind of cultural context problems?  The word in question, "re",
> is one which English picked up *untranslated* from European culture.
> It appears that replies that continue concerning the same 
> matter are as much part of Low Countries culture as they are of the
English 
> cultures.
> 
I do not say that we cannot agree on a shortlist for replay-header-starts.
I have my doubts that such a list (Or the language Bliss) brings us closer
in understanding each other: it is just liek tagging in XML: not the tags
themselve create a better understanding but the grammar and the syntax we
agree on to use these tags in which situation...