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Language policy and nformation management
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Language policy and nformation management

The other day there was a mail from a group of editor friends based in the UK. The mail drew attention to the relocation of Seybold Publishing from Pennsylvania to the Silicon Valley in an effort to gather and process information more efficiently. If Seybold has a problem of this magnitude, it may be time once more to draw attention to an allied problem. Hence the following post :

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"A little information, when shared, can go a long way", BBC World.

I should like to request a policy on the part of _all_ companies who make a living from open standards workflows such that in the interests of information management, any recommendation of an English title or site is automatically accompanied by a recommendation of a title or site in non-English languages.

A PDF does not care where it is created and where it is rendered. An ICC profile does not care where it is created and where it renders color appearance. And a Unicode-based OpenType font is language independent, too. In the interests of the workflow information sharing is increasingly important.

In 1998 and 1999 attempts were made to persuade Apple to set up parallel self-help language lists for ColorSync users. The intention was to avoid situations in which even technically professional users felt compelled to apologize for their English.

Information management should ensure that languages other than English, and the user communities that speak these languages, are not lost in translation. In other words information management and technological interoperability should coincide.

There is an aspect to this which I think is worth bringing to the attention of the corporate and user community alike. The European Union does _not_ have an official language. It has as many official languages as there are member states.

For this reason 1% of the budget of the European Union is dedicated to translation services, both internal and outsourced. A speaker is entitled to address the European Parliament in her own language and to be supported by simultaneous translation.

The Anglo-American world is a refugee world populated by those who have fled European nationalism which once was fuelled by the idea of the destiny of the nation state and its national language. It is culturally blind to language issues.

The state is not identified with a language in North America whereas in Europe the opposite remains true. Job opportunities for immigrants depend on mastery of a national language, and Continental European language policies target English.

Those preparing books or sites in non-English languages should make their efforts known to Apple and Adobe, and Apple and Adobe should set up a referencing service for the information management efforts in open workflows.

There is an Apple Business Development Manager for Design and Print in Europe, and I'm sure there are co-ordinates for the Americas and Asia, too. The ECI has already begun to move towards multiple language threads, which is welcome.

(I can recall only a minute number of posts from Asia since 1998. In all less than one hundred, I would think. And what of Eastern Europe? So is there no demand or is there no support for these fledgling communities? In 1998 this List was tiny, too.)

Thanks,
Henrik
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