Wednesday, January 23, 2008

United States "American/English" biased issue

Let me begin by denoting this is an United States "American/English" biased issue that might well apply to other peoples and should be considered in that fashion. Just substitute your own nation/language(s) into the logic.

I stumbled upon the DoNotCall register regarding the US FTC's online process and registered my phone with the government's program. While there, I noted a special section for those who required their information En EspaƱol.

Although I have no negative feelings about Spanish or those who speak it, I am gobsmacked by the lack of equal opportunity. Here's what I think:

For those of you who do not speak English or Spanish, PLEASE complain to your US congressman that you are not receiving equal opportunity as the English/Spanish speaking and want all government communication presented in your language of choice as well. Since there are over 750 languages in daily use, you can imagine the instruction "press 749 for Aragonese." Since Aragonese is spoken in Aragon Spain, not even all Spanish peoples are satisfied with "press 2 for Spanish."

For those of you who think the idea of the U.S. Government trying to speak in tongues...(as if they weren't incomprehensible already) is a silly irony...but see a need for translation at times, let me introduce you to a free on line translator of text and even websites:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Try it! Also if you didn't know AltaVista, just know that AltaVista developed the first search able, full-text database on the World Wide Web in 1995 and was THE search engine of its day. (otherwise you'd have no search capability via Yahoo, Google, AskJeeves, AllTheWeb, etc.)
Gemmelsmerch!

And for those of you who are innovative, imagine that instead of spending millions reproducing information in Spanish (and whatever language comes after that ad infinitum) , the United States government instead funded a project to build a universal translator for the world...much like GPS serves the world. Just maybe the rest of the world should help doing this universal translator ability.

Oh, one more thing. Spanish speaking people have some of the richest cultures on this planet and their inclusion at least in America (north and south) is essential. And the same goes for English speaking people specially in the United States of America.