Show language endonym first and then English name

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dEhiN
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Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby dEhiN » 2015-10-24, 19:22

Would it make more sense from a language inclusiveness point of view to have the language boards show the language endonym first with the English name in brackets? (I got the idea because I do that on my blog for language categories/tags). As a native English speaker it's nice to have the language board show all English names first and be organized alphabetically that way. But I just realized that's in a way showing favouritism to English. There have already been complaints in the past of English being used too much in what is supposed to be a multilingual community.
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

Koko

Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby Koko » 2015-10-24, 19:29

Sono d'accordo con te. Anch'io lo vorrei :yep:

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-10-24, 19:29

Tbh, I don't think it makes much of a difference because most of the languages in that list (in its current form at least) are not spoken by anyone on this forum anyway, so putting the endonym first wouldn't be any more convenient in most cases even for people whose native language isn't English.

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby dEhiN » 2015-10-25, 3:16

But I was thinking more in terms of small ways to try and make the forum be multilingual. Or rather, more inviting for those who do speak other languages. Even if we don't have people who speak those languages, if we still have a language board for the language, then in my eyes putting the English exonym first is catering first to the English language and then to the other language. As it is, at least 80-90% of the general forum and general language forum boards are in English. Now maybe for those two forums, that's inevitable since English is the lingua franca of the world, and we do need a language to communicate in that everyone can understand and use. But for a specific language board??
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-10-25, 8:00

dEhiN wrote:But I was thinking more in terms of small ways to try and make the forum be multilingual.

You could participate in my No-English thread! (Shameless plug, I know) :twisted:

EDIT: Oh, and before you even get a chance to ask where it is: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45895. ;)
As it is, at least 80-90% of the general forum and general language forum boards are in English.

And the culture forum and this forum.
Now maybe for those two forums, that's inevitable since English is the lingua franca of the world, and we do need a language to communicate in that everyone can understand and use. But for a specific language board??

I don't understand what your question is about specific language boards. :hmm:

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby dEhiN » 2015-10-26, 4:02

vijayjohn wrote:
dEhiN wrote:As it is, at least 80-90% of the general forum and general language forum boards are in English.

And the culture forum and this forum.
Now maybe for those two forums, that's inevitable since English is the lingua franca of the world, and we do need a language to communicate in that everyone can understand and use. But for a specific language board??

I don't understand what your question is about specific language boards. :hmm:

Basically I was trying to say that these other boards are very English-centric, and I don't think the language boards should be. I know they are not within the board - so the posts aren't always in English. But I see the board title having the English exonym first as being English-centric.
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby JasleenKaur » 2015-12-24, 11:47

What is Endonym i have heard first time this classification of language ?

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-12-24, 17:45

Endonym means what the speakers of the language call their own language.

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby linguoboy » 2015-12-29, 16:21

dEhiN wrote:Would it make more sense from a language inclusiveness point of view to have the language boards show the language endonym first with the English name in brackets?

Seconded. (I actually frequently make the mistake of looking for the German forum under "D" and then having to remind myself that it's under "G". I credit this to the fact that on Wikimedia and Facebook, foreign languages are listed alphabetically by endonym. Are we really comfortable with being less linguistically inclusive than Facebook?)
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby dEhiN » 2015-12-31, 7:02

linguoboy wrote:I credit this to the fact that on Wikimedia and Facebook, foreign languages are listed alphabetically by endonym. Are we really comfortable with being less linguistically inclusive than Facebook?

That's a good point. Especially since we're a language forum with the purpose to help people who are learning languages. And for the forums that include several languages, we could just leave the name in English. Maybe put them at the end of the alphabetical list since it could get confusing otherwise. I'm not sure how FB et al treat languages written in non-Roman script, but if we are listing alphabetically we could just the closest Roman transliteration. For ex, with the Korean board, 한국어 transliterates to hangeugo (iirc), so list is under h.
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby linguoboy » 2015-12-31, 14:22

dEhiN wrote:I'm not sure how FB et al treat languages written in non-Roman script, but if we are listing alphabetically we could just the closest Roman transliteration. For ex, with the Korean board, 한국어 transliterates to hangeugo (iirc), so list is under h.

That's how Wikipedia does it. Facebook puts all non-Roman scripts at the end. They begin with Cyrillic and end with kanji, so I suspect they're following Unicode order.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby OldBoring » 2016-01-02, 7:56

dEhiN and Koko are Canadian. They know better how to deal with bilingual indications. :lol:

Koko

Re: Show language endonym first and then English name

Postby Koko » 2016-01-02, 8:26

OldBoring wrote:dEhiN and Koko are Canadian. They know better how to deal with bilingual indications. :lol:

Aww, I feel honoured by such a comment :mrgreen: I have only agreed with dEhiN :lol:


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