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digitalmars.D - Japanese D stuff

reply bobef <bobef_member pathlink.com> writes:
I see there is a lot of high quality D stuff on some japanese sites... This is
cool but why not in english? I mean it is cool to write in your own language but
maybe on some later stage where D community is larger the C++ one worldwide and
there is pretty much D stuff everywhere. In my opinion we should make our D
things more "accessible" to help the development of D, and english is kind-of
international language... This is my opinion of course...
Jun 20 2005
next sibling parent clayasaurus <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
bobef wrote:

 I see there is a lot of high quality D stuff on some japanese sites... This is
 cool but why not in english? 


Because maybe they don't know it.


 I mean it is cool to write in your own language but
 maybe on some later stage where D community is larger the C++ one worldwide and
 there is pretty much D stuff everywhere. In my opinion we should make our D
 things more "accessible" to help the development of D, and english is kind-of
 international language... This is my opinion of course...


You could try the translation yourself. Goodluck.
Jun 20 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Brian Hay <bhay construct3d.com> writes:
On 21/06/2005 4:31 AM, bobef wrote:

 I see there is a lot of high quality D stuff on some japanese sites... This is
 cool but why not in english?



 In my opinion we should make our D
 things more "accessible" to help the development of D, and english is kind-of
 international language... This is my opinion of course...


I'm a native English speaker and don't (unfortunately) know any other 
spoken languages, but it sometimes concerns me that English has become 
the "must know" defacto standard language in the technology sector 
especially. It must be really difficult for non-English speakers to 
understand the many subtleties and ambiguities in English in order to 
fully grasp a programming language and utilise code libraries etc.

It would be nice to have a simple, "universal" non-aligned language like 
Esperanto in regular use but then again I'm an idealist ...

Brian.
Jun 20 2005
next sibling parent reply florian <florian_member pathlink.com> writes:
I'm a native English speaker and don't (unfortunately) know any other 
spoken languages, but it sometimes concerns me that English has become 
the "must know" defacto standard language in the technology sector 
especially. It must be really difficult for non-English speakers to 
understand the many subtleties and ambiguities in English in order to 
fully grasp a programming language and utilise code libraries etc.

It would be nice to have a simple, "universal" non-aligned language like 
Esperanto in regular use but then again I'm an idealist ...

Brian.


I am not a native english speaker (french if you must know) but I disagree. If
there must be one international language (and  i do think it is usefull), why
try to use one like esperanto which has no native speaker? It just becomes a
problem for more people. Besides, esperanto is NOT easier to learn than english.
Difficulty of a language basicly comes down to how similar it is to one you
already speak.

Esperanto is rather easy for european speakers, because it has been created to
be very similar to what they have in common. But it is not any easier for, say,
japanese people.

More over, the best way to learn a language is to practice. You need to read
book, or watch movies, or stay in a country where it is spoken... None of which
is really an option for artificial languages, because there are no such country,
and the material in these language is bound to be far more limited than in a
natural language.

Any international language will always be, in my opinion, the one of a country
or civilisation of major influence over the world. As was latin thanks to Rome,
as was french to some extend through it's colonial empire, as english has become
through UK's colonial empire follow by american economic influence on the world.
If you want to look for which language is likely to be the major international
language of tomorow, if english is to be replaced, I'd rather point to Chinese,
or Arab. Not because they are more neutral, or easy or anything. Because they
spoken by many people, in influencial civilisations. But if you ask me, english
is here to stay for a while, until a major change in the world order.
Jun 20 2005
parent reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
florian wrote:
<snip>

 I am not a native english speaker (french if you must know) but I disagree. If
 there must be one international language (and  i do think it is usefull), why
 try to use one like esperanto which has no native speaker? It just becomes a
 problem for more people. Besides, esperanto is NOT easier to learn than
english.
 Difficulty of a language basicly comes down to how similar it is to one you
 already speak.


Which is the greater factor in determining ease of learning a language - 
simplicity or similarity?


 Esperanto is rather easy for european speakers, because it has been created to
 be very similar to what they have in common. But it is not any easier for, say,
 japanese people.


It would appear that Zamenhof wasn't so familiar with the workings of 
many non-European languages.

Loglan and Lojban, OTOH, have been described as more culturally neutral, 
since they have somewhat less in common with natural languages.  And 
presumably a more balanced collection of vocabulary sources....


 More over, the best way to learn a language is to practice. You need to read
 book, or watch movies, or stay in a country where it is spoken... None of which
 is really an option for artificial languages, because there are no such
country,
 and the material in these language is bound to be far more limited than in a
 natural language.


<snip>

True.  But ATMS Esperanto has quite a body of both original and 
translated literature.

Stewart.

-- 
My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox.  Please keep replies on 
the 'group where everyone may benefit.
Jun 21 2005
parent florian <florian_member pathlink.com> writes:
<snip>

 I am not a native english speaker (french if you must know) but I disagree. If
 there must be one international language (and  i do think it is usefull), why
 try to use one like esperanto which has no native speaker? It just becomes a
 problem for more people. Besides, esperanto is NOT easier to learn than
english.
 Difficulty of a language basicly comes down to how similar it is to one you
 already speak.


Which is the greater factor in determining ease of learning a language - 
simplicity or similarity?


Basicaly speaking, there is no such thing as simplicity. Declinations are
difficult to learn? yes, because you don't have them in your language. Learning
a language without declinations if your native tongue have is not necessarily
easy. There are lots of thing you could do thanks to the declinations that you
have to learn a different way, and you get a more constrained word order. Some
languages do not make any difference between adjectives and (state) verbs. Is
that more simple or more complicated? I'd say neither. just different. The only
place where I'd say there is indeed a difference of difficulty between languages
is writing, and more specificaly learning the characters and spelling.


 Esperanto is rather easy for european speakers, because it has been created to
 be very similar to what they have in common. But it is not any easier for, say,
 japanese people.


It would appear that Zamenhof wasn't so familiar with the workings of 
many non-European languages.

Loglan and Lojban, OTOH, have been described as more culturally neutral, 
since they have somewhat less in common with natural languages.  And 
presumably a more balanced collection of vocabulary sources....


Having more balanced vocabulary sources means including some chinese-based words
to please the asians, since lots of languages there borrow from it. But then it
makes it harder for europeans. If you try to be fair to every one, you'll end
with a highly heterogen vocabulary that not only will contain a lot of words
foreign to any speakers (not the same words for every one, but still), but also
will be less coherent in relation between words, and therefore harder to learn.

And for the grammar, you get problems too. should your languages have tenses or
not? should the object complement come before or after the verb. should there
even be such a thing as an object complement? should the verb ending (or
beginin?) change with the tense, or with the level of politness, or not at all?
and so on. Whatever you choose, the natural languages are so diverse that some
features will always be foreign (and therefore hard to grasp) for some group or
another.

So you can either pick up features in all the languages of the world, and end up
with something hard for every body, or make it easy for the  one group (say
romance languages : italian spanish portugese romanian) and harder for the
others. But in that second case, why not just pickup one of the natural
languages of that group? it already has the features you want, and will be
already known by a lot of people.

And if you chose than language from a dominant (economicaly, culturaly,
militarly, or whatever) civilisation of the moment, you don't even have to
convince people to learn it. They will need it to communicate with thoses
dominant people. and they are also likely to make a lot of borrowing to their
native language, somewhat briding the vocabulary gap.


 More over, the best way to learn a language is to practice. You need to read
 book, or watch movies, or stay in a country where it is spoken... None of which
 is really an option for artificial languages, because there are no such
country,
 and the material in these language is bound to be far more limited than in a
 natural language.


<snip>

True.  But ATMS Esperanto has quite a body of both original and 
translated literature.


Sure. But are research papers published in esperanto? international agreements?
business contracts? TV news? latest holliwood movie?

This won't happen unless esperanto is already a dominant language in the world.
Which wont happen if esperanto is not needed to do international stuff as
mentioned above. You got a hen and egg problem here, which makes me say except
that a few language enthousiasts, no one is ever going to learn esperanto for
the sake of communication.

But don't get me wrong. I love artificial languages. They are a wonderfull thing
for linguistic research, for fiction (think of klingon, or elvish), or for
art(poetry). But for international communication, I do not believe that they are
a solution. Not even an improvement.

Florian
Jun 23 2005
prev sibling parent reply David Medlock <noone nowhere.com> writes:
Brian Hay wrote:


 On 21/06/2005 4:31 AM, bobef wrote:
 

 I see there is a lot of high quality D stuff on some japanese sites... 
 This is
 cool but why not in english?


 
 

 In my opinion we should make our D
 things more "accessible" to help the development of D, and english is 
 kind-of
 international language... This is my opinion of course...


 
 
 I'm a native English speaker and don't (unfortunately) know any other 
 spoken languages, but it sometimes concerns me that English has become 
 the "must know" defacto standard language in the technology sector 
 especially. It must be really difficult for non-English speakers to 
 understand the many subtleties and ambiguities in English in order to 
 fully grasp a programming language and utilise code libraries etc.
 
 It would be nice to have a simple, "universal" non-aligned language like 
 Esperanto in regular use but then again I'm an idealist ...
 
 Brian.


Why does this concern you?  Many different Computer technologies were 
created and rose to prominence in English speaking countries.

Are you concerned that sheet music is full of Italian?  It is for the 
same reasons I mentioned...

-DavidM
Jun 22 2005
parent reply Brian Hay <bhay construct3d.com> writes:
On 23/06/2005 2:41 AM, David Medlock wrote:


 Why does this concern you?  Many different Computer technologies were 
 created and rose to prominence in English speaking countries.


Don't get me wrong. I wasn't suggesting a change in D or anything else 
and my post was very off-topic. Sorry. It was just a hypothetical "what 
if" ideal world scenario. I understand the historical reasons for the 
dominance of English, and as an English speaker I can't complain, but 
the idealist/politically correct part of me says "English as the 
dominant language for the Internet and technology smacks of cultural 
imperialism". Just trying to put myself in the shoes of the majority of 
the world's population that *doesn't* speak English as a first language, 
and shouldn't be expected to learn all its many idiosyncrasies in order 
to fully utilise today's information technology.

What prompted my renewed interest in Esperanto and other "artificial" 
languages was a recent business trip to Korea. The people I met there 
were quite surprised at my lack of knowledge of Esperanto in particular. 
They seemed to think that it was a common thing (courtesy?) to learn 
something like Esperanto to ease cross-border communication and 
understanding (although one of the group spoke reasonably fluent English 
also, so he acted as translator). I got the distinct impression that 
they (the Koreans) are proud of what they can do and quite rightly would 
rather reinvent the wheel for themselves than use a "western wheel".

On a side note, apparently the UN and EU parliament spend billions a 
year on translation services. A common, non-aligned language for 
diplomacy (other than the traditional French), would save a lot of money 
and maybe reduce misunderstanding and promote international cooperation.

And to answer florian:


 Esperanto is rather easy for european speakers, because it has been created to
 be very similar to what they have in common. But it is not any easier for, say,
 japanese people.


True, Esperanto is more European than Asian in origin, but it is much 
easier to learn with only a 1000 or so roots that combine in unambiguous 
ways, as opposed to English's 10,000 or more roots with many, many 
ambiguities and inconsistencies.

Brian.
Jun 22 2005
next sibling parent reply Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:45:50 +1000, Brian Hay wrote:

 

 True, Esperanto is more European than Asian in origin, but it is much 
 easier to learn with only a 1000 or so roots that combine in unambiguous 
 ways, as opposed to English's 10,000 or more roots with many, many 
 ambiguities and inconsistencies.


Just for your interest, there are many alternatives to Esperanto. One of
the more interesting ones is Ido ( http://members.aol.com/idolinguo/ ) It
is still very European influenced, which is a shame because the Asian and
African languages have a lot of great things to recommend them (I learned
Thai and also spent some time in South Africa, so I suppose I'm a bit
biased.)

-- 
Derek
Melbourne, Australia
23/06/2005 10:57:01 AM
Jun 22 2005
parent Brian Hay <bhay construct3d.com> writes:
On 23/06/2005 11:01 AM, Derek Parnell wrote:


 Just for your interest, there are many alternatives to Esperanto. One of
 the more interesting ones is Ido ( http://members.aol.com/idolinguo/ )


Thanks for the link.

BTW: You can't tell from my email address, but I'm Australian too :-) 
Good to see another Aussie on this list.

Brian,
Brisbane, QLD, AU
Jun 22 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent E-guy <E-guy_member pathlink.com> writes:
I can read Esperanto and I have nothing against a D guide in Esperanto! I could
even help with translations! ;-)

In article <d9d0nu$959$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Brian Hay says...

On 23/06/2005 2:41 AM, David Medlock wrote:


 Why does this concern you?  Many different Computer technologies were 
 created and rose to prominence in English speaking countries.


Don't get me wrong. I wasn't suggesting a change in D or anything else 
and my post was very off-topic. Sorry. It was just a hypothetical "what 
if" ideal world scenario. I understand the historical reasons for the 
dominance of English, and as an English speaker I can't complain, but 
the idealist/politically correct part of me says "English as the 
dominant language for the Internet and technology smacks of cultural 
imperialism". Just trying to put myself in the shoes of the majority of 
the world's population that *doesn't* speak English as a first language, 
and shouldn't be expected to learn all its many idiosyncrasies in order 
to fully utilise today's information technology.

What prompted my renewed interest in Esperanto and other "artificial" 
languages was a recent business trip to Korea. The people I met there 
were quite surprised at my lack of knowledge of Esperanto in particular. 
They seemed to think that it was a common thing (courtesy?) to learn 
something like Esperanto to ease cross-border communication and 
understanding (although one of the group spoke reasonably fluent English 
also, so he acted as translator). I got the distinct impression that 
they (the Koreans) are proud of what they can do and quite rightly would 
rather reinvent the wheel for themselves than use a "western wheel".

On a side note, apparently the UN and EU parliament spend billions a 
year on translation services. A common, non-aligned language for 
diplomacy (other than the traditional French), would save a lot of money 
and maybe reduce misunderstanding and promote international cooperation.

And to answer florian:


 Esperanto is rather easy for european speakers, because it has been created to
 be very similar to what they have in common. But it is not any easier for, say,
 japanese people.


True, Esperanto is more European than Asian in origin, but it is much 
easier to learn with only a 1000 or so roots that combine in unambiguous 
ways, as opposed to English's 10,000 or more roots with many, many 
ambiguities and inconsistencies.

Brian.
Jun 22 2005
prev sibling parent Mike Parker <aldacron71 yahoo.com> writes:
Brian Hay wrote:

 On 23/06/2005 2:41 AM, David Medlock wrote:



 What prompted my renewed interest in Esperanto and other "artificial" 
 languages was a recent business trip to Korea. The people I met there 
 were quite surprised at my lack of knowledge of Esperanto in particular. 
 They seemed to think that it was a common thing (courtesy?) to learn 
 something like Esperanto to ease cross-border communication and 
 understanding (although one of the group spoke reasonably fluent English 
 also, so he acted as translator). I got the distinct impression that 
 they (the Koreans) are proud of what they can do and quite rightly would 
 rather reinvent the wheel for themselves than use a "western wheel".


I think you stumbled upon a minority. I've been living in Korea for 15 
years now and have been able to maintain a nice income as a part time 
English instructor. English is big business here. Samsung maintains a 
permanent staff of native speakers for both instruction and for 
promotion evaluations (senior level positions require a high English 
proficiency). Most of the major conglomerates do the same, with training 
facilities set up outside of Seoul. And a large number of small and 
mid-size businesses encourage their employees to take English lessongs. 
Then there are English language institutes which cater to both adults 
and children. And there's a huge market for private tutoring. The demand 
for English lessons is, in fact, much higher than the supply of native 
speakers. Chinese is also big here now that Korean companies are 
expanding in China.

There's been some debate in the Korean government on declaring English 
Korea's official 'second language'. Almost anywhere you go in Korea you 
can find people who speak enough English well enough to have simple 
conversations. In Japan, my experience has been much different. But I've 
not heard of Esperanto before, in either country. Perhaps I'll look in 
to it.
Jun 22 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent reply <t t.com> writes:
In article <d9721c$1avn$1 digitaldaemon.com>, 
bobef_member pathlink.com says...

 I see there is a lot of high quality D stuff on some japanese sites... This is
 cool but why not in english? I mean it is cool to write in your own language
but
 maybe on some later stage where D community is larger the C++ one worldwide and
 there is pretty much D stuff everywhere. In my opinion we should make our D
 things more "accessible" to help the development of D, and english is kind-of
 international language... This is my opinion of course...


Prolly because the ppl writing these sites only know 
Japanese.

  The more interesting question is to how D got to have 
a following in .jp, I'm thinking that there must have 
been someone who knows english and japanese who was a 
bit of an evangelist for D.

 - Factory
Jun 21 2005
parent reply "Walter" <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
<t t.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d22a6621640fd55989683 news.digitalmars.com...

   The more interesting question is to how D got to have
 a following in .jp, I'm thinking that there must have
 been someone who knows english and japanese who was a
 bit of an evangelist for D.


I'm feeling a bit of deja-vu over this, because Japanese programmers were
the earliest adopters of my original compiler back in the '80s in a big way
(the Japanese distributor's name was MSA).

In the late '80s I spend some time in Japan porting software to the Japanese
PCs (which had different BIOS's, keyboards, and video controllers). I had a
wonderful time working with Japanese engineers. Puzzling through the
Japanese technical manuals wasn't that hard, as engineering jargon is the
same everywhere. When we weren't working, they'd take me on tours through
the countryside, and on tour through some of the most incredible
restaurants.

So I couldn't be happier to see a thriving Japanese D community.

Besides, there's google's japanese->english translator!
Jun 23 2005
parent "Regan Heath" <regan netwin.co.nz> writes:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:55:46 -0700, Walter <newshound digitalmars.com>  
wrote:

 <t t.com> wrote in message
 news:MPG.1d22a6621640fd55989683 news.digitalmars.com...

   The more interesting question is to how D got to have
 a following in .jp, I'm thinking that there must have
 been someone who knows english and japanese who was a
 bit of an evangelist for D.


 I'm feeling a bit of deja-vu over this, because Japanese programmers were
 the earliest adopters of my original compiler back in the '80s in a big  
 way
 (the Japanese distributor's name was MSA).

 In the late '80s I spend some time in Japan porting software to the  
 Japanese
 PCs (which had different BIOS's, keyboards, and video controllers). I  
 had a
 wonderful time working with Japanese engineers. Puzzling through the
 Japanese technical manuals wasn't that hard, as engineering jargon is the
 same everywhere. When we weren't working, they'd take me on tours through
 the countryside, and on tour through some of the most incredible
 restaurants.

 So I couldn't be happier to see a thriving Japanese D community.

 Besides, there's google's japanese->english translator!


Go the "Death Tractor" (a.k.a destructor)

Regan
Jun 23 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Mike Parker <aldacron71 yahoo.com> writes:
bobef wrote:

 I see there is a lot of high quality D stuff on some japanese sites... This is
 cool but why not in english? I mean it is cool to write in your own language
but
 maybe on some later stage where D community is larger the C++ one worldwide and
 there is pretty much D stuff everywhere. In my opinion we should make our D
 things more "accessible" to help the development of D, and english is kind-of
 international language... This is my opinion of course...
 
 


There's a flip side to this - Japanese D stuff makes D more accessible 
to Japanese speakers who do not speak English, whereas they would be 
left behind without it. Isn't there room for both? I'd say that the more 
stuff that gets done with D in native languages the better, because that 
will make it available to more people.
Jun 21 2005
parent reply bobef <bobef_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <d98tuv$2ssj$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Mike Parker says...

There's a flip side to this - Japanese D stuff makes D more accessible 
to Japanese speakers who do not speak English, whereas they would be 
left behind without it. Isn't there room for both? I'd say that the more 
stuff that gets done with D in native languages the better, because that 
will make it available to more people.


I doubt it. Everyone who deals with computers has to deal with english, more or
less. With time it becomes less but before not so many years how many programs
had even an option for translation to non-english?
Jun 21 2005
parent reply a.c.edwards <a.c.edwards_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <d994lf$1mf$1 digitaldaemon.com>, bobef says...


..


I doubt it. Everyone who deals with computers has to deal with english, more or
less. With time it becomes less but before not so many years how many programs
had even an option for translation to non-english?


My question is when will you translate your programs into other languages so
that local programmers of those languages will be comfortable reading them? What
says they have to learn your language? They've gone through the trouble of
writing something for themselves, and making it freely available for your use.
When will you even attempt to learn reading it? Are you saying the Japanese are
smarter than your are? They can atleast read English but you will never be able
to read or speak Japanese!

Get over yourself! Maybe after you have spent the time learning their language
and translating your code so that they may have a simpler time reading it, you
can try posting your question again.

Andrew
a.k.a. Tyro



 Jun 21 2005



  parent  bobef <bobef_member pathlink.com>  writes:


In article <d99sdj$n77$1 digitaldaemon.com>, a.c.edwards says...

My question is when will you translate your programs into other languages so
that local programmers of those languages will be comfortable reading them? What
says they have to learn your language? They've gone through the trouble of
writing something for themselves, and making it freely available for your use.
When will you even attempt to learn reading it? Are you saying the Japanese are
smarter than your are? They can atleast read English but you will never be able
to read or speak Japanese!

Get over yourself! Maybe after you have spent the time learning their language
and translating your code so that they may have a simpler time reading it, you
can try posting your question again.

Andrew
a.k.a. Tyro



Why are you mad at me? I respect Japanese language as any other and even more
because I admire Japanese and eastern culutures. My native language is not
English also. What I say is in English D stuff will be more accessible. I didn't
make english so popular. But it think it is good language and I even believe it
is better than my own because it is easy expandable. But I still repsect my
language and avoid using english where possible. Of course it is possible to
write D in my language but I preffer, because I am able to read/write English,
to make my stuff more accessible so more people can benefit from it. And I am
not judging anyone who doesn't share my opion unlike you.


 They can atleast read English but you will never be able
to read or speak Japanese!


This is not true. In fact I have big desire to learn Japanese language and
culture. When I have enough money to travel I wish to go to Japan and not just
on vacation...



 Jun 22 2005



prev sibling  parent  Kaz. <Kaz._member pathlink.com>  writes:


I'm japanese, and I agree that we should make our D stuff more accessible...

The trouble is that most jp programmers feels some difficulty in 'writing'
in english, although they have a certain ability to read. (And perhaps they
are excessively shy to write in the language they cannot use well.)

Some months ago, Sakurai has begun a bugtracking service of D in japan:
http://f17.aaa.livedoor.jp/~labamba/?BugTrack
He translates the bug reports into english and re-posts to digitalmars.D.bugs.
Somthing like this may be needed not just for bug reporting but also
for software/project publication...

Kazuhiro Inaba



 Jun 21 2005