I would put forward that official languages should be used, otherwise as Luc has mentioned in the past .. it can be a slippery slope. As for spanish / french - Stats are in order ... ti have been able to find indicate that 12% of the US population speaks spanish, as opposed to 15.3 % who speak french in canada. As a Canadian, i'd been keen that other languages also be given status. For one, Indigenous languages are official in parts of our country (NWT, Yukon & Nunavut ) as well our census indicates that chinese (mostly cantonese) , Italian , Greek, italian, etc. The larger question really depends on ICANN and what resources it might be willing to give. That's a question I can't answer. Right now we have more french speaking ALS in the region then we have spanish. Perhaps that might change in the future. When it does, then i suggest we modify the OP so that spanish is added to French & English as our official working languages. saludos a todos. Roberto --- Robert Guerra <rguerra@privaterra.ca> Managing Director, Privaterra Tel +1 416 893 0377 Refs: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=CA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_in_the_United_States http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/ lang/contents.cfm Canada. 32,507,874. Indian 800,000 and Inuit 32,000 ethnic total (1993): 146,285 first-language speakers (1981 census). 4,120,770 non- English or French first language, or 15.3% (1991 census). National or official languages: English, French. Literacy rate: 96% to 99%. Also includes Afrikaans (2,353), Armenian (20,053), Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (5,000), Belarusan (2,280), Bulgarian (2,276), Central Khmer, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Corsican, Czech (27,038), Danish (29,807), Eastern Panjabi (214,530), Eastern Yiddish (49,890), Estonian (15,295), Finnish (39,069), Greek (143,892), Haitian Creole French (12,317), Hebrew, Hungarian (86,835), Icelandic, Irish Gaelic, Italian (514,410), Iu Mien (100), Japanese (43,000), Judeo-Moroccan Arabic, Kashubian, Korean (73,000), Lao, Latvian (15,000), Lithuanian, Macedonian (12,464), Maltese, Najdi Spoken Arabic (20,000), Northern Kurdish (6,000), Nung, Plains Indian Sign Language, Polish (222,355), Pontic, Portuguese (222,870), Romanian (16,356), Russian (31,745), Scottish Gaelic (3,525), Serbian (7,966), Sinhala (3,004), Slovak, Slovenian (6,415), Southwestern Caribbean Creole English, Spanish (228,580), Standard German (470,505), Swedish (21,591), Sylheti, Tagalog (158,210), Tongan, Turkish (5,179), Turoyo, Ukrainian (174,830), Vietnamese (60,000), Vlax Romani, Welsh (3,160), Western Farsi (15,000), Western Panjabi, Yue Chinese (250,000), India and Pakistan (280,000), speakers of many European languages. Information mainly from W. Chafe 1962, 1965; SIL 1951– 2002. Blind population: 27,184. Deaf population: 1,704,551. Deaf institutions: Many. The number of languages listed for Canada is 89. Of those, 85 are living languages and 4 are extinct. On 5-Jun-07, at 12:30 PM, Eduardo Diaz, PE wrote:
Jacqueline is right. Spanish should be included. Even though Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the US, the 4 million people that live here communicate in Spanish.
Eduardo Díaz President ISCOPR www.isocpr.org
-----Original Message----- From: na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Jacqueline A. Morris Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 12:08 PM To: 'John L'; 'Robert Guerra' Cc: 'NA Discuss' Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Voting Update
Given that Puerto Rico is in NA - should you add Spanish now anyway? There's one ALS from Puerto Rico - ISOC PR. Jacqueline
-----Original Message----- From: John L [mailto:johnl@iecc.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 11:48 AM To: Robert Guerra Cc: NA Discuss Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Voting Update
- Official languages: The USA (as stated by congress) is English, Canada's
official languages (at a federal level) are English and French
The US has no official language. But English is the de facto national language.
In the discussions I've heard, we agreed that if ICANN reorganized the regions to put Mexico into NA, we would add Spanish as a working langauge.
R's, John
_______________________________________________ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge- lists.ica nn.org --- Draft MoU with ICANN: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU
Draft Operating Principles: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP
Draft Code of Conduct: http://www.icannwiki.org/NARALO_Code_of_Conduct
No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.9/832 - Release Date: 6/4/2007 6:43 PM
No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.9/832 - Release Date: 6/4/2007 6:43 PM
_______________________________________________ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge- lists.ica nn.org --- Draft MoU with ICANN: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU
Draft Operating Principles: http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP
Draft Code of Conduct: http://www.icannwiki.org/NARALO_Code_of_Conduct