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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Servus,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>according to Arthurs description of iberian
languages: What makes living in Europe much more complex than, for
example, living in US and why is the representation of southwest european
folks that small in the OS-community? Some facts and some
hypothesis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There are 48 living languages used by resident
inhabitants in Europe. It ranges from about 150.000 reto-romaigns to 90,
000.000 germanspeaking (Germany, Austria and German-Swiss together). Not
counted hundreds of languages immigrants brought in and
speak individually. There is only one monolingual country in Europe -
Portugal (Correct, Arthur?). You don't get very far with your language. An
example: From my hometown Vienna I am surrounded within a range of 400
kilometers with 5 different languages; czech, slovakian, slovenian, hungarian
and italian. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What does it mean in practice in an opening
european community, especially when your lingual homebase is small? You need to
speak at least one another language well (in western Europe mostly english or
french, in eastern Europe in the past russian, today english). It's fine,
if you speak a third one well, or at least (as in my case italian and french) a
little. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And it seems, there are invisible borders. An
example: In 2000 I participated at the first european learning workshop for
Appreciative Inquiry with David Cooperrider which took place in Italy (in
english). There was 64 people from many countries there, but only one italian,
no french and so on. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As Arthur describes is it very easy to
stay within a family of languages, for example within the romance or
the scandinavian languages. You can increase your "talk-to-abilility" a
lot with low effort. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The bars from english to french are very high (as
the bars from french to german). </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>And there
are very concrete actions from the french authorities to limite
the influence of english language in France: e.g. I read in the
newspapers these days, that people working in french authorities are
adviced to use instead of the term "Email" another word I cannot remember
(xxxcorreil or so). </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bottom line. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>We need french, spanish and italian
Arthurs, professionals who are bilingual in english and their language,
passioned for open space and willing to invest energy for organizing learning
workshops, a translation of the "book" and a OS-wiki section in their
language. Their benefit? An incredible USP for an idea that successfully
works (what is the score today?) in 75 countries in the
world.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Any ideas?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Erich from lovely Vienna</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2> </FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML>
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