5 ms·

What? There are 400+ million native speakers of Spanish in the world. Second language included? 600+

gwern 8y ago
And this is an English-language website predominantly read by users in the US about a change in status under US copyright law.
- erikbye 8y ago
  I think you underestimate HN's international readership.
  - lsiebert 8y ago
    I appreciate that HN is more cosmopolitan then people think :-). People from different countries often bring great perspective to things that I wouldn't have come up with on my own. Another argument for the benefit of diversity, I'd say.
  - gwern 8y ago
    I don't think I do, and I've looked at the estimated geoips of hundreds of thousands of HN hits to my website: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rtqafvuy18awda6/Analytics%20www.gwern.net%20Referral%20Traffic%2020110101-20190101.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/rtqafvuy18awda6/Analytics%20www.gw... You see many Spanish-speaking countries listed...?
    - nl 8y ago
      While I agree with your premise, it's not wrong to think of it the other way too (especially in terms of numbers as opposed to percentages) Nevertheless, 13% of the US population are native Spanish speakers[1], and presumably more have some level of reading skills. Hard to judge overlap with HN readership, but it's probably fair to think that 4-5% of your sites readers can read Spanish. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United_States#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United...
      - gwern 8y ago
        > Hard to judge overlap with HN readership, Low. Very low. Think about the Hispanic population a little. > but it's probably fair to think that 4-5% of your sites readers can read Spanish. If they are, they aren't setting their OSes or browsers to use Spanish rather than English... An 'es' language code doesn't even show up in my GA language headers until #13 (consistent with the geoip), putting them at ~0.5% of all hits. I have more German, French, and Russian-preferring readers than Spanish (which is only slightly more popular than Portuguese). HN is cosmopolitan, but all the evidence I have is that it's not in a Spanish sort of way.
benj111 8y ago
I think what he's saying is that the translation is still under copyright. Only the original would be public domain. Theres a translation of Da Vinci's notebooks mentioned on the website. One would hope that the original had fallen out of copyright by now, so its only the translation that is falling out of copyright.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  Exactly. I produce ebooks for Standard Ebooks and there’s plenty of Russian literature that I’d like to do, we’re it not for the fact that the available translations are much later than 1923 even if the original books were published earlier.

And this is an English-language website predominantly read by users in the US about a change in status under US copyright law.

erikbye 8y ago
I think you underestimate HN's international readership.
- lsiebert 8y ago
  I appreciate that HN is more cosmopolitan then people think :-). People from different countries often bring great perspective to things that I wouldn't have come up with on my own. Another argument for the benefit of diversity, I'd say.
- gwern 8y ago
  I don't think I do, and I've looked at the estimated geoips of hundreds of thousands of HN hits to my website: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rtqafvuy18awda6/Analytics%20www.gwern.net%20Referral%20Traffic%2020110101-20190101.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/rtqafvuy18awda6/Analytics%20www.gw... You see many Spanish-speaking countries listed...?
  - nl 8y ago
    While I agree with your premise, it's not wrong to think of it the other way too (especially in terms of numbers as opposed to percentages) Nevertheless, 13% of the US population are native Spanish speakers[1], and presumably more have some level of reading skills. Hard to judge overlap with HN readership, but it's probably fair to think that 4-5% of your sites readers can read Spanish. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United_States#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United...
    - gwern 8y ago
      > Hard to judge overlap with HN readership, Low. Very low. Think about the Hispanic population a little. > but it's probably fair to think that 4-5% of your sites readers can read Spanish. If they are, they aren't setting their OSes or browsers to use Spanish rather than English... An 'es' language code doesn't even show up in my GA language headers until #13 (consistent with the geoip), putting them at ~0.5% of all hits. I have more German, French, and Russian-preferring readers than Spanish (which is only slightly more popular than Portuguese). HN is cosmopolitan, but all the evidence I have is that it's not in a Spanish sort of way.

benj111 8y ago

I think what he's saying is that the translation is still under copyright. Only the original would be public domain. Theres a translation of Da Vinci's notebooks mentioned on the website. One would hope that the original had fallen out of copyright by now, so its only the translation that is falling out of copyright.

robin_reala 8y ago
Exactly. I produce ebooks for Standard Ebooks and there’s plenty of Russian literature that I’d like to do, we’re it not for the fact that the available translations are much later than 1923 even if the original books were published earlier.