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...and also due to a legal requirement: > The language rule is enshrined in law in B.C.'s Business Corporation Act, which states: "A company or extraprovincial

...and also due to a legal requirement: > The language rule is enshrined in law in B.C.'s Business Corporation Act, which states: "A company or extraprovincial company must display its name ... in legible English or French characters." Most jurisdictions have official languages. There's room for discussion about colonialist and discriminatory causes and effects, of course. But it's not necessarily obvious that governments ought to accommodate n languages, or to what degree.

irrational 6y ago
So it is probably a legal instead of a technical issue. What happens when two laws come into conflict with each other? United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) vs the language rule
- cdepatie 6y ago
  Technically the UN declaration is not legally binding, so there is no legal conflict. Of course, that isn't meant to say that the declaration shouldn't be respected or that a government/nation might not face backlash for failing to respect it, but in a Canadian court I believe (IANAL) that the UN declaration would be effectively irrelevant. Edit: I made this comment before reading the article; it appears BC has actually passed legislation requiring them to implement UNDRIP (https://declaration.gov.bc.ca/ https://declaration.gov.bc.ca/), so the parent's question remains valid.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    The UN declaration is irrelevant. (For now; there's pending legislation at https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/about-apropos.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/about-apropos.html to require its implementation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Code_(British_Columbia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Code_(British_Col... is not.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    > Technically the UN declaration is not legally binding, so there is no legal conflict. Not even that, but I assume there isn't a line in UNDRIP that specifically says "Indigenous people should be able to register their businesses using their alphabets". My assumption is that it's a more general resolution, and details about what constitutes promoting revitalizing indigenous languages is up to national/local governments. I think it would be good of the Canadian/BC governments to allow this sort of thing, but I doubt it would be a violation of the resolution, or even the spirit of it, to shelve that particular idea, in favor of others.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- SllX 6y ago
  Unless the former is enshrined in Canadian or British Columbian law, it’s irrelevant and therefore there isn’t a legal conflict.
- AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
  UN declarations not being laws, the law does.
wavefunction 6y ago
They're Latin characters though, rather than English or French characters. I don't mean to be pedantic but it seems the law is poorly written.
- bluefirebrand 6y ago
  English and French language characters are a specific subset of Latin characters.
- nickff 6y ago
  If you're being pedantic, modern English uses Latin script and Arabic numerals in addition to a variety of special characters. English and French use alphabets which are derived from the Latin alphabet. The Wiki pages on the subject are quite good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_script
  - gumby 6y ago
    > If you're being pedantic, modern English uses ... Arabic numerals... Well, if you want to be super pedantic: Arabic numerals look like this: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ٩ ٨ ٧ ٦ ٥ ٤ ٣ ٢ ١ ٠ and appear little-endian when reading. The ones we use come from devanagari (brahmic) alphabets and look generally like this (though they arrived in Europe via islamic scholarship, hence the common name in some languages) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९
  - wavefunction 6y ago
    I am always looking to be more pedantic so I appreciate this
- 0110101001 6y ago
  I assume it means you can only use the sunset of Latin characters used in French and English, e.g. 'ç' is acceptable but 'ñ' isn't.
- mdasen 6y ago
  I think the reason they specify English or French characters is that Latin doesn't really specify what is allowed. French can use á or à or ç. Latin was generally written without diacritical marks by Romans with the occasional exception of the apex which looks similar to acute accents to me. If we're talking about modern Latin writings, things like macrons (a horizontal line above like ā) and even breves have been used (like ă). Would we be talking about the classical Latin alphabet which is missing the letters J, U, and W? If we're talking about "Latin characters" in a colloquial sense, do we allow things like ñ? That's valid in the Spanish version of the latin alphabet, but not in standard English or French. French does use the accent tréma (¨) on certain letters, but not all letters. What about the German ẞ or Norwegian Ø? Are those latin characters? The Romanian ș? The Welsh Ŵ? The Czech Ď? The Polish Ł? The Maltese Ħ? Specifying English and French is meant to add specificity to what is allowed. While so many languages use "Latin characters", they're often a bit different. I don't look at something in German and think "what on earth are those letters", but I might think "what is that ẞ and what are those dots?" I'm not arguing that the law should specify how companies name themselves. I'm just saying that specifying English and French makes sense because specifying "Latin characters" leaves a lot to be desired. Do they mean to exclude "J"? Do they mean to exclude "ç"? Do they mean to include "Ł"? You might think that it's obvious what the latin characters are: they're clearly the set of characters that a native English or French speaker thinks is normal, right? As a native-English speaker, the Spanish "ñ" or the French "ç" seem familiar - I've seen them a bunch in my life and I know what they do. The Polish "Ł"? That's unfamiliar to me. What does the line do? I don't know. They wanted to specify what was allowed and what wasn't allowed and "Latin characters" doesn't narrow it down enough - or potentially narrows it down too much by excluding many English and French words and names.

irrational 6y ago

So it is probably a legal instead of a technical issue. What happens when two laws come into conflict with each other? United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) vs the language rule

cdepatie 6y ago
Technically the UN declaration is not legally binding, so there is no legal conflict. Of course, that isn't meant to say that the declaration shouldn't be respected or that a government/nation might not face backlash for failing to respect it, but in a Canadian court I believe (IANAL) that the UN declaration would be effectively irrelevant. Edit: I made this comment before reading the article; it appears BC has actually passed legislation requiring them to implement UNDRIP (https://declaration.gov.bc.ca/ https://declaration.gov.bc.ca/), so the parent's question remains valid.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  The UN declaration is irrelevant. (For now; there's pending legislation at https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/about-apropos.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/about-apropos.html to require its implementation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Code_(British_Columbia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Code_(British_Col... is not.
- kelnos 6y ago
  > Technically the UN declaration is not legally binding, so there is no legal conflict. Not even that, but I assume there isn't a line in UNDRIP that specifically says "Indigenous people should be able to register their businesses using their alphabets". My assumption is that it's a more general resolution, and details about what constitutes promoting revitalizing indigenous languages is up to national/local governments. I think it would be good of the Canadian/BC governments to allow this sort of thing, but I doubt it would be a violation of the resolution, or even the spirit of it, to shelve that particular idea, in favor of others.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SllX 6y ago
Unless the former is enshrined in Canadian or British Columbian law, it’s irrelevant and therefore there isn’t a legal conflict.
AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
UN declarations not being laws, the law does.

wavefunction 6y ago

They're Latin characters though, rather than English or French characters. I don't mean to be pedantic but it seems the law is poorly written.

bluefirebrand 6y ago
English and French language characters are a specific subset of Latin characters.
nickff 6y ago
If you're being pedantic, modern English uses Latin script and Arabic numerals in addition to a variety of special characters. English and French use alphabets which are derived from the Latin alphabet. The Wiki pages on the subject are quite good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_script
- gumby 6y ago
  > If you're being pedantic, modern English uses ... Arabic numerals... Well, if you want to be super pedantic: Arabic numerals look like this: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ٩ ٨ ٧ ٦ ٥ ٤ ٣ ٢ ١ ٠ and appear little-endian when reading. The ones we use come from devanagari (brahmic) alphabets and look generally like this (though they arrived in Europe via islamic scholarship, hence the common name in some languages) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९
- wavefunction 6y ago
  I am always looking to be more pedantic so I appreciate this
0110101001 6y ago
I assume it means you can only use the sunset of Latin characters used in French and English, e.g. 'ç' is acceptable but 'ñ' isn't.
mdasen 6y ago
I think the reason they specify English or French characters is that Latin doesn't really specify what is allowed. French can use á or à or ç. Latin was generally written without diacritical marks by Romans with the occasional exception of the apex which looks similar to acute accents to me. If we're talking about modern Latin writings, things like macrons (a horizontal line above like ā) and even breves have been used (like ă). Would we be talking about the classical Latin alphabet which is missing the letters J, U, and W? If we're talking about "Latin characters" in a colloquial sense, do we allow things like ñ? That's valid in the Spanish version of the latin alphabet, but not in standard English or French. French does use the accent tréma (¨) on certain letters, but not all letters. What about the German ẞ or Norwegian Ø? Are those latin characters? The Romanian ș? The Welsh Ŵ? The Czech Ď? The Polish Ł? The Maltese Ħ? Specifying English and French is meant to add specificity to what is allowed. While so many languages use "Latin characters", they're often a bit different. I don't look at something in German and think "what on earth are those letters", but I might think "what is that ẞ and what are those dots?" I'm not arguing that the law should specify how companies name themselves. I'm just saying that specifying English and French makes sense because specifying "Latin characters" leaves a lot to be desired. Do they mean to exclude "J"? Do they mean to exclude "ç"? Do they mean to include "Ł"? You might think that it's obvious what the latin characters are: they're clearly the set of characters that a native English or French speaker thinks is normal, right? As a native-English speaker, the Spanish "ñ" or the French "ç" seem familiar - I've seen them a bunch in my life and I know what they do. The Polish "Ł"? That's unfamiliar to me. What does the line do? I don't know. They wanted to specify what was allowed and what wasn't allowed and "Latin characters" doesn't narrow it down enough - or potentially narrows it down too much by excluding many English and French words and names.