4 ms·

Is Bengali your first language? A better question is, Are there any native Bengali speakers creating character set standards in Bangladesh or India? If not, wh

by SiVal 12y ago

Is Bengali your first language? A better question is, Are there any native Bengali speakers creating character set standards in Bangladesh or India? If not, why not? If so, did they omit your character? I ask, because although you prefer to follow the orthodox pattern of blaming white racism for your grievance du jour, the policy of the Unicode Technical Committee for years has been to use the national standards created by the national standards bodies where these scripts are most used as their most important input. Twenty years ago, I spent a lot of time in these UTC meetings, and when the question arose as to whether to incorporate X-Script into the standard yet, the answer was never whether these cultural imperialists valued, say, Western science fiction fans over irrelevant foreigners, but it was always, "What is the status of X-Script standardization in X-land?" Someone would then report on it. If there was a solid, national standard in place, well-used by local native speakers in local IT applications, it would be fast-tracked into Unicode with little to no modification after verification with the national authorities that they weren't on the verge of changing it. If, however, there was no official, local standard, or several conflicting standards, or a local standard that local IT people had to patch and work around, or whatever, X-Script would be put on a back burner until the local experts figured out their own needs and committed to them. The complaint in this silly article about tiny Klingon being included before a complete Bengali is precisely because getting Bengali right was more complex and far more important. Apparently, the Bengali experts have not yet established a national standard that is clear, widely implemented, agreed upon by Bengali speakers and that includes the character the author wants in the form he/she wants it, for which he/she inevitably blames "mostly white men." (Edited to say "he/she", since I don't know which.)

Manishearth 12y ago
I mostly agree with your point, but note that the author is male (well, the name is a commonly male one). It's a bit telling that folks in the software industry[1] seem to assume that techies are male (a priori), but those who write articles of this kind are female. Not blaming you for it, but it's something you should try to be conscious about and fix. [1] I've been guilty of this myself, though usually in cases where I use terms like "guys" where I shouldn't be.
- SiVal 12y ago
  I had a female coworker by that name, so your assumption that I just assume that people who write articles like this are female and need to have my consciousness raised to "fix" my unconscious sexism is something you should try to be more conscious of and try to fix. However, I clearly do need to question my assumption that since this was a female name before, it's a female name now, so I should change it to "he/she".
  - jedanbik 12y ago
    Or they.
Manishearth 12y ago
> I had a female coworker by that name Oh, sorry about that. Not sure if you're joking about the assumption of assumptions, but asking people to take note of their behavior based on something that they _might_ have assumed is not dangerous. Assuming gender roles is. Apologies for making that assumption, but IMO it's a rather harmless one so I don't see anything to fix about it :P
chimeracoder 12y ago
> The complaint in this silly article about tiny Klingon being included before a complete Bengali is precisely because getting Bengali right was more complex and far more important. This is factually incorrect. It seems you missed both the factual point about the Klingon script in the article as well as the broader point which that detail was meant to illustrate. > although you prefer to follow the orthodox pattern of blaming white racism for your grievance du jour, the policy of the Unicode Technical Committee for years has been to use the national standards created by the national standards bodies where these scripts are most used as their most important input. There's a huge difference between piggybacking off of a decades-old proposed scheme which was never widely adopted even in its country of origin, and which was created under a very different set of constraints than Unicode, and which was created to address a very different set of goals than Unicode, versus making native speakers an active and equal part of the actual decision-making process. Rather than trying to shoehorn the article into a familiar pattern which doesn't actually fit ("orthodox pattern of blaming white racism for your grievance du jour"), please take note that the argument in the article is more nuanced than you're giving it credit for.
- SiVal 12y ago
  versus making native speakers an active and equal part of the actual decision-making process. As I explained, native speakers are the primary decision makers, and not just any native speakers but whoever the native speakers choose as their own top, native experts when they establish their own national standard. For living, natural languages, you don't get characters into Unicode by buying a seat on the committee and voting for them. You do it by getting those characters into a national standard created by the native-speaking authorities. So, I repeat: What national standard have your native-speaking authorities created that reflects the choices you claim all native speakers would naturally make if only the foreign oppressors would listen to them? If your answer is that the national standards differ from what you want, then you are blaming the Unicode Technical Committee for refusing to override the native speakers' chosen authorities and claiming this constitutes abuse of native Bengali speakers by a bunch of "mostly white men".
  - chimeracoder 12y ago

by SiVal 12y ago

Manishearth 12y ago

I mostly agree with your point, but note that the author is male (well, the name is a commonly male one). It's a bit telling that folks in the software industry[1] seem to assume that techies are male (a priori), but those who write articles of this kind are female. Not blaming you for it, but it's something you should try to be conscious about and fix. [1] I've been guilty of this myself, though usually in cases where I use terms like "guys" where I shouldn't be.

SiVal 12y ago
I had a female coworker by that name, so your assumption that I just assume that people who write articles like this are female and need to have my consciousness raised to "fix" my unconscious sexism is something you should try to be more conscious of and try to fix. However, I clearly do need to question my assumption that since this was a female name before, it's a female name now, so I should change it to "he/she".
- jedanbik 12y ago
  Or they.

Manishearth 12y ago

> I had a female coworker by that name Oh, sorry about that. Not sure if you're joking about the assumption of assumptions, but asking people to take note of their behavior based on something that they _might_ have assumed is not dangerous. Assuming gender roles is. Apologies for making that assumption, but IMO it's a rather harmless one so I don't see anything to fix about it :P

chimeracoder 12y ago

> The complaint in this silly article about tiny Klingon being included before a complete Bengali is precisely because getting Bengali right was more complex and far more important. This is factually incorrect. It seems you missed both the factual point about the Klingon script in the article as well as the broader point which that detail was meant to illustrate. > although you prefer to follow the orthodox pattern of blaming white racism for your grievance du jour, the policy of the Unicode Technical Committee for years has been to use the national standards created by the national standards bodies where these scripts are most used as their most important input. There's a huge difference between piggybacking off of a decades-old proposed scheme which was never widely adopted even in its country of origin, and which was created under a very different set of constraints than Unicode, and which was created to address a very different set of goals than Unicode, versus making native speakers an active and equal part of the actual decision-making process. Rather than trying to shoehorn the article into a familiar pattern which doesn't actually fit ("orthodox pattern of blaming white racism for your grievance du jour"), please take note that the argument in the article is more nuanced than you're giving it credit for.

SiVal 12y ago
versus making native speakers an active and equal part of the actual decision-making process. As I explained, native speakers are the primary decision makers, and not just any native speakers but whoever the native speakers choose as their own top, native experts when they establish their own national standard. For living, natural languages, you don't get characters into Unicode by buying a seat on the committee and voting for them. You do it by getting those characters into a national standard created by the native-speaking authorities. So, I repeat: What national standard have your native-speaking authorities created that reflects the choices you claim all native speakers would naturally make if only the foreign oppressors would listen to them? If your answer is that the national standards differ from what you want, then you are blaming the Unicode Technical Committee for refusing to override the native speakers' chosen authorities and claiming this constitutes abuse of native Bengali speakers by a bunch of "mostly white men".
- chimeracoder 12y ago