World Wide Alliance of Top Level Domain-names
Language Diversity in ICANN Working Practices

Language Diversity in ICANN Working Practices

22 January 2001

Initial proposal by Pilar Luque (NIC.ES)

From: owner-cctld-discuss@wwtld.org
[mailto:owner-cctld-discuss@wwtld.org]On Behalf Of Pilar Luque
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:26 AM
To: wg-review@dnso.org; cctld-discuss@wwtld.org; pluque@nic.es
Subject: [cctld-discuss] Multilingulaism in ICANN

Dear all,

After MR BURTON'S petition, and at Mr STUBBS' insistance on 18/01/01, please find enclosed resume of discussion on Multilingualism as promised:

1. You cannot ask non-native English speakers for all of the following:
   • be as fast as native English speakers to understand all subtle issues in ICANN process
   • be as comfortable as as native English speakers in the anglo-saxon way of doing, with all procedures, term of references, etc, all what is inherent to this cluture they do not dominate
   • be equally skilled on all legal matters of common law
   • compete with native English speakers companies for new gTLD
   • pay for ICANN, either directly, or indirectly
   • and volunteer on their spare time to translate ICANN system and documents into local languages

   There is an abismal difference betwen UNDERSTAND english texts and DISCUSS in public in English...

2. ICANN IMPORTANT documents (SPECIALLY THOSE FOR PUBLIC COMMENT) need to be translated at least into Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, German and French so that representation is fair and participation is higher. It is INCONCEIVABLE that any organization representing or claiming to be world wide would not have several languages available. To do otherwise is cultural imperialism.
3. The ccTLD Constituency of the DNSO has already taken steps towards Multilingualism by volunteer translators. It would be a way to start which would solve the problem of overburden of translations. The whole of the DNSO should follow such example so that the ICANN Board can be influenced towards such a move.
4. The U.N. Nations approach towards Multilingualism should be one of the basic aims of the ICANN process.
5. English-mother tongue speakers should make the effort when expressing themselves in meeetings or dicussions lists to use plain English.
6. A research into software transaltions products for discusiion list should be done.
7. An effort should be made to train ICANN participants into a better knowledge of the basic ICANN technical jargon.
8. Multilingualism should be a point to be considered in the new Names Council Budget and Names Council Business Plan.

THEREFORE IT SHOULD BE DECIDED:

1. BUSINESS PLAN FOR SLOWLY INTRODUCING MULTILINGUALISM IN THE WHOLE OF THE ICANN PROCESS
2. STUDY OF THE BUDGET REQUIRED
3. WHICH LANGUAGES SHOULD BE INTRODUCED

Comments please.

Regards,

Pilar LUQUE (ES-NIC)