On 2020-07-02 10:38, Chris Angelico wrote:
On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 7:27 PM Antoine Pitrou <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
Otherwise why stop at English? I could just as well write my comments in French if it's all about individual freedom. Requiring English is not inclusive, it forced people like me to painfully adapt to a language I wasn't used to. And that has nothing to do with "white supremacy".
True, but "inclusive" isn't just about the people *writing*. If you write your comments in French, and someone else uses Turkish, another uses Japanese, and still another opts for Hebrew, it becomes nearly impossible for anyone to *read* those comments. Standardizing on a single language ensures that everyone can read the comments in a single, consistent language.
If we want to be completely fair to everyone, we could insist that comments be written in Latin. That way, nobody gets a "home turf" advantage, and we're all going to the effort of translation... but I'm sure you agree that this wouldn't be an improvement to Python :)
So if there's going to be one language chosen, logically it should be a language that is familiar to many people. That means that Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and English, I believe, would be the most favoured choices. Chinese has the toughest demands on input methods, and between Spanish and English, I'd need to hear from someone whose first language is Spanish as to how viable it would be. But it's still necessary to standardize on just one.
Alternatively, it could be an auxiliary language like Esperanto.