Text encoding Babel. Was Re: George Keremedjiev

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Bill Gunshannon via cctalk once stated:
> 
> On 11/25/18 5:42 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
> > On 11/23/18 5:52 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
> >> Worse than that, it's *American* ignorance and cultural snobbery 
> >> which also affects various English-speaking countries.
> >
> > Please do not ascribe such ignorance with such a broad brush, at least 
> > not without qualifiers that account for people that do try to respect 
> > other people's cultures.
> >
> >
> Q.  What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
> 
> A. Trilingual.
> 
> Q.  What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
> 
> A. Bilingual.
> 
> Q.  What do you call someone who speaks one language?
> 
> A. American.

  As an American, a friend of mine from Sweden (who himself speaks at least
three languages) considered me multilingual.  Of course, my other languages
are BASIC, Assembly, C, Forth ...

  I even heard of a high school in Tennessee who said computer languages
fulfill the "foreign language requirements" ... who'da thunk?

> OK, it's a joke. (I'm American and speak 4 languages.)

  -spc (Who speaks English and perhaps a dozen words in German, but
	plenty of computer languages ... )