[lbo-talk] Protection of Chinese language urged

[suzume at mx82.tiki.ne.jp]

>> You seem to mistake the side effect (that English speakers all over 
>> the world can read Al Jazeera pages) for the main goal (reach the 
>> American/British audience).
>
> How do you know that that is their main goal? Have they stated that 
> anywhere? With their financial backing, it would be no problem for 
> them to put up any number of web sites in various languages, but 
> presumably the most efficient way to communicate with the 
> non-Arabic-speaking world is to have an English site.

Well. I'd say publishing an English site is the best way to communicate 
with the English speaking world. And it happens that the English 
speaking world has been behind anything serious going on in the Middle 
East for about the last century. From that I infer that they either 
naïvely deduce that the whole world is English speaking or, more 
realistically, that by aiming at the English speaking elite they have 
higher probabilities to reach the people that matter. I'd say that's 
their main goal: it is for politics, not for the intercultural fun of 
having Chinese people reading their stuff, that they publish in 
English.

Would you say that the New York Times is published in English because 
it wants to reach the World ?

JC Helary