Post #1746957
2026-04-23 12:56 UTC
Hi @liaizon @mnot,
it is very european to mix languages. The EU administration has many of them (look at https://www.europarl.europa.eu), countries (Belgium, Switzerland, etc.), families, TV-stations https://arte.tv, literature (En attendant Godot/Waiting for Godot/Warten auf Godot), even sentences.
Speakers often begin in one language and switch during talking (or writing). Multiple times.
Often there is no such thing as a single language but always a current one. And that may switch any time, even in words.
https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC4287 nailed it and is the bar we shouldn't fall short of.
(Time-zones on the other hand, is a blind spot for many europeans. The US or Aussies/Kiwis are way better here)
Replies (3)
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@mro@digitalcourage.social 2026-04-23 13:01
Hi @liaizon @mnot, I guess this may be normal for non-native (english) speakers. Communication is mostly done in a lingua franca, but surely not exclusively.
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@mnot@techpolicy.social 2026-04-23 13:25
@mro @liaizon Yes - the current draft tries to accommodate mixed language (but may not express itself well). Question is whether it's technically viable for *choice* of language to be done with proactive in enough cases, vs also accommodating reactive negotiation (i.e., a data structure with multiple language tags in the format).
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@mnot@techpolicy.social 2026-04-23 13:26
@mro @liaizon BTW you had me until "The US... are way better [at timezones]." ROTFL