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text-align in ul

I am still struggling with an unordered list
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~hogen/TaalVlinder/).

The top navbar contains 4 divs with each an ul,
and no padding or margins.

But I get far too much white to the left and right of the lists, especially
noticeble in the two right hand menu's 'flora & fauna' and afkortingen
etc.'

I tried to solve the problem by setting text-align:left on the list, but
that does not seem to have any effect, not when set on the li, nor when
applied to the ul as a whole, nor to both.

Any idea where I go wrong?
Could it have to do with the width of the divs containing the menu's being
set in html rather than with css? I have tried fiddling with that, but got
nowhere.

Your help will be most welcome.

--
Groet, Adriana.
[throw rubbish out if you want to reach me by e-mail]
Jul 20 '05 #1
28 3837
A.Translator wrote:
I am still struggling with an unordered list
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~hogen/TaalVlinder/).

The top navbar contains 4 divs with each an ul, and no padding or
margins.
A look with Mozilla dom inspector suggests that things have gone awry.
I see boxes for meny layer 2 and 3 not containing any text, but
overlapping the content. What do you want? Where do you want the
menus? You're using lots of position: absolute. That is more
complicated than perhaps you realize. Keep it simple (kiss).
But I get far too much white to the left and right of the lists,
especially noticeble in the two right hand menu's 'flora & fauna'
and afkortingen etc.' Any idea where I go wrong?


You need to simplify the menu.

Other things to consider:

don't misuse tables for layout

don't set text size below 100% for the body. And don't set anything
below 85-90%, and even then only for a few words of text (e.g.,
copyright notice)

do choose colors for a greater contrast (grey on white is difficult to
read)

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #2
On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:04:23 GMT, Brian wrote:
A look with Mozilla dom inspector suggests that things have gone awry. I
see boxes for meny layer 2 and 3 not containing any text, but
overlapping the content. What do you want? Where do you want the menus?
You're using lots of position: absolute. That is more complicated than
perhaps you realize. Keep it simple (kiss).
Thank you very much for the trouble you took. Really appreciate it, but
cannot understand what you mean about menu layers in Mozilla not
containing any text.

I have Mozilla 1.5 as my standard browser and it is - alas! - the only
browser things show up in as intended.

I try to keep things simple, believe you me!
don't misuse tables for layout
I did consider that, but it doesn't agree with the other axiom: keeping
things simple...
do choose colors for a greater contrast (grey on white is difficult to
read


Good point. I will reconsider because of your comment. This is only a
test-layout. Mind you: it is not a commercial site, but an informational
one targeted at a very specific group - i.e. my colleagues.

First I need to address the menu-problem. You remark on my usage of
position absolute: you are right. I learnt that method following a
particular tutorial, but do not really grasp it. On the other hand: I do
not *really* understand most of the things that do work!

Thanks again, I'll try and keep things simple, while trying to find out why
you don't see any text in menulayers 2 and 3.
--
Groet, Adriana. [throw rubbish out if you want to reach me by e-mail]
Jul 20 '05 #3
A.Translator wrote:
On Sun, 01 Feb 2004, Brian wrote:
A look with Mozilla dom inspector suggests that things have gone
awry. I see boxes for meny layer 2 and 3 not containing any text,
but overlapping the content. What do you want? Where do you want
the menus? You're using lots of position: absolute. That is more
complicated than perhaps you realize. Keep it simple (kiss).
but cannot understand what you mean about menu layers in Mozilla
not containing any text.

I have Mozilla 1.5 as my standard browser and it is - alas! - the
only browser things show up in as intended.


FYI, I'm using Mozilla 1.3/Win2k.
don't misuse tables for layout


I did consider that, but it doesn't agree with the other axiom:
keeping things simple...


I beg to differ. Nested tables (3 layers deep, as I recall) is not
simple. What I saw was a navigation on the left, and content on the
right. That's 2 div elements. Plus a 3rd if you want some navigation
above the content (the menus that I cannot see).

Dump all the table markup. Put the nav in a div, or in several divs if
you need to. Put the content in a separate div. Validate your html
(you don't have alt specified on your images, but otherwise the code
seems ok on quick inspection). After that, start working on your
positioning/floats etc.
I'll try and keep things simple, while trying to find out why you
don't see any text in menulayers 2 and 3.


If you have Mozilla, open the dom inspector (ctrl-shift-i). Select
divs and watch the borders blink. That should help you troubleshoot.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #4
On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:47:10 GMT, Brian wrote:
I did consider that, but it doesn't agree with the other axiom:
keeping things simple...


I beg to differ. Nested tables (3 layers deep, as I recall) is not
simple. What I saw was a navigation on the left, and content on the
right. That's 2 div elements. Plus a 3rd if you want some navigation
above the content (the menus that I cannot see).


I may give it a try, once I've got the confidence, but you are obviously
much more experienced than I am. There seems to be a pro-and anti table
debate going on that is way over my head.

You are right of course about alt's not being defined and so on, but please
bear in mind this is only a mockup - not the definitive version. I will
start again once I've got the menu's going - in all versions of Moz too...

Thanks again.
--
Groet, Adriana.
[throw rubbish out if you want to reach me by e-mail]
Jul 20 '05 #5
A.Translator wrote:
On Sun, 01 Feb 2004, Brian wrote:
[re tableless layout]
I may give it a try, once I've got the confidence
Your choice. But if I were you, I would not try to learn nested table
layout, *then* learn css, which is quite a different way of doing
things. It's been a couple of days, and my memory is failing me -- is
this a personal site? If so, then it seems like a good way to learn
proper html with css. Start with just the necessary markup (<p>, <ul>,
etc.). Group things into <div> where appropriate. Add *no* styling.
Validate the html. When all's well there, load it up in a browser for
the basic rendering. Decide what you don't like, and use css to change it.

If this is a professional site, and time is important, you may need to
get something up more quickly.
There seems to be a pro-and anti table debate going on that is way
over my head.
Not quite. There is no anti-table advocates. They are useful for
presenting tabular data in a flexible, portable way. But I'd caution
against using *any* html element -- <table>, <blockquote>, etc. -- to
achieve formatting effects that those elements have in graphical
browsers. Presentation is something that HTML does not do well, and no
surprise, since it was not designed as a desktop publishing language.
You are right of course about alt's not being defined and so on,
but please bear in mind this is only a mockup - not the definitive
version.


I see. From looking at your code, it seems pretty solid. And the only
validation issue was missing alt attributes. That leads me to believe
that you may be more capable then you think you are at learning css.
That said, I cannot say that it is a cakewalk.[1] But it is possible
to get the hang of it.

[1]Your sig makes me think you are German? A "cakewalk" in (American?)
English means something very easy. We Americans seem to really like
our dessert metaphors.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #6
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 03:49:42 GMT, Brian
<us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote:
[1]Your sig makes me think you are German? A "cakewalk" in (American?)
English means something very easy. We Americans seem to really like
our dessert metaphors.

The "cakewalk" was a game played at parties about a hundred-plus years ago
or so. Couples would strut across the room with the most stylized, even
silly, walk possible, and the declared winners would take home a cake. The
basic walk was derived from African tribal dances where the body was slung
back. Slave owners picked up the tratition from their slaves, and the
cakewalk became a parody of "society" people strutting around. As the
elite who were being imitated had it pretty easy, the word "cakewalk"
refers to anything which requires no effort to do.
Jul 20 '05 #7
Neal wrote:

The "cakewalk" was a game played at parties about a hundred-plus
years ago or so. Couples would strut across the room with the most
stylized, even silly, walk possible, and the declared winners would
take home a cake.


I found that rather interesting. Thanks! :)

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #8
Neal <ne*****@spamrcn.com> wrote:
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 03:49:42 GMT, Brian
<us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote:
[1]Your sig makes me think you are German? A "cakewalk" in (American?)
English means something very easy. We Americans seem to really like
our dessert metaphors.

The "cakewalk" was a game played at parties about a hundred-plus years ago
or so. Couples would strut across the room with the most stylized, even
silly, walk possible, and the declared winners would take home a cake. The
basic walk was derived from African tribal dances where the body was slung
back. Slave owners picked up the tratition from their slaves, and the
cakewalk became a parody of "society" people strutting around. As the
elite who were being imitated had it pretty easy, the word "cakewalk"
refers to anything which requires no effort to do.


If you've seen "Meet Me In St. Louis", you've seen Judy Garland and
Margaret O'Brien do a cakewalk to the song "Under the Bamboo Tree".

--
Harlan Messinger
Remove the first dot from my e-mail address.
Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel.
Jul 20 '05 #9
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 03:49:42 GMT, Brian wrote:
A.Translator wrote:
On Sun, 01 Feb 2004, Brian wrote: [re tableless layout] I may give it a
try, once I've got the confidence
Your choice. But if I were you, I would not try to learn nested table
layout, *then* learn css, which is quite a different way of doing
things.


I am quite confident with some aspects of css, but have great difficulty
with using it to positioning elements. I am learning, though, thanks to
several books and people like you.
Is this a personal site?
Yes. I am a translator by profession (although retired) who designs only
non-commercial sites for very specific groups. I want my sites to
validate, though!
If so, then it seems like a good way to learn proper html with css.
Your encouragement may change my mind. I am going to have another go at
changing the lay out and get rid of the table-structure. I am using tables
for other pages, though, where I have lists of words (columns with English
on the left and their translation on the right hand site). That is proper
usage, is it not?
Presentation is something that HTML does not do well, and no surprise,
since it was not designed as a desktop publishing language.
Point taken.
That said, I cannot say that it is a cakewalk.[1] But it is possible to
get the hang of it.
Thanks again for the encouragement. One does need to be reminded once in a
while that it is at all possible ;-)
[1]Your sig makes me think you are German?


I am Dutch. We are friends now but until very recently Dutch people would
get very upset about being mistaken for Germans...

(thanks for the explanation of 'cakewalk' - as a translator I am very
interested in language).
--
Groet, Adriana. [throw rubbish out if you want to reach me by e-mail]
Jul 20 '05 #10
A.Translator wrote:
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 03:49:42 GMT, Brian wrote:

I am using tables
for other pages, though, where I have lists of words (columns with English
on the left and their translation on the right hand site). That is proper
usage, is it not?
Yes, it would be counter-productive to mark up the data in another way.
(thanks for the explanation of 'cakewalk' - as a translator I am very
interested in language).


I'm from the UK, and I've never heard of 'cakewalk', though we might say
something is 'a piece of cake' if it's very easy.

--
Matt

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----
Jul 20 '05 #11
"A.Translator" <ad******************@yaBISHhoo.com> writes:
Presentation is something that HTML does not do well, and no surprise,
since it was not designed as a desktop publishing language.
Point taken.


To me it actually comes as a surprise to learn that HTML was *designed*
at all. There's a memorable quote from 1995 by Joe English that hits
the nail rather discouragingly on its head:

| Defining the tags first and then trying to reverse-engineer a DTD is
| working against SGML.
<http://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9508&L=html-wg&P=R14154>
[associative backreferenced by way of]
<http://groups.google.com/groups?q=arjun+english+sgml+reverse+engineer>
[now, if my mother and Arjun were married everything would be back in
perspective root-(element-)wise :-)]
[1]Your sig makes me think you are German?


I am Dutch. We are friends now but until very recently


That was before tea time I suppose? Admittedly I haven't been outdoors
since then. :->
Dutch people would
get very upset about being mistaken for Germans...

--
| ) 111010111011 | http://bednarz.nl/
-(
| ) Distribute me: http://binaries.bednarz.nl/mp3/aisha
Jul 20 '05 #12
A.Translator wrote:
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 03:49:42 GMT, Brian wrote:

I am going to have another go at changing the lay out and get rid
of the table-structure.
Start with a really simple change of the layout from the browser
default, and get more complicated as you get more skilled.
I am using tables for other pages, though, where I have lists of
words (columns with English on the left and their translation on
the right hand site). That is proper usage, is it not?
It sounds like it's ok, but I'd have to see it to be more definitive.
Your sig makes me think you are German?


I am Dutch.


(grimacing) Oooh, sorry. I saw the "Groet," and for some reason
thought German. Come to think of it, the German word for greetings
ends with "sse," I think. Sort of like the difference between Strasse
and Straat.

Had I seen a few more words, I might have figured it out. But I've
only studied German for 1 year, and never studied Dutch, so one word
is not quite enough. I sort of like reading Dutch words. Not that I
understand it, but it's fun finding English cognates that are so close
in spelling: street, straat; cow, koe; bake, bak; etc. I smiled often
when I travelled in Belgium. (Flemish, if I understand correctly, is a
dialect of Dutch. Cripes, I hope I didn't get this wrong, too!)
We are friends now but until very recently Dutch people would get
very upset about being mistaken for Germans...


Well, I can't really blame them for getting upset. Dutch is not
German. I have a friend who nearly blew his top when a local
newscaster said "Guten tag from Holland." :-D The local newscasters
in the U.S. are not always very bright.

Glad to hear that you're friends in any case. No use fighting with the
neighbors. :-)

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #13
Matt wrote:

I'm from the UK, and I've never heard of 'cakewalk', though we
might say something is 'a piece of cake' if it's very easy.


We Americans say that, too. Or "easy as pie." All 3 meaning easy, all
3 using a sweet in the metaphor. As I said, we seem to like dessert
metaphors.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #14
Brian <us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote in message news:<8yWTb.210447$I06.2332967@attbi_s01>...
A.Translator wrote:
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 03:49:42 GMT, Brian wrote:

I am going to have another go at changing the lay out and get rid
of the table-structure.
Start with a really simple change of the layout from the browser
default, and get more complicated as you get more skilled.
I am using tables for other pages, though, where I have lists of
words (columns with English on the left and their translation on
the right hand site). That is proper usage, is it not?


It sounds like it's ok, but I'd have to see it to be more definitive.
Your sig makes me think you are German?


I am Dutch.


(grimacing) Oooh, sorry. I saw the "Groet," and for some reason
thought German. Come to think of it, the German word for greetings
ends with "sse," I think. Sort of like the difference between Strasse
and Straat.

Had I seen a few more words, I might have figured it out. But I've
only studied German for 1 year, and never studied Dutch, so one word
is not quite enough. I sort of like reading Dutch words. Not that I
understand it, but it's fun finding English cognates that are so close
in spelling: street, straat; cow, koe; bake, bak; etc. I smiled often
when I travelled in Belgium. (Flemish, if I understand correctly, is a
dialect of Dutch. Cripes, I hope I didn't get this wrong, too!)


Not exactly. Flemish (Vlaams) and Nederlandic (Nederlands - what you
call Dutch)
both started out as a *collection* of Low-German dialects, also named
Diets dialects. Both the Flemings and the Netherlanders are of Dietse
blood (the Dutch national anthem was written by a Fleming). Now, the
English Dutch comes from the old Diets, but Dutch does not have the
same meaning as the old Diets, so saying that Flemish is a dialect of
(modern) Dutch is incorrect.

*Both* were Diets (--Low-German, Neder-Duits, Diets (not Deutsch!)--)
dialects! The Flemish dialects (--through Flanders and Brabant, the
dominant areas of those (pre-1500) days--) were for a long time
dominant, until after the many invasions of the southern (--nowadays
Flanders--) provinces due to which the Netherlandic province of
Holland became dominant. Around this time, due to religious unrest and
wars many influential Flemings and Brabanters fled to the north
(--nowadays the Netherlands--), taking their language, trade and
influence with them. It seems that most of the Dutch their history
starts where their Holland becomes dominant, and forget whatever
happened before it :)

Complicated.. I know...

Also, some Scottish dialects have a lot in common with several western
Flemish dialects, remnants of the ancient Flemish/British Isles
wooltrade. Same for Wales, some places and names in Wales and Scotland
are of obvious Flemish descent. Olde English (--before the French
invasion of your language--) borrows a lot particularly from Olde
Flemish (--the variant nowadays only spoken in n. France around Lille
& Dunkirk (Flemish territory in the old days)--).

Just thought I should mention this :)
We are friends now but until very recently Dutch people would get
very upset about being mistaken for Germans...
Well, I can't really blame them for getting upset. Dutch is not
German. I have a friend who nearly blew his top when a local
newscaster said "Guten tag from Holland." :-D The local newscasters
in the U.S. are not always very bright.


Who'd have thought :)

Glad to hear that you're friends in any case. No use fighting with the
neighbors. :-)


Not even if they're French ;) (Or American for that matter.. I'm a
neutral, I should be rude to both parties..)
Jul 20 '05 #15
*Brian*:
A.Translator wrote:
Your sig makes me think you are German?
I am Dutch.


(grimacing) Oooh, sorry. I saw the "Groet," and for some reason
thought German. Come to think of it, the German word for greetings
ends with "sse," I think.


'Gruß' or pl. 'Grüße', yes, all related.
Sort of like the difference between Strasse and Straat.
And 'street', yes.
I sort of like reading Dutch words. Not that I understand it,
When your grand-father spoke Low Saxon to you, it's almost understandable.
Or with some beer. For someone with such a northern German background Dutch
is about as difficult to understanding as Swiss German or Yiddish, although
it's not as closely related.
it's fun finding English cognates that are so close in spelling:
If history went a little different, we would have a common (West) Germanic
language, which would probably be more similar to Dutch and Low Saxon than
to English or German.
If it went even a little more different, that would include Romance ones.
(Flemish, if I understand correctly, is a dialect of Dutch.
At least more than Dutch is a dialect of German.
We are friends now but until very recently Dutch people would get
very upset about being mistaken for Germans...


First rule for a German to make a well first impression on a trip to Holland
(or the Netherlands if you want), greet everyone with: »Na, auch aus
Deutschland?«
I have a friend who nearly blew his top when a local
newscaster said "Guten tag from Holland." :-D The local newscasters
in the U.S. are not always very bright.
Want to borrow some leather trousers to wear with your wooden shoes?
Glad to hear that you're friends in any case.
If you call the relationship of Canada and the USA a friendship, then the
Netherlands an Germany (or Germany and Austria) are friends, too.
No use fighting with the neighbors.


Well, /they/ have never invaded /us/.

--
"A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends."
Baltasar Gracian
Jul 20 '05 #16
oOze wrote:

Also, some Scottish dialects have a lot in common with several
western Flemish dialects, remnants of the ancient Flemish/British
Isles wooltrade.
That's surprising, given that Gaelic is a Celtic language.
Olde English (--before the French invasion of your language--)
borrows a lot particularly from Olde Flemish


Well, to be precise, Old English, aka Anglo-Saxon, is a low Germanic
language.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #17
Christoph Paeper wrote:
*Brian*:
(grimacing) Oooh, sorry. I saw the "Groet," and for some reason
thought German. Come to think of it, the German word for greetings
ends with "sse," I think.


'Gruß' or pl. 'Grüße', yes, all related.


My German teacher said (about 5 years ago) that there were plans to
replace ß with ss in German for the millenium because of the problems it
caused with computers, keyboards, non-germans trying to write it, etc. I
know very little about the language, why did the change not happen? I
realise Unicode probably helps, but there are still (seemingly reasonable
to someone who did german for 1 year aged 14 at school) reasons for a
change.

--
Matt

-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----
Jul 20 '05 #18
Christoph Paeper wrote:
*Brian*:
I saw the "Groet," and for some reason thought German. Come to
think of it, the German word for greetings ends with "sse," I
think.
'Gruß' or pl. 'Grüße', yes, all related.


That's what I was thinking. But I don't have that letter on my querty
keyboard, you see. And I don't know how to spell that letter, if you
get my drift. I know how to say it, but that doesn't help me in
writing. So I had to settle for "ss" in place of it.
If history went a little different, we would have a common (West)
Germanic language, which would probably be more similar to Dutch
and Low Saxon than to English or German.
You've lost me, I'm afraid. You mean there would be a West Germanic
language instead of Dutch/Flemish/English/German?
If it went even a little more different, that would include Romance
ones.


Damn Normans! ;-)
(Flemish, if I understand correctly, is a dialect of Dutch.

At least more than Dutch is a dialect of German.


In that, it isn't! I did know that much, at least.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #19
Matt wrote:

My German teacher said (about 5 years ago) that there were plans to
replace ß with ss in German for the millenium because of the
problems it caused with computers, keyboards, non-germans trying to
write it, etc. I know very little about the language, why did the
change not happen?
AFAIK, it did.
there are still (seemingly reasonable to someone who did german for
1 year aged 14 at school) reasons for a change.


I happen to be shocked when I heard that they replaced ß with ss. If I
were German, I'm sure I'd have been rather pissed off with that
decision. But I'm not, so it really isn't my fight.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

Jul 20 '05 #20
Brian <us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote in message news:<JqfUb.93120$U%5.473731@attbi_s03>...
oOze wrote:

Also, some Scottish dialects have a lot in common with several
western Flemish dialects, remnants of the ancient Flemish/British
Isles wooltrade.
That's surprising, given that Gaelic is a Celtic language.


Belgium is not only Gaelic, it's also Celtic....
Olde English (--before the French invasion of your language--)
borrows a lot particularly from Olde Flemish


Well, to be precise, Old English, aka Anglo-Saxon, is a low Germanic
language.


You misinderstood me, I'm referring to the direct influence on local
dialects by Flemish weavers settling in Britian during medieval times.
They're all Low-germanic languages, but that was not what I was
getting at.
Jul 20 '05 #21
snip...
If history went a little different, we would have a common (West)
Germanic language, which would probably be more similar to Dutch
and Low Saxon than to English or German.


You've lost me, I'm afraid. You mean there would be a West Germanic
language instead of Dutch/Flemish/English/German?


no, there are Dutch, English and German. Flemish is considered to be
a dialect of Nederlands.

If it went even a little more different, that would include Romance
ones.


Damn Normans! ;-)
(Flemish, if I understand correctly, is a dialect of Dutch.

correct, but they (the Belgians) consider it a language :-)

de groeten,

martin

http://home.planet.nl/~usa
http://www.route51.com
Jul 20 '05 #22
Matt wrote:
My German teacher said (about 5 years ago) that there were plans to
replace ß with ss in German for the millenium
Not every ß is replaced by ss, although people think so. After the last
"Rechtschreibreform", ß following a short vowel was changed to ss.
because of the problems it
caused with computers, keyboards, non-germans trying to write it, etc.


The purpose was to make it more logical :-)

--
Johannes Koch
In te domine speravi; non confundar in aeternum.
(Te Deum, 4th cent.)
Jul 20 '05 #23
*Brian*:
Christoph Paeper wrote:
If history went a little different, we would have a common (West)
I forgot to include a "maybe" somewhere in here.
Germanic language, which would probably be more similar to Dutch
and Low Saxon than to English or German.


You've lost me, I'm afraid. You mean there would be a West Germanic
language instead of Dutch/Flemish/English/German?


At least. Actually European history had so many turning points, we could as
well have ended up all speaking something French-like, instead the European
Union has currently eleven official languages[1], a number of minority
languages[2] (not counting those of immigrants) and will grow by nine major
ones[3], mostly Slavic, in a few months.
If you look at other regions of similar size, there are far less separate
languages, although they often have a great variety of unintelligible
dialects.
It's fascinating and annoying at the same time.

[1a] Swedish, Dansk, German, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Greek, Finnish. Many documents and conversations have to be
translated into all of them.
[1b] The USA have zero (common) official languages, China one, Switzerland
four, the UN six, India 2-18.
[2] I could write to any institution of the EU in Low Saxon, Basque or Scots
Gælic (if I spoke any of them fluently) and would get a fully qualified
answer in the same language.
[3] Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian,
Hungarian, Maltese.

P.S.: It seems as if Flemish is closer to Dutch than I thought.

--
Useless Fact #7:
It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titantic and 200 million to make a movie
about it!
Jul 20 '05 #24
*Matt*:

My German teacher said (about 5 years ago) that there were plans to
replace ß with ss in German for the millenium
We had a (not very popular) reform of orthography starting in 1996, which
among other things changed the rules for 'Esszet' (sharp s, ß), leading to
way fewer occurrences of it. In Switzerland (and Liechtenstein) it had
already been abandoned before and Swiss keyboards don't have it to have more
space for French diacritics (they lack the uppercase variants of these and
umlauts, too).

OTOH we are still waiting for an uppercase variant of that letter (no words
start with it). I think it'll rather extinct than get an accepted big
brother. To be a little on topic: AFAIK no browser gets it right with
"text-transform: uppercase".
because of the problems it caused with computers,
All special chars required for German (Ä, Ö, Ü, ä, ö, ü, ß; ignoring French
lean words) are in all 'Latin' variants of the ISO-8859 family of charsets
and always at the same positions.

The only recent problems I encountered were with headers of Usenet messages,
that's why I'm posting /here/ with transcribed name, while in de.ALL most
can deal with Quoted Printable. Today my credit card is the only
archaic^Winternationalised one, IIRC my first eurocheque card was too.
keyboards,
That's (only) a problem outside of Germany and Austria. There are acceptable
solutions for people who need it on a regular base, though (which for some
reason doesn't include hotel receptions and the like).
non-germans trying to write it,


Yes, I've seen quite some addresses on letters, where ß is frequent because
of 'Straße' ('street'), in which it was written as 'B', Greek lowercase
Beta, or even '3'.
I rather see those amateurish workarounds than my name missing the dots of
the 'ä' and the resulting 'a' not being followed by the then required 'e'
(in difference to Scandinavian ä).

--
"A good listener is not only popular everywhere,
but after a while he gets to know something."
Wilson Mizner
Jul 20 '05 #25
On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:33:21 +0100, Christoph Paeper wrote:
P.S.: It seems as if Flemish is closer to Dutch than I thought.


I had no idea that my remark would be the start of an interesting thread!
The subject used to be very sensitive, but is less and less of an issue.
"Flemish" as such does not exist, unless you mean the collection of
dialects that is spoken in he Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Regional
differences can be enormous, but some Flemish-speakers sound very much
like their neighbours across the Dutch border. Belgium has two official
languages Dutch (not Flemish) and French, but you should hear for instance
the Belgian king's attempts to speak Dutch...

Anyroad (as they say in parts of the UK...), this discussion shows two
things: more people read sig's than you think, and I need not bother to
Anglicize mine!

--
Groet, Adriana. [throw rubbish out if you want to reach me by e-mail]
Jul 20 '05 #26
Christoph Paeper <ch**************@nurfuerspam.de> wrote in
news:bv**********@ariadne.rz.tu-clausthal.de:
Useless Fact #7:
It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titantic and 200 million to make a
movie about it!


<spoilsport>I don't think the author of that factoid is taking inflation
into account. 7 million when the ship was built would have been worth
about 115 million by the time the movie was made.</spoilsport>
Jul 20 '05 #27
Christoph Paeper <ch**************@nurfuerspam.de> wrote in message news:<bv**********@ariadne.rz.tu-clausthal.de>...
<snip>
If you look at other regions of similar size, there are far less separate
languages, although they often have a great variety of unintelligible
dialects.
"unintelligible dialects" Surely someone understands them otherwise
they wouldn't use them.

<snip>
[2] I could write to any institution of the EU in Low Saxon, Basque or Scots
Gælic (if I spoke any of them fluently) and would get a fully qualified
answer in the same language.


Has anyone tried this?

Alan
Jul 20 '05 #28
In message <bv**********@ariadne.rz.tu-clausthal.de>, Christoph Paeper
<ch**************@nurfuerspam.de> writes
*Brian*:
Christoph Paeper wrote:
If history went a little different, we would have a common (West)
I forgot to include a "maybe" somewhere in here.
Germanic language, which would probably be more similar to Dutch
and Low Saxon than to English or German.


You've lost me, I'm afraid. You mean there would be a West Germanic
language instead of Dutch/Flemish/English/German?


At least. Actually European history had so many turning points, we could as
well have ended up all speaking something French-like, instead the European
Union has currently eleven official languages[1], a number of minority
languages[2] (not counting those of immigrants) and will grow by nine major
ones[3], mostly Slavic, in a few months.

[snip]

That's interesting. Does that mean that the EU will have to able to
accommodate (in theory) 190 translators -- if I've done my maths
correctly -- for all major meetings ;-)

regards.
--
Jake
Jul 20 '05 #29

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