So when I lived in Switzerland for a year, I was very aware of being uni-lingual in a country that is on average, at least tri-lingual, and the educated frequently speak 5 languages. I had the same problem as Bob, no-one would in a sense let me learn German (I was in Zurich) because they would break into english immediately on me.
While the people I was living with /working for were elitist snobs and quite enjoyed making me feel inferior, I soon got over that, and apart from being envious, don't see the ability to speak several languages as at all elitist - it's mainly a reflection of living in a country or continent where different groups and their languages are cheek by jowl. Australia has no such advantage, alas. For eg, I can contrast my European experience with my extensive travels in India, where, with about 1600 dialects, everyone speaks a minimum of 3 languages, from the street kids to the elite (who will usually speak more).
So my first over-arching comment would be that those on this site who speak only english, and think speaking several languages is elitist, need to rethink that, as suspect there's too much self-consciousness and insecurity at play. We think it's elitist because you have to have a certain kind of education and opportunities if you grow up in the USA, the UK or Australia to successfully grasp several languages. Not so in Europe and many other parts of the world.
Which brings me to Eurotrib. I saw the French diary, had a look and sighed, realising just how much my once very-good written French has deteriorated, and that was that. I didn't feel excluded; I did wonder a bit at the practical level of how to transfer a good conversation or insight from one language to another on the site. My thoughts run something like this:
1) I think first up we need to stop pretending this site isn't aimed at / has become a site for the intellectual elite in one way or another. It has; it is, simply by the level of discourse. So my question here would be, who do you think is your main audience, and how important therefore is it to run this site with some form of multilingual presentation? You need some market research, man. A poll of readers would start it; eg - "what languages can you speak"; "what languages can your comfortably comprehend and write in?" - and then start looking for the common one. I suspect english is the answer there, and would need to remain the dominant language on the site - but I don't see that precluding other regular non-english spots (more on that below)
2) The scope of this site needs to be considered. Just how global is Eurotrib aiming to be? For eg, if you truly wanted to go more global than that, what about all those South Koreans with great internet access courtesy of their government, and the burgeoning number of Chinese and Indians on the net?; - if we wanted to draw some of those people in, what implications does it have? If we want to stay a largely Euro-centric site that also welcomes news updates from around the world, and similarly, perspectives from other places, this is much less of an issue.
3) Ok, so let's say you poll your readers and find that english is the most commonly held and therefore best main language for the site. Some ideas on non-english use would be: - feature a rant of the week in another language, and provide a rough translation - let people run diaries in their language of choice, and encourage multi-lingual people to cross-fertilise diaries on the same topic in different languages - get some of the talented people here to feature & translate an important news article or opinion from their country, and front page it, so people can get a feel for what is being said around the world in other languages & cultures.
None of the above is exclusionary or elitist, any more than a high-powered economics thread is for your average non-economist.
vive la difference; now let's build a community. "This can't possibly get more disturbing!" - Willow
Just to pick up on a couple of things:
