Shoutbox

Hey mates, Valencian and catalan are the same language!!! And as a valencian, and a linguist, I'm very ofended that you separate them as different language. That offended that I stopped the downloading of the msn plus and I'm not gonna download it until this is corrected!

Just ask any linguist, and they will inform you. And if you want to keep different translation (because of the minimmum dialect differences) just name it Catalan (Valencian) or something similar. As if you make the diference between American and British English. You don't call it American and British and classify them as separate languages!

And another thing: I'm not very happy with msn because an other reason: it is SO difficult to get a link to complain about your services, and that make users feel quite abandonned!

well if u tell us what complaints u have about messenger...ill try and pass them on for you


also we have Catalan and Valencian becuase we have translators for both, and it would be illogical to have 2, they must be different

The complaint I would like to do is that of you considering Valencian and catalan different languages.

What does "they must be different" mean? Have you check it with professionals? Of course, if you tell me you want a valencian tranlation about something, i would call it valencian, but if I had known you had already one called catalan, i would adivice you about the situation: they are the same language! Is like american english or british one, if you ask for a british translator, he/she would translate into his/her dialect, but will never consider it as a different language!

I don't understand the reason why you wrote "they must be different" without checking! I'm not writing here because I have nothing else to do, I'm actually very busy and I'm spending this minutes just because I'm really ofended of seeing my language devided in msn, and plus, reading the replies you sent me, because they are nonesense! I though msn, as part of microsoft, was a serious stuff, and at least, before replying anything, it checked it with professionals, that is, linguists!!!

And I would be very gratefull if you pass this complain on somewhere where users are listent properly!

First of all, this forum has nothing to do with MSN!

This forum is about Messenger Plus! an addon for MSN Messenger. Messenger Plus! is written by Patchou and he, nor Messenger Plus!, nor this forum, nor people on this forum have anything todo with MSN, nor with Microsoft...

Messenger Plus! is not MSN Messenger. Like said before Messenger Plus! is an addon that adds some extra features to MSN Messenger. Both are independant programs... MSN Messenger is written by the company Microsoft/MSN and Messenger Plus! is written by 1 guy named Patchou....

Second...

What your are talking about are the languages supported in Messenger Plus! (so, nothing todo with msn).

Those languages are made by common people who like the fact that their language is supported, not by professionals. We (the translators) don't get any money for doing that and we put a lot of time in it to make it as good as possible. All this, just because we like Messenger Plus! and just for fun....

Personaly, I realy can't understand why you would be offended if a language/dialect/whatever is supported (unless politics comes in mind).

I don't think any British person would be offended if both British English and American English was supported....

And the same goes for Dutch for example, you can split that up in Dutch Dutch (Netherlands) and Flemish Dutch (Belgium). And if that is called "Dutch", "Flemish", "Dutch (Flemish)", "Belgian" or whataver, I would never be offended by it. How could I? They only remark I could make about it is that it is similar to American English and British English...

Third....

Normaly a pure "dialect" wouldn't be put into Messenger Plus! (otherwise you could add 10000's of languages). The discussion about Valencian being put in or not or being a dialect or not is an ongoing discussion, like there are others (PT Portugues vs. BR Portuguese). If you search the forums you can see/read that...


Fourth....

If you don't want to use Messenger Plus! just because it has Valencian in it, then so be it, nobody is going to force you, but personaly I think that is a bit of a lame excuse... I realy suggest you to reconsider this as Messenger Plus! is a very great addon and nobody forces you to choose Catalan/Valencian/whatever as your userinterface language. If you don't like a language, then don't use the language (heck you can even delete the translationfile if you like)...

quote:

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Originally posted by laiabe
And another thing: I'm not very happy with msn because an other reason: it is SO difficult to get a link to complain about your services, and that make users feel quite abandonned!

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MSN are not our services, we don't have anything todo with MSN....
But, nevertheless, for contacting them (which is realy easy), all you have to do is going to http://messenger.msn.com/ (the page where you downloaded Messenger from) and click on help, there you'll see a link contact us.

Translations are done by volunteers, -I am Catalan translator-. There were some people who wanted to create a Valencian translation. Hence by popular demand it was accepted.
You can search the forums for the word "Valencian". And you'll find threads like "Valencian [Updated translation]" were this topic was widely discussed.

We don't want to start the same discussion over and over again each time someone feels like to complain about Valencian being in MP!.

Anyway, please contact Valencian translators and solve with them any controversial issue about the addition of Valencian or the way to add it.

I mean, the translation is done, so why should we leave those guys alone with their translation? And think that you may choose the best between two Catalan versions.

OK, understood, this is an individual thing.

And yes, I'm offended because there's a lot of politics behind this, that's the only reason. Of course a dialect is a language, actually, a language is a summ of dialects, and noone speaks A LANGUAGE, everyone of us speaks our personal dialect in our regional area, in the dialect of a certain period of time, etc. I'm a linguist (and a Catalan translator specialized in Valencian dialect), and don't need dialectology lessons.

What I was trying to say since the beggining is that if anybody wants to remark the Valencian peculiarities of the Catalan language (the dialect from Catalonia has different peculiarities, like others), it could be named like "Catalan (Valencian)", but as it is now is as if they were 2 different languages, and that's the fact that can offend Valencians (and Catalans).

I thought this was a place run by msn, and translated by professionals, that's why I was complaining that hard. If it's a personal place, then take my opinion as a suggestion and a recomendation to be more "professional".

Sorry if there has been any misunderstanding.

ok, noted...

but as it is now, sublanguages (let's call it that for now) are named by there local name in Messenger Plus!, not by their languagegroup (if that is the correct word). You have to look at it at the users perspective. People don't say "I can speak Catalan (Valencian)", they say "I can speak Valencian". And that is what is used in Messenger Plus!...

So we have (or could have) "Brazilian" and not "Portuguese (Brazil)", "Portuguese", "Dutch", "Flemish" (and not Dutch (Belgium)), etc... (<= not in English but translated to their own local language)
Hence "Valencià" and "Català"...

And doing it this way is equaly proffesional as doing it the other way.

Well, Valencians and Catalans felt offended when it was accepted.
My personal opinion (as I posted in my second archived post -hehe, long ago-): Let them do. It's not a real essential thing to decide if it could be considered as a language or rather as a dialect. You'll agree that it's somewhere between. This discussion also occurs in real life. (wait, I'm not a linguist ). I mean, Valencian is more different from Catalan than other Catalan dialects (well, since there's more lilkely to be more specialists in Valencian than in Central Catalan, Alguer Catalan or Northern Catalan, right?).

So among all Catalan dialects, Valencian seems to be a kind of special dialect. (ok, cleared below)

I don't think you should feel offended as Valencian anyway . I understand you care about things being called as they should ('Catalan (Valencia)', for instance), but seriously there is no real point to feel offended. I ratrhe believe Valencian is Catalan, but I don't see like people ar standing on my toes in translating MP! into Catalan . And if some believe Valencian should also be a translation (no matter if it's a dialect, a language or something between both), let them do. Some Valencians might want to use it, and some other Valencians will choose Catalan.

We obviously can't add every dialect (be proud your speciality is included ), but maybe some exceptions can be done.

I hope this cleared somehow the reasons why it was added and solved this controversial issue a bit.

Edit: Btw, There are less differences between AmE and BrE than between Catalan and Valencian, aren't there?

The thing is that when you say 'I can speak Valencian" you are using it as a synonim of "Catalan", it's inclusive, not exclusive. If you do create as different languages Brazilian/Portuguese/Flamish/Dutch/American/English/Scotish/Australian/French/Quebequian etc, then ok, everything would be understandable. But again, as it is, it's very confusing and implies politics, while languages in itself shouldn't have nothing to do with politics! But if you consider just English, or french, etc, then it's not logical.

quoted: So among all Catalan dialects, Valencian seems to be a kind of special dialect.

That's not true: Valencian is almost the same as the Catalan spoken in Lleida and in Tortosa and in Aragon, some people which are not experts could not tell the difference between someone from Tortosa and another from Castelló, for example. And that's not that far away from the central catalan spoken in Barcelona and surroundings. There are more variation in the Balearic islands or Alguer. The Valencian peculiarity are the politics, which again, they should be left apart!