Re: "Usefull languages"

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Knibb" <jonathan_knibb@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 9:07 AM
Subject: Re: "Usefull languages"


> Danny Wier wrote:
> From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
> >>>
> | I read everything that comes at sight :)) . Don't leave a box of
anything
> | edible near me, because I'm gonna read the ingredient lists in all
> | languages [...]
> It's boring here in America. Most products are English-only. An increasing
> number also have Spanish. On other occasions, you find French, if the
> product is also sold in Canada. And then there are the occasional import
> items with German or Thai or Chinese or Finnish or whatever.
> <<<
>
> Really?  In the UK there are *lots* of things with a huge range of
languages
> on them ... a thirty-second search of my flat yields the following:
>
> hairdryer case:
> English, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish
> Pringles (potato snack thing, in case there is a culture left
pringleless):
> English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Finnish, Greek (modern only :) ),
> Italian, Danish (or is it Norwegian??), Portuguese, Swedish
> shower gel:
> English, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Slovak, Latvian, and a
> single phrase in Arabic script (?language)
>
> I presume this has to do with the international marketing of these
products,
> as few of these languages would be useful to UK residents, compared with
say
> Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Serbo-Croat, Polish, etc.  I strongly suspect (as
I
> said in a previous post) that the constant low-level linguistic
stimulation
> I experienced each morning in the shower during my formative years played
a
> significant part in keeping my interest in languages fired up.
>


Yes, I love trying to read the back of shower gel too.  Mine doesn't even
have English.