[LINK] NSW Election Multilingual information is not accessible

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Ash Nallawalla wrote:
<snip>
> Worse, I'd challenge the average Indian to translate it back to the intended
> English. It is written using the purest form of Hindi that nobody speaks.
> Even the Govt of India election site uses borrowed Urdu words because
> Indians speak a lot of Urdu without realising it (Bollywood uses Urdu, not
> Hindi unless it is a religious movie). So it's not accessible to most
> sighted Indians either. 
> 
> I wouldn't mind knowing how many Indians on the electoral roll in Australia
> can't read English. 
<snip>

There may be some dependents, who have an obligation to
vote, who may not speak english. However, the next question
is whether they can read the devanagri script or Hindi.

Isn't Urdu written in Arabic?

Tamil and a few other Indian languages have their own script.

Under the Arabs it was probably written in Arabic, under the
Portuguese, Konkani was written in the Roman Script, and it
is now written in the DevanA"?garA"? script and apparently
several others...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konkani_Script>

With the "Chinese" there is also the issue of the simplified
vs the complex character set and then the language -
cantonese, hokien, mandarin....

With regard to the language, even the english is often
difficult to understand for english speakers. I recall a
conversation with an IT Manager, who said he had finally
managed to get his son signed up for an apprenticeship. Not
sure how those without access to this level of skill and
knowledge cope.

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202