Friday, January 03, 2014
Broken English = the language of questions
I've noticed an odd phenomenon for 20 years. With remarkable consistency, most callers to "Money-talk" radio shows are not native English speakers. Half of them are squeaky-voiced Hindooos, and the rest are mainly Spanish with a scattering of Slavic or maybe Arab sounds.
The same thing happens in a very different environment, which I've also noticed for a long time but didn't connect until just now. Online questions about computer programming. Lately I've been working rather desperately to convert courseware into SCORM-compatible form. This involves a mix of HTML5, SVG, JS and the mysterious SCORM API. Most of my questions don't have an online answer. Nevertheless I always search first in the vain hope of saving time, and I find that 90% of the relevant-looking questions are written in barely comprehensible semi-English. It's harder to spot 'accents' in writing, but from the names it appears that India dominates here as well.
Of course broken English is expected online. The Web is innately international. Still, why so few questions from regular old Americans? (Or Aussies or Englishmen, for that matter?) Are all native English speakers working in corporate situations where questions about money and programming are answered by official sources?
¶ 3:29 AM 
