Languages, Part 4b
MIA
Cross-Language
MIA is a large archive of literature in many languages. Its
nature allows the MIA operators to create an extra category called
“Cross-Language” (X-Lang) so that readers can easily move, for example,
directly between a work in one language, to the same work in another language.
What this points to is the possibility of, through the
Internet, effectively publishing one work in many languages.
Seeing the way that the requirement for publication in all
official languages is handled (e.g. by the SA National
Planning Commission) in South Africa, it is clear that there is no
standard. The way the NDP is published is in full in English, with Mickey Mouse
versions for everybody other than English-speakers.
Probably the best option is for each column in a South
African “X-Lang” table, representing one of the languages, to be edited by
separate agencies accountable to their language groups.
So, for example, if the a document like the NDP is not
published in any given SA official language, then an agency responsible for
that language would have the resources to go ahead and make and publish a
translation.
X-Lang in Political
Education
Language is an issue when it comes to political education.
The above diagram can show how it will be possible to compile parallel material
for the Communist University, for example, in all of the official languages,
and to run the Communist University as a simultaneous multi-lingual provider of
political-education reading material for discussion.
What a pleasure it will be to sit in a study circle, having
a discussion in Zulu, Pedi, Sotho or Xhosa, about Marx or Lenin or Agitprop, or
about African Revolutionary Writers
Language is a revolutionary issue.
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