What is an 'ethnic' language? If you mean e-books in languages other than English, then say so and think twice before using the word 'ethnic'.
What's wrong with saying, Black, Asian, Chinese etc? Why not be specific about what one means, rather than trying to be too sensitive or too polite when talking about something that is 'non-white'.
Kathy Oluwi
"Marshall, Peter" wrote:
> On the subject of e-books, I regret that I have no experience to relate,
> but, while the subject is in the air, I would like to raise the issue of
> the availability of e-texts in ethnic languages.
> It seems to us that the most immediate, not to say urgent, need in
> providing access to electronic texts retrievable from the web is the
> area of ethnic language material, where there is an obvious need for a
> wide range of languages (here in outer SE London our Council
> interpreting service reckons about 50, and in inner cities it can be 150
> or more), but the actual number of customers for each language makes it
> uneconomic to purchase books (i.e. those old-fashioned things with paper
> pages).
> I know that there is quite a lot of stuff available in Chinese (though I
> am given to believe that this is more of interest to your average man or
> woman on the Beijing omnibus, rather that the millions all over SE Asia
> who use Chinese as a lingua-franca) and there appears to be quite a bit
> of Vietnamese (largely it seems owing to the size of the
> Vietnamese-speaking community in California), and I am of course aware
> of the ethnic language newspapers available through kidon.com/medialink/
> and other sites, but from this point on my knowledge starts running very
> thin, and if anyone knows anything more - even about one individual
> language, particularly those spoken by the various refugees communities
> - I should be grateful.
>
> Peter Marshall
> Project Development Librarian
> Bexley Council
> Thamesmead Centre
> Yarnton Way
> Erith. DA18 4DR
>
> Tel: 020 8320 4135 (Direct Line)
> email: [log in to unmask]
>
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