Google book plan sparks French war of words

The head of France's national library says Google's choice of works is likely to favor Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language.

The story "Google book plan sparks French war of words" published February 21, 2005 at 11:40 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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French Language: Why?

After reading this article, in response to the French whining, one has to ask "And that is a problem because?".

If American company wants to build an English library it is their right. With or (preferably) without French texts.

Not a question of language

It is a question of culture disseminition. Google is somewhat more than just a USA entity (it started in Swizterland) and should reflect the world litteture including the small countries.

By the way, US is not only english. This shortcut does not reflect the real US history. Hence, the french culture plays an important role, especially through Louisiane and the fact that we can find more than 5 millions french speaking US citizens and many US people have french ancestry.

France is just telling what most other countries feel.

well it is an issue

To Respond to the person who asked why... it is absolutely
google's perogative to scan these english books and make them
available.

But, if this rallies the francophone's, then they should use it for
whatever motivational value it has, to do their own effort.

I absolutely agree, that there is more to the world than exists in
the english world alone. Then again, the problem with putting a
bunch of French books on the internet, is that they are in
French, and therefore nobody will read them.

But, the same is true of my own favorite language, Russian. The
bigger the Russian 'universe' on the internet, the greater sense
people may have, that they are missing something in those other
languages.

Of course, its not possible for anyone to learn every earth
language...but if you do pick up a 2nd language, you will be
richer for it.

It is darn near impossible for anyone who speaks only one
language, to understand the impact of language on how they
think....even if you love english, by learning a 2nd language, you
will understand english better, and in a way otherwise not
possible.

[lockedout]

Speaking French

Not that long ago there were Frenchmen who gave the Nazis control of three-fifths of France, surrendered of all Jews living in France to the Germans, disbanded the French Army, put 1.5 million French soldiers in prison camps, and paid the occupation costs of the German troops.

Which language they would be speaking today had the Americans and the British allowed that to continue?

Entrepreneur!

Looks like there is a market for a smart Frenchman to make a search engine with French books in it's database!

Whats the problem?

[Neo Con]

I agree - why must the EU do it?

From the story: "He wants the European Union to balance this with its own program and its own Internet search engines."

Typical socialist knee-jerk reaction. If he wants French works on the Internet, what is stopping a French entrepreneur from doing it? Why must the taxpayers of the EU foot the bill??? It's not this jack-a**'es money to do with as he sees fit. But knowing the Europeans, they'll probably gladly bear another immoral tax hike to pay for yet another pork-barrel project that would be better left to the private sector.

And people wonder why the US's economy runs rings around the EU's...

[Jon Eiche]

No wonder...

...the French are wary of Google:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html