Do You Own Your Native Language? 472
l2718 writes "In a new take on the reach of 'Intellectual Property,' the Mapuche Indians of Chile are accusing Microsoft of linguistic piracy. Their lawsuit alleges that Microsoft needed permission from the tribal elders before translating its software into Mapuzugun, a project which was co-ordinated with the Chilean Ministry of Education." From the CNN Money article: "The Mapuche took their case to a court in the southern city of Temuco earlier this month but a judge ruled it should be considered in Santiago. A judge in the capital is due to decide in the next two weeks whether Microsoft has a case to answer. 'If they rule against us we will go to the Supreme Court and if they rule against us there we will take our case to a court of human rights,' said Lautaro Loncon, a Mapuche activist and coordinator of the Indigenous Network, an umbrella group for several ethnic groups in Chile."
Profit from language? (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, though, if this is a small tribe and they only teach the language to other tribe members, and Microsoft intends to make a profit off using this language, then maybe it is some sort of "human rights" issue.
Human rights? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Profit from language? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm usually quick to join any group bashing of Microsoft, but this one strikes me as more than a bit stupid. By making their software available in more languages, Microsoft is performing a service. They can choose not to buy it if they don't want it. It's not like native speakers of other languages will be lining up to purchase Office in some obscure language like this.
LK
Re:Profit from language? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Profit from language? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Microsoft has wronged anyone by supporting more languages. I don't think it makes any sense to object to Microsoft making money on a translated product. They shouldn't be expected to support the language for free, as in no charge for the software, so the alternative is to not support it at all.
Re:Obligatory /. Jokes (Score:2, Insightful)
It's been pretty firmly established that the way we talk affects the way we think, which also goes a long way in explaining why the prisoners of war in Gitmo are called 'Enemy Combatants'. See, they're completely different because we call them something else
C'mon (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, small tribe stand up against the shade business practitioners that is Microsoft. You really *want* to be on the side of the tribe, but this time I think they are wrong. Besides, I don't think they would really care if someone else used their language, someone who doesn't have a boatload of money that is.
Re:Profit from language? (Score:4, Insightful)
LK
Re:A thought expiriment... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Profit from language? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Language name incorrect (Score:2, Insightful)
Before anyone jumps onto the MS bashing bandwagon over the spelling ("OMG they are so careless they cant even spel teh name right!!1"), I'll throw out that this is probably just a difference in transliteration / orthography. According to Wikipedia, there is no native writing system for it, and all proposed systems have used the Latin alphabet, so it's not even really a matter of transliteration. Sheesh. In that case, they should be happy to have any outside support in preserving their language.
That said, it strikes me as ridiculous to consider a human language as intellectual property, or to consider this as an abuse of human rights somehow. This is not simply a matter of control over the 'official' version of a language, like the Academie Française, but control over who is allowed to use it. I'm not upset that millions of Indians (in India) use what I consider to be a mutilated version of English on a daily basis; to the contrary, they are helping to ensure the dominance of English as the global language to know. Sure, maybe Microsoft should consult with tribal elders or whatnot - this would seem like a smart thing to do just to make sure you're doing a good job. But if they want to make a shitty translation, or even a good, non-sanctioned one, no one should be able to stop them.
I'd like more information (Score:5, Insightful)
On the surface, it may seem quite absurd. However in TFA, I couldn't find any specific mention of the motives behind the Mapuche council's objection. Note that Mapuche leaders do not necessarily represent the will of every member of the tribe. However if we assume that there is support from the general populace, my guess would be that:
1. The Mapuche and Andean people have a history of being lied to and manipulated by the Chilean government, usually in the interest of integrating them more within the European society and economy, often resulting in people being forcibly removed from their ancestral home territory so the land can be exploited for corporate gain. As a result there could be a general distrust for any type of corporation, especially those from the US. Mining and logging companies, for example, have been a major cause of displacement and environmental destruction, which has deeply affected the sentiments of native peoples toward capitalistic enterprise.
2. There is a fear of the bastardization of their language by Microsoft incorporating and "standardizing" it. It could be that many are satisfied using Spanish language software from Microsoft.
3. Remember that traditionally the native people of South America have a completely different world view from those of European descent. Society, religion, economy, technology are all perceived differently. It may be that the people actually don't want the opportunity of being exposed to this software in their native language. We may think it's "what's best for them," but really how can you or I decide that? The history of doing what we think is best for an indigenous culture of the Americas has been that of moving them into our world without really understanding that they may really want to keep their way of life, and "progress" as we often define it (e.g. technology) is really not beneficial from their perspective.
To many, this may seem arrogant, or a grab for money. Without hearing a proper explanation of the motives behind this resistance, I feel nothing can be concluded. I think it's important to realize that other cultures view the predominant society from a different perspective and may see further integration as a threat to their way of living.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
A language is a way for people to communicate. That is, it is a system known to both of them, using which they can send each other messages. One can patent such a system to prevent others from using it. I am not sure, but I do not think that the tribe patented their language. Therefore, I doubt that they have any grounds on which to sue.
As a linguist who works closely with native communities, let me try to offer some insight into this issue.
Copyright law was not designed with oral traditions in mind. Therefore, a lot of previously unwritten languages face strange legal problems. For example, a person records elders telling a traditional story and publishes them as recordings or a transcribed text. The person who did the publishing has the copyright for those recordings, not the original storyteller. Thus, if the storyteller performs that same story in public, he is violating the law. Central texts of a society's religion are now the intellectual property of an outsider. There has been some work to fix this issue, but things are not perfect yet.
Concrete example (with all distinguishing features withheld for obvious reasons): The last knowledgeable elder of a tribe died. A linguist who could not get a job in academia has many hours of recordings of this elder, but won't release them to the tribe, unless they pay him lots and lots of money. The tribe is trying to recover its religious stories, fables, tribal history, and revitalize its language, but it is all held hostage by one man who is not affiliated with the tribe in any way. The tribe's position is that they should have some rights to the material, since it has been in the tribe forever. But the law says the material belongs to the man who made the recordings. (Oh, and the tribe is reluctant to take it to court until all other options are exhausted, because they are afraid of possible precedents.)
Also, many native religions have a different relationship between people and language. In the Judeo-Christian approach, we speak a variety of languages because we angered God and he confounded our languages, losing the original one He gave us. Now, most people here regard Babel as a metaphor; but it is a metaphor that has shaped the way we view language--as something not inherently sacred. Lots of tribes still speak the language their God gave them (from their perspective), which makes it a religious artifact. For a company like Microsoft to come in and use their language without permissions would be an intrusion on their religious rights.
What many tribes are doing, then, is asserting intellectual property over everything related to their language (stories, words, grammar, etc.) in the hopes that they can exert some control over the outsiders who want to come in and take advantage of them. (And many times an outsider's best intentions are actually harmful to the native community, we just don't understand all the issues.)
Re:Profit from language? (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that even the article summary states that the work was done in conjunction with the Chilean Ministry of Education, I think you'll find that "support for all local languages" was simply a checkbox requirement the Chilean government placed on software. It doesn't matter if no one ever uses the Mapuzugun-language version: being able to check off support for the language will be what will ensure Microsoft contracts with the Chilean government - and those contracts will undoubtedly more than pay for the cost of the translation.
Re:Profit from language? (Score:2, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp#Standardizat
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Concrete example (with all distinguishing features withheld for obvious reasons): The last knowledgeable elder of a tribe died. A linguist who could not get a job in academia has many hours of recordings of this elder, but won't release them to the tribe, unless they pay him lots and lots of money. The tribe is trying to recover its religious stories, fables, tribal history, and revitalize its language, but it is all held hostage by one man who is not affiliated with the tribe in any way. The tribe's position is that they should have some rights to the material, since it has been in the tribe forever. But the law says the material belongs to the man who made the recordings. (Oh, and the tribe is reluctant to take it to court until all other options are exhausted, because they are afraid of possible precedents.)
I hope that some details were changed there, or this is pretty doggone clear. That man is under NO obligation to provide them with a record of their knowledge unless he has directly committed himself to such a thing, by mouth or writing. It was the tribe to remember that knowledge. They failed. They are now trying to blame their failure on an outside source simply because that outside source could help them recover from their failure.
Is he morally and ethically wrong to withhold that information from them? Heck yeah! Is it perfectly legal? Absolutely. Even if it the law said that he was NOT the copyright holder (as it now says) he would still be under NO obligation to help them relearn their stories. He merely couldn't profit from them without their consent. He could, however, profit from the tapes they are stored on and his services in recording and playing them back.
Re:Wow! This is just nuts! (Score:3, Insightful)
So let me see if I get this straight -- the Mapuche tribal leaders are making the claim that Microsoft needs their permission to use a language because, well, they say they own this language?
I'm inclined to believe you haven't gotten it straight, because (a) the article is short in details, (b) it's a popular press article, and of course the popular press is well-known for not being extremely accurate.
Presumably we can believe the article that the Mapuche tribal leaders are suing Microsoft. What I'm not so quick to conclude (as most responders here just went ahead and assumed) is that this is framed as an intellectual property case. It could be framed as a human rights case, and in fact, the article does say that the Mapuche grievance is the fact that they were never consulted on anything in the process.
Indeed, the article does mention the possibility of taking this to an international human rights court:
In any case, you are blindly applying your own cultural standards to a set of people who likely do not share them. In particular, you believe that by default, anybody has a right to any piece of obtainable knowledge, with some specific exclusions (e.g., privacy, confidential business information). This cultural assumption is not shared by every group in the world; people in some groups assume just as irreflexively that only some people are entitled to some kinds of knowledge (for example, only members of a certain caste may be entitled to know how to play some instrument). In this case, then the human rights issue has to do with mediation between the standards of two cultures when they clash; the Mapuche will claim that officialdom ought to respect their culture's standards.
Note that all I've said is every bit as much speculation as what you've said. But it should at least demonstrate that this issue is likely very, very subtle. Discussing issues like this fruitfully requires an amount of cultural insight and sensitivity that most people simply lack.
Re:Profit from language? (Score:3, Insightful)
This appears to be the equivalent of Microsoft joining forces with the US Bureau of Indian Affairs to attempt to assimilate the Navaho by messing with their language. The Navaho Nation would not approve. It seems the Mapuche do not approve, either.
The Mapuche (People of the Land) Nation successfully resisted incursions by the Incas and then the Spanish for well over 500 years, and whether they have finally been subjugated by the current governments of Chile and Argentina remains an open question. At the moment, they are not at war with either government. But they are not assimilated, either: while their numbers are down they are still the largest group in their ancestral lands and their governance and traditions remain intact. This includes the affiliation of Elders who govern the relationships between villages and preserve the cultural and religious oral traditions. And who, surprisingly, are currently involved in developing of a written form of the language.
Would it not be absurd for Microsoft to create a Basque language edition with the assistance of Spanish academicians and government and with no involvement of the Basque themselves? This is would seem to be the european equivalent of the Mapuche Elders' complaint.
Re:Profit from language? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
The original idea behind the Law and the Legal System is to formalize the moral and ethical beliefs of the society in which they operate, and remove ambiguities to assist in the resolution of disputes. Ergo, if something is morally and ethically wrong, then it should be against the law. That something is legal, but would be regarded by "the society" and immoral and unethical, then the law is wrong and should be changed.
Most of the legal issues we see today is because the letter of the law has become more powerful than the spirit of the law (or the intended spirit of the law). ie: the law is now pre-scriptive rather than de-scriptive.
I more or less agree. (Score:2, Insightful)
Who's to say that these 'tribal leaders' speak for everyone using the Mapuche edition of Windows?
I doubt they do. What I'm trying to do is to state as strong a case for them as possible; as opposed to what most people in this thread are doing--dismissing them offhand on the basis of things they likely didn't claim. (Or in other words: I'm interested in understanding the way they think, and not at all propping up my ego by making them look like dumbasses.)
Yes, their actual argument (which we do not know, let me remind us) possibly assumes that the Mapuche is a uniform culture (at worst), or that their traditional authorities are entitled to make some decisions about how their language is to be used (at least). It is likely that it also glosses over the fact that we, as Westerners, may judge a lot of their traditional institutions as opressing some segments of their society (e.g. women), and it is quite likely that some (if not many) of their own constituents would agree with us (but which still doesn't mean that they'd like us to impose our cultural standards on them; they may want to reform their own culture).
Still, the point is that this issue will no doubt turn out to be very subtle, that it will require a good amount of anthropological sophistication to understand it, and that the discussion here is sorely lacking such sophistication.
Re:Yup. (Score:2, Insightful)
I may be "anthropologically unsophistocated", but I understand basic human nature.
Yes, if you believe in "basic human nature," you are indeed anthropologically sophisticated.
If I were Microsoft, this is what I'd do: I'd shelve the project. Then if the tribal leaders decide they want an OS in their own language, they can make a request. But when you make a request of someone, it's silly to expect them to do it free of charge.
Their biggest complaint, as far as I can make it, is that Microsoft teamed up with the Chilean government to produce this translation, and did not consult them at all on it. The best I can state their case so far is as follows:
Or in other words, that if anybody has a claim on making official decisions about how their language is to be used software work, it is them, and not the Chilean government, and that Microsoft wronged them by going with the Chilean government.
Note that this issue may have legal implications: for example, if somebody tomorrow passes a law that has clauses that hinge on whether some service or product is offered in a native language, then the issue arises of judging whether a particular product or case is in fact offered in the Mapuche's language. Now there is an issue as to who should have the authority to make such decisions or to set the standards under which such decisions are to be made.
Re:Profit from language? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not so simple... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Profit from language? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Profit from language? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not entirely true.
We've grown up thinking that nobody can "own" a language. That's our culture. It's not impossible for a group of people to be brought up thinking that there is an owner of a particular language. If they grow up that way, their kids will, too. In other words, "people who don't know better," if you catch my drift.
I'm not saying that this is the case; in fact I'm certain it's not. The Maori believe(d) that a man (by the name of Maui [wikipedia.org]) slowed the sun down to make the days longer by finding where it rises and catching it with a lasso, then beating it with his dead grandmother's jaw-bone until the sun promised to go slower.
To most people who have just learned this it sounds ridiculous. However so would the idea of language ownership. It's not impossible, that's what I'm trying to get at.
Re:Interesting... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Was it that hard to ask permission? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
Adultery? I think there are things that most people would consider morally and ethically wrong, but that aren't the state's (or the people's) concern.
Real reason, it's not the money (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Profit from language? (Score:2, Insightful)
Would you like to give up your own language and culture?
Re:I belive the problem REALLY resides in (Score:3, Insightful)
They should just boycott it by not reading the version that's translated for them to understand. Or MS could just bitchslap them back by "mis"translating the yes/no text on the "really format harddrive that's now 90% full?" dialog box.
Just cuz MS is greedy, doesn't make other peoples greed any less um... greedy...