HIP: <Number to be assigned>
title: Use an auxiliary neutral language for the registration statements
author: ludoviko
status: Draft
created: 2021-10-24
Simple summary
The aim of this proposal is to add a unique second alternative universal statement “I certify” phrase, for the submission and renewal processes.
Abstract
Proof of Humanity and the Universal Basic Income emphasizes that income should be a right that is universal for all people disregarding their origin or status. This universality concept could be expanded to the other aspects of the platform. Although being a de facto language spoken in large parts of developed societies and persons that have access and resources to afford quality language education, English is not a universal language. Ideally, users should have an alternative option to English. This second option ideally should not come from any of the current national languages, but a language that can be easily understood and pronounce for both English and non-English speakers alike. This would solve the current limitation of not including peoples native languages and it would remove this need. Esperanto is a worldwide spoken and well-established neutral universal language, with evidences that it is easy to learn and understand, recognized by UN, so this should be the best second option.
Motivation
This proposal is more ideological than practical in nature. It taps on the concept of universality, in the same way that we are making a Universal income.
The choice of a neutral language is not a popularity contest. We are not choosing it based on the amount of native speakers. The idea of actually not having many speakers is the actual basis for this proposal. The Great Equalizer in this case is that, by design, this would be a language that is foreign to virtually every registered human.
True meaning of the phrase is not a requirement for (i) saying it, (ii) challenging a submission nor (iii) a juror to decide if the submission is valid.
This HIP does not pretend to substitute current bussiness-as-usual language and would have zero impact if implemented.
Esperanto having its roots in indo-european languages, makes its phonemes extremely easy to pronounce to a huge population in the world (for example it has 5 phonetic vowels, while English for example has 14). It is, objectively speaking, easier to pronounce.
There are around 6500 languages in the world. The implementation of the phrase in comparison to a unique, secondary, universal language is much more cost-effective and elegant solution that to extend sequentially more and more languages into the platform.
About the “popularity contest”
Many argue that esperanto is not widely known language and therefore it is not a good alternative for the use as a secondary language. The point that is being missed here is that the issue that is attempting to being solved is not dependent on the language populousness (although it is worth noticing that according to conservative estimates, Esperanto surpasses some widely known sub-national dialects like basque or welsh). The popularity is also not a requirement for it to be widely known to be enforceable to wrongly submitted profiles. As stated, phonemes used in esperanto are easily identifiable by any culture, much more easily than English or Mandarin). Any other argument but popularity should be considered for this proposal.
I believe it’s a great idea to allow for more than one language on the registration process.
I have no Idea about the Esperanto language, but I like it to be neutral. I like the idea of this HIP
The use of Esperanto makes not so much sense to me, though I like the idea of adding other language(s). You might as well tell them to say “taaa tata taaa tatatatata” and it will even be easier, adding a checkbox in the submission that says the phrase we currently say to certify that…
If you want to make it neutral but that literally nobody will speak it, we could have people use sign language and tell their name or a phrase in their own language so you can hear their voices, if voice is a requirement, or?
If we were to use sign language, then we could also include the deaf community. We could use international sign for example. You can actually sign with only one hand, in case you want to hold a paper with another hand for your address.
Agree that whatever is said is irrelevant. There where the talks at some point that the phrase should not be a language at all. The only reason to choose esperanto is that a) the phonemes part stated in the proposal b) it sounds like a language (because it is) and c) because it is very phonetic in nature it can be easily translated with any translator in case anyone is curious (sounds translate directly to letters, so it is easier to transcribe, is what I mean).
Agree also that inclusion of non-speaking people should be prioritized. The issue of deaf and people with speech disorders has been argued elsewhere in the forum, you can check those out. There was also a proposal that attempted to lay out some “human rights in the chain” as well, and that one if approved should give some accomodations to person with disabilities. We are not there yet, I believe.
With the cases of puppeteers (i.e. people paying other to create POH accounts while keeping control of them), we don’t want to add more languages as this would facilitate puppeteer job (currently they need to find non English speaking people, if we add esperento they will need to find people who do not simultaneously speak English & Esperento, i.e. almost everyone).
Whatever language is added, there’s always a person that does not speak it. The more languages are added, the more possibilities to manipulate a non speaker to say something they’re not understanding (because the perpetrator has a larger pool to select from). Esperanto has a double edged sword in terms that it is somewhat euro centric but that means all past European colonies are able to understand or infer meaning from the phrase than any other language. Take the “I certify” phrase:
“Mi atestas, ke mi estas vera homo kaj ke mi ne estas jam registrita en ĉi tiu registro”
IDK why you are trying to push Esperanto language into PoH but I will always says that: We don’t need more languages to be included. Every language we add will complicate the dispute resolution process in Kleros courts.
PoH needs to be simple, we don’t need unnecessary complications that’s why I strongly oppose this proposal
I understand your opposition, but I disagree based in the following logic.
Which set of this two is larger?
English + 1 auxiliary language
or
English + 7000 languages in the world?
How many limitless pairs of languages would exist in any of these? What is the cost of having a trained translator between someone who speaks tagalog and french, and tagalog and indonesian, and tagalog and english? If we could have just two languages (one traditionally regarded as a global language, another one easy to learn or quick enough to have minimum knowledge to understand it in just one day, and proficiency in less than a month) and have all these languages of the world connected and inter-operable between these two. Wouldn’t that be smarter and more elegant?
Anyways, I’m not trying to push the use of Esperanto within platform (although it would be awesome) and I think it would be hard for that to happen. My argument is for the easiness that it is to pronounce and follow instructions.
Someone just mentioned that hearing impared actually do have trouble registering.
WHat if we made this proposal to be using Sign Language instead of Esperanto?
I believe Sign Language is pretty neutral (I might be wrong)