The title reminds me of a comic movie: "mes double, ma femme et moi" (Multiplicity, Andie Macdowell, 1996). Anyway i'm not writing about that, but about sth funny i've noticed while i was reviewing the sequence diagrams i've designed this morning for my science computer studies.
Since my second year in primary school i was learning French, as Tunisia is a francophone country. Now, i can speak fluently French. But what about English, the second foreign language that we learn from the 4th year in secondary school (it was for me, but now pupil are learning it from the 2nd year in secondary school or as we call it now 8th Basic Education)? Most of us (Youth Tunisian Studants and pupils) don't give it so much importance because we can do it (at least until now!)speaking only french; how? If we have to go abroad for a scholarship or a career we find opportunity (and we choose most times) on a francophone country which are our best partners (...).
For me taking part of the WSIS process was the first opportunity -out of Tunisia- in which i used the english language to communicate with others: at first i felt a little bit lost (i have many funny stories about the days in Geneva: at the Youth Hub, at the Youth Hostel. But then, i found it really intersting and felt that my spoken English is going better ;-p
Today, i found some notations in my project where French and English where melt in the same senetence; like: SupprimerUser instead of "DeleteUSer" or "Supprimer Utilisateur" in French. My boss will be upset when he will see that!
For me, English is no more my second foreign language and french the first one. in my mind there are no difference at all. i begin thinking in french and then i finish the sentence in english; like every tunisian youth does with french and arabic. Complete Arabic sentences are rarely heard in a youth's group, every where here!
It's TIG which introduced English in my mind. I'm now writing a whole page Update in English expressing my mind easily than before. i'm communicating with others all through the world. even my egyptian friends i'm talking to then in english thru TIG.
Is it bridging the digital divide or sprading it? i don't know... But all i want to is that people around the world take advantage of the ICT thru the Digital Opportunities given thru TIG and all avoer the Net; and why not create ones for their local communities. Arabic content is so rare on the Web, it's so alarming !!