Why We Enforce English-Only Conversation

A 500 word essay on why multilingualism is detrimental to an online community.

Basics

• What is this Telegraph?
• What is the problem?
• How is it an issue?

General

• Sending messages just to people who understand them
• What is meant by ‘international community’
• Isn’t it banning people of other nationalities?
• I can’t speak English
• Why wouldn’t you use translate for my messages?
• Why can’t you learn my language instead?
• "They’re all from my country anyways"
• Promoting other language group

What’s Allowed?

• Writing your language with Latin letters?
• Using a single phrase or word?
• Using media with non-English elements?
• Are people from my nation still allowed in the group?

Basic Overview

Q: What is this Telegraph for?

With a lot of complaints over English-only requirement in the groups, starting long threads of disputation time and time again, this Telegraph tries to cover all complaints for future reference without needing to go over all the same points again. This would save everyone’s time providing answers to all your questions and avoid chats becoming full of irrelevant argumenting.

Q: What is the problem?

People join groups and without reading the rules first, start sending messages in their language, often in a spammy way that rallies in other language speakers as well. When warned and shown the rules it’s either ignorance or arguments around the rule, taking over the chat in a way that others did not subscribe for.

Q: How is it an issue?

Conversation must be kept in English in order for everyone to have equal chance to participate. This is an international group, created for the purpose of having one place to people from every nation, independent of their language. Having conversations happen in all sorts of languages (simultaneously!) turns group into the Tower of Babel, where everyone would end up speaking their own languages and and no one would understand each other.

English is the international language. This is a common knowledge in the internet usually. Most of the people know English to some extent as it’s a common language, which is why it’s used everywhere by default. This may be foreign for people from Russian and Arabic speaking countries as their language is big enough to live in their big-small language bubble without ever needing English in their daily life. However, that is not how rest of the world operates.

Letting people talk in their language becomes a communication mess, because if you have a large group, it’s possible that majority of users will be either Russian, Iranian or Indian as those nationalities are very prevalent on Telegram. Therefore, by letting everyone speak, it silences the minorities that have to translate all messages in the chat in order to even participate, while natives talk without any issues, once you manage to translate. That way nations gets segregated as everyone only bothers to speak with ones in their language zone and overall effects everyone. This group was created for everyone to have an equal chance to participate and allowing all languages for communication destroys that equality.

General

Answers to general questions brought up against the rule.

Q: Why can’t I send non-English messages just to people who understand them?

This is a group chat, not your private chat with those specific people. This means that the messages are meant to be for everyone to see and read if they wish to. If you translate your message to English before sending it, you’re saving time (possibly) for majority of users as only very small percentage of people will have to translate it from English instead. Others should not be forced to translate every single message of yours. It’s rather selfish to expect.

Also so from moderation standpoint, as it makes harder to check if people are breaking other rules or not.

Q: It says it’s an international community. Why not allow all languages then?

International as in all nations, not all languages. Your language is a national language (specific to a single nation), English is international language (not only specific to any single nation and being used all over the world).

«existing, occurring, or carried on between nations» Merriam-Webster

Q: Isn’t it like banning people of other nationalities from speaking in their native language if they’re in another country?

No, it’s not. You can still speak in your native language, just in a different place. Most countries have just a single national language set. You can’t expect others on the street to understand you. You’ve gotta respect and go by their rules, not come out with your own. You can still speak in your native language with others who came with you, privately, without bothering others, which is private chats in this case.

Q: What to do if I can’t speak English?

Are you sure you can’t? You’d be surprised by your own abilities. Even if you’re not fluent in English, don’t worry about making mistakes. Trying to express yourself in English will still be more understandable than using your native language, as this way you at least use same language others understand, rather than being perfect in a language no one else but you understands.

If you still feel like it's no help, there’s a couple of solutions. You can use bots like @readup_bot that will automatically translate your written text into language you choose to (in this case choose English). This bot can be used inline, so you won’t have to leave anywhere to have your messages translated.

Also for understanding others, Telegram launched in-app translator, which allows you to translate messages with just two clicks as well, without needing to leave anywhere. Just head to Settings > Language and make sure to enable Show Translate Button. You can also exclude any languages you speak fluently – which will hide the translate button for those messages. Users with Telegram Premium can turn on automatic chat translation and not even manually hit translate on each message.

Use it as an opportunity to practice your English, as speaking and being actively in a conversation is the single best way to improve your language skills.

Q: If there’s a translate feature, why not just use it to understand our messages instead?

Solid argument. Unfortunately, this is not an automatic process and requires extra effort compared to just visually glaring over the message. One party has to do it and if you can translate your message to English for everyone, that means only a small percentage of people will have to translate it from English instead, saving time for (possibly) majority of users. For reasons broken down before, group chat is in English, so it’s more logical for other side to be in the translating side. It is also more likely more people still understand English enough than people who don’t know your language at all.

From moderation standpoint a moderator should not be forced to translate every single message in order to check if people are breaking rules or not. This is a time dependant process already and requiring each message to be translated is selfish to ask.

If Telegram was to add automatic translation of messages or subgroups to create specific language rooms, it would be a different story.

Q: Why can’t you just learn my language instead?

English is taught in most schools over the world, your language is not. For reasons mentioned earlier. English is one of the easiest languages to learn, especially these days when everything is digital and in the internet, where English is dominant. Asking people to learn your language just to speak with a few of people who refuse to follow the rules is, again, selfish.

Q: Aren’t they all from my country here anyways?

Not everyone. And that was not the intention. Our goals still remain, even if there are mostly your countrymen for now, the goal is still to attract international audience and modifying rules for now would stop others from joining. There probably aren’t many Americans or Brits here either, because again: English is not just a national language, it’s just used by everyone.

Q: Why can’t I promote my language group then, if you don’t want to accept my language?

For same reasons stated at the beginning: this group was created with a goal of having a single group chat together, where everyone would have an equal opportunity to participate. Community is stronger together than separated into smaller individual groups. It’s not a coincidence that an international group has grown bigger than a single-nation based one. Advertising another group wouldn't help with our goals.

What’s Allowed?

Q: Can I write my language in Latin letters?

No. English ≠ just Latin letters. You’re still not understood, even if the alphabet is different.

Q: What about a single phrase or word?

Broadly speaking, our goal is to have conversation happening in English. Even if in most cases a single word would go unnoticed, it would still be preferred if you could avoid using anything but English. Try to come up with a similar saying or research if there’s an English equivalent or just try to rephrase it. It’s still part of the conversation and what’s the use of your clever phrase if others aren't able to understand it.

Q: What about videos/stickers/etc. containing other language text? Can I use them?

Yes. Content (videos, stickers, images, etc.) can feature non-English elements. It can’t be helped and is pretty harmless. But actual conversation should be kept in English.

Q: Is my nation still allowed in the group?

Yes! If you’re talking about Russian, Iranian or others as in nationality, no one gets banned for who they are. We welcome everyone here, no matter your race, nationality, gender or whatever it could be. It’s understandable misbelief due to current political situation, but it’s not an attack against a nation (or even a language), just for communication purposes.