"Serbo-Croatian" on the City of Hamburg's Official Website

This really pissed me off when I read the original Croatian text, this morning
so I translated it for everyone else to read...

Another reason why we need to be more proactive in marketing ourselves and
urge our diplomats to do the same!

-Marko 
Source: http://www.online.hr/_clanak.asp?id=90162  

Friday 13, September 2002

"Serbo-Croatian" on the City of Hamburg's Official Website

The official website for the city of Hamburg, one of the five best in Europe
according to the results of the European E-City Awards
(http://www.eec-award.com/) offers information about the city in 21 languages.

That in and of itself is applaudable. We understand that the publishing of
material in over 20 languages is an incredibly time consuming task, but
irregardless it is hard to understand why one of the languages is
"Serbo-Croatian."

To get to the web pages in "Serbo-Croatian" one clicks on the "Serbo-Croatian"
flag.

We asked the authors of the website for a comment along with a question as to
why "Czechoslovakian" or "Swedodanish" languages aren't offered. 

"The Croatian Consulate sent us the same criticism four months ago" said
Rainer Scheppelmann the person responsible for the official Hamburg website.

"We suggested to the Consul to make a Croatian version, or to translate the
material from Serbian. The existing material was at the time labeled as
Serbian. Unfortunately the Consul has not responded since then, until
yesterday, when he said that they would give us a Croatian version in week.

His desire was to leave the "Serbo-Croatian" variant, because he didn't want
the website to have only Serbian."

The Croatian Consulate needed four months to respond. Will one week be enough
time to translate three pages from Serbian into Croatian, will remain to be
seen. 

Matija Babic