Forum Moderators: open
One reason is for link stability; better to list canada.gc.ca because next week, canada.gc.ca/main_e.html may turn into canada.gc.ca/english.jsp . Another is because the end user browsing the directory in one language may in fact prefer another-- for example, a Hong Kong expat living in Malaysia may be familiar with a directory licensee of World/Bahasa_Melayu , but given a choice would pick the Cantonese version of a site listed in that directory over the Malaysian version.
If the alternative language links on a site are relatively obscured, however, the casual browser might not even notice that they exist-- and think the listing was erroneous and a waste of their time. Therefore, ODP lists www.asahi.com/english/ in the English section of the directory instead of www.asahi.com, which is listed only in the Japanese section.