If I'm the one who doesn't know what consensus means, then what's up
with your "Boris (was it him? I forgot) tried to come up with a
consesnus and you are - again - going counter to him"?
That was the whole point of my private message to you: sarcasm.
What Boris said was his view, not an attempt at a consensus. It was
also a persuasive argument for his viewpoint. However, I am not
obliged to change my views just because of what Boris has said; nor
are you obliged to change your views because of what I have said.
The only way to resolve such a conflict is to respond point-by-point
and elaborate on our opinions with examples, analogies, and the like.
Of course, this doesn't always work, but it would certainly be better
than the responses I've gotten so far. Boris' message is only a
starting-point for a real, constructive dialogue, not the end.
You don't need to worry that a long discussion could hold up the
creation of a new Wikipedia because it will probably take a while
anyways.
None of your responses to my points have been real rebuttals, and you
haven't responded on a point-by-point like Boris did. You've basically
just said "well, that may be true, but they're still too different to
use a single Wikipedia" (this is not, I repeat _not_ a real quote),
Walter has basically just said "people have already responded to your
arguments, and anyways you're not a native speaker so if 5 native
speakers think they need a separate Wikipedia, you must be wrong" (not
a real quote, but his position largely ignores the position of R. F.
Hahn who, although not an active member of the Wikipedia community, is
a native speaker of LS and is very knowledgable about it and other
Lowlands languages), and Servien has actually crafted some good
responses but it would be much easier to follow if he responded to
each point separately, as did Boris. However, some of Servien's
statements are contradictory -- he says that border varieties are very
similar, but later he says "Scots [...] is way closer to English than
DLS to GLS", which although not *directly* contradictory is really
contradictory by example.
Re what other people have said about Scots: Scots and English have an
absolute boundary. Although it's not a strong boundary (there are
transitional dialects), it is definite nonetheless. Also, there are
only two standards for the modern languages descended from
Anglo-Saxon, and from each of them there is a more or less sufficient
degree of intelligibility to all dialects in written form, with some
exceptions (Shetlandic and Orcadian Scots are not easily mutually
intelligible with "Standard Scots").
Differences between Nynorsk and Bokmål can be exaggerated or minimised
depending on choice of words and grammatical constructions.
Ultimately, though, they are both recognised as separate official
varieties of the same language, rather than as parts of a dialect
continuum divided by national borders.
Mark
On 04/07/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
This is what Mark sent to me privately.
Here's *my* attempt at coming up with a
consensus:
1. Of course, Wikipedias should try to unite as many people as
possible and transcend minor variations in languages (e. g. British
and American English share one Wikipedia).
2. Of course, the regional variants of Low Saxon form a dialect
continuum, i. e. mutual intelligibility decreases with increasing
distance.
3. Of course, in linguistics national borders don't equal language
barriers.
4. However, in real-life political borders in Europe have throughout
the centuries left clear marks on the way people speak and write. New
words and idioms entered the dialects almost always via Standard
German or Standard Dutch respectively. Whenever speakers of Low Saxon
dialects write something down, they fall back on the languages they
were taught writing in - that is either Dutch or German. Furthermore,
all Low Saxon speakers in the Netherlands are confronted with Standard
Dutch every single day while those living east of the border deal with
Hochdeutsch day after day. Nevertheless, these differences may be
surmountable and the issue should be explored further rather than
acting rashly to create a linguistic fork.
5. Of course, splitting nds into Dutch and German editions will not
eliminate the difficulties a person from Pommeria will face in trying
to understand the vernacular speech of someone from East Frisia.
Although it will reduce the overall spectrum the Low Saxon Wikipedia
has to cover now, it won't address the other problems that are at work
here, not least the fact that nds.wiki is written mostly in
Missingsch.
When I first read the request for a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia I
considered it a little far-fetched myself. I still do, and so far
nobody's actually crafted a logical response to my arguments other
than Boris, preferring instead to discount them because I'm not a
native speaker, or to repeat the same thing over and over.
So I've come to the conclusion that while it might appear to be an
acceptable solution from some perspectives to set up a separate
Wikipedia for Low Saxon in the Netherlands, it is not a very workable
solution from a real world perspective.
Mark
I cannot understand this in any other way than: "I am right, so create no
nds-nl Wikipedia". Mark you seem not to know the word "consensus". That
means that two opinions meet somewhere in between, not that either party
gets what it wants!
Wouter
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