Hi,
Le Friday 10 September 2004 17:24, Delirium a écrit :
Sort of a tangential issue: Wikipedians should keep in
mind here that
whatever they do is a positive political and social/cultural act; there
is no correct answer to this question.
Whether Chinese should be one language or diverge into multiple
languages is somewhat similar to the question 180 years ago over whether
the various Greeks spoken throughout the former Ottoman Empire should
remain distinct, or be merged into a "common Greek", and perhaps also
similar to the eternal disputes in France over the differences between
the various regional dialects. If we, for example, say we support
having a separate Wikipedia for a particular French dialect (which we
do), but we oppose having one for a particular Chinese dialect, then
we're making a rather odd political statement. Not that we can't do
that, but it should be done on purpose.
Which French dialects are talking about?
There are regional languages in France, the main ones being Breton, Basque and
Occitan (spelling?), but I don't think there are "French" dialects. You
should also note that Basque and Breton are very different from French.
Occitan is a roman language, but any French speaker may not understand it
better than, say, Italian or Catalan.
-Mark
Yann
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