[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #753 - 16 msgs

[Matt M.]

> >> I do, however, like the idea of representing languages with images
> >> of famous contributors in that language; this could be used in
> >> lots of places writing about Wikipedia.  I'd suggest Shakespeare,
> >> Hugo, Cervantes as the obvious English/French/Spanish ones.
> >> I don't know who would be appropriate for the others.

This is my favourite suggestion just for the flair it shows ;) It would
probably work better in the French wikipedia, in which language expressions
like "langue de Shakespeare" are more common. (The usual people, as far as I
can tell, are Molière, Cervantes, Goethe, Cicéron, Homère, and Zamenhof -
seriously, I read a Le Devoir article that called it "la langue de
Zamenhof"... :)

Seriously, though, I think the plainest solution - simple text links - are
best. Perhaps for completeness we could include both foreign and
own-language forms in different contexts. I don't think there's anything
wrong with just saying French - Spanish - German in an article head in the
English wiki (and of course Anglais - Espagnol - Allemand on the French one,
etc.), and then on the front page saying French - français, Spanish -
español, German - Deutsch. IOW, exactly what we have now, as far as I can
tell.

> May I suggest Coluche or Desproges ? I supposed these
> are not known by canadians ? I don't see why french
> langage would be represented by a French man. By the
> way, we write "français" for the language and
> "Français" for the french man. These two words are
> absolutely not interchangeable. That's both grammar
> flaw and countrycentrism.

Ça me semble que dans une liste on devrait mettre une majuscule comme ça:

- Anglais
- Français
- Espagnol
- Latin
- Espéranto

n'est-ce pas? Mais de toute façon, in English we try not to say "the
Frenchman" if referring to an indefinite person; that's sexist. We say "a
French person." But I don't think you were trying to be sexist - all this to
say that we should cut each other a little slack when dealing with languages
not their own.

Matt (Montrealais)
Montreal, Quebec