[Wikipedia-l] Re: Indian languages and grants (was Re: Combined effort)

[Anthere]

Delirium a écrit:
 > Tim Starling wrote:
 >
 >> Choice of language is a political
 >> issue, see e.g.
 >>
 >> http://www.languageinindia.com/feb2004/langnewsfeb2004.html
 >>
 >> I think the production of content accessible to less well educated
 >> people who aren't connected to the Internet is a goal in line with
 >> Wikipedia's mission. Much closer to our mission than a producing a
 >> species database, in any case. Perhaps there might be funding available
 >> for generating content in these languages.
 >>
 >>
 > There are, of course, two solutions to this problem.  One is to help
 > less-well-educated people become better educated, which in India means
 > learning English (or, to some extent, Hindi).


<big understatement>

I... do not think helping less-well-educated people become better 
educated... *means*    -------->    "teaching them English".

</big understatement>


  The other is to produce
 > content in less-widely-spoken languages of India.
 > As you noted, the choice is a political one, and I'm not sure we ought
 > to be in the business of running political campaigns.  Providing
 > resources for anyone to work on a Wikipedia in any language they choose,
 > sure; but to actively promote the use of particular languages over other
 > languages isn't our place.
 >
 > -Mark

Plus, I think two issues are at stake here

1) is providing content to readers
2) getting readers to contribute to build up a ressource