You said, and I quote, "It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia
to every single person on the planet in their own language."
"In their own language" is unambiguous. Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "own
language" is Gikuyu. He can read English very well, and Swahili very
well. He would be able to read those Wikipedias. But they are not "in
his own language".
Mark
On 09/06/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
(Wouter asked me privately to please personally
comment on this thread,
so I will.)
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
Could requests
for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted.
Not knowing anything about these two particular variants, I am unable to
make a proper guess or judgment.
This thread has done a very good job I think of discussing some or most
of the factors that should properly go into a decision such as this.
We are currently inconsistent in our treatment of different linguistic
situations. I do not think this inconsistency is good, but I also do
not think it is a grave crisis. I am not even certain that consistency
is desirable -- there may not be a "one size fits all" solution to this
question.
One thing I think we can all agree upon: there is a difference between
us *needing* a certain language in order to fulfill our global vision of
a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet (in a language
they can easily enough understand) and us *wanting* a certain language
in order to fulfill a secondary goal of language preservation and
support for minority communities.
"Every single person on the planet" is a bit of rhetoric, but a serious
bit of rhetoric. I will feel that this mission is complete if we have
an encyclopedia written in enough languages so that 99.99% of all people
_who are able to read in some language_ can read a Wikipedia.
Let me take as an example Welsh. I am happy that we have a Welsh
wikipedia. But it is all true that virtually every Welsh reader can
also read English. Therefore, to meet our *central* mission, English
does the trick for Welsh speakers. And for this *secondary* goal, Welsh
is a nice thing to have too.
Are all people who could read Zeelandic and Town Frisian also people who
can read standard Dutch? Then we don't *need* them for our primary
mission, but they would be a nice thing to have as well, if it makes
social sense for the community. (Meaning, if there are enough people
who want to do it, etc.)
--Jimbo
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