[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedias in Philippine languages/political considerations

[sumuroy1998]

I just have to comment on what Guaka said.
 
Regarding the languages of the Philippines, there are only two actual choices at present for the starting language in new Wikipedias in Philippine languages: English and Tagalog, since the Cebuano and Kapampangan wikipedias are still in the initial stages of work and besides as will be discussed below, speakers of Philippine languages who access the Internet tend to be conversant in either or both English and Tagalog.  As a native speaker of Waray-Waray (a.k.a. Waray or Samar-Leyte Visayan) one of the Philippine languages, and the one who made the proposal for a wiki in Waray-Waray in the "requests for new languages" section let me speak for myself why English is a lesser evil than Tagalog as a start-up language even though I understand and am able to use both.  (A third possibility could be Spanish but even fewer Filipinos speak Spanish than those who speak English).
 
Firstly, many Filipino nationals and citizens (as opposed to a "native speaker of the 'Filipino' language" which is really Tagalog initially renamed as "Pilipino" and later repackaged as "Filipino" for the purposes of making it easier to force it on the non-Tagalog ethnic groups of the Philippines) are competent in both English and Tagalog, and most of those who have access to the Internet are fairly conversant in their use of English.  Besides most software in use in the Philippines is in English, not Tagalog.  As a practical matter, for computer users who are native speakers in Philippine languages other than Tagalog, it is of little consequence whether the start-up language is English or Tagalog.  Which leads me to the second consideration.
 
The next consideration is that citizens/nationals of the Philippines use Tagalog because of the pervasive and pernicious myth that one can't be a Filipino unless one uses Tagalog.  In other words, they use it because they have been brainwashed to believe that to be Filipino is synonymous with being Tagalog.  As one who was born in the Philippines I can attest that this belief is pervasive.  To use Tagalog as a start-up language in new wikipedias for other Philippine languages would be a tacit statement of approval of this policy.  This in good conscience I cannot do, and I know that neither Bentong (who proposed the Cebuano Wikipedia) nor Edwin (the proposer for the Kapampangan Wikipedia) accepts this.
 
While I agree in principle with Guaka that it is a good idea to choose the "starting languages" of new Wikipedias, I would rather that the person or persons making the proposal/proposals choose the "starting languages".
 
Regarding the paucity of articles in the Cebuano and Kapampangan wikipedias, I'll leave it to the native speakers to explain that.  I can only speak for myself.  For political reasons, I prefer English as the start-up language if my request for a wiki in Waray-Waray is approved because I can easily translate the English into my native language and also because I am firmly opposed to the current national language policy of the Philippines which is to promote Tagalog at the expense of the other equally worthy indigenous languages of the archipelago. 
 
Regards,
 
--Harvey Fiji
[en:Harvzsf]
[es:Harvzsf]

Guaka <guaka at no-log.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 17:45 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
> While I am in general against imposing restrictions on the creation of
> new Wikipedias, from what I have observed so far those with test
> Wikipedias seem to be more successful: Cebuano and Kapampangan are
> growing very very slowly (didn't have test Wikipedias), while Scots
> and Võro are growing very quickly. Though, to be fair, those requests
> were around longer as well and so had more of a chance to develop a
> wider support base.

Võro and Scots are spoken in countries that have significantly a higher
number of internet connections in general, and broadband connections
specifically. And you only need one active native speaker with a
broadband connection to have quick growth...

And, where people have more knowledge of the English language. For
languages of the Philippines it would probably have been better to start
with another language than English.
I think it would be a good idea to wisely choose the "starting language"
of new Wikipedias. If people can understand the interface they will be
more tempted to add or change something...


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