[Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed

[Muke Tever]

On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:20:29 -0600, Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
> Oldak Quill wrote:
>> I, for one, object to the closure of projects based on elitist
>> concerns as to the origin of the language. What matters is the place
>> of the language in the world now. This language is, crucially,
>> recognised as a language by the International Standardisation
>> Organisation
>
> There is no sense of "recognition" in the ISO code designations. As they
> say for the 693-3 codes, "it is a goal for this part of ISO 639 to
> provide an identifier for every distinct human language that has been
> documented, whether living, extinct, or constructed, and whether its
> modality is spoken, written or signed." There are 7,589 currently.

tlh is also in ISO 639-2 as well, whose scope is more limited, codes being
added to it "when it becomes apparent that a significant body of literature
in a particular language exists."

The full criteria are here:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/criteria2.html
(in brief, "that there is a significant body of literature in the language
or describing the language".)

> So I repeat, your choices are either to have a dictionary define wordsusing words it does not define (Klingon words) or to define words (Klingonwords) that cannot be attested according to normal dictionary standards.

First off, what kind of attestation are you seeking here?  There are published
reference books on the language and several translations into Klingon have been made:
Gilgamesh and a couple of Shakespeare plays are in print; online of course there's
more, such as extensive selections from the Bible (linguist Nick Nicholas has
the full text of the book of Mark on his website, among other things)...  This is
as much as if not more than many minority natural languages have.

I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language".
If Klingon (or any other language) is to be rejected it should be on at least
moderately objective criteria, which would pertain to the language's present,
not its origin--the bar can be higher for a constructed language, but it should
at least be presented an opportunity to rise above its birth.

It seems [from what I can tell now] that the Klingon Wikipedia was closed down not
because of any demerit in the language itself, but chiefly because it was not being
used (having 60 articles at time of closing).  tlh.wiktionary, it seems, has at
least two currently-active users (its admins) and 2,311 content pages.

	*Muke!
-- 
website:     http://frath.net/