Hi all,
It looks like there is a problem with “Votic”,
cf. the reply which I received from the scholar who I was referred to via
Best,
Oliver
[…]
I looked through
some articles of Votic Wikiperdia (in fact, I have already read it a
year ago - I did not notice very much changes now).
What can I say? The
problem is that there is a "classical" Votic, which is based on the
grammar by Paul Ariste. This grammar was written in 1948 (translated into
English in 1968) and mostly used the data from already extinct Votic dialect.
People who wrote articles for Wikipedia used this Votic variety. Of course many
contemporary notions does not (and cannot) exist in Ariste's grammar, so the
Wiki authors invent their own words, and use lexical calques from Russian or
Estonian.
The last speakers of
Votic speak different dialect. This difference between dialects concerns
lexicon and, what is more important from my point of view, the whole
phonological system.
I do not know where
the Wiki authors studied Votic but not from the native speakers (though there
can be some exception). Thus, from my point of view the Votic Wikipedia is
written in some artificial language: the previous speakers did not speak this
way as they do not have such lexicon, the contemporary speakers use the dialect
with different phonology and, sometimes, grammar.
I also noticed some
evident grammatical calques from Russian, e.g. (city) le¾ib 'lies', instead of on 'is'.
Now all this looks
like a game: Let us speak "Votic"!
However, I cannot
propose something better for the current situation. Let it exist this way. It's
better than nothing.
Concerning the menu
translation the situation is the same. cülci
for the 'page' looks especially weird, as it means '(body) side'.
If you have any
other questions, please, feel free to contact me.
[…]
From:
Oliver Stegen [mailto:info@oliverstegen.net]
Sent: 07 October 2013 08:12
To: '
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Approval of
Votic Wikipedia
Hi all,
I have just sent a request to a linguist
contact of mine at
Otherwise, I’m fine with approving
Votic.
Cheers,
Oliver
From:
MF-Warburg [mailto:
Sent: 28 September 2013 19:37
To:
Subject: [Langcom] Approval of
Votic Wikipedia
Hi all,
I propose to approve Votic Wikipedia (vot).
Test wiki: https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/vot
Activity: http://toolserver.org/~pathoschild/catanalysis/?cat=0&title=Wp/vot&wiki=incubatorwiki_p#distribution_201309
(always at least 3 users with >10 edits since 5 months, and also previous
such activity in 2012).
Translation of the most-used messages is complete (<http://toolserver.org/~robin/?tool=codelookup&code=vot>).
As this would be the first project in Votic, we also would need an
expert to verify the content.
(By the way, verification for Livonian is still pending - my attempts
to contact people were unsuccesful).
Best regards,
MF-Warburg