There is a request for Wikipedia in "Lingua Franca Nova", which is a constructed language with an ISO 639-3 code. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Lingua_... I'm bringing it up because there is currently a very active contributor on Incubator.
A previous request was rejected in 2008. Of course, the Language Proposal Policy says: If the proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto, it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language committee).
What are your opinions about the degree of recognition? Can the language be eligible or should it be rejected? I have never heard of this language before, but I am of course only a linguistic layman.
I support LFN. I have published a translation of Alice into it, and will be publishing a grammar and dictionary in due course.
On 31 Jan 2017, at 14:20, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
There is a request for Wikipedia in "Lingua Franca Nova", which is a constructed language with an ISO 639-3 code. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Lingua_Franca_Nova_2 I'm bringing it up because there is currently a very active contributor on Incubator.
A previous request was rejected in 2008. Of course, the Language Proposal Policy says: If the proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto, it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language committee).
What are your opinions about the degree of recognition? Can the language be eligible or should it be rejected? I have never heard of this language before, but I am of course only a linguistic layman. _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 4:19 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
I support LFN. I have published a translation of Alice into it, and will be publishing a grammar and dictionary in due course.
Michael, may you give us your arguments in favor of usefulness of LFN as a language of an encyclopedia and other educational material? For example, in comparison with Esperanto (as, according to our present rules, Esperanto *would* pass). A new project doesn't cost us a lot, but it would be useful to have your set of arguments in favor if we make it eligible.
Please note that SIL accepted a change request (submitted by the inventor of this language, cf. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2007-144.pdf) but Ethnologue did not include lfn in their editions ever.
Given that LFN has a wiki on Wikia (cf. http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef), I don't see why we should accept it as a Wikimedia project. Let it go the way of Klingon ...
Fwiw, Oliver
On 31-Jan-17 15:20, MF-Warburg wrote:
There is a request for Wikipedia in "Lingua Franca Nova", which is a constructed language with an ISO 639-3 code. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Lingua_Franca_Nova_2 I'm bringing it up because there is currently a very active contributor on Incubator.
A previous request was rejected in 2008. Of course, the Language Proposal Policy says: If the proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto, it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language committee).
What are your opinions about the degree of recognition? Can the language be eligible or should it be rejected? I have never heard of this language before, but I am of course only a linguistic layman.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Klingon has a ridiculously limited vocabulary. LFN is as interesting and useful as Esperanto, and has a large and preactical vocabulary. I favour inclusiveness. It costs us little.
On 31 Jan 2017, at 17:48, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
Please note that SIL accepted a change request (submitted by the inventor of this language, cf. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2007-144.pdf) but Ethnologue did not include lfn in their editions ever.
So? That’s Ethnologue’s business.
Given that LFN has a wiki on Wikia (cf. http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef), I don't see why we should accept it as a Wikimedia project. Let it go the way of Klingon ...
Well, fair enough - LFN has an ISO 639-3 code and thus is technically eligible. However, how would it reasonably fulfill the criterion of native speaker editors? I'm even more doubtful than what Amir and Anthony expressed. I don't see how LFN can be sustainable enough to ever be allowed to leave the incubator. Sorry for my obstinacy.
On 31-Jan-17 19:00, Michael Everson wrote:
Klingon has a ridiculously limited vocabulary. LFN is as interesting and useful as Esperanto, and has a large and preactical vocabulary. I favour inclusiveness. It costs us little.
On 31 Jan 2017, at 17:48, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
Please note that SIL accepted a change request (submitted by the inventor of this language, cf. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2007-144.pdf) but Ethnologue did not include lfn in their editions ever.
So? That’s Ethnologue’s business.
Given that LFN has a wiki on Wikia (cf. http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef), I don't see why we should accept it as a Wikimedia project. Let it go the way of Klingon ...
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Hoi, We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 01:57, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
Well, fair enough - LFN has an ISO 639-3 code and thus is technically eligible. However, how would it reasonably fulfill the criterion of native speaker editors? I'm even more doubtful than what Amir and Anthony expressed. I don't see how LFN can be sustainable enough to ever be allowed to leave the incubator. Sorry for my obstinacy.
On 31-Jan-17 19:00, Michael Everson wrote:
Klingon has a ridiculously limited vocabulary. LFN is as interesting and useful as Esperanto, and has a large and preactical vocabulary. I favour inclusiveness. It costs us little.
On 31 Jan 2017, at 17:48, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
Please note that SIL accepted a change request (submitted by the inventor of this language, cf. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3 /cr_files/2007-144.pdf) but Ethnologue did not include lfn in their editions ever.
So? That’s Ethnologue’s business.
Given that LFN has a wiki on Wikia (cf. http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje
_xef), I don't see why we should accept it as a Wikimedia project. Let it go the way of Klingon ...
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy
to
prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at
the
time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren.jan@gmail.com mailto:ijzeren.jan@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself. My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable? At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten. The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor". Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either. Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that? Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself. When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it. And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it. LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef <http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef>) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance? Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan) 2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com <mailto:millosh@gmail.com>>: On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>> wrote: > We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted > to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to > prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the > time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all > together. > > When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts > are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are. True. Here is my more precise position. My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request. There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as. We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment. _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom>
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia ( http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy
to
prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at
the
time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing listLangcom@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
As a matter of fact, I've never really understood why Ancient Greek didn't get its own Pedia long before. I mean, if we can have one in Anglosaxon, Old Church Slavonic, Classical Chinese and even Wulfilan Gothic, then why not one in Ancient Greek?
I don't know what the situation in other countries is, but here in the Netherlands Ancient Greek is an important topic on secondary schools of the highest level, and if I am to believe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school), the same goes for many other European countries as well. In other words, there is a large pool of people for whom Ancient Greek is an essential part of their education, including not only students, but also thousands of teachers. I genuinely believe a WP in Ancient Greek could be a great addition for those who'd like to read something else than just Homer, Euripides and Xenophon, and perhaps even to write something. From that point of view, I think it could be a nice learning tool for quite lot of people, and I can clearly see the educational value in that.
The only problem might be the lack of words for modern concepts, but I suppose there are several possible solutions for that.
Cheers, Jan
2017-02-02 15:52 GMT+01:00 MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia ( http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the
policy to
prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at
the
time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing listLangcom@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Yes, my current understanding now is that *any* language with an ISO 639-3 code is eligible to be put on incubator for continued verification. If a community then emerges which steadily works on the requirements (regardless whether they are native speakers or not, in case of languages without native speakers like classical languages, e.g. Latin, or constructed languages, cf. the list below), LangCom may then use its discretion to approve such a proposal.
Please note that I'm a bureaucrat at sw:wp, a language which I speak, read and write very well but am not a native speaker of. Most of sw:wp's content (and it's one of the most successful African language wikipedias!) has been created by non-native speakers (cf. https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaSW.htm#wikipedians; of the first ten most active non-bot editors, only no.6 is a native speaker of Swahili; most if not all of the other nine aren't even native to the continent of Africa). Just fyi :)
So, there seems to be wiki value in dedicated L2 speakers ...
On 02-Feb-17 15:52, MF-Warburg wrote:
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen <oliver_stegen@sil.org mailto:oliver_stegen@sil.org>:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks! In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.) Oliver On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way. The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future. The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated). So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren.jan@gmail.com <mailto:ijzeren.jan@gmail.com>> wrote: I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself. My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable? At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten. The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor". Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either. Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that? Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself. When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it. And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it. LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef <http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef>) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance? Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan) 2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com <mailto:millosh@gmail.com>>: On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>> wrote: > We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted > to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to > prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the > time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all > together. > > When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts > are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are. True. Here is my more precise position. My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request. There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as. We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment. _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom>_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom>
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Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
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Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On 2 Feb 2017, at 20:52, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed?
I imagine the community would be able to answer that. But so did Latin develop over time.
Michael
The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard
should be followed?
There are plenty of languages with Wikipedias that do not have a single written standard. For example: * Silesian has two or three different orthographies, all of which can be used (in other words, it's the author who decides which orthography an article is in). * Norman has four different dialects, all of which can be used. Articles are also categorised by the dialects they are written in. * Rusyn has multiple dialects as well, but AFAIK they try to stick to the dialect used in Slovakia. * Some languages (like Serbo-Croat) can be written in multiple alphabets and have special software for switching between them. * If I recall correctly, I have seen cases of the same article having multiple versions in one Wikipedia.
In other words, all kinds of possibilities. My guess is that in the case of grc it will be Attic Greek for 99%, but if there will be a few articles in Doric or Koine, then I'd say that would be an enrichment.
Cheers, Jan
2017-02-02 21:52 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/ Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy
to
prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at
the
time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing listLangcom@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
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Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Hoi, The point of teaching GRC is to help understand the old documents in GRC. As it is not a living language the point is that students learn it as it was. Innovation is therefore counter to the objective of teaching the language. Compare this to Latin; the same applies but it has always been spoken / used in the Roman Catholic church so it is a language where documents can be found in Latin that are from many later centuries and it does have this history of innovation. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2017 at 18:23, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what
standard should be followed?
There are plenty of languages with Wikipedias that do not have a single written standard. For example:
- Silesian has two or three different orthographies, all of which can be
used (in other words, it's the author who decides which orthography an article is in).
- Norman has four different dialects, all of which can be used. Articles
are also categorised by the dialects they are written in.
- Rusyn has multiple dialects as well, but AFAIK they try to stick to the
dialect used in Slovakia.
- Some languages (like Serbo-Croat) can be written in multiple alphabets
and have special software for switching between them.
- If I recall correctly, I have seen cases of the same article having
multiple versions in one Wikipedia.
In other words, all kinds of possibilities. My guess is that in the case of grc it will be Attic Greek for 99%, but if there will be a few articles in Doric or Koine, then I'd say that would be an enrichment.
Cheers, Jan
2017-02-02 21:52 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia ( http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy
to
prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at
the
time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing listLangcom@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Pardon me for intervening in your proceedings, but Byzantine Koine Greek has always been spoken in the Greek Orthodox church in liturgy and admin and documents can be found in Greek that are from many centuries later as well and it also has this history of innovation. It really isn't a different case between Greek and Latin. Also both languages are constantly being used for creating new words in English and other languages, particularly when it comes to science related terms. Furthermore, there is use of ancient Greek in modern contexts too, e.g. an up to date news website in ancient Greek at [http://www.akwn.net/ ](http://www.akwn.net/) that has been going for 10+ years, or the Harry potter translation at https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Philosophers-Ancient-Edition/dp/15823482..., examples which showcase that the language can certainly be used for creating new material.
Best regards, George T.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Langcom] Lingua Franca Nova Local Time: February 7, 2017 5:36 AM UTC Time: February 7, 2017 5:36 AM From: gerard.meijssen@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
Hoi, The point of teaching GRC is to help understand the old documents in GRC. As it is not a living language the point is that students learn it as it was. Innovation is therefore counter to the objective of teaching the language. Compare this to Latin; the same applies but it has always been spoken / used in the Roman Catholic church so it is a language where documents can be found in Latin that are from many later centuries and it does have this history of innovation. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2017 at 18:23, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed?
There are plenty of languages with Wikipedias that do not have a single written standard. For example: * Silesian has two or three different orthographies, all of which can be used (in other words, it's the author who decides which orthography an article is in). * Norman has four different dialects, all of which can be used. Articles are also categorised by the dialects they are written in. * Rusyn has multiple dialects as well, but AFAIK they try to stick to the dialect used in Slovakia. * Some languages (like Serbo-Croat) can be written in multiple alphabets and have special software for switching between them. * If I recall correctly, I have seen cases of the same article having multiple versions in one Wikipedia.
In other words, all kinds of possibilities. My guess is that in the case of grc it will be Attic Greek for 99%, but if there will be a few articles in Doric or Koine, then I'd say that would be an enrichment.
Cheers, Jan
2017-02-02 21:52 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 5:33 AM George C. Tsiagalakis gts@theglider.net wrote:
an up to date news website in ancient Greek at http://www.akwn.net/ http://www.akwn.net/ that has been going for 10+ years, or the Harry potter translation at https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Philosophers-Ancient-Edition/dp/15823482..., examples which showcase that the language can certainly be used for creating new material.
Both of those use Attic Greek, btw, confirming what I said in the other thread. *IF* a community arises interested in cultivating a grc Wikipedia, it would be in Attic.
(And yes, of course there is a large contingent of scholars and students primarily interested in koine rather than Attic, for religious or merely theological reasons. I should have acknowledged this in my earlier post.)
A.
Thanks, but it's not necessarily only a matter of theology, Suda for example is a 30.000 entries 9th century byzantine encyclopedia, or even far before this Plutarch, Strabo, Lucian and plenty others wrote in -an earlier version of- Koine. I am only mentioning this as the body of texts available in Koine -for any type of subject- far exceeds the body of available texts in Attic -due to the much greater time span and geographical coverage-, and as a consequence there is a lot of scholarly research and study of Koine as well. As I have been the grc incubator moderator since the past year, I have noticed a mix of both dialects and preferences in the community when creating articles. However when it comes to examples of modern usage in general, the use of Koine indeed seems to be primarily centered around religious purposes (e.g. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople).
Kind regards, George T.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Langcom] Lingua Franca Nova Local Time: February 8, 2017 1:10 AM UTC Time: February 8, 2017 1:10 AM From: abartov@wikimedia.org To: George C. Tsiagalakis gts@theglider.net, Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 5:33 AM George C. Tsiagalakis gts@theglider.net wrote:
an up to date news website in ancient Greek at [http://www.akwn.net/ ](http://www.akwn.net/) that has been going for 10+ years, or the Harry potter translation at https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Philosophers-Ancient-Edition/dp/15823482..., examples which showcase that the language can certainly be used for creating new material.
Both of those use Attic Greek, btw, confirming what I said in the other thread. *IF* a community arises interested in cultivating a grc Wikipedia, it would be in Attic.
(And yes, of course there is a large contingent of scholars and students primarily interested in koine rather than Attic, for religious or merely theological reasons. I should have acknowledged this in my earlier post.)
A.
Agreed.
A.
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 8:13 PM George C. Tsiagalakis gts@theglider.net wrote:
Thanks, but it's not necessarily only a matter of theology, Suda for example is a 30.000 entries 9th century byzantine encyclopedia, or even far before this Plutarch, Strabo, Lucian and plenty others wrote in -an earlier version of- Koine. I am only mentioning this as the body of texts available in Koine -for any type of subject- far exceeds the body of available texts in Attic -due to the much greater time span and geographical coverage-, and as a consequence there is a lot of scholarly research and study of Koine as well. As I have been the grc incubator moderator since the past year, I have noticed a mix of both dialects and preferences in the community when creating articles. However when it comes to examples of modern usage in general, the use of Koine indeed seems to be primarily centered around religious purposes (e.g. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople).
Kind regards, George T.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Langcom] Lingua Franca Nova
Local Time: February 8, 2017 1:10 AM UTC Time: February 8, 2017 1:10 AM From: abartov@wikimedia.org To: George C. Tsiagalakis gts@theglider.net, Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 5:33 AM George C. Tsiagalakis gts@theglider.net wrote:
an up to date news website in ancient Greek at http://www.akwn.net/ http://www.akwn.net/ that has been going for 10+ years, or the Harry potter translation at https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Philosophers-Ancient-Edition/dp/15823482..., examples which showcase that the language can certainly be used for creating new material.
Both of those use Attic Greek, btw, confirming what I said in the other thread. *IF* a community arises interested in cultivating a grc Wikipedia, it would be in Attic.
(And yes, of course there is a large contingent of scholars and students primarily interested in koine rather than Attic, for religious or merely theological reasons. I should have acknowledged this in my earlier post.)
A.
Hmmm - I'm afraid I cannot agree with your depiction of such a categorical difference between Latin and Classical Greek. Let's start with Latin: According to Pei (1976) and Herman (1996), Latin was displaced gradually in spoken form between 400-700; it was in official use up to the first decades of the 19th century [as] the language of research and philosophy in Europe, although Latin was not the native tongue for any group of people during this time; by AD 1000, Latin's daughter languagesSpanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Provençal, French, Italian, Rheto-Romance, and Rumanian were all firmly established as native languages of Southern Europe, to the exclusion of Latin as a first language (!).
Now to Classical Greek: The two strands of [grc] would be Ancient Greek (starting with Homer etc) and Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament); please note that Ethnologue subsumes Classical Greek and Koine Greek as dialects of "Ancient Greek". The history of the Greek language (cf. Horrocks 2009) actually bears out almost a tug-of-war between the more literary Classical and the more colloquial Koine, including the movement of Atticism in Byzantine times, and its grip on Katharevousa over the last two centuries, where Classical Greek finally "lost out" to Demotic only 40 years ago in modern Greece. Also, Koine Greek is just as "alive" in the Orthodox Church as Latin was in the Catholic Church up to Vatican II (cf. the discussion at http://orthodoxoutpost.com/?p=164).
My conclusion: Latin and Classical Greek are very comparable in their history, development and language use, including the fact that both are dead languages now, and both are still vehicles of (more or less successful) communication in their respective churches. Hence, I cannot support a decision to grant a wikipedia to one and deny it to another - especially if there are communities willing and able to guarantee and demonstrate the success of their wikipedia.
* Herman, Jozsef. “The End of the History of Latin”/Romance Philology/. 49:4 (1996) pp364-382. * Horrocks, Geoffrey. /Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers/. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. * Pei, Mario./The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages/. Harper & Row: New York, 1976.
Fwiw, Oliver
On 07-Feb-17 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, The point of teaching GRC is to help understand the old documents in GRC. As it is not a living language the point is that students learn it as it was. Innovation is therefore counter to the objective of teaching the language. Compare this to Latin; the same applies but it has always been spoken / used in the Roman Catholic church so it is a language where documents can be found in Latin that are from many later centuries and it does have this history of innovation. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2017 at 18:23, Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren.jan@gmail.com mailto:ijzeren.jan@gmail.com> wrote:
>The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? There are plenty of languages with Wikipedias that do not have a single written standard. For example: * Silesian has two or three different orthographies, all of which can be used (in other words, it's the author who decides which orthography an article is in). * Norman has four different dialects, all of which can be used. Articles are also categorised by the dialects they are written in. * Rusyn has multiple dialects as well, but AFAIK they try to stick to the dialect used in Slovakia. * Some languages (like Serbo-Croat) can be written in multiple alphabets and have special software for switching between them. * If I recall correctly, I have seen cases of the same article having multiple versions in one Wikipedia. In other words, all kinds of possibilities. My guess is that in the case of grc it will be Attic Greek for 99%, but if there will be a few articles in Doric or Koine, then I'd say that would be an enrichment. Cheers, Jan 2017-02-02 21:52 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>>: Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? Thanks, GerardM Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg <mfwarburg@googlemail.com <mailto:mfwarburg@googlemail.com>> Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)? 2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen <oliver_stegen@sil.org <mailto:oliver_stegen@sil.org>>: Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks! In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.) Oliver On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way. The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future. The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated). So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren.jan@gmail.com <mailto:ijzeren.jan@gmail.com>> wrote: I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself. My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable? At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten. The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor". Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either. Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that? Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself. When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it. And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it. LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef <http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef>) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance? Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan) 2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com <mailto:millosh@gmail.com>>: On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com <mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>> wrote: > We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted > to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to > prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the > time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all > together. > > When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts > are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are. True. Here is my more precise position. My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request. There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as. We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment. _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom>_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom> _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom>
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Donning my lapsed hellenist hat for a moment, I i will note that the dialect most likely to see contributions in, in [grc], would be *classical Attic Greek*. (That is the Greek of the philosophers and the dramatists, but not of Homer, Herodotus, the lyric poets, etc.) It is the best-documented dialect of [grc], and the one most commonly taught at schools and in classics departments. Some students also learn Homeric. Far fewer ever gain a working proficiency (beyond reading) in Ionic, Doric, or the other dialects.
Since there are no native speakers, any [grc] wiki would be maintained by L2 hobbyists and scholars, like the Latin Wikipedia. That's why the most taught dialect is important.
(Personally, although I am grc-3 (and la-3), I am not interested in contributing to Wikipedias in those languages. I am about sharing knowledge in languages people actually consume knowledge in, rather than practicing my classical grammar.)
A.
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 1:00 AM Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
Hmmm - I'm afraid I cannot agree with your depiction of such a categorical difference between Latin and Classical Greek. Let's start with Latin: According to Pei (1976) and Herman (1996), Latin was displaced gradually in spoken form between 400-700; it was in official use up to the first decades of the 19th century [as] the language of research and philosophy in Europe, although Latin was not the native tongue for any group of people during this time; by AD 1000, Latin's daughter languages Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Provençal, French, Italian, Rheto-Romance, and Rumanian were all firmly established as native languages of Southern Europe, to the exclusion of Latin as a first language (!).
Now to Classical Greek: The two strands of [grc] would be Ancient Greek (starting with Homer etc) and Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament); please note that Ethnologue subsumes Classical Greek and Koine Greek as dialects of "Ancient Greek". The history of the Greek language (cf. Horrocks 2009) actually bears out almost a tug-of-war between the more literary Classical and the more colloquial Koine, including the movement of Atticism in Byzantine times, and its grip on Katharevousa over the last two centuries, where Classical Greek finally "lost out" to Demotic only 40 years ago in modern Greece. Also, Koine Greek is just as "alive" in the Orthodox Church as Latin was in the Catholic Church up to Vatican II (cf. the discussion at http://orthodoxoutpost.com/?p=164).
My conclusion: Latin and Classical Greek are very comparable in their history, development and language use, including the fact that both are dead languages now, and both are still vehicles of (more or less successful) communication in their respective churches. Hence, I cannot support a decision to grant a wikipedia to one and deny it to another - especially if there are communities willing and able to guarantee and demonstrate the success of their wikipedia.
- Herman, Jozsef. “The End of the History of Latin” *Romance Philology*.
49:4 (1996) pp364-382.
- Horrocks, Geoffrey. *Greek: A History of the Language and its
Speakers*. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
- Pei, Mario. *The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages*. Harper &
Row: New York, 1976.
Fwiw, Oliver
On 07-Feb-17 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, The point of teaching GRC is to help understand the old documents in GRC. As it is not a living language the point is that students learn it as it was. Innovation is therefore counter to the objective of teaching the language. Compare this to Latin; the same applies but it has always been spoken / used in the Roman Catholic church so it is a language where documents can be found in Latin that are from many later centuries and it does have this history of innovation. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2017 at 18:23, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what
standard should be followed?
There are plenty of languages with Wikipedias that do not have a single written standard. For example:
- Silesian has two or three different orthographies, all of which can be
used (in other words, it's the author who decides which orthography an article is in).
- Norman has four different dialects, all of which can be used. Articles
are also categorised by the dialects they are written in.
- Rusyn has multiple dialects as well, but AFAIK they try to stick to the
dialect used in Slovakia.
- Some languages (like Serbo-Croat) can be written in multiple alphabets
and have special software for switching between them.
- If I recall correctly, I have seen cases of the same article having
multiple versions in one Wikipedia.
In other words, all kinds of possibilities. My guess is that in the case of grc it will be Attic Greek for 99%, but if there will be a few articles in Doric or Koine, then I'd say that would be an enrichment.
Cheers, Jan
2017-02-02 21:52 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing listLangcom@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
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The choice of dialect or dialects should really be a decision for the community that are actually interested in and involved in the project to make, however it should be noted that both Attic and Koine Greek are thoroughly documented and taught, the latter in particular due to it's Bible connection (septuagint) as well as the new testament having been written directly in Koine Greek.
George T.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Langcom] Greek vs Latin (WAS: Lingua Franca Nova) Local Time: 7 February 2017 9:11 AM UTC Time: 7 February 2017 09:11 From: abartov@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
Donning my lapsed hellenist hat for a moment, I i will note that the dialect most likely to see contributions in, in [grc], would be classical Attic Greek. (That is the Greek of the philosophers and the dramatists, but not of Homer, Herodotus, the lyric poets, etc.) It is the best-documented dialect of [grc], and the one most commonly taught at schools and in classics departments. Some students also learn Homeric. Far fewer ever gain a working proficiency (beyond reading) in Ionic, Doric, or the other dialects.
Since there are no native speakers, any [grc] wiki would be maintained by L2 hobbyists and scholars, like the Latin Wikipedia. That's why the most taught dialect is important.
(Personally, although I am grc-3 (and la-3), I am not interested in contributing to Wikipedias in those languages. I am about sharing knowledge in languages people actually consume knowledge in, rather than practicing my classical grammar.)
A.
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 1:00 AM Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
Hmmm - I'm afraid I cannot agree with your depiction of such a categorical difference between Latin and Classical Greek. Let's start with Latin: According to Pei (1976) and Herman (1996), Latin was displaced gradually in spoken form between 400-700; it was in official use up to the first decades of the 19th century [as] the language of research and philosophy in Europe, although Latin was not the native tongue for any group of people during this time; by AD 1000, Latin's daughter languages Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Provençal, French, Italian, Rheto-Romance, and Rumanian were all firmly established as native languages of Southern Europe, to the exclusion of Latin as a first language (!).
Now to Classical Greek: The two strands of [grc] would be Ancient Greek (starting with Homer etc) and Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament); please note that Ethnologue subsumes Classical Greek and Koine Greek as dialects of "Ancient Greek". The history of the Greek language (cf. Horrocks 2009) actually bears out almost a tug-of-war between the more literary Classical and the more colloquial Koine, including the movement of Atticism in Byzantine times, and its grip on Katharevousa over the last two centuries, where Classical Greek finally "lost out" to Demotic only 40 years ago in modern Greece. Also, Koine Greek is just as "alive" in the Orthodox Church as Latin was in the Catholic Church up to Vatican II (cf. the discussion at http://orthodoxoutpost.com/?p=164).
My conclusion: Latin and Classical Greek are very comparable in their history, development and language use, including the fact that both are dead languages now, and both are still vehicles of (more or less successful) communication in their respective churches. Hence, I cannot support a decision to grant a wikipedia to one and deny it to another - especially if there are communities willing and able to guarantee and demonstrate the success of their wikipedia.
- Herman, Jozsef. “The End of the History of Latin” Romance Philology. 49:4 (1996) pp364-382.
- Horrocks, Geoffrey. Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
- Pei, Mario. The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages. Harper & Row: New York, 1976.
Fwiw, Oliver
On 07-Feb-17 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, The point of teaching GRC is to help understand the old documents in GRC. As it is not a living language the point is that students learn it as it was. Innovation is therefore counter to the objective of teaching the language. Compare this to Latin; the same applies but it has always been spoken / used in the Roman Catholic church so it is a language where documents can be found in Latin that are from many later centuries and it does have this history of innovation.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 3 February 2017 at 18:23, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed?
There are plenty of languages with Wikipedias that do not have a single written standard. For example: * Silesian has two or three different orthographies, all of which can be used (in other words, it's the author who decides which orthography an article is in). * Norman has four different dialects, all of which can be used. Articles are also categorised by the dialects they are written in. * Rusyn has multiple dialects as well, but AFAIK they try to stick to the dialect used in Slovakia. * Some languages (like Serbo-Croat) can be written in multiple alphabets and have special software for switching between them. * If I recall correctly, I have seen cases of the same article having multiple versions in one Wikipedia.
In other words, all kinds of possibilities. My guess is that in the case of grc it will be Attic Greek for 99%, but if there will be a few articles in Doric or Koine, then I'd say that would be an enrichment.
Cheers, Jan
2017-02-02 21:52 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com
Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02 12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org:
Hi, I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!
In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)
Oliver
On 02-Feb-17 10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
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There is a slight difference.
The Roman Catholic Church is still working to define how translate new words in Latin because Latin is still used in official communications or during official events bit what is more importan it's used for the Canon law (http://www.vatican.va/latin/latin_codex.html).
Here the list of new words:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/latinitas/documents...
and here the list of all official documents:
http://www.vatican.va/latin/latin_index.html
In this case there is a body who is keeping this language still live. It's not a mother tongue, but we cannot say that it's died because there is an entity who is maintining it updated.
I don't know if the same happens for the old greek.
I agree that projects like Wikisource or Wiktionary (mainly to recreate historical genesis of the words) fit really well with both languages, but for the old greek there is still the problem to adapt the new words without using personal or creative words but also to define what is the source to use to solve disputed translations.
Kind regards
Ilario
In data 07/Feb/2017 09.59.50, Oliver Stegen ha scritto:
> Hmmm - I'm afraid I cannot agree with your depiction of such a categorical difference between Latin and Classical Greek.
Let's start with Latin: According to Pei (1976) and Herman (1996), > Latin was displaced gradually in spoken form between 400-700; > it was in official use up to the first decades of the 19th century [as] the language of research and philosophy in Europe, although Latin was not the native tongue for any group of people during this time; by AD 1000, Latin's daughter languages> > Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Provençal, French, Italian, Rheto-Romance, and Rumanian were all firmly established as native languages of Southern Europe, to the exclusion of Latin as a first language (!).
> Now to Classical Greek: The two strands of [grc] would be Ancient Greek (starting with Homer etc) and Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament); please note that Ethnologue subsumes Classical Greek and Koine Greek as dialects of "Ancient Greek". The history of the Greek language (cf. Horrocks 2009) actually bears out almost a tug-of-war between the more literary Classical and the more colloquial Koine, including the movement of Atticism in Byzantine times, and its grip on Katharevousa over the last two centuries, where Classical Greek finally "lost out" to Demotic only 40 years ago in modern Greece. Also, Koine Greek is just as "alive" in the Orthodox Church as Latin was in the Catholic Church up to Vatican II (cf. the discussion at > http://orthodoxoutpost.com/?p=164%3E ).> > My conclusion: Latin and Classical Greek are very comparable in their history, development and language use, including the fact that both are dead languages now, and both are still vehicles of (more or less successful) communication in their respective churches. Hence, I cannot support a decision to grant a wikipedia to one and deny it to another - especially if there are communities willing and able to guarantee and demonstrate the success of their wikipedia.
> Herman, Jozsef. “The End of the History of Latin”> > Romance Philology> . 49:4 (1996) pp364-382.> > Horrocks, Geoffrey. > Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers> . Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
> Pei, Mario.> > The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages> . Harper & Row: New York, 1976.> > Fwiw,
Oliver
On 07-Feb-17 06:36, Gerard Meijssen
wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > Hoi,
The point of teaching GRC is to help understand the old documents in GRC. As it is not a living language the point is that students learn it as it was. Innovation is therefore counter to the objective of teaching the language. Compare this to Latin; the same applies but it has always been spoken / used in the Roman Catholic church so it is a language where documents can be found in Latin that are from many later centuries and it does have this history of innovation.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 3 February 2017 at 18:23, Jan van
Steenbergen > > <> > ijzeren.jan@gmail.com> > >> > wrote:
> > > > > > > The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed?> > >
> > > There are plenty of languages with Wikipedias that do not have a single written standard. For example:
> > > * Silesian has two or three different orthographies, all of which can be used (in other words, it's the author who decides which orthography an article is in).
> > > * Norman has four different dialects, all of which can be used. Articles are also categorised by the dialects they are written in.
> > > * Rusyn has multiple dialects as well, but AFAIK they try to stick to the dialect used in Slovakia.
> > > * Some languages (like Serbo-Croat) can be written in multiple alphabets and have special software for switching between them.
> > > * If I recall correctly, I have seen cases of the same article having multiple versions in one Wikipedia.
> > > In other words, all kinds of possibilities. My guess is that in the case of grc it will be Attic Greek for 99%, but if there will be a few articles in Doric or Koine, then I'd say that would be an enrichment.
> > > Cheers,
> > > Jan
> > > > > >
2017-02-02 21:52 GMT+01:00
Gerard Meijssen > > > <> > > gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> > > >> > > :
> > > > Hoi,
> >
> > > > The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed?
> >
> > > > Thanks,
> >
> > > > GerardM
> >
> > > > Op do 2 feb. 2017 om 15:52 schreef MF-Warburg <> > > > mfwarburg@googlemail.com> > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Shouldn't we, when we accept this line of argument, also accept Ancient Greek (grc)?
2017-02-02
12:34 GMT+01:00 Oliver Stegen > > > > > <> > > > > oliver_stegen@sil.org> > > > > >> > > > > :
> > > > > > > > > > > > Hi,
I found Jan's exposition most helpful and actually convincing - thanks!> > > > > > > > > > > > In response, I am no longer opposed to make lfn eligible. Go ahead! (And may it thrive.)> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Oliver
> > > > > > > > > > > >
On 02-Feb-17
10:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > Hoi, > > > > > > > I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
> > > > > > > >
>
> > > > > > > The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
> > > > > > > >
>
> > > > > > > The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
> > > > > > > >
>
> > > > > > > So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > GerardM
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> On 1 February 2017
at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen > > > > > > > <> > > > > > > ijzeren.jan@gmail.com> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > wrote:
> >
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia (> > > > > > > > http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef%3E > > > > > > > ) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > Best regards,
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > 2017-02-01 10:15
GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic > > > > > > > > <> > > > > > > > millosh@gmail.com> > > > > > > > >> > > > > > > > :
> > > On Wed, Feb
1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen
> > >
<> > > > > > > > > gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> > > > > > > > > > wrote:
> > >
> We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also shifted
> > >
> to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy to
> > >
> prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at the
> > >
> time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all
> > >
> together.
> > >
>
> > >
> When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen doubts
> > >
> are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
> > > > > > True.
Here is my more precise position.
> > > > > >
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia
> > >
should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it.
> > >
However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor.
> > >
That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory
> > >
because of the future request.
> > > > > >
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs
> > >
relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep
> > >
Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would
> > >
define relevancy as.
> > > > > >
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines
> > >
and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what
> > >
Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
> > >
> > >
_______________________________________________
> > >
Langcom mailing list
> > > Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > >
> >
_______________________________________________
> >
Langcom mailing list
> > Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > > >
> > > > > > >
>
> > _______________________________________________
Langcom mailing list
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> > > > > >
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Gerard,
You’re mistaken.
https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Philosophers-Stone-Ancient/dp/1408866161...
There are learners and readers and writers of Ancient Greek who do not just want to “understand old documents"
On 7 Feb 2017, at 05:36, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The point of teaching GRC is to help understand the old documents in GRC. As it is not a living language the point is that students learn it as it was. Innovation is therefore counter to the objective of teaching the language. Compare this to Latin; the same applies but it has always been spoken / used in the Roman Catholic church so it is a language where documents can be found in Latin that are from many later centuries and it does have this history of innovation.
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 9:52 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed?
Gerard, allowing Wikipedias in (non-Esperanto scale) constructed languages immediately triggers the fact that there are much more people capable to communicate in Ancient Greek than in any constructed language.
If you are worried about the lexicon, contemporary users Ancient Greek could do the same as Ancient Greeks: to borrow a word from Latin, which is a living language; or they could simply make a Modern Greek word to look like an Ancient Greek one.
I mean, if we are approving projects just because they are elaborate intellectual games, there is no difference if it's about a constructed or a classical language. OK, it would be hard to invent modern vocabulary in Sumerian, but Ancient Greek is not at all that hard (while Ottoman Turkish and Classical Chinese have concepts of train, steel, steam engine, electricity...); and possibly even easier than in a constructed language.
I am all for lowering the criteria, but that should be systematic. If our criteria is "usefulness", Ancient Greek would easily pass (the most of bigger universities in the world have course in Ancient Greek). If our criteria is "any language with ISO 639-3 code", Sumerian passes, as well. And keep in mind that LFN is in between, as it's definitely less useful than Ancient Greek, but we could say that it is "useful enough".
A note for Jan: Latin is a living language, while Anglo-Saxon and Old Church Slavonic, for example, have been created before Language committee and, according to the present rules, they wouldn't be allowed.
Hoi, I do oppose Ancient Greek. Thanks, GerardM
On 6 February 2017 at 11:50, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 9:52 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that grc developped over time and consequently what standard should be followed?
Gerard, allowing Wikipedias in (non-Esperanto scale) constructed languages immediately triggers the fact that there are much more people capable to communicate in Ancient Greek than in any constructed language.
If you are worried about the lexicon, contemporary users Ancient Greek could do the same as Ancient Greeks: to borrow a word from Latin, which is a living language; or they could simply make a Modern Greek word to look like an Ancient Greek one.
I mean, if we are approving projects just because they are elaborate intellectual games, there is no difference if it's about a constructed or a classical language. OK, it would be hard to invent modern vocabulary in Sumerian, but Ancient Greek is not at all that hard (while Ottoman Turkish and Classical Chinese have concepts of train, steel, steam engine, electricity...); and possibly even easier than in a constructed language.
I am all for lowering the criteria, but that should be systematic. If our criteria is "usefulness", Ancient Greek would easily pass (the most of bigger universities in the world have course in Ancient Greek). If our criteria is "any language with ISO 639-3 code", Sumerian passes, as well. And keep in mind that LFN is in between, as it's definitely less useful than Ancient Greek, but we could say that it is "useful enough".
A note for Jan: Latin is a living language, while Anglo-Saxon and Old Church Slavonic, for example, have been created before Language committee and, according to the present rules, they wouldn't be allowed.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
I support Ancient Greek.
On 6 Feb 2017, at 11:50, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I do oppose Ancient Greek. Thanks, GerardM
I'd support Ancient Greek [grc] as well. Alas!, don't the rules say that, if one LangCom member opposes, that leads to rejection? If that truly is the case, we may need to look into that rule. Maybe, we can settle on something slightly more democratic?
Fwiw, Oliver
On 06-Feb-17 18:24, Michael Everson wrote:
I support Ancient Greek.
On 6 Feb 2017, at 11:50, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I do oppose Ancient Greek. Thanks, GerardM
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On 6 Feb 2017, at 20:28, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
I'd support Ancient Greek [grc] as well.
In my view, it would do as well as Latin. Vocabulary would be a matter for the users.
Alas!, don't the rules say that, if one LangCom member opposes, that leads to rejection? If that truly is the case, we may need to look into that rule. Maybe, we can settle on something slightly more democratic?
Yes, we have a single-member veto. I'm not sure how useful it is.
Michael
On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 10:19 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 6 Feb 2017, at 20:28, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
I'd support Ancient Greek [grc] as well.
In my view, it would do as well as Latin. Vocabulary would be a matter for the users.
I am for consistent explicit (if possible) or implicit rules. If one of the relevant rules is the usefulness, then Ancient Greek is definitely more useful than any constructed language.
Alas!, don't the rules say that, if one LangCom member opposes, that leads to rejection? If that truly is the case, we may need to look into that rule. Maybe, we can settle on something slightly more democratic?
Yes, we have a single-member veto. I'm not sure how useful it is.
I am in favor of making LangCom a normal democratic body: 50%+1 (of those who voted) for regular decisions, 2/3 majority (of those who voted) for changing the rules. ("Of those who voted" because we have u number of inactive members.)
Also, unlike a decade ago, LangCom has expert legitimacy and integrity now, as well as a decade of experience. That's the reason why I don't think that any group would use majority as a tool to push unreasonable decisions.
+1 (FWIW)
2017-02-06 22:45 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 10:19 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 6 Feb 2017, at 20:28, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
I'd support Ancient Greek [grc] as well.
In my view, it would do as well as Latin. Vocabulary would be a matter
for the users.
I am for consistent explicit (if possible) or implicit rules. If one of the relevant rules is the usefulness, then Ancient Greek is definitely more useful than any constructed language.
Alas!, don't the rules say that, if one LangCom member opposes, that
leads to rejection? If that truly is the case, we may need to look into that rule. Maybe, we can settle on something slightly more democratic?
Yes, we have a single-member veto. I'm not sure how useful it is.
I am in favor of making LangCom a normal democratic body: 50%+1 (of those who voted) for regular decisions, 2/3 majority (of those who voted) for changing the rules. ("Of those who voted" because we have u number of inactive members.)
Also, unlike a decade ago, LangCom has expert legitimacy and integrity now, as well as a decade of experience. That's the reason why I don't think that any group would use majority as a tool to push unreasonable decisions.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On 6 Feb 2017, at 21:45, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I am in favor of making LangCom a normal democratic body: 50%+1 (of those who voted) for regular decisions, 2/3 majority (of those who voted) for changing the rules. ("Of those who voted" because we have u number of inactive members.)
I would support this.
Also, unlike a decade ago, LangCom has expert legitimacy and integrity now, as well as a decade of experience. That's the reason why I don't think that any group would use majority as a tool to push unreasonable decisions.
I agree,
Michael
2017-02-07 15:08 GMT+02:00 Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
On 6 Feb 2017, at 21:45, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I am in favor of making LangCom a normal democratic body: 50%+1 (of those who voted) for regular decisions, 2/3 majority (of those who voted) for changing the rules. ("Of those who voted" because we have u number of inactive members.)
I would support this.
In general, I'm not a fan of voting about issues in Wikipedia. Democracy is good for countries, but not necessarily for an encyclopedia. The English Wikipedia has a pretty clear practice of not deciding about pretty much anything by vote count. My home wiki the Hebrew Wikipedia is quite different, and a lot of things are decided by a vote there; I consider it wrong, and never participate in such votes.
For Langcom, a voting policy will possibly make sense for areas where there is space for opinion, such as a prediction of a project's viability, perceived incubator activity, new members, or whether to approve a constructed language. These things are hard to measure precisely. Also, for questions such as whether to approve a project with a macro-language code or not. At the moment it's possible that one opposing committee member will block progress without even having to explain their opinion, and this is not great.
For more clear-cut questions such as whether to approve a project in a language without an ISO code, there shouldn't be a vote—it should be an immediate rejection.
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 2:20 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
2017-02-07 15:08 GMT+02:00 Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
On 6 Feb 2017, at 21:45, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I am in favor of making LangCom a normal democratic body: 50%+1 (of those who voted) for regular decisions, 2/3 majority (of those who voted) for changing the rules. ("Of those who voted" because we have u number of inactive members.)
I would support this.
In general, I'm not a fan of voting about issues in Wikipedia. Democracy is good for countries, but not necessarily for an encyclopedia. The English Wikipedia has a pretty clear practice of not deciding about pretty much anything by vote count. My home wiki the Hebrew Wikipedia is quite different, and a lot of things are decided by a vote there; I consider it wrong, and never participate in such votes.
For Langcom, a voting policy will possibly make sense for areas where there is space for opinion, such as a prediction of a project's viability, perceived incubator activity, new members, or whether to approve a constructed language. These things are hard to measure precisely. Also, for questions such as whether to approve a project with a macro-language code or not. At the moment it's possible that one opposing committee member will block progress without even having to explain their opinion, and this is not great.
Amir, Language committee is not a Wikipedia :P We could just fool ourselves by saying that we are not making political decisions [based on linguistic facts].
There are a couple of paradigms because we are making political decisions.
1. The first is related to the structural political influence over the standardization bodies. Language is an important part of national identity => national institutions won't recognize some obvious facts => international standardization institutions would either automatically listen to the national institutions or they will be pressured to make a decision which particular national institution would prefer.
We don't need to move into the hotter areas: just the recent case of Elfdalian in liberal Sweden could be paradigmatic for that type of decisions.
By making a decision contrary or harmonized with the position of a national (or international) institution, we are making political decision.
But this type of issues is the simplest one. In this case we are making the best expert decision, based on linguistic facts. However, no matter if our decision has good basis in scientific consensus, we are making a political decision anyway.
2. The second one is related to the scientific consensus itself. Unlike in, let's say, thermodynamics scientific consensus in marking something a language or not is significantly tinier even without structural political influence over the international bodies.
Let's take as an example Romany languages. We have two serious issues to solve in this case.
2.1. The first one is related to the actual knowledge we have about Romany languages. SIL/Ethnologue have totally different categorization of Romany languages from at least the point of former Yugoslavian and Bulgarian linguistics. (I felt like I prepared wrong lectures for exam when I went to the main Romany linguist in Serbia with Ethnologue-based knowledge.)
Note that we are talking in this case about the following languages, according to SIL/Ethnologue:
1) Romany "macrolanguage" [1] 2) Balkan Romany [2] 3) Baltic Romany [3] 4) Carpathian Romany [4] 5) Kalo Finnish Romany [5] 6) Sinte Romany [6] 7) Vlax Romany [7] 8) Welsh Romany [8] 9) Lomavren [9] 10) Erromintxela [10] 11) Traveller Dannish [11] 12) Angloromani [12] 13) Romano-Greek [13] 14) Calo [14] 15) Norwegian Traveller [15] 16) Romano-Serbian [16] 17) Tavringer Romani [17]
I know that common Roma population of Belgrade (speakers of either Balkan Romany or "Romano-Serbian", according to Ethnologue) treat as "close others" Vlax Romani (although not in linguistic sense) and "not us" likely Sinte Romany population.
However, according to Serbian (and former Yugoslavian) linguistics, there is *one* Romany language and there is definitely no mixed language called "Romano-Serbian".
We have Vlax Romany Wikipedia [18] (with 582 articles; created before Language committee) and request [19] / Incubator [20] for Wikipedia in Balkan Romany, which has been made eligible in 2007.
*Any* decision that we make here is or would be political. Besides the fact that we have no clue what should be actually done. For example, is it reasonable to treat them as one language and insist on one Wikipedia? The main split from Balkans happened in 15th century, meaning that the most of the varieties should be closer than English and Scots are (12th century).
It is normal that we have elaborated and educated different opinions. It is normal that any of us has a strong opinion in one way: For example, Oliver could strongly support SIL/Ethnologue, I could strongly support local linguistics. It's simply irrational to wait either Oliver or me to change the opinion and unblock particular set of possible Wikipedias.
2.2. Standardization
Roma people haven't passed through the process of creation of the national identity. They are doing that now. And, as we know, language is important part of the national identity. And not any language, but standardized language, taught in schools all over the areas where the population is present.
However, postmodern approach is that the children should learn in their native language [variety], which could be different enough from the standard and could be treated as a foreign language (obviously, not as distant as Swiss German vs. Standard German, but distant enough to be treated as a non-native variety).
Do Roma people need 17 Wikipedias or just one? OK, not 17 -- some of the language varieties are spoken by few dozens or few hundreds of people --, but 2, 5, 10?
Again, any decision that we make is a political one. All reasonable approaches have advantages and disadvantages. Would you support children to learn in their native language and immediately enjoy positive consequences of having basic education in native language or standardization process, which would give to Roma in the future more political power?
That's again political decision. I could have a strong position towards one approach, you could have a strong position towards another approach; and both approaches are quite valid ones. Just because we have consensus-based decision-making, we could block all the approaches in Wikimedia environment and that's the worst thing we could do.
3. The third major reason is related to the significance of Wikipedia in contemporary civilization. By making decision to do one thing or another, we are quite likely giving significant advantage to our preferred option.
Here is one hot topic to illustrate real political, even life-and-death consequences of our decision.
Zaza is Kurdish subethnicity, which is in the process of separating themselves from Kurds. The process is at the beginning. It could become more influential or it could vanish in relatively near future.
Zaza is a language of different branch of Northwestern I languages from Kurdish (and possibly related to the Caspian languages).
But they were not at all linguistically oppressed inside of the Kurdish population. Kurdish newspapers are bilingual: in Kurdish and Zaza. Kurds even standardized Zaza language. (This article is good to read for the context [21].)
However, during the last 10-20 years, there is a concurrent institution called "Zazaki Institute" [22], which built a separate standard. We have a low level conflict on Meta and Translatewiki which lasts for a decade (start here [23][24]).
Sooner or later we will have to make our decision, without bureaucratic excuses. And that decision is going to be very political.
The options are: (1) De facto support Kurdish national unity and significantly influence likely valid right to self-determination of one ethnicity. (2) De facto support self-determination right and likely position ourselves on the line with Turkish intelligence agencies.
No matter what we decide, it will be political. We could have different opinions in relation to the Kurdish right to self-determination (in relation to Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran) and we could have different opinions in relation to the Zaza right to self-determination (in relation to Kurds).
It is obvious that we would have to think much more deeply about this issue than about the standardization. However, political decisions should be made politically, not bureaucratically. There is the real world outside, our decisions influence it and we should stop avoiding that responsibility.
For more clear-cut questions such as whether to approve a project in a language without an ISO code, there shouldn't be a vote—it should be an immediate rejection.
BCP 47 is often the only reasonable way to make something working. For example, although we didn't make decision in relation to that, but Belarusian Tarashkevitsa is a legitimate written variety and there is no easy translation engine between the official standard and Tarashkevitsa. (Logic goes: Standard Belarusian is official in Belarus; however, Russian is the native language for the most of those who use standard; majority of those who actually use Belarusian use Tarashkevitsa.)
Take a look into the list of Quechuan languages [25]. It's a primary group (according to the traditional, non-Greenberg categorization) of 44 languages (according to SIL/Ethnologue). Those 44 languages are spoken by ~8 million people.
But not just that. At least Ecuador is working on one, standardized language to be used by Quechua population in Ecuador. And unlike the relation between Chile and Mapuche, it seems that the indigenous population has positive attitude to the standardization.
What would be the code if they come and ask us for Wikipedia? Should we choose a code for a random Quechua language spoken in Ecuador? Should we wait for JAC, which could take years? Isn't it much more reasonable to give them BCP 47 code "qu-ec" and change it when JAC standardize it?
Any language which have two scripts and population. North and South Azerbaijani division is a joke. If blocked Turkish Wikipedians could go to Azerbaijani Wikipedia and edit there, then the differences between Azerbaijani spoken varieties are quite small (an average Serbian Wikipedian wouldn't be able to go to Macedonian, Bulgarian or Slovenian Wikipedia). We were just lucky that there is a separate code, which could be used for the other written variety (although I am still of opinion that one Azerbaijani Wikipedia is enough). The right code for Azerbaijani variety written in Arabic script is "az-arab", not "azb".
I am sure it's similar with the difference between Central and Peripheral Mongolian. (But there are significantly less troubles in switching from left-to-right to right-to-left in comparison to switching from left-to-right to top-to-down.) We could use wrong code for Mongolian written in Mongolian script, if it's a matter of would we have that project or not, but the right code for that project is "mn-mong".
4. We have the rules, which could and should be changed from time to time. What we want is also political and we should have the process which would include everybody's positions. But, eventually, we shouldn't depend on ability of one person -- even it could be myself -- to block the changes about everybody else agree.
5. Fortunately for Affiliations committee, it is not the most dysfunctional Wikimedia committee as long as Language committee exists under the rule of consensus. There are many things which we missed because it's either not possible to do or it costs too much efforts.
6. While inactive members do not make any trouble, I don't think that we should create the House of Lords here. If somebody is not able to give minimum inputs for approximately the time of LangCom's existence, something is wrong with our structure. And it's not about deciding who will be a member of LangCom or not, but about creating rules that would be applied for everybody.
[1] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rom [2] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmn [3] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rml [4] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmc [5] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmf [6] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmo [7] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmy [8] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmw [9] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmi [10] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/emx [11] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmd [12] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rme [13] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rge [14] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmq [15] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmg [16] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rsb [17] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/rmu [18] https://rmy.wikipedia.org/ [19] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Balkan_... [20] https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/rmn [21] http://www.zazaki.net/yazdir/haber/the-zazas-a-kurdish-sub-ethnic-group-or-s... [22] http://zazaki-institut.de/ [23] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Zazaki_wikipedia [24] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Standar... [25] http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=que
Well, the problem of lack of attention in the future is certainly something worth considering. Obviously, this goes not only for constructed languages, but basically for all smaller projects. It will always depend on whether there are people willing to keep an eye on it. Take Wikipedia in Old Church Slavonic: it's very small (582 articles in more than 10 years), but there is one admin who is always there, weeding out the bad stuff, correcting errors and the like. On the other hand, Wikipedia in Interlingua has nearly 20,000 articles and new pages are being added regularly (most of which are pretty decent), but what it lacks (at least, until recently) is leadership: questions remain unanswered, discussions are non-existent because nobody responds. In other words, the writers are there, but there is no real community.
In my previous post I mentioned Novial, so let me use it as an example. This Wikipedia has two admins, one of whom has made only one edit after 2009, the second only six edits after 2011. The founder of the project made his last edit in 2010. In other words, the people who are supposed to carry the project, clearly have lost interest. There are no regular contributors and there is definitely nothing like a community.
I am neither a user nor a proponent of Novial, but I know how to use it and I still check up regularly on the project. Because it was a deplorable mess, I applied for temporary adminship on Meta in 2014. Once I obtained it, I reorganised the main page (which looked pretty much like it was made in the 1990s) and deleted about 1,000 articles (pages with nothing but a template, year pages without content, pages with nothing but "X is a city in Y", pages in another languages, etc.). I also undeleted several articles that had been deleted by global sysops for whatever reason, even though there was nothing wrong with them. And I wrote a few new articles myself. But then? My adminship lapsed after 6 months, I had it prolonged, and then it lapsed again. Now, I don't want to go begging for a few extra buttons every a few months, so I let it pass. As a result, the Novial Wikipedia has no admin once again.
What I am trying to say is this: it doesn't take a lot of people to keep a project clean. What strikes me as unfair, though, is that initially adminship granted practically for life (one edit in two years is enough to keep it!), but once the community turns out too small, the only way for potential new admins is to keep filing new requests on Meta for temporary adminship. I am well aware of the fact that this is nothing the Langcom can do about, but I wanted to mention it anyway.
I am not quite sure what you mean by "an environment that is out of control". Could you please explain that, Gerard? If you mean that a project could be taken over by people with some fuzzy political agenda, then I don't think this is serious risk in the case of LFN.
Cheers, Jan
2017-02-02 10:37 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, I like the argument put forward by Jan and Michael. Personally I do not mind when people are busy with knowledge in any language and we do know that some say that the WMF is in the business of education.. Surely people get educated in this way.
The problem is in two parts. How do we prevent an environment that is out of control ... (This is not specific to a conlang) and two, what does it take to prevent death by lack of attention in the future.
The first is not really a problem we have a precedent whereby a project can be closed. The second does not need to be a problem when there is attention for its quality (also automated).
So I am rather positive to allow for a change of heart. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 February 2017 at 12:57, Jan van Steenbergen ijzeren.jan@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a member of the Langcom, but I've been subscribed to this mailing list for quite a while now. Since my primary field of interest is constructed languages, let me tell you why I am inclined to support this request. Mind, I am in no way involved with LFN itself.
My point of view is that there is only one criterion that should really matter for allowing a project to exist, namely the question: is it sustainable?
At present, we have Wikipedias in seven constructed languages: Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Novial and Lojban. Of these, only Esperanto has native speakers, albeit an extremely low number compared to virtually all ethnic languages with a Wikipedia. Yet, the project is thriving. With >236,000 articles it is #32 on the list, which is more than Wikipedias in for example Greek, Danish, Bulgarian and Hindi. Ido and Interlingua (#98 and #109) are doing fine as well, in spite of the fact that both languages have no native speakers and less than a thousand users. The number of Volapük users is not more than a few dozens, but the "Vükiped" is doing reasonably well anyway. Even Interlingue seems to manage somehow, although its number of users (I always avoid the word "speakers" in the case of constructed languages) is probably less than ten.
The only project that IMO has become a failure is Novial. Currently it has 1,644 articles. About 50 of them have some real critical mass, perhaps another 200 are more than just one or two lines of text, tables and infoboxes. After its foundation it had a few enthusiastic, active users, but they all seem to have vanished a long time ago. Since 2011 practically nothing has been happening over there. New articles still appear every once in a while, but most of these are the work of people who don't even know the language and just copy info from other articles, giving articles whose sole content is: "George Clooney is an American actor".
Wikipedia projects in three other constructed languages have been closed in the past, for different reasons: Siberian because it turned out a hoax, Toki Poni because it is a minimalistic language with just ±120 words, Klingon because it is a work of fiction with a vocabulary too small for creating a viable project in it. For the same reason, Quenya and Sindarin are not suitable either.
Anyway, compare all this to Wikipedias in African languages, for example Oromo: a major language with 60 million speakers, but only 726 articles, most of which are oneliners like "Germany is a country in Europe" or even empty. Where's the educational value in that?
Speaking about educational value, I think this boils down to two things: communicating valuable content, and working with the language itself.
When it comes to perusing Wikipedia because one is looking for info, a vast majority of the projects we have are quite unnecessary. Speakers of Bavarian, Luxemburgish, Rhaeto-Romance, Belarusian, Bashkir or Pennsylvania German won't be looking for information in their native language, they will look for info where they can find it, and in a language they speak fluently, i.e. in German, Russian, English etc. Wikipedias in languages like that serve an entirely different purpose: they offer a platform for generating content in a particular language, for practicing it, developing it, showcasing it. In other words, these projects are there for the sake of the language itself rather than the information presented in it.
And in this respect, numbers of native speakers are completely irrelevant. Latin has no native speakers, but its Wikipedia is still a success. What really matters, in other words, is whether there are people willing to write in it and read in it.
LFN is of more recent date than the other auxlang projects, but remarkably vivid nonetheless. I don't know if it really has 100 active users; numbers like that are notoriously difficult to verify, and the only persons who really have an idea about these figures are the same ones who have a vested interest in exaggerating them. But it is clear that there is a large number of people involved in it anyway, enough to generate quite some content. Of course, nobody knows what will happen when the author of the languages stops being involved with the language for whatever reason: it might go down the same road as Novial, but that would be a worst case scenario. In any case, the LFN wiki at Wikia ( http://lfn.wikia.com/wiki/Paje_xef) has 3,774 pages at present, and keeps growing. Quite a lot of these pages are substantial articles, some of them having even more content than their equivalents in the major European languages. Obviously, not all pages could be moved to a Wikipedia in LFN, as they also contain translations of poetry and prose, but still, even at the very start this Wikipedia would be at a higher level than those in Interlingue, Novial, Volapük and Lojban. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of substance and quality. So why not give it a chance?
Best regards, Jan van Steenbergen (User:IJzeren Jan)
2017-02-01 10:15 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We had in the past really well functioning languages that were also
shifted
to Wikia. It is all part and parcel of the original idea of the policy
to
prevent the easy creation of new projects. This was needed because at
the
time there was a groundswell of sentiment to prevent new projects all together.
When one member of the committee says "NO", it will not happen. Wen
doubts
are raised it is not no. So please be clear what your intentions are.
True. Here is my more precise position.
My basic position is on the Amir's line: So weak against ("Wikia should be good enough") that I don't want to be the one who blocks it. However, for me it *is* mandatory to have a good reasoning in favor. That's why I asked Michael to make one. I see that as mandatory because of the future request.
There is a tiny line, invisible from both sides, which differs relevant institutions from irrelevant ones. LangCom exists to keep Wikimedia relevant institution in relation to the languages. I would define relevancy as.
We are still on the relevant side and LFN is one of the possible lines and we need to make a good decision here. And I have to say that what Amir's said about LFN doesn't sound promising at the moment.
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I favour a LFN Wikipedia. It costs little or nothing. In these dark times, let’s let a little more joy come into the world.
Michael Everson
On one hand it's another project for a Romance-based international auxiliary language, more in the vein of Interlingua and Interlingue than Esperanto. It has an energetic academic as a kind of a "lead developer", it has quite a few fans, and I even read a whole graphic novel written in it a few years ago online (it's indeed very easy to read to somebody who learned another Romance language). But I doubt that it is actually useful to a lot of people or sustainable if the leader loses interest.
Because of these doubts in general I even tried to get the English Wikipedia article about it deleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lingua_Franca_... . The article was kept as "no consensus to delete", and I don't plan to try to delete it again.
I'm not really opposed to a Wikipedia in it, but I have low expectations and few reasons to believe that it will develop much. I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-01-31 16:20 GMT+02:00 MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
There is a request for Wikipedia in "Lingua Franca Nova", which is a constructed language with an ISO 639-3 code. https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Lingua_Franca_Nova_2 I'm bringing it up because there is currently a very active contributor on Incubator.
A previous request was rejected in 2008. Of course, the Language Proposal Policy says: If the proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto, it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language committee).
What are your opinions about the degree of recognition? Can the language be eligible or should it be rejected? I have never heard of this language before, but I am of course only a linguistic layman.
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My feelings are similar. Skeptical though I am about the usefulness of yet another Romance-based international auxiliary language, I see no reason to oppose the eligibility of it.
Antony
Am 2017-01-31 um 19:01 schrieb Amir E. Aharoni:
On one hand it's another project for a Romance-based international auxiliary language, more in the vein of Interlingua and Interlingue than Esperanto. It has an energetic academic as a kind of a "lead developer", it has quite a few fans, and I even read a whole graphic novel written in it a few years ago online (it's indeed very easy to read to somebody who learned another Romance language). But I doubt that it is actually useful to a lot of people or sustainable if the leader loses interest.
Because of these doubts in general I even tried to get the English Wikipedia article about it deleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lingua_Franca_... . The article was kept as "no consensus to delete", and I don't plan to try to delete it again.
I'm not really opposed to a Wikipedia in it, but I have low expectations and few reasons to believe that it will develop much. I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-01-31 16:20 GMT+02:00 MF-Warburg <mfwarburg@googlemail.com mailto:mfwarburg@googlemail.com>:
There is a request for Wikipedia in "Lingua Franca Nova", which is a constructed language with an ISO 639-3 code. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Lingua_Franca_Nova_2 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Lingua_Franca_Nova_2>> I'm bringing it up because there is currently a very active contributor on Incubator. A previous request was rejected in 2008. Of course, the Language Proposal Policy says: If the proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto, it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language committee). What are your opinions about the degree of recognition? Can the language be eligible or should it be rejected? I have never heard of this language before, but I am of course only a linguistic layman. _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom>
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