Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity https://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/catanalysis/index.php?cat=0&title=Wp/avk&wiki=incubatorwiki for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
Well, my point of view hasn't drastically changed since I defended the creation of a Wikipedia in Lingua Franca Nova, namely that the main criterion for creating or not creating a new project should be the question whether it is viable. From that point of view I'd say: go for it!
However, I can't deny having some second thoughts here. You might want to take a look at the page history of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotava.
Thing is, sometime in the second half of the 2000s, Kotava suddenly appeared out of nothing. Nobody in the conlang community had ever heard of it. Yet, they immediately started making claims about some 50 fluent speakers, which for a constructed language is quite a lot and, to be quite honest, rather improbable. Those 50 speakers were also the ticket for Kotava to obtain an ISO 639-3 code, and subsequently, this ISO code became the ticket for Wikipedia articles about Kotava.
You may want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotava, and especially also at its page history. All substantial contributions to the article were made by one-issue accounts with an obvious interest in promoting the language. The main problem, however, is the total lack of independent, reliable sources about language. This resulted in no less than three deletions, and for the record, the current version of the page is practically identical to the 2013 version, which was changed into a redirect for that very reason. The discussions that followed were rather unpleasant, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kotava_(3rd_no...) , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kotava and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:IJzeren_Jan#Kotava_(2).
In short: there is practically no verifiable information about the language, its creator, its speakers, etc. at all. Therefore, we can't exclude the possibility that it is just the hobby project of four of five people, who also happen to be the only people who can conform whether the content of the Incubator project is valid Kotava or not. From that point of view, a checkuser might not be a bad idea before validating anything.
That said, Kotava indeed has an impressive text corpus. Enough to warrant the creation of a Kotava Wikipedia, I believe.
Cheers, Jan van Steenbergen
Op do 26 sep. 2019 om 23:48 schreef Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity https://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/catanalysis/index.php?cat=0&title=Wp/avk&wiki=incubatorwiki for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019, 21:24:
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a
conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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
There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019, 21:24: I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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
Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019,
21:24:
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a
conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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
Well... As it was with Lingua Franca Nova: I'm somewhat skeptical about the usefulness of this project and about the future activity once the founders lose interest, but I'm not really opposed to it.
I was also a bit skeptical about the validity of the code, because it doesn't appear on Ethnologue. But it does appear at https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/avk , so I guess it's OK.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
בתאריך יום ג׳, 5 בנוב׳ 2019 ב-14:12 מאת Jon Harald Søby < jhsoby@gmail.com>:
Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019,
21:24:
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a
conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Ethnologue does not cover artificial, historical or ancient languages—only living and extinct languages. "Extinct" in this setting is the ISO 639–3 sense: gone extinct in the last few centuries.
Speaking of Ethnologue, I can't get three page views a month any more, even wiping cookies. What's up with that? Can anyone help us get some limited access?
Steven
Sent from Outlookhttp://aka.ms/weboutlook
________________________________ From: Langcom langcom-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org on behalf of Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il Sent: Tuesday, November 5, 2019 7:24 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Langcom] Kotava Wikipedia
Well... As it was with Lingua Franca Nova: I'm somewhat skeptical about the usefulness of this project and about the future activity once the founders lose interest, but I'm not really opposed to it.
I was also a bit skeptical about the validity of the code, because it doesn't appear on Ethnologue. But it does appear at https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/avkhttps://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fiso639-3.sil.org%2Fcode%2Favk&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9337f81291f94de005f708d761eb2269%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637085534842911930&sdata=KpHmoJe5iAD7C4oF40wCQqRbeolC5Cumh7u1720WHeE%3D&reserved=0 , so I guess it's OK.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.comhttps://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faharoni.wordpress.com&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9337f81291f94de005f708d761eb2269%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637085534842911930&sdata=jJWhNaeIkcmDmhu61XbgK9tthoWwV6mZ2H%2BrTRf6Dj8%3D&reserved=0 “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
בתאריך יום ג׳, 5 בנוב׳ 2019 ב-14:12 מאת Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.commailto:jhsoby@gmail.com>: Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson <everson@evertype.commailto:everson@evertype.com>: There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg <mfwarburg@googlemail.commailto:mfwarburg@googlemail.com> wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson <everson@evertype.commailto:everson@evertype.com> schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019, 21:24: I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.commailto:jhsoby@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcomhttps://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.wikimedia.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flangcom&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9337f81291f94de005f708d761eb2269%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637085534842921944&sdata=wWSiWOsN4tcg64SpE859a2Eje86ZP5y5oKj6qHXR3bs%3D&reserved=0
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcomhttps://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.wikimedia.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flangcom&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9337f81291f94de005f708d761eb2269%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637085534842921944&sdata=wWSiWOsN4tcg64SpE859a2Eje86ZP5y5oKj6qHXR3bs%3D&reserved=0 _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcomhttps://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.wikimedia.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flangcom&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9337f81291f94de005f708d761eb2269%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637085534842931944&sdata=wsR6XKsMwm6HNs3PGU9TjBBzMl%2B%2BKqK2br3oyr%2F7UPI%3D&reserved=0
_______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcomhttps://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.wikimedia.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flangcom&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9337f81291f94de005f708d761eb2269%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637085534842931944&sdata=wsR6XKsMwm6HNs3PGU9TjBBzMl%2B%2BKqK2br3oyr%2F7UPI%3D&reserved=0
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcomhttps://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.wikimedia.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flangcom&data=02%7C01%7C%7C9337f81291f94de005f708d761eb2269%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637085534842941954&sdata=PSqexl35imceH%2FODx6cOI8mKJgG9JkkItu2MCMWBFqY%3D&reserved=0
They’re now charging something like 400 a year.
On 5 Nov 2019, at 15:21, Steven White Koala19890@hotmail.com wrote:
Ethnologue does not cover artificial, historical or ancient languages—only living and extinct languages. "Extinct" in this setting is the ISO 639–3 sense: gone extinct in the last few centuries.
Speaking of Ethnologue, I can't get three page views a month any more, even wiping cookies. What's up with that? Can anyone help us get some limited access?
Steven
Sent from Outlook
From: Langcom langcom-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org on behalf of Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il Sent: Tuesday, November 5, 2019 7:24 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Langcom] Kotava Wikipedia
Well... As it was with Lingua Franca Nova: I'm somewhat skeptical about the usefulness of this project and about the future activity once the founders lose interest, but I'm not really opposed to it.
I was also a bit skeptical about the validity of the code, because it doesn't appear on Ethnologue. But it does appear at https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/avk , so I guess it's OK.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
בתאריך יום ג׳, 5 בנוב׳ 2019 ב-14:12 מאת Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.com>: Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson everson@evertype.com: There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019, 21:24: I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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
I somewhat share the concerns mentioned by Amir and Jan van Steenbergen. What I would hate to see is that we approve a project and then become a laughing stock because it turns out to be an unserious thing in one way or another.
Is there some proof here of any of: "independently proved number of speakers, use as an auxiliary language outside of online communities created solely for the purpose, usage outside of Wikimedia, publication of works in the language for general sale", as suggested by the admirable Language Proposal Policy?
Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com schrieb am Di., 5. Nov. 2019, 13:12:
Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019,
21:24:
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a
conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
I highly doubt this would become a laughing stock. This project is actually one of the best, highest-quality, most serious projects I have seen in my three years (short two weeks) as a sysop on Incubator. That doesn't make your questions any less valid; I only share my perspective that this is a serious effort worthy of consideration.
* Just now looking at Catanalysis, I see six contributors with at least 500 edits, four more with at least 100, and four more with at least 50. So this is not a project of only 3–5 people. * There are close to 5,000 mainspace pages. Very few are redirects. Many are short, but even those have good bibliographies, which is better than a lot of our projects do.
I would mention two points about Jan's 27 September email to the list:
* "Kotava indeed has an impressive text corpus." Is there a convenient list somewhere? * I would suggest you consider looking at https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotava. It also has sourcing problems, to be sure. But this conlang, unlike many, comes out of the francophone world. So I'm not sure the lack of awareness in the anglophone world is the most appropriate measure of the language.
Steven
Sent from Outlookhttp://aka.ms/weboutlook
________________________________ From: Langcom langcom-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org on behalf of MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2019 11:21 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Langcom] Kotava Wikipedia
I somewhat share the concerns mentioned by Amir and Jan van Steenbergen. What I would hate to see is that we approve a project and then become a laughing stock because it turns out to be an unserious thing in one way or another.
Is there some proof here of any of: "independently proved number of speakers, use as an auxiliary language outside of online communities created solely for the purpose, usage outside of Wikimedia, publication of works in the language for general sale", as suggested by the admirable Language Proposal Policy?
Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.commailto:jhsoby@gmail.com> schrieb am Di., 5. Nov. 2019, 13:12: Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson <everson@evertype.commailto:everson@evertype.com>: There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg <mfwarburg@googlemail.commailto:mfwarburg@googlemail.com> wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson <everson@evertype.commailto:everson@evertype.com> schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019, 21:24: I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.commailto:jhsoby@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
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For the record, I have also asked user:Axel xadolik to comment.
Am Di., 12. Nov. 2019 um 17:48 Uhr schrieb Steven White < koala19890@hotmail.com>:
I highly doubt this would become a laughing stock. This project is actually one of the best, highest-quality, most serious projects I have seen in my three years (short two weeks) as a sysop on Incubator. That doesn't make your questions any less valid; I only share my perspective that this is a serious effort worthy of consideration.
- Just now looking at Catanalysis, I see six contributors with at
least 500 edits, four more with at least 100, and four more with at least 50. So this is not a project of only 3–5 people.
- There are close to 5,000 mainspace pages. Very few are redirects.
Many are short, but even those have good bibliographies, which is better than a lot of our projects do.
I would mention two points about Jan's 27 September email to the list:
- "Kotava indeed has an impressive text corpus." Is there a convenient
list somewhere?
- I would suggest you consider looking at
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotava. It also has sourcing problems, to be sure. But this conlang, unlike many, comes out of the francophone world. So I'm not sure the lack of awareness in the anglophone world is the most appropriate measure of the language.
Steven
Sent from Outlook http://aka.ms/weboutlook
*From:* Langcom langcom-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org on behalf of MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com *Sent:* Tuesday, November 12, 2019 11:21 AM *To:* Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
*Subject:* Re: [Langcom] Kotava Wikipedia
I somewhat share the concerns mentioned by Amir and Jan van Steenbergen. What I would hate to see is that we approve a project and then become a laughing stock because it turns out to be an unserious thing in one way or another.
Is there some proof here of any of: "independently proved number of speakers, use as an auxiliary language outside of online communities created solely for the purpose, usage outside of Wikimedia, publication of works in the language for general sale", as suggested by the admirable Language Proposal Policy?
Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com schrieb am Di., 5. Nov. 2019, 13:12:
Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019,
21:24:
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a
conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
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Axel sent me this reply about literature etc:
*Hello,*
*These questions do not bother me, quite the opposite. I much prefer to exchange, enlighten and argue about facts, rather than the disdainful silence that exists too often.*
*I responded in part to Steven who relayed your query directly on the Incubator. See here : https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:StevenJ81#WP_Kotava_project_(...) https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:StevenJ81#WP_Kotava_project_(avk)*
*In addition, what I can add:*
*- Kotava has been in existence for 40 years (1978). People who take an interest in it and practice it (kotavusik) do not make proselytism like Esperantists or Interlingua speakers. On the other hand, they adhere to a very "ideological" idea of the need for a neutral language of international communication and know that, even if the language is exemplary in terms of simplicity, flexibility and wealth, it requires a very voluntary approach since his vocabulary is totally new. It's for this reason that we do not find the "simple foragers" who think they can speak Esperanto from the moment they say "mi parolas esperanton".*
*- as I had the opportunity to describe it to Steven, there was an interesting start of expansion in West and Central Africa in the 1990-2000 years, leaded by several very motivated people at that time, but this movement has been greatly reduced in the aftermath of the realities of the basic communication needs of these populations. At present, most speakers of Kotava are on the contrary mostly people very cultivated, of humanistic and libertarian tendency, scattered everywhere.*
*- the question about the English-speaking world is main, because according to the very purpose of Kotava, most kotavusik are reluctant to use English as a language of exchange and means of spreading (you can see this document, a French translation of a Kotava text, which denounces the paradox of the use of English: https://fr.scribd.com/doc/130318117/PVM-Dakteks-Klaba-FR-Le-paradoxe-des-lan... https://fr.scribd.com/doc/130318117/PVM-Dakteks-Klaba-FR-Le-paradoxe-des-langues-artificielles-dans-la-communication-moderne )*
*Thank you for your clarification at the time of the rocking of the project.*
*I remain at your disposal and that of the other Langcom's members for any useful clarification.* *Regards.* *Axel* ==/>
And to complete more precisely on the Kotava literature, you can for example take a look at the following sites:
- *Kotavaxak dem Suterot*: publishing major translations (Maupassant,
Joyce, Zola, Dostoyevski, Maria Chapdelaine, Pirandello, Ghibran, Wilde, Zweig, Molière, Chekhov, etc. https://fr.scribd.com/user/244033012/Kotava -Ewalik
- *Wikikrenteem*: about 800 original texts and translations in Kotava
http://www.europalingua.eu/wikikrenteem/?title=Emudexo
- *Marjorie Waldstein's library*: various texts, translations of
proverbs, lexicons, grammars, various documents in Kotava, etc. https://fr.scribd.com/user/657132/Marjorie-Waldstein
Regards. Axel
man. 18. nov. 2019 kl. 22:20 skrev MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
For the record, I have also asked user:Axel xadolik to comment.
Am Di., 12. Nov. 2019 um 17:48 Uhr schrieb Steven White < koala19890@hotmail.com>:
I highly doubt this would become a laughing stock. This project is actually one of the best, highest-quality, most serious projects I have seen in my three years (short two weeks) as a sysop on Incubator. That doesn't make your questions any less valid; I only share my perspective that this is a serious effort worthy of consideration.
- Just now looking at Catanalysis, I see six contributors with at
least 500 edits, four more with at least 100, and four more with at least 50. So this is not a project of only 3–5 people.
- There are close to 5,000 mainspace pages. Very few are redirects.
Many are short, but even those have good bibliographies, which is better than a lot of our projects do.
I would mention two points about Jan's 27 September email to the list:
- "Kotava indeed has an impressive text corpus." Is there a
convenient list somewhere?
- I would suggest you consider looking at
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotava. It also has sourcing problems, to be sure. But this conlang, unlike many, comes out of the francophone world. So I'm not sure the lack of awareness in the anglophone world is the most appropriate measure of the language.
Steven
Sent from Outlook http://aka.ms/weboutlook
*From:* Langcom langcom-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org on behalf of MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com *Sent:* Tuesday, November 12, 2019 11:21 AM *To:* Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee < langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> *Subject:* Re: [Langcom] Kotava Wikipedia
I somewhat share the concerns mentioned by Amir and Jan van Steenbergen. What I would hate to see is that we approve a project and then become a laughing stock because it turns out to be an unserious thing in one way or another.
Is there some proof here of any of: "independently proved number of speakers, use as an auxiliary language outside of online communities created solely for the purpose, usage outside of Wikimedia, publication of works in the language for general sale", as suggested by the admirable Language Proposal Policy?
Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com schrieb am Di., 5. Nov. 2019, 13:12:
Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019,
21:24:
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a
conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ 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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I'll try to answer the questions asked by Steven and MF-Warburg:
What I would hate to see is that we approve a project and then become a
laughing stock because it turns out to be an unserious thing in one way or another.
I don't think it's an unserious thing, and you surely don't have to worry that the language isn't real. It's as real as its grammar, its dictionary and all the texts written in it. Kotava doesn't claim to be some undiscovered natural language, so you can't call it a hoax either — unlike Siberian, which was a real language with an extensive dictionary and quite a few texts in it, too, yet the Siberian Wikipedia was deleted after the language turned out not to be what it claimed to be. The Klingon Wikipedia was deleted, as far as I can tell, because the language simply was too incomplete for a workable encyclopaedia. In the case of Kotava, neither of these problems are likely to arise.
The only thing that is not verifiably true is that Kotava is indeed a serious proposal for an international auxiliary language. The fact that it claimed 40 speakers right after its first publication on the Internet, this in spite of a total lack of publicity, could indicate that it is rather a hobby project of a dedicated group of friends (not that this would necessarily disqualify it, mind).
Is there some proof here of any of: "independently proved number of
speakers, use as an auxiliary language outside of online communities created solely for the purpose, usage outside of Wikimedia, publication of works in the language for general sale", as suggested by the admirable Language Proposal Policy?
Numbers of speakers are always trouble when it comes to constructed languages. The only figures we can establish objectively are the number of members of a mailing list, a forum, a Facebook group, etc. We can dig a bit deeper and establish how many people in these groups are really active users of the language, but that's it.
Kotava has a Facebook group with currently 67 members, but with little activity. Compared to other constructed languages, that is an extremely small number. For example, the Esperanto group has 21628 members, Interslavic 7788 members, Toki Pona 4146, Klingon 2155, Interlingua 1641, Lojban 1641, Lingua Franca Nova 550, Volapük 401, Ithkuil 353, Slovio 286, Folkspraak 260, Interlingue 215, and Novial 92). Obviously, not every member is a speaker and not every speaker is a member. Based on my own experience and research, I'd say that in general no more than 5–10% of these members can be considered regular, proficient users and another 10–20% are beginners and interested bystanders.
Kotava also has a forum (http://www.kotava.org/phpBB3/index.php) with 194 members and 7260 messages. Although the vast majority of all communication is in French, there is also a reasonable amount in Kotava. It is hard to tell how many people actually write in it, but I'd say at least ten. However, there has been remarkably little activitity on that forum these days (only 8 short messages in 2019), which makes me wonder if this language is actually used for anything else but making massive amounts of translations.
Perhaps I am being over-suspicious here, but the simple truth is that auxlang proponents have a vested interest in exaggerating its significance. Let me just remind you of Slovio, which claimed to have thousands and thousands of speakers, but in reality has never been used by more than 10–15 people. The author tried to build the impression of a whole user community by writing under dozens of different names, but as soon as he abandoned the project, all activity died out instantly. While I don't believe Kotava is a similar case, we can't know it for sure.
"Kotava indeed has an impressive text corpus." Is there a convenient list
somewhere?
Mainly here: http://www.europalingua.eu/wikikrenteem/?title=Emudexo
I would suggest you consider looking at
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotava. It also has sourcing problems, to be sure. But this conlang, unlike many, comes out of the francophone world. So I'm not sure the lack of awareness in the anglophone world is the most appropriate measure of the language.
That argument would be valid if we'd try to establish notability by googling for "Kotava language" or somesuch, but in the case of Kotava, there is no need for that at all. What I do notice, however, is that Kotava generates practically no results in news items, books and scholarly publications in any language, French included. All we have is three publications by Alan Reed Libert, none of which discusses Kotava in depth; two sentences in Turenne; and one mere sentence in a Brazilian magazine. These are exactly the same sources that we already had six years ago, in other words: even the fact that Kotava has had an ISO 639-3 code for over ten years now does not seem to have made it any more notable than it already was. Numerous books and articles about constructed languages that have been published in the meantime do not even mention it. Even Google gives very few hits, and most of those refer to a surname or a Belarussian village).
Besides, the French Wikipedia article is by no means better than the English article. It's 100% based on primary sources and all information basically comes from one single website. In other words, original research. That's the biggest problem with Kotava: the amount of information that can be verified in independent, reliable sources is totally insufficient to base a decent article on.
One thing that makes me kind of suspicious is the discrepancy between the rather bold claims made by Kotava supporters and this total lack of verifiable evidence. If Kotava really has 40 fluent speakers (BTW, the same figure as 12 years ago), 200–300 less advanced speakers and 1000–2000 people who started learning it at some point, how on Earth is it possible that (except for the above) not a single authority in the field, not even some local newspaper, has paid attention to it? Mind, these numbers are exceptionally high for a constructed language! Since the language apparently has managed to fly under the radar for over 40 years, I'd really like to know where all these people come from, and why they are totally invisible.
Questions like this are answered with defensive answers. Like this one: we are not interested in promulgating our language, we prefer to use it instead. A strange argument, since promulgation is essential for an International Auxiliary Language to function as such, and not true either, given the promotional nature of the original Wikipedia entries about Kotava and the behaviour of their author(s) in deletion discussions. Or this one: we are often neglected, because we are opposed to the supremacy of English (also strange, considering that 90% of all internal discussion is in French). Thus, the whole plea for notability is solely based on a large text corpus, a successful request for an ISO 639-3 code (which surely would have failed if it had been made a few years later) and complaints at the address of Wikipedia censors, jealous Esperantists and English supremacists.
Furthermore, what exactly do they NEED a Wikipedia for? Since Kotava is an a priori language, content in it is of no use to anyone outside its own small incrowd of two or three dozens of people, in other words: the same people who write it. This group already has a well-functioning infrastructure, including a Wikipedia clone and a Wiktionary clone, so what's the point of duplicating all this info? An additional Wikipedia project cannot serve any other purpose than promoting the language, which (as demonstrated by the examples of Lojban, Novial and Volapük) is not going to happen anyway.
The basic question is, therefore: should a language that doesn't fulfil the basic criteria of notability and verifiability on Wikipedia.en nevertheless be allowed to have its own Wikipedia?
I'm not saying it shouldn't. The language is certainly interesting, and I truly admire all the work done by those who generate content in Kotava. As I wrote earlier, the main criterion for establishing a new Wikipedia project should IMO be viability, and a Kotava Wikipedia is definitely viable. But one thing remains: merely writing/translating lots of text in a conlang does not make it notable.
Best regards Jan van Steenbergen
Op di 12 nov. 2019 om 17:48 schreef Steven White koala19890@hotmail.com:
I highly doubt this would become a laughing stock. This project is actually one of the best, highest-quality, most serious projects I have seen in my three years (short two weeks) as a sysop on Incubator. That doesn't make your questions any less valid; I only share my perspective that this is a serious effort worthy of consideration.
- Just now looking at Catanalysis, I see six contributors with at
least 500 edits, four more with at least 100, and four more with at least 50. So this is not a project of only 3–5 people.
- There are close to 5,000 mainspace pages. Very few are redirects.
Many are short, but even those have good bibliographies, which is better than a lot of our projects do.
I would mention two points about Jan's 27 September email to the list:
- "Kotava indeed has an impressive text corpus." Is there a convenient
list somewhere?
- I would suggest you consider looking at
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotava. It also has sourcing problems, to be sure. But this conlang, unlike many, comes out of the francophone world. So I'm not sure the lack of awareness in the anglophone world is the most appropriate measure of the language.
Steven
Sent from Outlook http://aka.ms/weboutlook
*From:* Langcom langcom-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org on behalf of MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com *Sent:* Tuesday, November 12, 2019 11:21 AM *To:* Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
*Subject:* Re: [Langcom] Kotava Wikipedia
I somewhat share the concerns mentioned by Amir and Jan van Steenbergen. What I would hate to see is that we approve a project and then become a laughing stock because it turns out to be an unserious thing in one way or another.
Is there some proof here of any of: "independently proved number of speakers, use as an auxiliary language outside of online communities created solely for the purpose, usage outside of Wikimedia, publication of works in the language for general sale", as suggested by the admirable Language Proposal Policy?
Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com schrieb am Di., 5. Nov. 2019, 13:12:
Any other comments other than Michael's repeated approvals? ;-)
If not, we can move forward on this, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of at least a couple more committee members.
tir. 1. okt. 2019 kl. 15:28 skrev Michael Everson everson@evertype.com:
There seems to be something wrong with my mail server.
On 30 Sep 2019, at 20:33, MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com wrote:
Michael, are you ok?
Michael Everson everson@evertype.com schrieb am Mo., 30. Sep. 2019,
21:24:
I support approval.
On 26 Sep 2019, at 22:47, Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Kotava Wikipedia. Kotava is a
conlang created in 1978, mainly known in French-speaking countries (according to the English Wikipedia). They have a very active test wiki in Incubator, with more than 3,000 articles, which makes it bigger than the Novial Wikipedia (which we approved in 2008) and about the same size as the Lingua Franca Nova (LFN) Wikipedia (which we approved in 2017). There are several active users, and sustained activity for many months.
Does anyone have reasons for why we should not approve this project?
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
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