Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while back https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_Wiki to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this thread https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/X2CGBZ53VRY66Z4FSWJQBAPGOI3447GH/ from March 2018 (+ this reply https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/ROKNRZMJDUCFDJFMXNXQ7XSC7NKMOTSG/ from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K ________________________________ From: Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while backhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_Wiki to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this threadhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/X2CGBZ53VRY66Z4FSWJQBAPGOI3447GH/ from March 2018 (+ this replyhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/ROKNRZMJDUCFDJFMXNXQ7XSC7NKMOTSG/ from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg <mfwarburg@googlemail.commailto:mfwarburg@googlemail.com>: I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.ilmailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26: Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby
Montenegrin is probably the longest-standing issue we have in the language committee, and it has been requested numerous times through the years. In the beginning of the language committee, the nation of Montenegro itself was brand new, and Montenegrin had already been "lumped in" with Serbian for a long time (well, at least since the Serbo-Croatian code was split up).
For a number of years, and this may be why LangCom's stance on Montenegrin has been the same, Montenegrin simply didn't meet one of the formal criteria: having an ISO 639 code. Then, in 2017, the language finally got its own code, but there was skepticism within the committee because the code was an ISO 639-2 code and not an ISO 639-3 code. The registrar for ISO 639-2 is the US Library of Congress, while the registrar for ISO 639-3 is SIL International. For all their faults, the latter is at least perceived to be more linguistic-minded, but many people saw the code coming to ISO 639-2 first as a sign that this was a *politically* motivated decision, and not a *linguistically* motivated one. A single language (and not a language group/macrolanguage) having a code in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3 was a highly unusual situation.
However, it seems to me that the code was also added to ISO 639-3 later without much fanfare, though there isn't the usual paper trail on the ISO website: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/cnr
I have dug up previous discussions from the mailing lists that I would advice all language committee members to read through. Most of them are on the internal list, because the discussions happened before we reached consensus to have a public list. That means they are not available to external list observers, but committee members should have access. If you don't, reach out to me off-list, and I will help guide you through the process.
1. April 2007: The thread "Incubator and conditional approvals https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/SHTWGL2X4P6CSPBNOYFZPWB3YXQHMXC4/". It is a very long thread, the parts most relevant for Montenegrin happen in mails 2–8, but the rest can be an interesting read too if you want more context. 2. March 2010: A single email "Request for Wikipedia in Montenegrin https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/Y353WE3DXCVYJJ2P2CUTMYQX5EUV5HOY/" from our now-former member, User:Millosh, who is himself Serbian and therefore knows the local situation quite well. 3. December 2010: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia rejected https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/5IS5EGP5OGC52D6N3SXL5C4RML7PKG2R/"; it was rejected because a pending request to add an ISO 639-3 code for Montenegrin was rejected (or not acted upon?) by the registering authority. 4. May 2011: The thread "Montenegrin 4 https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/BNCFO6RKUDCVMANTXWKTWY5QGQ35V6DV/"; rejected because of continued lack of ISO 639 code. 5. Also May 2011: The thread "orthographies and macro-languages https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/7PCHCWS7ZXG2SBT26HBC2GQODTRBRMI4/", giving some details about the relationship of the various Serbo-Croatian languages. 6. July 2011: Parts of the thread "Eligible status for Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/HVA4IZV2B6BZGHL6LNUMHATZ4QTF3LKB/", which went a bit off that topic. 7. March 2017: The thread "Rejection of Wikipedia Prekmurian https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/J4RIHJQ2N7CTGYIIYU2PNUIGEWWJGUAZ/", with more details. 8. December 2017: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia (URGENT) https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/QKZNPMXWMTVS6BLTG2UMHPM7KM4MYPST/", which came after the ISO 639-2 code was approved, but before it was added to ISO 639-3.
And then there's the current thread.
As we can see, I don't think there was ever a clear consensus to outright reject Montenegrin. There was a consensus for many years to wait until they potentially got an ISO 639 code, but when that finally happened, it happened in what I would describe as an "out-of-process way", which seemed perhaps "suspicious" on linguistic grounds.
ons. 26. apr. 2023 kl. 13:28 skrev Kimberli Mäkäräinen < kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi>:
I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K
*From:* Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com *Sent:* Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM *To:* Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
*Subject:* [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while back https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_Wiki to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this thread https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/X2CGBZ53VRY66Z4FSWJQBAPGOI3447GH/ from March 2018 (+ this reply https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/ROKNRZMJDUCFDJFMXNXQ7XSC7NKMOTSG/ from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
One more thing to consider: Glottolog has a separate entry for Montenegrin Standard, parallel to, so not the same as Bosnian Standard, Croatian Standard, and Serbian Standard.
mvh. K ________________________________ From: Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com Sent: Friday, April 28, 2023 3:32 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Montenegrin is probably the longest-standing issue we have in the language committee, and it has been requested numerous times through the years. In the beginning of the language committee, the nation of Montenegro itself was brand new, and Montenegrin had already been "lumped in" with Serbian for a long time (well, at least since the Serbo-Croatian code was split up).
For a number of years, and this may be why LangCom's stance on Montenegrin has been the same, Montenegrin simply didn't meet one of the formal criteria: having an ISO 639 code. Then, in 2017, the language finally got its own code, but there was skepticism within the committee because the code was an ISO 639-2 code and not an ISO 639-3 code. The registrar for ISO 639-2 is the US Library of Congress, while the registrar for ISO 639-3 is SIL International. For all their faults, the latter is at least perceived to be more linguistic-minded, but many people saw the code coming to ISO 639-2 first as a sign that this was a politically motivated decision, and not a linguistically motivated one. A single language (and not a language group/macrolanguage) having a code in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3 was a highly unusual situation.
However, it seems to me that the code was also added to ISO 639-3 later without much fanfare, though there isn't the usual paper trail on the ISO website: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/cnr
I have dug up previous discussions from the mailing lists that I would advice all language committee members to read through. Most of them are on the internal list, because the discussions happened before we reached consensus to have a public list. That means they are not available to external list observers, but committee members should have access. If you don't, reach out to me off-list, and I will help guide you through the process.
1. April 2007: The thread "Incubator and conditional approvalshttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/SHTWGL2X4P6CSPBNOYFZPWB3YXQHMXC4/". It is a very long thread, the parts most relevant for Montenegrin happen in mails 2–8, but the rest can be an interesting read too if you want more context. 2. March 2010: A single email "Request for Wikipedia in Montenegrinhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/Y353WE3DXCVYJJ2P2CUTMYQX5EUV5HOY/" from our now-former member, User:Millosh, who is himself Serbian and therefore knows the local situation quite well. 3. December 2010: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia rejectedhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/5IS5EGP5OGC52D6N3SXL5C4RML7PKG2R/"; it was rejected because a pending request to add an ISO 639-3 code for Montenegrin was rejected (or not acted upon?) by the registering authority. 4. May 2011: The thread "Montenegrin 4https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/BNCFO6RKUDCVMANTXWKTWY5QGQ35V6DV/"; rejected because of continued lack of ISO 639 code. 5. Also May 2011: The thread "orthographies and macro-languageshttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/7PCHCWS7ZXG2SBT26HBC2GQODTRBRMI4/", giving some details about the relationship of the various Serbo-Croatian languages. 6. July 2011: Parts of the thread "Eligible status for Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabichttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/HVA4IZV2B6BZGHL6LNUMHATZ4QTF3LKB/", which went a bit off that topic. 7. March 2017: The thread "Rejection of Wikipedia Prekmurianhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/J4RIHJQ2N7CTGYIIYU2PNUIGEWWJGUAZ/", with more details. 8. December 2017: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia (URGENT)https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/QKZNPMXWMTVS6BLTG2UMHPM7KM4MYPST/", which came after the ISO 639-2 code was approved, but before it was added to ISO 639-3.
And then there's the current thread.
As we can see, I don't think there was ever a clear consensus to outright reject Montenegrin. There was a consensus for many years to wait until they potentially got an ISO 639 code, but when that finally happened, it happened in what I would describe as an "out-of-process way", which seemed perhaps "suspicious" on linguistic grounds.
ons. 26. apr. 2023 kl. 13:28 skrev Kimberli Mäkäräinen <kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fimailto:kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi>: I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K ________________________________ From: Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.commailto:jhsoby@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while backhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_Wiki to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this threadhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/X2CGBZ53VRY66Z4FSWJQBAPGOI3447GH/ from March 2018 (+ this replyhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/ROKNRZMJDUCFDJFMXNXQ7XSC7NKMOTSG/ from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg <mfwarburg@googlemail.commailto:mfwarburg@googlemail.com>: I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.ilmailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26: Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby
For many years, the Language committee had these two policies ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_proposal_policy ): 1. "The Wikimedia Foundation does not seek to develop new linguistic entities; there must be an extensive body of works in that language." 2. "The language must be sufficiently unique that it could not coexist on a more general wiki. In most cases, this excludes regional dialects and different written forms of the same language. The degree of difference required is considered on a case-by-case basis. The committee does not consider political differences, since the Wikimedia Foundation's goal is to give every single person free, unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge, rather than information from the viewpoint of individual political communities."
Both of these policies are sensible. We have projects for languages, not countries. We don't have Austrian, Brazilian, or Balearic Wikipedias; we have German, Portuguese, and Catalan.
All the discussions about Montenegrin have emphasized that it is official under its own name in the constitution of the country of Montenegro. Everyone's attempts to get examples of actual differences between Serbian and Montenegrin were either unanswered, or answered with examples of very minor differences in spelling; differences that aren't bigger than the ones between OED and Merriam-Webster English. Even finding examples of *actual* usage of the two extra letters in the Montenegrin alphabet have proved nearly impossible (my guess is that it's only a proposed alphabet, which is not actually used for casual writing, publishing, or teaching literacy, but correct me if I'm wrong).
Jon Harald noticed the lack of "paper trail" for the addition of cnr to ISO 639 3, and this is indeed concerning. This, too, is a guess, but it probably means that it's based only on a political distinction, and not on actual linguistic differences.
-- 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 ו׳, 28 באפר׳ 2023 ב-22:47 מאת Kimberli Mäkäräinen < kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi>:
One more thing to consider: Glottolog has a separate entry for Montenegrin Standard, parallel to, so not the same as Bosnian Standard, Croatian Standard, and Serbian Standard.
mvh. K
*From:* Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com *Sent:* Friday, April 28, 2023 3:32 PM *To:* Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
*Subject:* [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Montenegrin is probably the longest-standing issue we have in the language committee, and it has been requested numerous times through the years. In the beginning of the language committee, the nation of Montenegro itself was brand new, and Montenegrin had already been "lumped in" with Serbian for a long time (well, at least since the Serbo-Croatian code was split up).
For a number of years, and this may be why LangCom's stance on Montenegrin has been the same, Montenegrin simply didn't meet one of the formal criteria: having an ISO 639 code. Then, in 2017, the language finally got its own code, but there was skepticism within the committee because the code was an ISO 639-2 code and not an ISO 639-3 code. The registrar for ISO 639-2 is the US Library of Congress, while the registrar for ISO 639-3 is SIL International. For all their faults, the latter is at least perceived to be more linguistic-minded, but many people saw the code coming to ISO 639-2 first as a sign that this was a *politically* motivated decision, and not a *linguistically* motivated one. A single language (and not a language group/macrolanguage) having a code in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3 was a highly unusual situation.
However, it seems to me that the code was also added to ISO 639-3 later without much fanfare, though there isn't the usual paper trail on the ISO website: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/cnr
I have dug up previous discussions from the mailing lists that I would advice all language committee members to read through. Most of them are on the internal list, because the discussions happened before we reached consensus to have a public list. That means they are not available to external list observers, but committee members should have access. If you don't, reach out to me off-list, and I will help guide you through the process.
- April 2007: The thread "Incubator and conditional approvals
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/SHTWGL2X4P6CSPBNOYFZPWB3YXQHMXC4/". It is a very long thread, the parts most relevant for Montenegrin happen in mails 2–8, but the rest can be an interesting read too if you want more context. 2. March 2010: A single email "Request for Wikipedia in Montenegrin https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/Y353WE3DXCVYJJ2P2CUTMYQX5EUV5HOY/" from our now-former member, User:Millosh, who is himself Serbian and therefore knows the local situation quite well. 3. December 2010: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia rejected https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/5IS5EGP5OGC52D6N3SXL5C4RML7PKG2R/"; it was rejected because a pending request to add an ISO 639-3 code for Montenegrin was rejected (or not acted upon?) by the registering authority. 4. May 2011: The thread "Montenegrin 4 https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/BNCFO6RKUDCVMANTXWKTWY5QGQ35V6DV/"; rejected because of continued lack of ISO 639 code. 5. Also May 2011: The thread "orthographies and macro-languages https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/7PCHCWS7ZXG2SBT26HBC2GQODTRBRMI4/", giving some details about the relationship of the various Serbo-Croatian languages. 6. July 2011: Parts of the thread "Eligible status for Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/HVA4IZV2B6BZGHL6LNUMHATZ4QTF3LKB/", which went a bit off that topic. 7. March 2017: The thread "Rejection of Wikipedia Prekmurian https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/J4RIHJQ2N7CTGYIIYU2PNUIGEWWJGUAZ/", with more details. 8. December 2017: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia (URGENT) https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/QKZNPMXWMTVS6BLTG2UMHPM7KM4MYPST/", which came after the ISO 639-2 code was approved, but before it was added to ISO 639-3.
And then there's the current thread.
As we can see, I don't think there was ever a clear consensus to outright reject Montenegrin. There was a consensus for many years to wait until they potentially got an ISO 639 code, but when that finally happened, it happened in what I would describe as an "out-of-process way", which seemed perhaps "suspicious" on linguistic grounds.
ons. 26. apr. 2023 kl. 13:28 skrev Kimberli Mäkäräinen < kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi>:
I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K
*From:* Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com *Sent:* Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM *To:* Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org
*Subject:* [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while back https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_Wiki to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this thread https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/X2CGBZ53VRY66Z4FSWJQBAPGOI3447GH/ from March 2018 (+ this reply https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/ROKNRZMJDUCFDJFMXNXQ7XSC7NKMOTSG/ from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi everyone,
Forgive me if this has already been visibly discussed, but it seems that these discussions start to loose meaning when looking at this issue from a broader perspective.
From my talks with various people, I understand that the central motivation to have a separate CNR project is that HR, BS, and SR exist. I think that these existing, while CNR is not allowed to be, undisputedly sends the wrong signal.
HR, BS, and SR would not be accepted if the question was raised in the current day and age. I understand that it is unfair, and I think that many other people here recognise that too.
I am looking to communicate with as many people from these communities as possible, especially CNR, to talk about what we can do about this situation. There is a recent unformalised initiative to merge the four projects in the (in lack of a better name) Serbo-Croatian language. People have been saying that this is impossible, but we are, however, making great progress. If the people supporting the efforts had more available time, I estimate that we would likely see the first big step being taken within the next 12 months.
So if someone from CNR is reading this, please reach out to me. I would like to understand your perspective better. Everyone is talking about the CNR project and the unfortunate situation that this is, but no-one knows the people behind it.
Whatever happens, I hope that we end up with a result that best supports our common goal: to strengthen access to free knowledge.
Lijep pozdrav, Denis Smajlović User:Deni
On 28 Apr 2023, at 13.23, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
For many years, the Language committee had these two policies ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_proposal_policy ):
- "The Wikimedia Foundation does not seek to develop new linguistic entities; there must be an extensive body of works in that language."
- "The language must be sufficiently unique that it could not coexist on a more general wiki. In most cases, this excludes regional dialects and different written forms of the same language. The degree of difference required is considered on a case-by-case basis. The committee does not consider political differences, since the Wikimedia Foundation's goal is to give every single person free, unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge, rather than information from the viewpoint of individual political communities."
Both of these policies are sensible. We have projects for languages, not countries. We don't have Austrian, Brazilian, or Balearic Wikipedias; we have German, Portuguese, and Catalan.
All the discussions about Montenegrin have emphasized that it is official under its own name in the constitution of the country of Montenegro. Everyone's attempts to get examples of actual differences between Serbian and Montenegrin were either unanswered, or answered with examples of very minor differences in spelling; differences that aren't bigger than the ones between OED and Merriam-Webster English. Even finding examples of *actual* usage of the two extra letters in the Montenegrin alphabet have proved nearly impossible (my guess is that it's only a proposed alphabet, which is not actually used for casual writing, publishing, or teaching literacy, but correct me if I'm wrong).
Jon Harald noticed the lack of "paper trail" for the addition of cnr to ISO 639 3, and this is indeed concerning. This, too, is a guess, but it probably means that it's based only on a political distinction, and not on actual linguistic differences.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com http://aharoni.wordpress.com/ “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
בתאריך יום ו׳, 28 באפר׳ 2023 ב-22:47 מאת Kimberli Mäkäräinen <kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi mailto:kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi>:
One more thing to consider: Glottolog has a separate entry for Montenegrin Standard, parallel to, so not the same as Bosnian Standard, Croatian Standard, and Serbian Standard.
mvh. K From: Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.com mailto:jhsoby@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, April 28, 2023 3:32 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Montenegrin is probably the longest-standing issue we have in the language committee, and it has been requested numerous times through the years. In the beginning of the language committee, the nation of Montenegro itself was brand new, and Montenegrin had already been "lumped in" with Serbian for a long time (well, at least since the Serbo-Croatian code was split up).
For a number of years, and this may be why LangCom's stance on Montenegrin has been the same, Montenegrin simply didn't meet one of the formal criteria: having an ISO 639 code. Then, in 2017, the language finally got its own code, but there was skepticism within the committee because the code was an ISO 639-2 code and not an ISO 639-3 code. The registrar for ISO 639-2 is the US Library of Congress, while the registrar for ISO 639-3 is SIL International. For all their faults, the latter is at least perceived to be more linguistic-minded, but many people saw the code coming to ISO 639-2 first as a sign that this was a politically motivated decision, and not a linguistically motivated one. A single language (and not a language group/macrolanguage) having a code in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3 was a highly unusual situation.
However, it seems to me that the code was also added to ISO 639-3 later without much fanfare, though there isn't the usual paper trail on the ISO website: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/cnr
I have dug up previous discussions from the mailing lists that I would advice all language committee members to read through. Most of them are on the internal list, because the discussions happened before we reached consensus to have a public list. That means they are not available to external list observers, but committee members should have access. If you don't, reach out to me off-list, and I will help guide you through the process.
- April 2007: The thread "Incubator and conditional approvals https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/SHTWGL2X4P6CSPBNOYFZPWB3YXQHMXC4/". It is a very long thread, the parts most relevant for Montenegrin happen in mails 2–8, but the rest can be an interesting read too if you want more context.
- March 2010: A single email "Request for Wikipedia in Montenegrin https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/Y353WE3DXCVYJJ2P2CUTMYQX5EUV5HOY/" from our now-former member, User:Millosh, who is himself Serbian and therefore knows the local situation quite well.
- December 2010: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia rejected https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/5IS5EGP5OGC52D6N3SXL5C4RML7PKG2R/"; it was rejected because a pending request to add an ISO 639-3 code for Montenegrin was rejected (or not acted upon?) by the registering authority.
- May 2011: The thread "Montenegrin 4 https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/BNCFO6RKUDCVMANTXWKTWY5QGQ35V6DV/"; rejected because of continued lack of ISO 639 code.
- Also May 2011: The thread "orthographies and macro-languages https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/7PCHCWS7ZXG2SBT26HBC2GQODTRBRMI4/", giving some details about the relationship of the various Serbo-Croatian languages.
- July 2011: Parts of the thread "Eligible status for Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/HVA4IZV2B6BZGHL6LNUMHATZ4QTF3LKB/", which went a bit off that topic.
- March 2017: The thread "Rejection of Wikipedia Prekmurian https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/J4RIHJQ2N7CTGYIIYU2PNUIGEWWJGUAZ/", with more details.
- December 2017: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia (URGENT) https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/QKZNPMXWMTVS6BLTG2UMHPM7KM4MYPST/", which came after the ISO 639-2 code was approved, but before it was added to ISO 639-3.
And then there's the current thread.
As we can see, I don't think there was ever a clear consensus to outright reject Montenegrin. There was a consensus for many years to wait until they potentially got an ISO 639 code, but when that finally happened, it happened in what I would describe as an "out-of-process way", which seemed perhaps "suspicious" on linguistic grounds.
ons. 26. apr. 2023 kl. 13:28 skrev Kimberli Mäkäräinen <kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi mailto:kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi>: I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K From: Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby@gmail.com mailto:jhsoby@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while back https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_Wiki to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this thread https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/X2CGBZ53VRY66Z4FSWJQBAPGOI3447GH/ from March 2018 (+ this reply https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/ROKNRZMJDUCFDJFMXNXQ7XSC7NKMOTSG/ from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg <mfwarburg@googlemail.com mailto:mfwarburg@googlemail.com>: I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il mailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26: Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com http://aharoni.wordpress.com/ “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Thank you for this nice summary. Being a linguist myself, I would like to add one thing: This question cannot be decided on linguistic grounds alone. The situation of what once was called "Serbocroatian" _always_ has a political dimension, too. The ISO codes were added probably due to political considerations, too. And if "having an ISO code" is the criterion, we should stick with that and not fight over whether that code is linguistically justified or not. If there is an active community, I would not be in favor of closing or marking as ineligible.
Best, jan
Am 2023-04-28 19:32, schrieb Jon Harald Søby:
Montenegrin is probably the longest-standing issue we have in the language committee, and it has been requested numerous times through the years. In the beginning of the language committee, the nation of Montenegro itself was brand new, and Montenegrin had already been "lumped in" with Serbian for a long time (well, at least since the Serbo-Croatian code was split up).
For a number of years, and this may be why LangCom's stance on Montenegrin has been the same, Montenegrin simply didn't meet one of the formal criteria: having an ISO 639 code. Then, in 2017, the language finally got its own code, but there was skepticism within the committee because the code was an ISO 639-2 code and not an ISO 639-3 code. The registrar for ISO 639-2 is the US Library of Congress, while the registrar for ISO 639-3 is SIL International. For all their faults, the latter is at least perceived to be more linguistic-minded, but many people saw the code coming to ISO 639-2 first as a sign that this was a _politically_ motivated decision, and not a _linguistically_ motivated one. A single language (and not a language group/macrolanguage) having a code in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3 was a highly unusual situation.
However, it seems to me that the code was also added to ISO 639-3 later without much fanfare, though there isn't the usual paper trail on the ISO website: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/cnr
I have dug up previous discussions from the mailing lists that I would advice all language committee members to read through. Most of them are on the internal list, because the discussions happened before we reached consensus to have a public list. That means they are not available to external list observers, but committee members should have access. If you don't, reach out to me off-list, and I will help guide you through the process.
- April 2007: The thread "Incubator and conditional approvals [4]".
It is a very long thread, the parts most relevant for Montenegrin happen in mails 2–8, but the rest can be an interesting read too if you want more context.
- March 2010: A single email "Request for Wikipedia in Montenegrin
[5]" from our now-former member, User:Millosh, who is himself Serbian and therefore knows the local situation quite well.
- December 2010: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia rejected [6]"; it
was rejected because a pending request to add an ISO 639-3 code for Montenegrin was rejected (or not acted upon?) by the registering authority. 4. May 2011: The thread "Montenegrin 4 [7]"; rejected because of continued lack of ISO 639 code. 5. Also May 2011: The thread "orthographies and macro-languages [8]", giving some details about the relationship of the various Serbo-Croatian languages. 6. July 2011: Parts of the thread "Eligible status for Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic [9]", which went a bit off that topic.
- March 2017: The thread "Rejection of Wikipedia Prekmurian [10]",
with more details. 8. December 2017: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia (URGENT) [11]", which came after the ISO 639-2 code was approved, but before it was added to ISO 639-3.
And then there's the current thread.
As we can see, I don't think there was ever a clear consensus to outright reject Montenegrin. There was a consensus for many years to wait until they potentially got an ISO 639 code, but when that finally happened, it happened in what I would describe as an "out-of-process way", which seemed perhaps "suspicious" on linguistic grounds.
ons. 26. apr. 2023 kl. 13:28 skrev Kimberli Mäkäräinen kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi:
I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K
From: Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while back [1] to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this thread [2] from March 2018 (+ this reply [3] from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
--
mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
--
mvh Jon Harald Søby
Links:
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_W... [2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre... [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre... [4] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia... [5] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia... [6] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia... [7] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia... [8] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia... [9] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia... [10] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre... [11] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre... _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
"Having an ISO code" is one criterion, but it is not the only one. Amir already quoted the Language Proposal Policy's requirement that a "language must be sufficiently unique that it could not coexist on a more general wiki." What case could this be more appropriate for than this one? It has never been shown that "cnr" is so different from "sh/hbs" that it needs to have a separate wiki.
The policy goes on to say:
The degree of difference required is considered on a case-by-case basis.
The committee does not consider political differences, since the Wikimedia Foundation's goal is to give every single person free, unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge, rather than information from the viewpoint of individual political communities.
If the only reason why "Montenegrin Wikipedia" should exist is that Montenegro is its own country, then that is clearly political and not a sufficient reason.
It is understandable that people want an "own" wiki as there are already different wikis for Serbian, Croatian, etc. But the Language Committee was created to prevent more such cases from occurring, not from multiplying them. The policy usefully also says
Projects that existed before the initial version of this policy was
adopted (November 2006) do not have to meet these requirements. Please do not use them as an argument that your project should be ruled "eligible". The fact that such projects exist, even when they do not meet the eligibility requirements below, is completely irrelevant to current eligibility discussions. Recently the commendable Wy/hbs project has been started. It's very strange to now see some of the same people calling for Wp/cnr.
Am Mi., 3. Mai 2023 um 10:20 Uhr schrieb Jan Wohlgemujth < spamfilter@janwonet.de>:
Thank you for this nice summary. Being a linguist myself, I would like to add one thing: This question cannot be decided on linguistic grounds alone. The situation of what once was called "Serbocroatian" _always_ has a political dimension, too. The ISO codes were added probably due to political considerations, too. And if "having an ISO code" is the criterion, we should stick with that and not fight over whether that code is linguistically justified or not. If there is an active community, I would not be in favor of closing or marking as ineligible.
Best, jan
Am 2023-04-28 19:32, schrieb Jon Harald Søby:
Montenegrin is probably the longest-standing issue we have in the language committee, and it has been requested numerous times through the years. In the beginning of the language committee, the nation of Montenegro itself was brand new, and Montenegrin had already been "lumped in" with Serbian for a long time (well, at least since the Serbo-Croatian code was split up).
For a number of years, and this may be why LangCom's stance on Montenegrin has been the same, Montenegrin simply didn't meet one of the formal criteria: having an ISO 639 code. Then, in 2017, the language finally got its own code, but there was skepticism within the committee because the code was an ISO 639-2 code and not an ISO 639-3 code. The registrar for ISO 639-2 is the US Library of Congress, while the registrar for ISO 639-3 is SIL International. For all their faults, the latter is at least perceived to be more linguistic-minded, but many people saw the code coming to ISO 639-2 first as a sign that this was a _politically_ motivated decision, and not a _linguistically_ motivated one. A single language (and not a language group/macrolanguage) having a code in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3 was a highly unusual situation.
However, it seems to me that the code was also added to ISO 639-3 later without much fanfare, though there isn't the usual paper trail on the ISO website: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/cnr
I have dug up previous discussions from the mailing lists that I would advice all language committee members to read through. Most of them are on the internal list, because the discussions happened before we reached consensus to have a public list. That means they are not available to external list observers, but committee members should have access. If you don't, reach out to me off-list, and I will help guide you through the process.
- April 2007: The thread "Incubator and conditional approvals [4]".
It is a very long thread, the parts most relevant for Montenegrin happen in mails 2–8, but the rest can be an interesting read too if you want more context.
- March 2010: A single email "Request for Wikipedia in Montenegrin
[5]" from our now-former member, User:Millosh, who is himself Serbian and therefore knows the local situation quite well.
- December 2010: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia rejected [6]"; it
was rejected because a pending request to add an ISO 639-3 code for Montenegrin was rejected (or not acted upon?) by the registering authority. 4. May 2011: The thread "Montenegrin 4 [7]"; rejected because of continued lack of ISO 639 code. 5. Also May 2011: The thread "orthographies and macro-languages [8]", giving some details about the relationship of the various Serbo-Croatian languages. 6. July 2011: Parts of the thread "Eligible status for Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic [9]", which went a bit off that topic.
- March 2017: The thread "Rejection of Wikipedia Prekmurian [10]",
with more details. 8. December 2017: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia (URGENT) [11]", which came after the ISO 639-2 code was approved, but before it was added to ISO 639-3.
And then there's the current thread.
As we can see, I don't think there was ever a clear consensus to outright reject Montenegrin. There was a consensus for many years to wait until they potentially got an ISO 639 code, but when that finally happened, it happened in what I would describe as an "out-of-process way", which seemed perhaps "suspicious" on linguistic grounds.
ons. 26. apr. 2023 kl. 13:28 skrev Kimberli Mäkäräinen kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi:
I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K
From: Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while back [1] to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this thread [2] from March 2018 (+ this reply [3] from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
--
mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
--
mvh Jon Harald Søby
Links:
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_W...
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
[4]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[5]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[6]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[7]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[8]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[9]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[10]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
[11]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- Jan Wohlgemuth Depok, Indonesia _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Usually, the eligibility issue with a project is having ISO 639 codes, but that's not the main one in this discussion. It is the LPP(Language Proposal Policy) that defines eligibility, and the LPP explains:
The language must be sufficiently unique that it could not coexist on a
more general wiki. In most cases, this excludes regional dialects and different written forms of the same language.
I think this can be judged on a linguistic basis, but I wonder if there is any data that can be judged objectively in linguistics.
Sotiale
https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail 바이러스가 없습니다.www.avast.com https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
2023년 5월 3일 (수) 오후 5:20, Jan Wohlgemujth spamfilter@janwonet.de님이 작성:
Thank you for this nice summary. Being a linguist myself, I would like to add one thing: This question cannot be decided on linguistic grounds alone. The situation of what once was called "Serbocroatian" _always_ has a political dimension, too. The ISO codes were added probably due to political considerations, too. And if "having an ISO code" is the criterion, we should stick with that and not fight over whether that code is linguistically justified or not. If there is an active community, I would not be in favor of closing or marking as ineligible.
Best, jan
Am 2023-04-28 19:32, schrieb Jon Harald Søby:
Montenegrin is probably the longest-standing issue we have in the language committee, and it has been requested numerous times through the years. In the beginning of the language committee, the nation of Montenegro itself was brand new, and Montenegrin had already been "lumped in" with Serbian for a long time (well, at least since the Serbo-Croatian code was split up).
For a number of years, and this may be why LangCom's stance on Montenegrin has been the same, Montenegrin simply didn't meet one of the formal criteria: having an ISO 639 code. Then, in 2017, the language finally got its own code, but there was skepticism within the committee because the code was an ISO 639-2 code and not an ISO 639-3 code. The registrar for ISO 639-2 is the US Library of Congress, while the registrar for ISO 639-3 is SIL International. For all their faults, the latter is at least perceived to be more linguistic-minded, but many people saw the code coming to ISO 639-2 first as a sign that this was a _politically_ motivated decision, and not a _linguistically_ motivated one. A single language (and not a language group/macrolanguage) having a code in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3 was a highly unusual situation.
However, it seems to me that the code was also added to ISO 639-3 later without much fanfare, though there isn't the usual paper trail on the ISO website: https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/cnr
I have dug up previous discussions from the mailing lists that I would advice all language committee members to read through. Most of them are on the internal list, because the discussions happened before we reached consensus to have a public list. That means they are not available to external list observers, but committee members should have access. If you don't, reach out to me off-list, and I will help guide you through the process.
- April 2007: The thread "Incubator and conditional approvals [4]".
It is a very long thread, the parts most relevant for Montenegrin happen in mails 2–8, but the rest can be an interesting read too if you want more context.
- March 2010: A single email "Request for Wikipedia in Montenegrin
[5]" from our now-former member, User:Millosh, who is himself Serbian and therefore knows the local situation quite well.
- December 2010: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia rejected [6]"; it
was rejected because a pending request to add an ISO 639-3 code for Montenegrin was rejected (or not acted upon?) by the registering authority. 4. May 2011: The thread "Montenegrin 4 [7]"; rejected because of continued lack of ISO 639 code. 5. Also May 2011: The thread "orthographies and macro-languages [8]", giving some details about the relationship of the various Serbo-Croatian languages. 6. July 2011: Parts of the thread "Eligible status for Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic [9]", which went a bit off that topic.
- March 2017: The thread "Rejection of Wikipedia Prekmurian [10]",
with more details. 8. December 2017: The thread "Montenegrin Wikipedia (URGENT) [11]", which came after the ISO 639-2 code was approved, but before it was added to ISO 639-3.
And then there's the current thread.
As we can see, I don't think there was ever a clear consensus to outright reject Montenegrin. There was a consensus for many years to wait until they potentially got an ISO 639 code, but when that finally happened, it happened in what I would describe as an "out-of-process way", which seemed perhaps "suspicious" on linguistic grounds.
ons. 26. apr. 2023 kl. 13:28 skrev Kimberli Mäkäräinen kimberli.makarainen@tuni.fi:
I think it would be a good idea to look more into this, preferably by asking linguists specializing in this language/these languages for their opinion. Having an ISO code is not a guarantee one way or another that they are separate languages and there are plenty of languages bundled under a single ISO code.
mvh. K
From: Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:55 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee langcom@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Langcom] Re: Montenegrin - ineligible?
Thanks for bringing it up, Amir. I promised a user a while back [1] to bring up the Montenegrin issue again, but I haven't done anything about it yet.
The last proper discussion we had about Montenegrin in this list was in this thread [2] from March 2018 (+ this reply [3] from Steven). Since then the language committee's composition has changed a bit, but I don't know if the situation wrt. Montenegrin recognition has changed – back then, the ISO 639-2 code for Montenegrin was quite new. But it could be good to hear some more opinions from within the committee before it's marked as ineligible again.
tir. 25. apr. 2023 kl. 14:53 skrev MF-Warburg mfwarburg@googlemail.com:
I agree.
Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il schrieb am Di., 25. Apr. 2023, 14:26:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't. I'd say that it should be marked as such. I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki, similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a week.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
--
mvh Jon Harald Søby _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
--
mvh Jon Harald Søby
Links:
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by#Montenegrin_W...
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
[4]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[5]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[6]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[7]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[8]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[9]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom-internal@lists.wikimedia...
[10]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
[11]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/langcom@lists.wikimedia.org/thre...
Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- Jan Wohlgemuth Depok, Indonesia _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Amir and all I disagree with closure on a few points and will respond inline after each. I also include the CEE Hub list and a few other people that might be interested.
On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 2:26 PM Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Hi,
There's this old, contentious discussion:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montene...
Discussion is not just contentious, to be disregarded as a whole, as quite a few good and elaborate intellectual inputs were made... At best you can say that some of the parts are contentious.
Though explicit critical positions and tensions is not the norm among Anglophones and people who aspire to fit in there, there are cultures/languages where 'glove' wearing/true conflict avoiding, while still doing other types of violence, is also not the norm...
It is patronizing to assume the same tone in interaction everywhere and discredit all presented arguments and lived experiences (some jaded with traumas or at least frustrations of oppression).
I somehow thought that it's already marked as ineligible, but it isn't.
There is a good reason for this not being a clear case as there are projects *(starting with Bosnian, that first separated from SH macro-language Wikipedia) that thrive and have even less distinction then Montenegrin does.
I'd say that it should be marked as such.
Based on what? Montenegrin is now a separate language standard that has also extra letters and state has ongoing war-like tension to Serbia, so both linguistically there is a need and culturally there is a need as it is not possible to just assume good faith or ambivalence.
I've allowed localization in that language on translatewiki,
Thank you!
similarly to en-gb, de-ch, etc., but it doesn't seem distinct enough for a whole Wikipedia.
IMHO having a Wikipedia has long been a thing of just language distinction (that is explicit here with Montenegrin to significant enough to be made) but also a matter of social and cultural distinction. Wikipedia is now even used to emancipate and empower preservation of cultures *(often minority, close to extinct historic) ... let alone here. Since local language is not supported with Wikipedia in Montenegrin the content gap is just increasing rapidly when compared with Serbian, which is fastest growing and for 15 years the only well resourced language of HBS spectrum with two distinct affiliates *(others have none!).
Keeping Montenegrin Wikipedia growing a community in incubator does not cost WMF anything and requires no extra action. Blocking it will render a full state and language standard unwelcome while providing even more support to those who are against it.
Does anyone disagree? If not, I'll be bold and mark it as ineligible in a
week.
I strongly disagree. Not because I am die hard nationalist for Montenegro, not because I think Wikipedias should discipline users over language standards, not because I think it is super situation in the regional Wikipedias as it is, but because I think such action will add to a pile of bad Wikimedia decisions in treating this troubled region and will re-ignite tensions and oppress minority, in the time when WMF PRing that we are inclusive, diverse and equitable Movement for all world's knowledge...and failing miserably in this region.
While WMF project Abstract Wikipedia and WikiFunctions works toward reducing need for multiplying efforts of translation for all types of articles and in few years we will have situation where language policies will need to change your action is not needed but would trigger negative impulses.
Mind you I am working on HBS macro-language project of Wikivoyage with all exactly because we have to have more diverse strategies and multiple options to accommodate diversity, rather then pushing for rigid rules of single language standard per project, but then also failing some for their weak representation.
To me that is like a doctrine you from Israel and Warburg from Germany *(who by the way on his own power blocked creation of new pages there) should discourage considering histories/present conflicts and power-plays.
If you do block it please be aware that this will become a public matter that will waist more energy and create more frustration for sure, then to just ... let it be?!.
Warm regards - Z. Blace
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list -- langcom@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to langcom-leave@lists.wikimedia.org