I propose to reject < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Sichuan.... The page is a bit messy, but what is certain is that it is only a dialect and has no ISO 639-3 (nor any other) codes.
As a linguist I cannot support the argument that "it is only a dialect", as the continuum between language and dialect is often arbitrary and political. However, based on the argument that Sichuanese Mandarin does not have an ISO code, I support the rejection of this request. Should they succeed in getting an ISO code for their language (for which there seems to be good reason if I understood the linguistic arguments correctly), then the request can be reopened or renewed.
Fwiw, Oliver
On 02-Mar-17 02:37, MF-Warburg wrote:
I propose to reject https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Sichuanese_Mandarin. The page is a bit messy, but what is certain is that it is only a dialect and has no ISO 639-3 (nor any other) codes.
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On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
As a linguist I cannot support the argument that "it is only a dialect", as the continuum between language and dialect is often arbitrary and political. However, based on the argument that Sichuanese Mandarin does not have an ISO code, I support the rejection of this request. Should they succeed in getting an ISO code for their language (for which there seems to be good reason if I understood the linguistic arguments correctly), then the request can be reopened or renewed.
While I agree with rejection in this case, I would add here one (generic) set of arguments why following ISO 639-3 strictly is not appropriate for Wikimedia (and the other one in relation to Prekmurian).
Wikipedia is not just about a language, but about a *written* language. For example, written phonetically, English varieties could be even more different than Eastern Scandinavian languages (including Norwegian Bokmal) or East Slavic languages. However, they've been written in a couple of very similar orthographies and there is no reason to create the set of Wikimedia projects in Texan English.
In the Chinese case, it goes even further: As long as the syntax is more or less the same and the same characters are used to designate the same concepts, creating a project in a Chinese variety (not just Mandarin) would be redundant. In other words, any request for Wikimedia projects in Chinese written in Han should convince us that their variety is distinctive enough to have a separate project, no matter of having an ISO 639-3 code.
I've marked this as rejected.
2017-03-02 11:43 GMT+01:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
As a linguist I cannot support the argument that "it is only a dialect",
as
the continuum between language and dialect is often arbitrary and
political.
However, based on the argument that Sichuanese Mandarin does not have an
ISO
code, I support the rejection of this request. Should they succeed in getting an ISO code for their language (for which there seems to be good reason if I understood the linguistic arguments correctly), then the
request
can be reopened or renewed.
While I agree with rejection in this case, I would add here one (generic) set of arguments why following ISO 639-3 strictly is not appropriate for Wikimedia (and the other one in relation to Prekmurian).
Wikipedia is not just about a language, but about a *written* language. For example, written phonetically, English varieties could be even more different than Eastern Scandinavian languages (including Norwegian Bokmal) or East Slavic languages. However, they've been written in a couple of very similar orthographies and there is no reason to create the set of Wikimedia projects in Texan English.
In the Chinese case, it goes even further: As long as the syntax is more or less the same and the same characters are used to designate the same concepts, creating a project in a Chinese variety (not just Mandarin) would be redundant. In other words, any request for Wikimedia projects in Chinese written in Han should convince us that their variety is distinctive enough to have a separate project, no matter of having an ISO 639-3 code.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom