On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:34 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/5 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Thursday 04 September 2008 18:08:28 geni wrote:
2008/9/4 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Exactly.
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
The fact that it can be argued still doesn't mean that there it is even a remote possibility for it to be correct.
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Obscure language Wikipedias do not serve the purpose of educating people in their native language. As you've pointed out, resource wise it's better to teach the Fayu speakers some popular world languages. I expect that most speakers of less popular languages also reach the same conclusion, so we find most of the speakers of less popular languages busily editing away on English, practising their English skills for personal benefit, rather than spending their time on a Wikipedia which will never be complete enough to be really useful as an encyclopedia. (look at activity levels of the speakers of many Indian languages for a great example of this.)
In terms of educating people, we could probably get away with only a dozen or so languages: Anyone who doesn't learn to read one of those languages is at a tremendous disadvantage, disconnected from the commerce and scholarship of the world. We'd be doing them a disservice in providing an excuse to not learn a more popular language… if we were ever able to build comprehensive Wikipedias in those languages (which we aren't, the speakers of those languages are able to watch out for their own interests).
Of course, there are many groups who profit greatly from the artificial barriers created by language incompatibility (linguists, translators, international businesses, some educational projects (it's easier to build an empire when you need to fund people to translate or recreate educational works in 200 languages!)), and groups who fear for their cultures or systems of governance if their public had the freedom to directly learn about those of other places.
Unfortunately, the same language barriers make it difficult for normal people who speak these languages to participate in our English language discussions. As a result, we're forced to deal with self-appointed representatives, people who's value stems directly from the existence of language barriers. Perhaps it should be no surprise that building resources to help people learn the major languages is given less consideration than finding ways to prop up Wikipedia which lack sufficient interest from native speakers to become useful in the natural fashion.
All that said Wikipedias do serve good purposes beyond being useful as encyclopedias, ones which might not be our core mission, but which are still educational in nature. For those other purposes, less popular, even dead, or unpopular constructed languages can still be useful. I agree with the notion of the harmless dead languages, but can still reject the notion that we need them in order to provide encyclopedias to everyone.