Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
There is no real difference between a historical language used by enthusiasts and a constructed language used by enthusiasts.
I agree with this point, but from an opposite, more inclusionary perspective.
If fact, I think I hear echoes of some of the points I raised at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Language_subcommittee and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Language_subcommittee/2008 :)
Which is why I must protest the recent decision by the Language subcommittee against any and all Wikipedias in "historical" languages, and the possibility of that decision being extended to any and all Wikipedias in constructed languages.
Now, all "historical" languages are not created equal. Some have no contemporary literature, like Anglo-Saxon. Others have an active contemporary literature, like Latin. Languages like Latin I would classify as living "classical languages" that have a contemporary literature, but few or no modern speakers. It is these languages that are comparable in application to constructed languages, and that should share the same criteria for inclusion, which IMO should be the breadth of their contemporary literature.
Some people would say that languages without native speakers are useless. I disagree profoundly. When Newton wrote Principia, was he writing in a 'useless' language? If a language has an active literature, it is not useless. Yes, primarily written languages are not ideally suited for teaching young children basic facts about the world. But they do have an important place in the intellectual sphere. Imagine Catholic seminary students, from different parts of the world, writing articles on church history, using the original Latin sources. Would not such articles be ripe for translation into many different languages?
And the argument that people are being siphoned off from their native language Wikipedia to work on Latin just doesn't make any sense; it is far more likely that the unique prospect of a Latin Wikipedia is drawing people in who would not otherwise be associated with Wikimedia projects at all.
Of course, the big question is, where do you draw the line? And how do you draw it effectively, so that we don't exhaust the resources of the resources of the Language subcommittee in fruitless research? As you might have guessed, I'm a strong proponent of requiring active contemporary literatures. ISO doesn't evaluate this, so we need alternate criteria. One way to determine if a contemporary contemporary literature is legitimate, is if its legitimacy is respected by scholars of the "historical" language (as opposed to just being a product of amateurs with no connection to mainstream academia).
But if the Language subcommittee wants something really simple and quantifiable, I'll give you this modest proposal: Is a language's contemporary literature notable enough to be the subject of a Featured Article on English Wikipedia?
Yup, simple as that. So, can [[Modern Latin literature]] make it?- probably, with some work. [[Modern Anglo-Saxon literature]]?- almost definitely not. [[Modern Ancient Greek literature]]?- maybe. This way, -you- don't have to do the research. The Featured Article Candidates team will do it for you.
And of course, these prospective Wikipedias would also still need a significant initial contributing community, like all prospective Wikipedia.
Thanks, User:Pharos
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote: