I agree that Sumerian is unacceptable, at least at this point in time, for a Wikipedia.
I do not think it is OK that we can exclude Coptic, Ancient Greek, Old Javanese, &c, as long as they meet all other requirements already established (which I personally think are arbitrary and too harsh anyways, but oh well)
Mark
On 25/01/2008, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 25/01/2008, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
And I know you have been an advocate of Latin Wikipedia. I would not call such a language "reconstructed", but rather, a living and evolving "classical language", with an active contemporary literature. And I do not believe Latin to be unique in this regard.
I suppose the difference between modern versions of Latin and, say, modern versions of Sumerian (and I know a couple of people who could attempt to write in the latter) is that Latin is the product of an unbroken line of use - maybe a rather minor one at times, but there's always been a continuing usage of it since the year dot. Sumerian, however, is reconstructed from surviving fragments; we know how it works, but there's no "connection", it's just a philological curiosity for researchers.
So acceptable ancient languages would presumably be things like Latin, or classical Greek, or the various languages mostly known for liturgical purposes.
What do you think of the proposal for using the demonstrated notability of a language's contemporary literature (as demonstrated by a Featured Article on the subject in the English Wikipedia) as the criteria for the approval of a primarily-written language (such as the "historical" and constructed languages)?
I wouldn't go so far as to specify "an article on enwp", but some similar kind of positive demonstration of widespread contemporary literature, in the absence of a large "native" population, feels like a good measure.
The converse, a large native-speaking population and not much contemporary literature isn't a problem, of course - these are exactly the cases where we need to put lots of effort into helping kickstart the project.
In how many languages is Wikipedia the *only* major encyclopedia? I know there's at least one smallish European language where we're the first general encyclopedia in most of a century...
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- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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