Generally, I like your sophisms ;)
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 8:43 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, From your reply I deduce that you at least accept the argument. The WMF is to bring knowledge to the people of this world. When what is written does not reflect the language it is written in, it is faulty and consequently we do not do justice to what we aim to achieve. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think that Wikimedia should be a guardian of "purity" of ancient languages.
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 8:02 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Well we disagree rather strongly on this. A language is indeed more
then a
vocabulary. However, if a language does not have a particular word and
you
start introducing it because you feel this need, it would not reflect
the
language any more. It is akin to speak of love in Piedmontese;
obviously
they love but they express it in a distinctly different way.
By introducing vocabulary in a language you prevent people to
understand the
finer points of that extinct language and you make it something else. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 7:47 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
wrote:
Something is a language even it has to use neologisms and it is a "dead" language. While I definitely support low priority of ancient/dead languages, I don't think that this argument about neologisms is relevant. One language is something more than a vocabulary.
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 7:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The starting premise is wrong. We have arguments why not to start
historic
languages. When you write in a dead language you will invariably
start
to
used neologisms or start to give a different meaning to a words
that
they
originally did not have. As a consequence you do not learn the
language
as
it was at the time of its demise. It is no longer that language.
There are constructed languages like Lingua Franca Novo who are
already
working on their Wikipedia outside of the WMF. This project is of
a
quality
that we would be proud of if it were a WMF project of similar
size. The
only
reason why it is not accepted as far as I am concerned is
politics; the
widespread aversion of some against constructed languages. In
contrast
to
historic languages neologisms are fine in constructed languages. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:17 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
wrote:
Conlangs and ancient languages are usually treated similarly.
The
issues which are related to them are, also, our relation to non-written languages, as well as non-active Wikipedias (note
that I
am not talking about other projects; treat the word "project" as
a
synonym for the word "Wikipedia"). All of them don't have a
clear
future at Wikimedia.
I would like to reformulate those issues in relation to our priorities. The main goal of WMF and Wikimedia community is to
spread
free knowledge. According to that, we need to make our
priorities and
to work according to them. It is, also, important to treat this
issue
without personal (or whichever) POV, but as more neutral as it
is
possible. We should, also, treat those issues not only
synchronically,
but with a clear vision of some very predictable parts of our
future.
So, I'll write about our priorities as I see them according to
"some
very predictable parts of our future" as I see them.
Before I start, I want to say my POV about all of the issues:
(1) I
don't think that conlangs except Esperanto and a couple of
specific
conlangs more are too useful. Besides that, I really don't like wannabe-world languages based on a couple of Indo-European
languages,
including Esperanto. (2) Artistic conlangs are, at my opinion,
even
lower. (3) I am not interested in developing neo-classical
languages.
(4) In this moment non-written languages are not a Wikimedia
issue;
some other institutions should take care about such languages
before
they become our issue. (5) I already said that if for some
project
may
be reasonably said that it is not active ("reasonable" is a
criteria
about we may talk...) -- then it should be locked, but unlocking should be allowed if a new speaker of that language want to take
care
about that project.
But, let's see what do we have:
- (Projects in) natural and living languages:
1.1. The biggest encyclopedia in the history of humans: English
Wikipedia.
1.2. Very soon, the second biggest encyclopedia in the history
of
humans: German Wikipedias. 1.3. Well developed projects which are at a good path to become
the
biggest encyclopedias in the history of humans, too. Generally,
those
are projects which have more than 50,000 articles or which will
have
that number relatively soon. 1.4. Emerging projects: active projects with, let's say at least
5000
articles and living communities. 1.5. Projects which started to exist: projects with around 1000 articles at least and a a couple of active contributors. 1.6. Not active projects which may become active: with less than around 1000 articles and a couple of not so active contributors. 1.7. Not active projects: with less than around 1000 and without active contributors. 1.8. Hundreds of living written languages which don't have a
Wikipedia.
1.9. Thousands of living non-written languages which don't have
a
Wikipedia.
- (Projects in) conlangs:
2.1. Two useful projects: Esperanto (the only relevant conglang community) and Volapuk (similarity with English and a lot of
data
added by one person). 2.2. (Do we have any other non-artistic conlang?) 2.3. A number of potentially useful conlangs which don't have a Wikipedia because of various out-of-Wikimedia reasons, usually copyright reasons. (Slovio is an example of such language; it
may be
read by any educated person which native language is one of the
Slavic
languages.) 2.4. All other non-artistic conlangs which wouldn't get a
project
because of the policies. 2.5. All artistic conlangs which wouldn't get a project because
of
the
policies.
- (Projects in) ancient/dead languages:
3.1. Actually, some of them are not dead (Latin, even a Church Slavonic, but the later one doesn't have a project, Old Church Slavonic has). Such are definitely useful: any educated Roman
Catholic
(in the Roman Catholic matters) should know Latin. 3.2. Some of definitely dead languages, like Gothic,
Anglo-Saxon...
3.3. A number of them which don't have projects because of our
policies.
And, I'll try to put them in one priority list, with
explanations.
- 1.1. English Wikipedia is definitely our first priority. This
is
not because I like English, but because of the fact that it is a lingua franca of the contemporary world. If you have some
knowledge
written in English, you may easily have that knowledge in other languages, too. However, this project may take care about
itself.
- 1.2. German Wikipedia is at the same priority as the next
group,
but it share one characteristics with English one: it may take
care
about itself. 3) 1.3. Well developed projects are, also, often a lingua franca
of
some region, or even more widely. Their importance is similar to
the
importance of English Wikipedia in that sense. Because of those projects we need to have the Volunteer Council: to give them possibility to take care about themselves. 4) 1.4.-1.5. Emerging and starting projects are our next
priority:
They need a lot of technical and other help to become a stable,
well
developed projects. Their importance lays at the fact that a lot
of
people are talking those languages. 5) 1.6. Of course, our next priority should be Wikipedias which
have
some activity. If we see that some people are interested in
Wikipedia
in their language, we should encourage them to participate in
the
project. 6) 1.7. Not active projects are important, too. At some time
someone
came to us and asked for the Wikipedia in their language. We
should
try to find some people who are interested in writing project in
that
language. But, it goes out of the scope of online community and
it is
a matter of WMF and their contacts. 7) 1.8. The same is for the written languages which don't have projects. People who are speakers of some language and asks for
the
project in their language are very important: it means that they
would
be maybe able to go into the more stable state in the near
future. At
this point I really support Gerard's position that MediaWiki
messages
should be translated: It doesn't just allow other speakers to
read MW
messages, but it shows to us that a person is (or persons are)
really
willing to create their project. 8) 1.9. The last group, non-written languages, are, again, a
matter
of
the WMF. It should be incorporated into the international
efforts to
make written forms of non-written languages. 9) 2.1.-3.1. Useful conlangs should be the next priority. At
least,
some number of humans are able to communicate in those
languages. And
we should allow them to write their encyclopedias. However, in
this
category are only *really* useful conglangs, like Esperanto is. However, again, Volapuk became a useful one, too -- because of
its
similarity with English and a work of one person. This is the
category
for useful ancient/dead languages, too, like Latin is. Also, if Klingon (or whatever artistic language) becomes enough
widespread to
be useful -- it should go into this category. 10) 3.2.-3.3. Definitely dead languages are the next. If we have resources, and there are people who are willing to do some neo-classical work -- it may be useful (somehow). 11) 2.2.-2.4. Non-artistic conlangs are the next. There are a
lot of
them; some may be useful for scientific purposes or even for communication ;) 12) 2.5. Then, here are artistic conlangs, too. If someone wants
to
enjoy while making an encyclopedia in an artistic language and
we
have
resources -- why not to allow that. Maybe such languages would
be
used
for real communication sometime in the future.
- 2.3. (and similar) Of course, the only type of conlangs
(artistic
or not) which are out of the scope of our interests are
copyrighted
languages.
And the point is the question: Where are we now? Hm. While we
are
doing partially other tasks, the answer is simple: We are now in
the
process of making Volunteer council, which means that we are
finishing
the third global task out of 12.
And, what to do? Of course, we should analyze our possibilities, first. Maybe it should be one of the first tasks of the VC. I am
sure
that the most of use will accept to take care about projects up
to
the
priority 7. However, WMF and VC should give to us an analysis of
our
possibilities. If we need to spend $10 and 10 working hours
(usually,
steward's working hours) per year for one new project in an
artistic
language (priority 12), then I think that it is reasonable.
However,
if we need to spend $50.000 and a lot of working hours per year
for
useful, but not so important Volapuk Wikipedia, instead of
giving
$10.000 per one African language for making five relevant encyclopedias in their languages: I am definitely for the second choice.
So, this was my contribution to relatively connected issues
about we
are talking a lot. I tried to move discussion from arbitrary
choices
to a bigger picture. Of course, I don't pretend for a perfect construction. I just hope that we may move toward more rational
talks
than arguing for one or another option.
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