Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Indigenous Languages

I think it is important to add that all initiatives should be, as much as possible, driven by indigenous people themselves and their priorities, rather than consist of non-speakers, non-community members doing things "for them" or "on their behalf". If we want to talk about "stakeholders", let's please remember that the _native_ speakers (not people learning the language as a hobby) are the main stakeholders, they should be making the decisions as much as possible and they should be creating the major part of the content; the rest of us should be in "support positions". Anything else, especially as part of a large international organization rooted in a western society (Wikipedia was born in the US in a circle of non-indigenous people, and most of the major people in our movement are not indigenous), would be likely to receive only lukewarm support from indigenous communities. Lots of similar initiatives from lots of organizations and governments have languished with little support from native speakers due to the same paternalistic attitudes that are created time and time again. One example I would like to share of this happening within our own movement is that of certain people who create hundreds of pages in a language they barely speak at incubator, on behalf of some idealized group of "native speakers", and then when the native speakers actually arrive, shouting them down or telling them why their views are not valid (the indigenous person in their mind was more "noble" and "exotic" and "special" than the real one, perhaps?). This has actually happened a lot in Wikipedias created before the incubation process existed (Nahuatl Wikipedia saw it happen multiple times, Uyghur Wikipedia saw it happen at one point, countless others where "hobbyists" shot down real native speakers). Just some thoughts. 2012/8/29 JP Béland <lebo.beland(a)gmail.com>