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@gmail.com
Good day,
I'm pleased to announce you the creation of Wikimedia Indigenous Languages (WIL). WIL is the coordinating body for the promotion and development of indigenous on Wikimedia projects.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Indigenous_Languages (or just search WIL on Meta)
Wikimedia Indigenous Languages' vision is to see the sum of the knowledge available to everybody in their own languages and to share the knowledge of those languages themselves. It will achieve that by:
- Reaching indigenous languages speakers for the development of Wikimedia
projects in their language
- Establishing working cooperation with outside organizations involved in
the promotion of indigenous languages
- Creating and expanding Wikimedia projects in all indigenous languages
Wikimedia Indigenous Languages' role is to support and encourage the efforts of specific projects to develop Wikimedia projects in small and endangered languages. It will serve as an international body to collect and share best practices, lessons learned and methodology to develop small languages Wikimedia projects and preserve endangered languages. It will also offer support to people interested in developing initiatives and new projects. It will also become the point of contact to set up cooperation with other organizations working towards the same goals and will also actively seek such cooperation opportunities.
Anybody or any group who is interested in this project or any projects with indigenous languages are welcome to join Wikimedia Indigenous Languages. For questions or further discussion, come on the talk page, and a dedicated mailing list to discuss languages-related issue and initiatives will soon be crated.
Thanks, JP Béland (alias Amqui) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l