Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 10/24/07, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Languages die because there is no education
available in those languages.
Why would there not naturally be education available in languages that
people were interested in using? I think you may have the causation
reversed there. :)
Not at all. You seem to ignore the effects of European imperialism on
many native languages, something that in many cases amounted to cultural
genocide. The imperial powers did a lot to make the natives feel that
using their own language made them inferior.
Think about
that for a second, and you see that a side-effect of Wikimedia's
goal of bringing free content to all the people in the world in their own
language, is actually saving languages.
Yes, the side effect. It's great if that happens as a side-effect in
some cases, but saving languages isn't the mission.
When there is no conflict and we can work side by side with language
preservationists, extreme polyglots, and conlang advocates thats
great. But if we reach a point where language preservation is being
advocated as a core part of the foundation's mission and when some
people are advocating that funding be diverted from the true
educational mission we will need to put a stop to that.
Nobody is saying that
saving languages should be our "mission".Being
polyglot has nothing to do, though it is important for everyone
(especially anglo-chauvinists) to have at least the rudiments of a
second language. Constructed languages have nothing to do with the
present discussion. It is a part of the core to make knowledge available
to everyone in his or her own language. Diverting funds to that end for
an endangered language is not contrary to our mission.
Ec