Hoi,
When we consider if a language is appropriate for having a wikipedia, you
may find old respectable languages that have gone in official disuse like
Neapolitan and consequently diverged in spelling because there was no longer
an education in a language. Neopolitan is a language that some see as a
dialect of Italian. I understand that the Andalusian statute does not say
that Andalusian is a language while it is as different, as distinct as many
of the other languages spoken in Spain. I know that Andalusian is known for
its many songs which is one form of literature. On the I&I conference I
spoke with someone from Guatamala and discussed Mayan languages. I learned
that for many people it is their first and only language. It does not have a
literature or standardised orthography because it is primarily a spoken
language.
My point is that by creating artificial barriers, you prevent us from making
our aim come true; all information for all people. When a small
dialect/language is good for codifying that culture, it serves our purpose.
I doubt that we would get these same people to write about their culture as
much in a language that they are forced to use. When we insist on literature
and one orthography we may exclude the people that use predominantly a
spoken language and prevent us from getting our information to these people.
As I mentioned on the wikitech list, the whole idea of voting is broken
anyway because when you vote for a language, you are supposed to actively
support this project to be while a nay-sayer is excused from any effort. I
do not vote for Dutch nds or for Andalusian because I will not work on these
projects.
Artificial languages are different from dialects and languages as they do
not represent a culture, a people. Consequently comparing natural and
artificial languages is problematic. It also helps to be a little more
relaxed about artificial languages; even with Klingon it works as a project
for as long as there is a community willing to put a lot of effort in it. As
it is a rather silly thing, I am sure that these people will reach this
conclusion at some point. In the mean time it does not detract from the
value of our other projects. It only becomes a problem when we adopt or care
about the value system of the officious.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 11/25/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
ilooy wrote:
>I'd like to suggest that taking into consideration ISO codes or SIL
codes
may
be one
solution. This would mean that an outside group which is well
established and has looked into the matter has deemed a certain language
important enough to be assigned a separate code.
This is exactly the policy we adopted several years ago, which has
proved
insufficient.
Relying on existence of ISO codes brings us:
* split Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian replacing Serbocroatian [controverial]
* Klingon
etc
and denies various languages/dialects/whatever which don't have their
own
codes
but which are oft asked for.
Yes. It's really important that everyone gets this. The idea of
referencing these external codes is and was a great one in many ways...
it gets the argument out of our hands, it could presumably be a
professionally-decided list, etc.
The only problem is that the list of ISO codes is highly politicized and
broken in many many ways. It was fine for getting a list of things like
"English" and "German" and "French" and so on, but it
breaks down when
you start looking at it more closely.
--Jimbo
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