So Ancient Greek is not a natural language? 100 out of 100 linguists would beg to differ.
Mark
On 17/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Please read the proposal better next time. "sufficiently expressive" is used for the proposed criteria for constructed and reconstructed languages. Natural languages are not like Navajo are not in that class.
If you have not found arguments for the use of languages that are spoken natively, you are effectively denying the use of projects like Latin and Esperanto and are in effect blanket blocking all constructed and dead languages to have a Wikipedia. It is nice to have that in the open.
This "vague statement" has been there from the start, it is only vague because of your insistence that it is to be interpreted in a way it was not intended to be. The intent was that it was to be read as an exception on the rule for native speakers. I know because I put it there. Thanks,
GerardOn Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 11:51 PM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Gerard,
I disagree with your proposal.
I think some of the proposed criteria are very arbitrary. What is "sufficiently expressive" for a modern encyclopedia? Does that prevent many natural languages (such as Navajo) which don't have words for advanced technology? Wouldn't "insufficiently expressive" languages be perfectly sufficient for the vast majority of concepts, even if they might not have an article on quantum superstring theory?
Further, I've painstakingly followed every thread in this discussion, and I have not seen any strong argument for allowing languages nobody uses natively. Wikimedia wikis exist to make the sum of human knowledge available to everyone, not to practice or preserve languages.
I think the argument that they act as a common language for scholars of the ancient language is not valid; we are not a forum for academic exchange. An English scholar of Ancient Greek can (and probably does) use English in his everyday life, including research and communication. An exception can (and is) made for Wikisource, which exists to collect existing literature, but other projects in dead languages do not serve our mission. A scholar of Proto-Indo-European does not communicate in Proto-Indo-European.
So while I'm open to further debate, I currently disagree with this change.
(As an aside, the vague statement in the policy you point out is only there because you consistently blocked a majority agreement to remove it.)
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l