Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the creation of wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that stem from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry (Egyptian) Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact that I am Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better degree of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals that subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will come I am sure.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from my concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose, to be precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or dialects (as proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate languages or not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on below, but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified as a separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so from the specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly out of my league.
That stated, here is what basically worries me:
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against the proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view) about my language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not the same as 'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I think the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is written in formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid reader I must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in Egyptian Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his stuff). Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves, for example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of the authors who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as is and other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually pronounced but is rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all literate Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is* the definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own every day talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case IMHO). The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that has only been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a written language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually observed in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is sometimes palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method of delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for at least the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there will ever be a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the Egyptian Sai'di (upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in the name of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not similar to formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one literate Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue of the the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is taught in schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal Arabic). I dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level in my area of the world, to let people have Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic corresponding project.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there is a lot of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia again as an example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about getting the Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the grammar more solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to bolster the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently going nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in such an argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already made by Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the language?
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the decision is apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion regarding the broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I haven't spammed this list with this email :).
Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey
I think the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is written in formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid reader I must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in Egyptian Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his stuff).
For the sake of correctness, I should state that my field of reading includes history, science, political analysis and generally non-fiction topics, I have just been reminded that some poets that use Egyptian as their writing language (it is a sub-genre called A'mmy), however they didnt have a standard agreed-upon way of writing it too.
Hoi, There are requirements for new proposals. One requirement is it must be recognised as a language. When a language is recognised by the ISO-639-3 standard, the language committee recognises it as well. There is a procedure for getting this recognition; a successful request was made for instance for the Lingua Franca Nova.
You may have noticed that there are strong arguments against the request for a Lebanese Wikipedia. The code for the language is not about Lebanese but for North Levantine Arabic, a language woth more people living outside Lebanon than inside. There is currently nobody claiming to be interested to work on this project... consequently this project has not been given the "eligible" status.
Once the eligible status has been given, all the technical requerements have been met. It is then for the community to prove itself. They have to do the minimal localisation, they have to create a starting corpus in the incubator. This corpus may be checked by an expert of our choosing for consistency with the claimed language. Once the eligible status has been given, it is not fair to deny a project at a later stage because of all the effort involved.
There is no need for a fixed or formal orthography, there are many projects where there is no fixed orthography. Muhammed writes about a duplication of effort, we support many languages and there are those who say that people should learn English because all the rest is a duplication of effort. These people are right however it is not *their *effort that does the duplication. When people feel a need to write in Egyptian, they can and you do not need to. When people ask for a Wikipedia, they have their reasons. The language committee does not know these reasons and does not really care to know them. People do their thing for their reasons and as long as it is within the bounds of the rules that the Wikimedia Foundation has set, they can.
The language policy is first and foremost a procedure that is followed. It is sufficiently flexible to do the job at hand but in the end nobody is completey happy.
In the end it is about freedom. Are you free to determine for others what they can and cannot do? Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.comwrote:
Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the creation of wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that stem from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry (Egyptian) Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact that I am Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better degree of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals that subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will come I am sure.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from my concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose, to be precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or dialects (as proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate languages or not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on below, but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified as a separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so from the specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly out of my league.
That stated, here is what basically worries me:
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against the proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view) about my language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not the same as 'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I think the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is written in formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid reader I must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in Egyptian Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his stuff). Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves, for example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of the authors who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as is and other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually pronounced but is rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all literate Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is* the definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own every day talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case IMHO). The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that has only been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a written language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually observed in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is sometimes palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method of delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for at least the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there will ever be a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the Egyptian Sai'di (upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in the name of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not similar to formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one literate Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue of the the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is taught in schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal Arabic). I dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level in my area of the world, to let people have Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic corresponding project.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there is a lot of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia again as an example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about getting the Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the grammar more solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to bolster the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently going nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in such an argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already made by Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the language?
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the decision is apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion regarding the broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I haven't spammed this list with this email :).
Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hi Gerard, thanks for the reply, just a couple of points:
There is no need for a fixed or formal orthography, there are many projects
where there is no fixed orthography. Muhammed writes about a duplication of effort, we support many languages and there are those who say that people should learn English because all the rest is a duplication of effort. These people are right however it is not *their *effort that does the duplication. When people feel a need to write in Egyptian, they can and you do not need to. When people ask for a Wikipedia, they have their reasons. The language committee does not know these reasons and does not really care to know them. People do their thing for their reasons and as long as it is within the bounds of the rules that the Wikimedia Foundation has set, they can.
Two things here
1. Your example here is not the same, People are not 'learning' Arabic to participate in Arabic wikipedia, I actually can claim that they are 'learning' how to write and read in the perspective dialect/language (in this case Egyptian). 2. I certainly am not against people giving their volunteer time anywhere they choose, however my point about duplicating is not about duplicating work in different languages, it is about duplicating work in say 10 slightly different versions of Arabic when everyone knows how to read the original version perfectly. I too, dont know the reasons of the people who request this, but by a simple logic deduction, if the main purpose of a wikipedia would be to transfer knowledge to people of a certain tongue, it doesnt seem this reason applies to any of those because simply, all the people who speak those dialects/languages almost dont *read* anything except in formal Arabic if they know how to read.
In the end it is about freedom. Are you free to determine for others what they can and cannot do?
Actually, I dont get how it is about freedom, it is about process, the current process of selection allows for some languages/dialects that I personally feel will be superfluous, and I am stating my opinion, how is that affecting anyone's freedom?
Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
For a language/dialect that has only been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a written language would be 'original research'
This pretty much sums it all up. If there is no published grammar of a language and if there's no written literature in it, then there shouldn't be a Wikipedia in it. *Unfortunately*, the time hasn't come yet for Wikipedia to be the first publication in any language.
Hello, It is a well known phenomenon, and interesting to read from you about it in the Arab world.
In principal, I tend to be as liberal as Gerard: Let people do what they like to do. On the other hand, practically, I strongly advice people to think twice about starting a project that has little chance to grow out to a respectable encyclopedia.
If there is no standard grammar, orthography, dictionary, it is very difficult to contribute to an encyclopedia in that idiom. In Bavarian WP (bar.WP; Bavarian is a dialect of German) there is a cleavage between those who want to conserve the old local dialects, and those who would like bar.WP to be the forum to create a unified Bavarian language. In fact, the latter view can be seen as "original research", and I know of a West Flemish Wikipedian who critisized similar tendencies in vls.WP with that argument.
So, if there is no linguistic community already that uses the idiom as a written language in formal situations (like writing an encyclopedia or scientific works)... then it seems to me not impossible, but very unlikely that the Wikipedia in that idiom will grow.
Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Manual_for_small_and_new_Wikipedias#Should_I_...
2008/10/5 Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@gmail.com:
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
For a language/dialect that has only been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a written language would be 'original research'
This pretty much sums it all up. If there is no published grammar of a language and if there's no written literature in it, then there shouldn't be a Wikipedia in it. *Unfortunately*, the time hasn't come yet for Wikipedia to be the first publication in any language.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni
heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com
"We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
In principal, I tend to be as liberal as Gerard: Let people do what they like to do. On the other hand, practically, I strongly advice people to think twice about starting a project that has little chance to grow out to a respectable encyclopedia.
While I do agree with everything that you write, is there really any mechanism why people should "think twice"? Is there any downside at all for an individual who asks for a new language of Wikipedia to be started, after that version fails? We don't really have a list of people who started failed projects. If I don't propose a Lebanese Wikipedia, my neighbor might do so. If it fails, the Wikimedia Foundation will be more ridiculed over its inflated number of 250 languages, but my neighbor doesn't suffer.
Maybe it's the Foundation that should think twice before granting more languages? It is the one to suffer, not the individual.
I wish that new languages could be handled in a more wiki way, where the threshold to start is lower, and where the upside and downside are more connected: you start it, so the failure is yours or the success is yours.
I think the name "Wikipedia" should be saved for those that have more than 10,000 or 50,000 articles. Before that stage, everybody should be free to start a "candidate reference wiki" in any language or dialect, hosted by WMF or elsewhere. We now have 35 languages with more than 50,000 articles and 80 languages with more than 10,000 articles. Any of these numbers (35 or 80) is more useful than the 264 languages that are currently listed as Wikipedias.
As it works now, anybody with an ISO language code and some wishful thinking can get the trademark "Wikipedia" on their hobby project, and the failure will belong to the Wikimedia Foundation.
With my scheme, anybody can start a hobby project of their own but the name Wikipedia would be something you deserve after spending some real effort.
I think there is a downside in that a local national "dialect" wikipedia in a country as important as Egypt takes energy away from the main Arabic wikipedia, which has global range and an important role to play worldwide. Wikipedias, after all, are written rather than spoken entities.
--- On Sun, 10/5/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote: From: Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] On Arabic and sub-language proposals. To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sunday, October 5, 2008, 11:01 AM
Is there any downside at all for an individual who asks for a new language of Wikipedia to be started, after that version fails? We don't really have a list of people who started failed projects. If I don't propose a Lebanese Wikipedia, my neighbor might do so. If it fails, the Wikimedia Foundation will be more ridiculed over its inflated number of 250 languages, but my neighbor doesn't suffer.
Hoi, The question is what makes a resource respectable. When a Wikipedia represents a substantial body of work for that language, it is relevant and when the text is well written it is even respectable. When the yardstick is the comprehensiveness of the English Wikipedia, there is no way that most of our projects will get to such a level.
When you ask for a list of people that propose projects, I am glad to say that there is none. When you have been involved with ensuring that the conditions are right for new projects like I have been, you know that certain individuals are eager to see many projects started. They are motivated people and typically they are happy to contribute a lot. I have less problems with these people then with the anonymous cowards who propose new languages. They are a total waste of time. Some proposals like the "Lebanese" proposal are stirring up emotions while they have no chance at all given that the request does not reflect the language as described and, there are no people effectively supporting this proposal.
The projects that started after the implementation of the language policy are all doing moderately well. When their communities grow, when the amount of content grows, the number of articles will grow as well. I personally do not care for the number of articles as a yardstick in any way. Certainly numbers like 10.000 or 50.000 before it can be called a Wikipedia is a certified way of preventing any new languages. If anything it is a great way of proving the existing bias that can be found in our Wikipedias. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 8:01 PM, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
In principal, I tend to be as liberal as Gerard: Let people do what they like to do. On the other hand, practically, I strongly advice people to think twice about starting a project that has little chance to grow out to a respectable encyclopedia.
While I do agree with everything that you write, is there really any mechanism why people should "think twice"? Is there any downside at all for an individual who asks for a new language of Wikipedia to be started, after that version fails? We don't really have a list of people who started failed projects. If I don't propose a Lebanese Wikipedia, my neighbor might do so. If it fails, the Wikimedia Foundation will be more ridiculed over its inflated number of 250 languages, but my neighbor doesn't suffer.
Maybe it's the Foundation that should think twice before granting more languages? It is the one to suffer, not the individual.
I wish that new languages could be handled in a more wiki way, where the threshold to start is lower, and where the upside and downside are more connected: you start it, so the failure is yours or the success is yours.
I think the name "Wikipedia" should be saved for those that have more than 10,000 or 50,000 articles. Before that stage, everybody should be free to start a "candidate reference wiki" in any10.000 language or dialect, hosted by WMF or elsewhere. We now have 35 languages with more than 50,000 articles and 80 languages with more than 10,000 articles. Any of these numbers (35 or 80) is more useful than the 264 languages that are currently listed as Wikipedias.
As it works now, anybody with an ISO language code and some wishful thinking can get the trademark "Wikipedia" on their hobby project, and the failure will belong to the Wikimedia Foundation.
With my scheme, anybody can start a hobby project of their own but the name Wikipedia would be something you deserve after spending some real effort.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the creation of wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that stem from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry (Egyptian) Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact that I am Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better degree of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals that subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will come I am sure.
Thanks for you email, it is a great one! Its content may be used as an example on universities: what do one educated non-linguist thinks about the situation when new standard languages are in the process of creation. I'll write a short paper/essay around your email. (Not here, even my email is long :) )
I see the situation in relation between classic Arabic and regional languages very similar to the situation when Romance standard languages were born. Few steps behind that is the situation with English languages (yes, plural); however, morphological orthography very close to the logogramic type (like Chinese; but, instead of lines, letters are used) prevents up to some extent orthographic diversification. But, such situation can't last for a long time. Actually, Scots is already treated as a separate language.
First, I may suppose that, for example, even Libyan and Egyptian spoken Arabic are not mutually understandable. But, if one Libyan may understand one Egyptian, it may be be comparable with the situation where one Portuguese may understand one Spanish up to some level.
I would say that the processes which are ongoing in Arab countries -- are natural. Learning a foreign language to be basically educated is not an advantage. It is an advantage at some higher level, but such situation leaves many people without the basic education (because they are not able or not willing to learn a foreign language). It is much easier to learn to write a native language.
Linguistic standardization is very strongly connected with politics. Mostly, it is connected because contemporary linguistics is a 19th century invent from Europe; and this was a time of romanticism, when the ideology based on premises "one language, one folk, one state[, one leader]" was dominant.
While it is possible to find different examples (Irish nation which uses English; Swiss nation which uses four languages), it is true that wherever European civilization came -- states are trying to make their own ethnicity and their own language.
At the other side, at the time when language standardization was not forced, "natural" processes of language separation were dominant. Separated by natural barriers or feudal states barriers, people developed separate languages.
In Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, where small feudal countries existed for a long time, a lot of separate language varieties exist at the areas of former feuds. For example, I think that areas Nuremberg and Hamburg have distinctively separate varieties than areas around those cities, without dialect continuum [1].
So, there are two separate social (and just because this, linguistic, too) processes: when not well connected, wider areas with one culture (like the case was with Roman and it is with Arabic), it tends to separate to different societies, states, cultures and languages. If a lot of different societies and cultures exist on smaller and well connected area, they tend to be merged. Of course, opposite historical examples may be found: Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino etc. are still separate states, while China is still one.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from my concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose, to be precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or dialects (as proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate languages or not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on below, but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified as a separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so from the specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly out of my league.
It is hard to give a clear linguistic answer what one language is; even if we remove all political reasons. There are some obvious cases, like distinction between Arabic and English is. However, there are a lot of cases when it is not possible to give a clear answer.
A classic example for comparison of this kind is that spoken languages in Germany are (or, at least, they were in 19th century) more different than all Slavic languages between themselves. But, if we remove political reasons (one German state; a number of Slavic states) and try to give "a linguistic answer" what are the languages, we couldn't do that.
Simply, the question "is this a separate language?" is a question of the type "is the color [in RGB notation] #00xxxx blue or green?". We are sure that #00FF00 is green and that #0000FF is blue and that they are separate colors. We may be sure that even #00FF22 is green, while #0022FF is blue. However, we can't be so sure when we move numbers closer. Giving a discrete answer to a question which is a product of our [whichever] bias is sometimes impossible.
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against the proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view) about my language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not the same as 'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I think the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is written in formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid reader I must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in Egyptian Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his stuff). Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves, for example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of the authors who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as is and other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually pronounced but is rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all literate Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is* the definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own every day talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case IMHO). The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that has only been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a written language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually observed in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is sometimes palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method of delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for at least the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there will ever be a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the Egyptsystemian Sai'di (upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My father is from the area of Serbia where a distinctive language is spoken, Torlak or Shop [2]. Unlike in the case of other geographical varieties in the South Slavic area, Torlak is not moribund, it is really alive language and speakers of it are actively adopting Serbian and Bulgarian words at the substratum of highly Balkanized (see Balkan sprachbund [3]; it's a separate, actually, opposite term from the political Balkanizaiton) mixture of Vulgar Latin [4], Thracian and dominantly Slavic languages (of course, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Slavic languages, but, from the present situation, substratum is not based on Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian standards). It has no written literature (there are some "examples", but they are examples for usage of that language for dialogs inside of dramas written in standard Serbian); the situation is analogue as in Egypt. A literate inhabitant of Southern and Eastern Serbia has to know Serbian standard, a literate inhabitant of Western Bulgaria has to know Bulgarian standard; while a literate inhabitant of Northern Macedonia has to know Macedonian standard.
When I was talking with one of the rare people who works on language there (a local one), we came to the question why inhabitants (even very educated; even professors of Serbian language) are using a dialect in all kinds of their communications in school except the most formal ones (lectures to high school students). The answer was: "Because it is easier to us, we don't need to care about rules."
This is interesting because of two reasons. First, they care about rules, even they don't think so. It is the basic characteristic of all communication systems: participants have to follow some rules to be able to send an information and understand each other. The second issue shows how hard is one language system to speakers of a different one.
But, the main difference between the situation in Egypt and in Southern and Eastern Serbia is the number of inhabitants. There is something between 200.000 and 500.000 people who are speaking Torlak (comparing with 76+ millions of Egyptians) inside of three very strong educational systems (95%+ comparing with 70%+ in Egypt). Speakers of Torlak are surrounded by speakers of standard Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian; while, AFAIK, there is no such place where standard Arabic is a common spoken language.
In other words, Masri came into the position when it is not in the position of "a dialect of a language". It is now a spoken language with all cultural attributes of one language except the normalized standard (AFAIK, some kind of standard exists, but it is not finished yet).
The situation where people are able to choose how do they want to write is not a stable one. Sooner or later some [more precise] standard will start to be followed.
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in the name of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not similar to formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one literate Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue of the the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is taught in schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal Arabic). I dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level in my area of the world, to let people have Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic corresponding project.
How distant are standard Arabic and Masri? Is it possible to make a conversion engine between those two languages? If you don't think so, what are the reasons?
I believe (I say that I believe because I didn't prove it :) ) that it is possible to make very good conversion engines between similar languages (conversion engine between Bokmal and Nynorsk exists, but I don't know how good it is). And it is worth of effort. In the case of "Arabance" languages and Arabic such efforts may be very well funded.
If it is not possible, note that Arabic language has the base in more than 1 billion of people (including all other Muslim countries); as well as Masri has the base in 76+ millions of people. Masri has better position than, let's say, Italian. So, the right way for thinking about this issue is to concentrate on efforts for spreading education and Internet in Egypt and other Arab countries.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there is a lot of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia again as an example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about getting the Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the grammar more solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to bolster the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently going nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in such an argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already made by Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the language?
:) As I explained before, every language (in the common sense of the meaning of the word "language") is a matter of politics, not linguistics. Even when you don't realize that as an obvious fact. Arabic is a matter of politics, English is a matter of politics, German is a matter of politics, French is a matter of politics, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Japanese, Yoruba, Zulu, Mayan...
Linguists are a small minority of inhabitants of some country. They are not politically relevant to demand new language for new nation. Also, they are not politically relevant to demand preservation of old language. If one linguist says one of those things, he is not lead by linguistics, but by political motives (no matter how positive or negative those motives may be). While language standardization is a matter of sociolinguistics, again, it is more about description than about active involvement in political processes.
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the decision is apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion regarding the broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I haven't spammed this list with this email :).
On our eyes Arabic language is developing into "Arabence" languages, like Latin did it between the first centuries of the first millennium and 19th century; and Slavic during the first centuries of the second millennium. The conditions are now very different. There are Internet, railroads, highways... You have a lot of possibilities to keep good things from the fact that the most of educated people from Muslim world know standard Arabic fluently and you should build your new local languages to make education more achievable to more people.
And, to say again, your email is a great one. You described very well the situation in which your society is now because of the birth of new language.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak_dialect [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin
Hi Milos,
Thank you for the fascinating insight, linguists are like the anthropologists of culture :) .
Anyway, my opinion is simple, we may or may not be undergoing a process where our language is morphing and forming, and we may even in a decade (or less) see our version of Arabic as written (I do have reservations, Standard or formal Arabic is not dead, as it is the language of the religious text in a heavily religious part of the world, among other factors). However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to accelerate such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so. There has never been a published text in Masry in history, politics, science or any non-fiction topic AFAIK. The Masry Wikipedia will be the first to have such text, so will probably be the Lebanese, Sudanese, and Morrocan (and Gerard, you were saying worry over Lebanese is an over-reaction, how about Morrocan, its approval is under-way as far as I see). I stil strongly see that as 'original research' and a stand by the WMF to actually support the adoption of those language as written (as opposed to leaving that to be resolved by the respective community). So it may well be that those languages will become adopted as written at some time in the future, and it may well be that the partially formed standard for Masry that you speak of will come to light and somehow get adopted by the respective population, but until then, I think the WMF should stand on the sideline IMHO.
2008/10/5 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the creation
of
wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that
stem
from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry
(Egyptian)
Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact that I
am
Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better
degree
of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals that subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will come
I
am sure.
Thanks for you email, it is a great one! Its content may be used as an example on universities: what do one educated non-linguist thinks about the situation when new standard languages are in the process of creation. I'll write a short paper/essay around your email. (Not here, even my email is long :) )
I see the situation in relation between classic Arabic and regional languages very similar to the situation when Romance standard languages were born. Few steps behind that is the situation with English languages (yes, plural); however, morphological orthography very close to the logogramic type (like Chinese; but, instead of lines, letters are used) prevents up to some extent orthographic diversification. But, such situation can't last for a long time. Actually, Scots is already treated as a separate language.
First, I may suppose that, for example, even Libyan and Egyptian spoken Arabic are not mutually understandable. But, if one Libyan may understand one Egyptian, it may be be comparable with the situation where one Portuguese may understand one Spanish up to some level.
I would say that the processes which are ongoing in Arab countries -- are natural. Learning a foreign language to be basically educated is not an advantage. It is an advantage at some higher level, but such situation leaves many people without the basic education (because they are not able or not willing to learn a foreign language). It is much easier to learn to write a native language.
Linguistic standardization is very strongly connected with politics. Mostly, it is connected because contemporary linguistics is a 19th century invent from Europe; and this was a time of romanticism, when the ideology based on premises "one language, one folk, one state[, one leader]" was dominant.
While it is possible to find different examples (Irish nation which uses English; Swiss nation which uses four languages), it is true that wherever European civilization came -- states are trying to make their own ethnicity and their own language.
At the other side, at the time when language standardization was not forced, "natural" processes of language separation were dominant. Separated by natural barriers or feudal states barriers, people developed separate languages.
In Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, where small feudal countries existed for a long time, a lot of separate language varieties exist at the areas of former feuds. For example, I think that areas Nuremberg and Hamburg have distinctively separate varieties than areas around those cities, without dialect continuum [1].
So, there are two separate social (and just because this, linguistic, too) processes: when not well connected, wider areas with one culture (like the case was with Roman and it is with Arabic), it tends to separate to different societies, states, cultures and languages. If a lot of different societies and cultures exist on smaller and well connected area, they tend to be merged. Of course, opposite historical examples may be found: Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino etc. are still separate states, while China is still one.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from my concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose, to be precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or dialects (as proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate languages
or
not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on
below,
but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified as a separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so from the specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly out of
my
league.
It is hard to give a clear linguistic answer what one language is; even if we remove all political reasons. There are some obvious cases, like distinction between Arabic and English is. However, there are a lot of cases when it is not possible to give a clear answer.
A classic example for comparison of this kind is that spoken languages in Germany are (or, at least, they were in 19th century) more different than all Slavic languages between themselves. But, if we remove political reasons (one German state; a number of Slavic states) and try to give "a linguistic answer" what are the languages, we couldn't do that.
Simply, the question "is this a separate language?" is a question of the type "is the color [in RGB notation] #00xxxx blue or green?". We are sure that #00FF00 is green and that #0000FF is blue and that they are separate colors. We may be sure that even #00FF22 is green, while #0022FF is blue. However, we can't be so sure when we move numbers closer. Giving a discrete answer to a question which is a product of our [whichever] bias is sometimes impossible.
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against the proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view) about
my
language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not the same
as
'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I think the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is written in formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid reader
I
must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in Egyptian Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his
stuff).
Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves, for example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of the
authors
who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as is and other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually pronounced but
is
rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all literate Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is* the definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own every
day
talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case IMHO). The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that has
only
been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a
written
language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually
observed
in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is
sometimes
palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method of delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for at
least
the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there will ever
be
a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the
Egyptsystemian Sai'di
(upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My father is from the area of Serbia where a distinctive language is spoken, Torlak or Shop [2]. Unlike in the case of other geographical varieties in the South Slavic area, Torlak is not moribund, it is really alive language and speakers of it are actively adopting Serbian and Bulgarian words at the substratum of highly Balkanized (see Balkan sprachbund [3]; it's a separate, actually, opposite term from the political Balkanizaiton) mixture of Vulgar Latin [4], Thracian and dominantly Slavic languages (of course, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Slavic languages, but, from the present situation, substratum is not based on Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian standards). It has no written literature (there are some "examples", but they are examples for usage of that language for dialogs inside of dramas written in standard Serbian); the situation is analogue as in Egypt. A literate inhabitant of Southern and Eastern Serbia has to know Serbian standard, a literate inhabitant of Western Bulgaria has to know Bulgarian standard; while a literate inhabitant of Northern Macedonia has to know Macedonian standard.
When I was talking with one of the rare people who works on language there (a local one), we came to the question why inhabitants (even very educated; even professors of Serbian language) are using a dialect in all kinds of their communications in school except the most formal ones (lectures to high school students). The answer was: "Because it is easier to us, we don't need to care about rules."
This is interesting because of two reasons. First, they care about rules, even they don't think so. It is the basic characteristic of all communication systems: participants have to follow some rules to be able to send an information and understand each other. The second issue shows how hard is one language system to speakers of a different one.
But, the main difference between the situation in Egypt and in Southern and Eastern Serbia is the number of inhabitants. There is something between 200.000 and 500.000 people who are speaking Torlak (comparing with 76+ millions of Egyptians) inside of three very strong educational systems (95%+ comparing with 70%+ in Egypt). Speakers of Torlak are surrounded by speakers of standard Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian; while, AFAIK, there is no such place where standard Arabic is a common spoken language.
In other words, Masri came into the position when it is not in the position of "a dialect of a language". It is now a spoken language with all cultural attributes of one language except the normalized standard (AFAIK, some kind of standard exists, but it is not finished yet).
The situation where people are able to choose how do they want to write is not a stable one. Sooner or later some [more precise] standard will start to be followed.
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in the
name
of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not similar to formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one literate Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue of the the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is taught
in
schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal Arabic). I dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level in my area of the world, to let people have Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic corresponding project.
How distant are standard Arabic and Masri? Is it possible to make a conversion engine between those two languages? If you don't think so, what are the reasons?
I believe (I say that I believe because I didn't prove it :) ) that it is possible to make very good conversion engines between similar languages (conversion engine between Bokmal and Nynorsk exists, but I don't know how good it is). And it is worth of effort. In the case of "Arabance" languages and Arabic such efforts may be very well funded.
If it is not possible, note that Arabic language has the base in more than 1 billion of people (including all other Muslim countries); as well as Masri has the base in 76+ millions of people. Masri has better position than, let's say, Italian. So, the right way for thinking about this issue is to concentrate on efforts for spreading education and Internet in Egypt and other Arab countries.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there is a
lot
of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia again as
an
example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about getting the Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the grammar
more
solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to bolster the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently going nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in such
an
argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already made
by
Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the
language?
:) As I explained before, every language (in the common sense of the meaning of the word "language") is a matter of politics, not linguistics. Even when you don't realize that as an obvious fact. Arabic is a matter of politics, English is a matter of politics, German is a matter of politics, French is a matter of politics, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Japanese, Yoruba, Zulu, Mayan...
Linguists are a small minority of inhabitants of some country. They are not politically relevant to demand new language for new nation. Also, they are not politically relevant to demand preservation of old language. If one linguist says one of those things, he is not lead by linguistics, but by political motives (no matter how positive or negative those motives may be). While language standardization is a matter of sociolinguistics, again, it is more about description than about active involvement in political processes.
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the decision
is
apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion regarding
the
broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I haven't spammed this list with this email :).
On our eyes Arabic language is developing into "Arabence" languages, like Latin did it between the first centuries of the first millennium and 19th century; and Slavic during the first centuries of the second millennium. The conditions are now very different. There are Internet, railroads, highways... You have a lot of possibilities to keep good things from the fact that the most of educated people from Muslim world know standard Arabic fluently and you should build your new local languages to make education more achievable to more people.
And, to say again, your email is a great one. You described very well the situation in which your society is now because of the birth of new language.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak_dialect [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, You are welcome to your opinion.You are free to express your opinion. In the mean time, the request for the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia has run the process that is the same for all languages. I have indicated that the language committee was unanimous in deciding that the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia request was eligible.
The process is explicit in that it is until the moment of declaring a request eligible that discussion is appreciated about a language. The reason is that it is not fair to the community supporting and working on such a proposal to deny them their request at a later stage.
The request for a "Lebanese" Wikipedia is not eligible at this time for two reasons. The language that is the official language of Lebanon is part of "North Levantine Arabic", there are more people outside of Lebanon speaking this language.. There are also no people indicating that they will actively support this request. Consequently the status of eligible is not granted.
When it comes to "original research", this concept is an issue for the content of Wikipedia articles. What you call original research would be an issue for several existing Wikipedias where the language has no fixed orthography or where there is not even a unifiying dialect or orthography for that language.
When you state that "worry is an overreaction", my question again is what gives you the freedom to deny others the freedom to express themselves in their language. I agree with you that standard Arabic is not dead. It it the language of religion. The issue is that religion and politics are not a factor when considering the eligibility of a language. Rather, claims to deny such a request on political and religious arguments are frowned upon.
When the standard Arabic language is so vibrant, when you are so certain that a Wikipedia in other Arabic languages will prove to be a failure, I would not be concerned about these request for new projects. If you are afraid that these Wikipedias will detract from the standard Arabic language and WMF projects that you champion, you have reason to continue agitating against requests for one of the other Arabic language projects.
In the mean time, every community that represents a language has the freedom to request a project. People have to jump through all kind of hoops to get to the stage where this request is granted. Freedom is one of the guiding principles of the Wikimedia Foundation. Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.comwrote:
Hi Milos,
Thank you for the fascinating insight, linguists are like the anthropologists of culture :) .
Anyway, my opinion is simple, we may or may not be undergoing a process where our language is morphing and forming, and we may even in a decade (or less) see our version of Arabic as written (I do have reservations, Standard or formal Arabic is not dead, as it is the language of the religious text in a heavily religious part of the world, among other factors). However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to accelerate such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so. There has never been a published text in Masry in history, politics, science or any non-fiction topic AFAIK. The Masry Wikipedia will be the first to have such text, so will probably be the Lebanese, Sudanese, and Morrocan (and Gerard, you were saying worry over Lebanese is an over-reaction, how about Morrocan, its approval is under-way as far as I see). I stil strongly see that as 'original research' and a stand by the WMF to actually support the adoption of those language as written (as opposed to leaving that to be resolved by the respective community). So it may well be that those languages will become adopted as written at some time in the future, and it may well be that the partially formed standard for Masry that you speak of will come to light and somehow get adopted by the respective population, but until then, I think the WMF should stand on the sideline IMHO.
2008/10/5 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey <shipmaster@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the
creation
of
wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that
stem
from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry
(Egyptian)
Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact that
I
am
Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better
degree
of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals that subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will
come
I
am sure.
Thanks for you email, it is a great one! Its content may be used as an example on universities: what do one educated non-linguist thinks about the situation when new standard languages are in the process of creation. I'll write a short paper/essay around your email. (Not here, even my email is long :) )
I see the situation in relation between classic Arabic and regional languages very similar to the situation when Romance standard languages were born. Few steps behind that is the situation with English languages (yes, plural); however, morphological orthography very close to the logogramic type (like Chinese; but, instead of lines, letters are used) prevents up to some extent orthographic diversification. But, such situation can't last for a long time. Actually, Scots is already treated as a separate language.
First, I may suppose that, for example, even Libyan and Egyptian spoken Arabic are not mutually understandable. But, if one Libyan may understand one Egyptian, it may be be comparable with the situation where one Portuguese may understand one Spanish up to some level.
I would say that the processes which are ongoing in Arab countries -- are natural. Learning a foreign language to be basically educated is not an advantage. It is an advantage at some higher level, but such situation leaves many people without the basic education (because they are not able or not willing to learn a foreign language). It is much easier to learn to write a native language.
Linguistic standardization is very strongly connected with politics. Mostly, it is connected because contemporary linguistics is a 19th century invent from Europe; and this was a time of romanticism, when the ideology based on premises "one language, one folk, one state[, one leader]" was dominant.
While it is possible to find different examples (Irish nation which uses English; Swiss nation which uses four languages), it is true that wherever European civilization came -- states are trying to make their own ethnicity and their own language.
At the other side, at the time when language standardization was not forced, "natural" processes of language separation were dominant. Separated by natural barriers or feudal states barriers, people developed separate languages.
In Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, where small feudal countries existed for a long time, a lot of separate language varieties exist at the areas of former feuds. For example, I think that areas Nuremberg and Hamburg have distinctively separate varieties than areas around those cities, without dialect continuum [1].
So, there are two separate social (and just because this, linguistic, too) processes: when not well connected, wider areas with one culture (like the case was with Roman and it is with Arabic), it tends to separate to different societies, states, cultures and languages. If a lot of different societies and cultures exist on smaller and well connected area, they tend to be merged. Of course, opposite historical examples may be found: Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino etc. are still separate states, while China is still one.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from my concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose, to
be
precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or dialects
(as
proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate languages
or
not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on
below,
but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified as
a
separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so from
the
specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly out of
my
league.
It is hard to give a clear linguistic answer what one language is; even if we remove all political reasons. There are some obvious cases, like distinction between Arabic and English is. However, there are a lot of cases when it is not possible to give a clear answer.
A classic example for comparison of this kind is that spoken languages in Germany are (or, at least, they were in 19th century) more different than all Slavic languages between themselves. But, if we remove political reasons (one German state; a number of Slavic states) and try to give "a linguistic answer" what are the languages, we couldn't do that.
Simply, the question "is this a separate language?" is a question of the type "is the color [in RGB notation] #00xxxx blue or green?". We are sure that #00FF00 is green and that #0000FF is blue and that they are separate colors. We may be sure that even #00FF22 is green, while #0022FF is blue. However, we can't be so sure when we move numbers closer. Giving a discrete answer to a question which is a product of our [whichever] bias is sometimes impossible.
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against the proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view)
about
my
language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not the
same
as
'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I
think
the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is written
in
formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid
reader
I
must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in
Egyptian
Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his
stuff).
Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves, for example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of the
authors
who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as is
and
other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually pronounced
but
is
rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all literate Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is* the definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own
every
day
talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case
IMHO).
The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that has
only
been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a
written
language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually
observed
in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is
sometimes
palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method of delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for at
least
the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there will
ever
be
a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the
Egyptsystemian Sai'di
(upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My father is from the area of Serbia where a distinctive language is spoken, Torlak or Shop [2]. Unlike in the case of other geographical varieties in the South Slavic area, Torlak is not moribund, it is really alive language and speakers of it are actively adopting Serbian and Bulgarian words at the substratum of highly Balkanized (see Balkan sprachbund [3]; it's a separate, actually, opposite term from the political Balkanizaiton) mixture of Vulgar Latin [4], Thracian and dominantly Slavic languages (of course, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Slavic languages, but, from the present situation, substratum is not based on Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian standards). It has no written literature (there are some "examples", but they are examples for usage of that language for dialogs inside of dramas written in standard Serbian); the situation is analogue as in Egypt. A literate inhabitant of Southern and Eastern Serbia has to know Serbian standard, a literate inhabitant of Western Bulgaria has to know Bulgarian standard; while a literate inhabitant of Northern Macedonia has to know Macedonian standard.
When I was talking with one of the rare people who works on language there (a local one), we came to the question why inhabitants (even very educated; even professors of Serbian language) are using a dialect in all kinds of their communications in school except the most formal ones (lectures to high school students). The answer was: "Because it is easier to us, we don't need to care about rules."
This is interesting because of two reasons. First, they care about rules, even they don't think so. It is the basic characteristic of all communication systems: participants have to follow some rules to be able to send an information and understand each other. The second issue shows how hard is one language system to speakers of a different one.
But, the main difference between the situation in Egypt and in Southern and Eastern Serbia is the number of inhabitants. There is something between 200.000 and 500.000 people who are speaking Torlak (comparing with 76+ millions of Egyptians) inside of three very strong educational systems (95%+ comparing with 70%+ in Egypt). Speakers of Torlak are surrounded by speakers of standard Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian; while, AFAIK, there is no such place where standard Arabic is a common spoken language.
In other words, Masri came into the position when it is not in the position of "a dialect of a language". It is now a spoken language with all cultural attributes of one language except the normalized standard (AFAIK, some kind of standard exists, but it is not finished yet).
The situation where people are able to choose how do they want to write is not a stable one. Sooner or later some [more precise] standard will start to be followed.
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in the
name
of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not similar
to
formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one literate Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue of
the
the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is
taught
in
schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal Arabic).
I
dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level in
my
area of the world, to let people have Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic
corresponding
project.
How distant are standard Arabic and Masri? Is it possible to make a conversion engine between those two languages? If you don't think so, what are the reasons?
I believe (I say that I believe because I didn't prove it :) ) that it is possible to make very good conversion engines between similar languages (conversion engine between Bokmal and Nynorsk exists, but I don't know how good it is). And it is worth of effort. In the case of "Arabance" languages and Arabic such efforts may be very well funded.
If it is not possible, note that Arabic language has the base in more than 1 billion of people (including all other Muslim countries); as well as Masri has the base in 76+ millions of people. Masri has better position than, let's say, Italian. So, the right way for thinking about this issue is to concentrate on efforts for spreading education and Internet in Egypt and other Arab countries.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there is
a
lot
of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia again
as
an
example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about getting
the
Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the grammar
more
solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to
bolster
the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently going nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in
such
an
argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already
made
by
Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the
language?
:) As I explained before, every language (in the common sense of the meaning of the word "language") is a matter of politics, not linguistics. Even when you don't realize that as an obvious fact. Arabic is a matter of politics, English is a matter of politics, German is a matter of politics, French is a matter of politics, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Japanese, Yoruba, Zulu, Mayan...
Linguists are a small minority of inhabitants of some country. They are not politically relevant to demand new language for new nation. Also, they are not politically relevant to demand preservation of old language. If one linguist says one of those things, he is not lead by linguistics, but by political motives (no matter how positive or negative those motives may be). While language standardization is a matter of sociolinguistics, again, it is more about description than about active involvement in political processes.
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the
decision
is
apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion
regarding
the
broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I
haven't
spammed this list with this email :).
On our eyes Arabic language is developing into "Arabence" languages, like Latin did it between the first centuries of the first millennium and 19th century; and Slavic during the first centuries of the second millennium. The conditions are now very different. There are Internet, railroads, highways... You have a lot of possibilities to keep good things from the fact that the most of educated people from Muslim world know standard Arabic fluently and you should build your new local languages to make education more achievable to more people.
And, to say again, your email is a great one. You described very well the situation in which your society is now because of the birth of new language.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak_dialect [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hi,
The process is explicit in that it is until the moment of declaring a request eligible that discussion is appreciated about a language. The reason is that it is not fair to the community supporting and working on such a proposal to deny them their request at a later stage.
Hmm, I have not suggested that the WMF actually close any approved project, I am actually, as I said before if you have missed, stating my opinion about the process, which could be used for approving Saudi, Libyan, Yemeni languages/dialects in the future (and has already been used to approve Moroccan). Why do you keep going back to 'closure is not an option' when I have not requested one?
Rather, claims to deny such a request on political and religious arguments are frowned upon.
Have I made such a claim concerning religion? I merely mentioned it as one of the factors standard Arabic lives on, replying to Milos about adoption of the spoken language as written. You are again putting words in my mouth.
When the standard Arabic language is so vibrant, when you are so certain that a Wikipedia in other Arabic languages will prove to be a failure, I would not be concerned about these request for new projects. If you are afraid that these Wikipedias will detract from the standard Arabic language and WMF projects that you champion, you have reason to continue agitating against requests for one of the other Arabic language projects.
Again, I haven't mentioned that these projects will be a 'failure' and 'Standard Arabic will rule all' as you picture it, I will not repeat my argument, please refer to it in previous discussion.
In the mean time, every community that represents a language has the freedom to request a project. People have to jump through all kind of hoops to get to the stage where this request is granted. Freedom is one of the guiding principles of the Wikimedia Foundation. Thanks, GerardM
That is the second time you mention freedom and that is the second time I reply, I am contesting the process, not people's freedom to do as they choose, how does that coincide? unless of course you consider questioning the language committee process as an infringment upon freedom.
Finally let me be blunt here, I feel you are replying to someone else's arguments. I understand that you have had a lot of discussions with people who may have had religious/political goals to forward, and may have not been the best people to talk with in terms of POV and respecting other people rights, but in replying to me with what you said to them when I have a totally different concern would be stereotyping IMHO, if that is the case, please don't do that, if it is not and I misunderstood, then I apologise for the above statement.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey <shipmaster@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi Milos,
Thank you for the fascinating insight, linguists are like the anthropologists of culture :) .
Anyway, my opinion is simple, we may or may not be undergoing a process where our language is morphing and forming, and we may even in a decade
(or
less) see our version of Arabic as written (I do have reservations, Standard or formal Arabic is not dead, as it is the language of the religious text in a heavily religious part of the world, among other factors). However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to
accelerate
such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so.
There
has never been a published text in Masry in history, politics, science or any non-fiction topic AFAIK. The Masry Wikipedia will be the first to
have
such text, so will probably be the Lebanese, Sudanese, and Morrocan (and Gerard, you were saying worry over Lebanese is an over-reaction, how
about
Morrocan, its approval is under-way as far as I see). I stil strongly
see
that as 'original research' and a stand by the WMF to actually support
the
adoption of those language as written (as opposed to leaving that to be resolved by the respective community). So it may well be that those languages will become adopted as written at some time in the future, and
it
may well be that the partially formed standard for Masry that you speak
of
will come to light and somehow get adopted by the respective population, but until then, I think the WMF should stand on the sideline IMHO.
2008/10/5 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey <
shipmaster@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the
creation
of
wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that
stem
from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry
(Egyptian)
Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact
that
I
am
Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better
degree
of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals that subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will
come
I
am sure.
Thanks for you email, it is a great one! Its content may be used as an example on universities: what do one educated non-linguist thinks about the situation when new standard languages are in the process of creation. I'll write a short paper/essay around your email. (Not here, even my email is long :) )
I see the situation in relation between classic Arabic and regional languages very similar to the situation when Romance standard languages were born. Few steps behind that is the situation with English languages (yes, plural); however, morphological orthography very close to the logogramic type (like Chinese; but, instead of lines, letters are used) prevents up to some extent orthographic diversification. But, such situation can't last for a long time. Actually, Scots is already treated as a separate language.
First, I may suppose that, for example, even Libyan and Egyptian spoken Arabic are not mutually understandable. But, if one Libyan may understand one Egyptian, it may be be comparable with the situation where one Portuguese may understand one Spanish up to some level.
I would say that the processes which are ongoing in Arab countries -- are natural. Learning a foreign language to be basically educated is not an advantage. It is an advantage at some higher level, but such situation leaves many people without the basic education (because they are not able or not willing to learn a foreign language). It is much easier to learn to write a native language.
Linguistic standardization is very strongly connected with politics. Mostly, it is connected because contemporary linguistics is a 19th century invent from Europe; and this was a time of romanticism, when the ideology based on premises "one language, one folk, one state[, one leader]" was dominant.
While it is possible to find different examples (Irish nation which uses English; Swiss nation which uses four languages), it is true that wherever European civilization came -- states are trying to make their own ethnicity and their own language.
At the other side, at the time when language standardization was not forced, "natural" processes of language separation were dominant. Separated by natural barriers or feudal states barriers, people developed separate languages.
In Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, where small feudal countries existed for a long time, a lot of separate language varieties exist at the areas of former feuds. For example, I think that areas Nuremberg and Hamburg have distinctively separate varieties than areas around those cities, without dialect continuum [1].
So, there are two separate social (and just because this, linguistic, too) processes: when not well connected, wider areas with one culture (like the case was with Roman and it is with Arabic), it tends to separate to different societies, states, cultures and languages. If a lot of different societies and cultures exist on smaller and well connected area, they tend to be merged. Of course, opposite historical examples may be found: Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino etc. are still separate states, while China is still one.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from
my
concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose, to
be
precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or dialects
(as
proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate
languages
or
not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on
below,
but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified
as
a
separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so from
the
specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly out
of
my
league.
It is hard to give a clear linguistic answer what one language is; even if we remove all political reasons. There are some obvious cases, like distinction between Arabic and English is. However, there are a lot of cases when it is not possible to give a clear answer.
A classic example for comparison of this kind is that spoken languages in Germany are (or, at least, they were in 19th century) more different than all Slavic languages between themselves. But, if we remove political reasons (one German state; a number of Slavic states) and try to give "a linguistic answer" what are the languages, we couldn't do that.
Simply, the question "is this a separate language?" is a question of the type "is the color [in RGB notation] #00xxxx blue or green?". We are sure that #00FF00 is green and that #0000FF is blue and that they are separate colors. We may be sure that even #00FF22 is green, while #0022FF is blue. However, we can't be so sure when we move numbers closer. Giving a discrete answer to a question which is a product of our [whichever] bias is sometimes impossible.
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against the proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view)
about
my
language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not the
same
as
'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I
think
the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is
written
in
formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid
reader
I
must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in
Egyptian
Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his
stuff).
Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves,
for
example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of the
authors
who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as is
and
other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually pronounced
but
is
rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all literate Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is* the definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own
every
day
talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case
IMHO).
The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that
has
only
been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a
written
language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually
observed
in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is
sometimes
palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method of delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for at
least
the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there will
ever
be
a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the
Egyptsystemian Sai'di
(upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My father is from the area of Serbia where a distinctive language is spoken, Torlak or Shop [2]. Unlike in the case of other geographical varieties in the South Slavic area, Torlak is not moribund, it is really alive language and speakers of it are actively adopting Serbian and Bulgarian words at the substratum of highly Balkanized (see Balkan sprachbund [3]; it's a separate, actually, opposite term from the political Balkanizaiton) mixture of Vulgar Latin [4], Thracian and dominantly Slavic languages (of course, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Slavic languages, but, from the present situation, substratum is not based on Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian standards). It has no written literature (there are some "examples", but they are examples for usage of that language for dialogs inside of dramas written in standard Serbian); the situation is analogue as in Egypt. A literate inhabitant of Southern and Eastern Serbia has to know Serbian standard, a literate inhabitant of Western Bulgaria has to know Bulgarian standard; while a literate inhabitant of Northern Macedonia has to know Macedonian standard.
When I was talking with one of the rare people who works on language there (a local one), we came to the question why inhabitants (even very educated; even professors of Serbian language) are using a dialect in all kinds of their communications in school except the most formal ones (lectures to high school students). The answer was: "Because it is easier to us, we don't need to care about rules."
This is interesting because of two reasons. First, they care about rules, even they don't think so. It is the basic characteristic of all communication systems: participants have to follow some rules to be able to send an information and understand each other. The second issue shows how hard is one language system to speakers of a different one.
But, the main difference between the situation in Egypt and in Southern and Eastern Serbia is the number of inhabitants. There is something between 200.000 and 500.000 people who are speaking Torlak (comparing with 76+ millions of Egyptians) inside of three very strong educational systems (95%+ comparing with 70%+ in Egypt). Speakers of Torlak are surrounded by speakers of standard Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian; while, AFAIK, there is no such place where standard Arabic is a common spoken language.
In other words, Masri came into the position when it is not in the position of "a dialect of a language". It is now a spoken language with all cultural attributes of one language except the normalized standard (AFAIK, some kind of standard exists, but it is not finished yet).
The situation where people are able to choose how do they want to write is not a stable one. Sooner or later some [more precise] standard will start to be followed.
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in
the
name
of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not
similar
to
formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one
literate
Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue of
the
the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is
taught
in
schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal
Arabic).
I
dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level in
my
area of the world, to let people have Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic
corresponding
project.
How distant are standard Arabic and Masri? Is it possible to make a conversion engine between those two languages? If you don't think so, what are the reasons?
I believe (I say that I believe because I didn't prove it :) ) that it is possible to make very good conversion engines between similar languages (conversion engine between Bokmal and Nynorsk exists, but I don't know how good it is). And it is worth of effort. In the case of "Arabance" languages and Arabic such efforts may be very well funded.
If it is not possible, note that Arabic language has the base in more than 1 billion of people (including all other Muslim countries); as well as Masri has the base in 76+ millions of people. Masri has better position than, let's say, Italian. So, the right way for thinking about this issue is to concentrate on efforts for spreading education and Internet in Egypt and other Arab countries.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there
is
a
lot
of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia
again
as
an
example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about getting
the
Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the grammar
more
solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to
bolster
the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently
going
nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting
this
canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in
such
an
argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already
made
by
Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the
language?
:) As I explained before, every language (in the common sense of the meaning of the word "language") is a matter of politics, not linguistics. Even when you don't realize that as an obvious fact. Arabic is a matter of politics, English is a matter of politics, German is a matter of politics, French is a matter of politics, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Japanese, Yoruba, Zulu, Mayan...
Linguists are a small minority of inhabitants of some country. They are not politically relevant to demand new language for new nation. Also, they are not politically relevant to demand preservation of old language. If one linguist says one of those things, he is not lead by linguistics, but by political motives (no matter how positive or negative those motives may be). While language standardization is a matter of sociolinguistics, again, it is more about description than about active involvement in political processes.
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the
decision
is
apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion
regarding
the
broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I
haven't
spammed this list with this email :).
On our eyes Arabic language is developing into "Arabence" languages, like Latin did it between the first centuries of the first millennium and 19th century; and Slavic during the first centuries of the second millennium. The conditions are now very different. There are Internet, railroads, highways... You have a lot of possibilities to keep good things from the fact that the most of educated people from Muslim world know standard Arabic fluently and you should build your new local languages to make education more achievable to more people.
And, to say again, your email is a great one. You described very well the situation in which your society is now because of the birth of new language.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak_dialect [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ 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
Hoi, Once the process has reached the eligible status, a request is to end in the creation of a project. There is no such thing as "closure" as you seem to understand. The status of eligible happens a long time before the final approval of a project. This final approval has always been a formal moment where the board was asked to confirm the result of the process. The language committee indicates in its request to the board that a request fulfils all requirements.
When you express concern about other Arabic languages, the "Lebanese" request demonstrates hat all requests do get proper attention and that even when an ISO-639-3 code is quoted, other things are considered as well prior to giving the eligible status.
When it comes to freedom, you take the liberty to oppose for reasons that further your point of view. The languages that you oppose are in principle eligible under the policy. As indicated earlier, all members of the language committee were explicitly asked to consider the issue that you raise. The consequence of this is that in my opinion you refuse people the freedom to work on a project in their language, languages that are eligible under the language policy of the WMF.
One of the reasons for this policy is to stop the endless talk and bickering about requests for new WMF projects. For this reason the policy is in fact a procedure that is the same for all.The benefit of this policy is that new projects have proven to do better then new projects prior to the policy and, there are fewer proposals that have little chance of doing well.
The issue is that you are not wiilling to accept the outcome of the policy. Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.comwrote:
Hi,
The process is explicit in that it is until the moment of declaring a request eligible that discussion is appreciated about a language. The reason is that it is not fair to the community supporting and working on such a proposal to deny them their request at a later stage.
Hmm, I have not suggested that the WMF actually close any approved project, I am actually, as I said before if you have missed, stating my opinion about the process, which could be used for approving Saudi, Libyan, Yemeni languages/dialects in the future (and has already been used to approve Moroccan). Why do you keep going back to 'closure is not an option' when I have not requested one?
Rather, claims to deny such a request on political and religious arguments are frowned
upon.
Have I made such a claim concerning religion? I merely mentioned it as one of the factors standard Arabic lives on, replying to Milos about adoption of the spoken language as written. You are again putting words in my mouth.
When the standard Arabic language is so vibrant, when you are so certain that a Wikipedia in other Arabic languages will prove to be a failure, I would not be concerned about these request for new projects. If you are afraid that these Wikipedias will detract from the standard Arabic
language
and WMF projects that you champion, you have reason to continue agitating against requests for one of the other Arabic language projects.
Again, I haven't mentioned that these projects will be a 'failure' and 'Standard Arabic will rule all' as you picture it, I will not repeat my argument, please refer to it in previous discussion.
In the mean time, every community that represents a language has the freedom to request a project. People have to jump through all kind of hoops to
get
to the stage where this request is granted. Freedom is one of the guiding principles of the Wikimedia Foundation. Thanks, GerardM
That is the second time you mention freedom and that is the second time I reply, I am contesting the process, not people's freedom to do as they choose, how does that coincide? unless of course you consider questioning the language committee process as an infringment upon freedom.
Finally let me be blunt here, I feel you are replying to someone else's arguments. I understand that you have had a lot of discussions with people who may have had religious/political goals to forward, and may have not been the best people to talk with in terms of POV and respecting other people rights, but in replying to me with what you said to them when I have a totally different concern would be stereotyping IMHO, if that is the case, please don't do that, if it is not and I misunderstood, then I apologise for the above statement.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey <shipmaster@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi Milos,
Thank you for the fascinating insight, linguists are like the anthropologists of culture :) .
Anyway, my opinion is simple, we may or may not be undergoing a process where our language is morphing and forming, and we may even in a decade
(or
less) see our version of Arabic as written (I do have reservations, Standard or formal Arabic is not dead, as it is the language of the religious
text
in a heavily religious part of the world, among other factors). However,
let
me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to
accelerate
such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so.
There
has never been a published text in Masry in history, politics, science
or
any non-fiction topic AFAIK. The Masry Wikipedia will be the first to
have
such text, so will probably be the Lebanese, Sudanese, and Morrocan
(and
Gerard, you were saying worry over Lebanese is an over-reaction, how
about
Morrocan, its approval is under-way as far as I see). I stil strongly
see
that as 'original research' and a stand by the WMF to actually support
the
adoption of those language as written (as opposed to leaving that to be resolved by the respective community). So it may well be that those languages will become adopted as written at some time in the future,
and
it
may well be that the partially formed standard for Masry that you speak
of
will come to light and somehow get adopted by the respective
population,
but until then, I think the WMF should stand on the sideline IMHO.
2008/10/5 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey <
shipmaster@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the
creation
of
wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them
that
stem
from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry
(Egyptian)
Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact
that
I
am
Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better
degree
of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals
that
subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will
come
I
am sure.
Thanks for you email, it is a great one! Its content may be used as
an
example on universities: what do one educated non-linguist thinks about the situation when new standard languages are in the process of creation. I'll write a short paper/essay around your email. (Not
here,
even my email is long :) )
I see the situation in relation between classic Arabic and regional languages very similar to the situation when Romance standard languages were born. Few steps behind that is the situation with English languages (yes, plural); however, morphological orthography very close to the logogramic type (like Chinese; but, instead of lines, letters are used) prevents up to some extent orthographic diversification. But, such situation can't last for a long time. Actually, Scots is already treated as a separate language.
First, I may suppose that, for example, even Libyan and Egyptian spoken Arabic are not mutually understandable. But, if one Libyan may understand one Egyptian, it may be be comparable with the situation where one Portuguese may understand one Spanish up to some level.
I would say that the processes which are ongoing in Arab countries -- are natural. Learning a foreign language to be basically educated is not an advantage. It is an advantage at some higher level, but such situation leaves many people without the basic education (because
they
are not able or not willing to learn a foreign language). It is much easier to learn to write a native language.
Linguistic standardization is very strongly connected with politics. Mostly, it is connected because contemporary linguistics is a 19th century invent from Europe; and this was a time of romanticism, when the ideology based on premises "one language, one folk, one state[, one leader]" was dominant.
While it is possible to find different examples (Irish nation which uses English; Swiss nation which uses four languages), it is true
that
wherever European civilization came -- states are trying to make
their
own ethnicity and their own language.
At the other side, at the time when language standardization was not forced, "natural" processes of language separation were dominant. Separated by natural barriers or feudal states barriers, people developed separate languages.
In Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, where small feudal countries existed for a long time, a lot of separate language varieties exist at the areas of former feuds. For example, I think that areas Nuremberg and Hamburg have distinctively separate
varieties
than areas around those cities, without dialect continuum [1].
So, there are two separate social (and just because this, linguistic, too) processes: when not well connected, wider areas with one culture (like the case was with Roman and it is with Arabic), it tends to separate to different societies, states, cultures and languages. If a lot of different societies and cultures exist on smaller and well connected area, they tend to be merged. Of course, opposite
historical
examples may be found: Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino etc. are still separate states, while China is still one.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from
my
concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose,
to
be
precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or
dialects
(as
proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate
languages
or
not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on
below,
but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified
as
a
separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so
from
the
specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly
out
of
my
league.
It is hard to give a clear linguistic answer what one language is; even if we remove all political reasons. There are some obvious
cases,
like distinction between Arabic and English is. However, there are a lot of cases when it is not possible to give a clear answer.
A classic example for comparison of this kind is that spoken
languages
in Germany are (or, at least, they were in 19th century) more different than all Slavic languages between themselves. But, if we remove political reasons (one German state; a number of Slavic
states)
and try to give "a linguistic answer" what are the languages, we couldn't do that.
Simply, the question "is this a separate language?" is a question of the type "is the color [in RGB notation] #00xxxx blue or green?". We are sure that #00FF00 is green and that #0000FF is blue and that they are separate colors. We may be sure that even #00FF22 is green, while #0022FF is blue. However, we can't be so sure when we move numbers closer. Giving a discrete answer to a question which is a product of our [whichever] bias is sometimes impossible.
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against
the
proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view)
about
my
language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not
the
same
as
'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I
think
the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is
written
in
formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid
reader
I
must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in
Egyptian
Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called
his
stuff).
Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves,
for
example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of
the
authors
who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as
is
and
other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually
pronounced
but
is
rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all
literate
Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is*
the
definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own
every
day
talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case
IMHO).
The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that
has
only
been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a
written
language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually
observed
in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is
sometimes
palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method
of
delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for
at
least
the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there
will
ever
be
a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the
Egyptsystemian Sai'di
(upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My father is from the area of Serbia where a distinctive language is spoken, Torlak or Shop [2]. Unlike in the case of other geographical varieties in the South Slavic area, Torlak is not moribund, it is really alive language and speakers of it are actively adopting
Serbian
and Bulgarian words at the substratum of highly Balkanized (see
Balkan
sprachbund [3]; it's a separate, actually, opposite term from the political Balkanizaiton) mixture of Vulgar Latin [4], Thracian and dominantly Slavic languages (of course, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Slavic languages, but, from the present situation, substratum is not based on Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian standards). It has no written literature (there are some "examples", but they are examples for usage of that language for dialogs inside
of
dramas written in standard Serbian); the situation is analogue as in Egypt. A literate inhabitant of Southern and Eastern Serbia has to know Serbian standard, a literate inhabitant of Western Bulgaria has to know Bulgarian standard; while a literate inhabitant of Northern Macedonia has to know Macedonian standard.
When I was talking with one of the rare people who works on language there (a local one), we came to the question why inhabitants (even very educated; even professors of Serbian language) are using a dialect in all kinds of their communications in school except the
most
formal ones (lectures to high school students). The answer was: "Because it is easier to us, we don't need to care about rules."
This is interesting because of two reasons. First, they care about rules, even they don't think so. It is the basic characteristic of
all
communication systems: participants have to follow some rules to be able to send an information and understand each other. The second issue shows how hard is one language system to speakers of a
different
one.
But, the main difference between the situation in Egypt and in Southern and Eastern Serbia is the number of inhabitants. There is something between 200.000 and 500.000 people who are speaking Torlak (comparing with 76+ millions of Egyptians) inside of three very
strong
educational systems (95%+ comparing with 70%+ in Egypt). Speakers of Torlak are surrounded by speakers of standard Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian; while, AFAIK, there is no such place where standard
Arabic
is a common spoken language.
In other words, Masri came into the position when it is not in the position of "a dialect of a language". It is now a spoken language with all cultural attributes of one language except the normalized standard (AFAIK, some kind of standard exists, but it is not finished yet).
The situation where people are able to choose how do they want to write is not a stable one. Sooner or later some [more precise] standard will start to be followed.
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in
the
name
of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not
similar
to
formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one
literate
Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue
of
the
the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is
taught
in
schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal
Arabic).
I
dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level
in
my
area of the world, to let people have
Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni
mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic
corresponding
project.
How distant are standard Arabic and Masri? Is it possible to make a conversion engine between those two languages? If you don't think so, what are the reasons?
I believe (I say that I believe because I didn't prove it :) ) that
it
is possible to make very good conversion engines between similar languages (conversion engine between Bokmal and Nynorsk exists, but I don't know how good it is). And it is worth of effort. In the case of "Arabance" languages and Arabic such efforts may be very well funded.
If it is not possible, note that Arabic language has the base in more than 1 billion of people (including all other Muslim countries); as well as Masri has the base in 76+ millions of people. Masri has
better
position than, let's say, Italian. So, the right way for thinking about this issue is to concentrate on efforts for spreading education and Internet in Egypt and other Arab countries.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there
is
a
lot
of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia
again
as
an
example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about
getting
the
Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the
grammar
more
solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to
bolster
the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently
going
nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting
this
canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in
such
an
argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already
made
by
Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the
language?
:) As I explained before, every language (in the common sense of the meaning of the word "language") is a matter of politics, not linguistics. Even when you don't realize that as an obvious fact. Arabic is a matter of politics, English is a matter of politics, German is a matter of politics, French is a matter of politics, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Japanese, Yoruba, Zulu, Mayan...
Linguists are a small minority of inhabitants of some country. They are not politically relevant to demand new language for new nation. Also, they are not politically relevant to demand preservation of old language. If one linguist says one of those things, he is not lead by linguistics, but by political motives (no matter how positive or negative those motives may be). While language standardization is a matter of sociolinguistics, again, it is more about description than about active involvement in political processes.
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the
decision
is
apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion
regarding
the
broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I
haven't
spammed this list with this email :).
On our eyes Arabic language is developing into "Arabence" languages, like Latin did it between the first centuries of the first millennium and 19th century; and Slavic during the first centuries of the second millennium. The conditions are now very different. There are
Internet,
railroads, highways... You have a lot of possibilities to keep good things from the fact that the most of educated people from Muslim world know standard Arabic fluently and you should build your new local languages to make education more achievable to more people.
And, to say again, your email is a great one. You described very well the situation in which your society is now because of the birth of
new
language.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak_dialect [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ 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
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello,
When it comes to freedom, you take the liberty to oppose for reasons that
further your point of view. The languages that you oppose are in principle eligible under the policy. As indicated earlier, all members of the language committee were explicitly asked to consider the issue that you raise. The consequence of this is that in my opinion you refuse people the freedom to work on a project in their language, languages that are eligible under the language policy of the WMF.
I am taking the liberty of using already approved languages as an example to demonstrate my point of view, which is about the process the committee uses, I dont get where you see all the oppression of freedom (and frankly I find it irritating that you keep casting what I say in this light) . I have said from my first email that I understand that Egyptian has already been approved. You were the one who missed (or refused) to read through.
One of the reasons for this policy is to stop the endless talk and bickering about requests for new WMF projects. For this reason the policy is in fact a procedure that is the same for all.The benefit of this policy is that new projects have proven to do better then new projects prior to the policy and, there are fewer proposals that have little chance of doing well.
The issue is that you are not wiilling to accept the outcome of the policy.
No the issue is that I am trying to point out something I see as a weakness in the policy/process, and I have said so repeatedly since your first aggresive email , and if you consider that 'bickering' or as you stated earlier 'agitation' then sadly we will not be able to reach a meaningful dialogue, it is the same as labeling each nay-sayer as a troll in wiki discussions. Is your process set in stone and there shall be no discussion about it? if that is the position of lang com it should be stated clearly.
And regarding meaningful dialogue you say:
other things are considered as well prior to giving the eligible status.
As indicated earlier, all members of the language committee were explicitly asked to consider the issue that you raise.
Then if as you claim you have considered all the issues I have raised before you made the decision there is a big issue in transparency, as I have read through the approved proposals trying to find any supporting arguments other than the ISO code thing and didnt find any, if such arguments were available, why arent they made public? that would save a person like me such a discussion.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
Then if as you claim you have considered all the issues I have raised before you made the decision there is a big issue in transparency, as I have read through the approved proposals trying to find any supporting arguments other than the ISO code thing and didnt find any, if such arguments were available, why arent they made public? that would save a person like me such a discussion.
Gerard, while I think that Masri (and other Arabic languages) should get their Wikimedian projects, blindly following ISO codes leads to very reasonable questions, like this one is. (I had to make a point here :) )
Hoi, As indicated earlier, the "Lebanese" request proves that the ISO-639-3 standard is not followed blindly when giving the eligible status to a project.
The language committee is restricted in what it can share publicly. Consequently not everything can be scrutinised by people who want to know and see everything. As I indicated earlier, the request for Egyptian Arabic was given extra attention. Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
Then if as you claim you have considered all the issues I have raised
before
you made the decision there is a big issue in transparency, as I have
read
through the approved proposals trying to find any supporting arguments other than the ISO code thing and didnt find any, if such arguments were available, why arent they made public? that would save a person like me
such
a discussion.
Gerard, while I think that Masri (and other Arabic languages) should get their Wikimedian projects, blindly following ISO codes leads to very reasonable questions, like this one is. (I had to make a point here :) )
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
As indicated earlier, the "Lebanese" request proves that the ISO-639-3 standard is not followed blindly when giving the eligible status to a project.
As far as I could see from previous posts, your decision is still inside of bureaucratic behavior. They don't have the properly named ISO code.
The language committee is restricted in what it can share publicly. Consequently not everything can be scrutinised by people who want to know and see everything. As I indicated earlier, the request for Egyptian Arabic was given extra attention.
I am interested what kinds of informations have to be confidential when we are talking about the LangCom? Just list them and explain why.
Hoi, A member of the langcomm is afraid that publication of the contruibutions may lead to the dismissal from the job. Given that this is expert help, it is sufficient reason to comply. Thanks, Gerard
NB There are good reasons for doing things in a procedural way. The best reason is that it gives predictability and it ensures that everyone is treated equally. If you want to call this "bureacratic", that is fine.The benefit is still there.
NB2 There is also nobody proposing this project.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:36 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
As indicated earlier, the "Lebanese" request proves that the ISO-639-3 standard is not followed blindly when giving the eligible status to a project.
As far as I could see from previous posts, your decision is still inside of bureaucratic behavior. They don't have the properly named ISO code.
The language committee is restricted in what it can share publicly. Consequently not everything can be scrutinised by people who want to know and see everything. As I indicated earlier, the request for Egyptian
Arabic
was given extra attention.
I am interested what kinds of informations have to be confidential when we are talking about the LangCom? Just list them and explain why.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
A member of the langcomm is afraid that publication of the contruibutions may lead to the dismissal from the job. Given that this is expert help, it is sufficient reason to comply.
I think that it is possible to find a way to say your conclusions publicly by saying "an expert from LangCom said that" or "during the discussion we concluded this because of that". If it is not possible, I am afraid that you should find another expert. You are not a department of a commercial company, but a committee of an organization and a community for whom transparency is a very important part of functioning.
NB There are good reasons for doing things in a procedural way. The best reason is that it gives predictability and it ensures that everyone is treated equally. If you want to call this "bureacratic", that is fine.The benefit is still there.
Good procedural way is better than chaotic one, of course. Bad procedural work is worst than chaotic one. Try to make better procedures.
NB2 There is also nobody proposing this project.
Which project?
Hoi, Happy that you agree that we are doing a good job.
As to finding another expert, I am quite happy with the one we have. Your proposal that we say something along the lines you indicate is not practical. For your information, you do work also in a non-observable way. Why should your work be different ? Thanks, Gerard
Nobody is proposing the Lebanese project
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
A member of the langcomm is afraid that publication of the contruibutions may lead to the dismissal from the job. Given that this is expert help,
it
is sufficient reason to comply.
I think that it is possible to find a way to say your conclusions publicly by saying "an expert from LangCom said that" or "during the discussion we concluded this because of that". If it is not possible, I am afraid that you should find another expert. You are not a department of a commercial company, but a committee of an organization and a community for whom transparency is a very important part of functioning.
NB There are good reasons for doing things in a procedural way. The best reason is that it gives predictability and it ensures that everyone is treated equally. If you want to call this "bureacratic", that is fine.The benefit is still there.
Good procedural way is better than chaotic one, of course. Bad procedural work is worst than chaotic one. Try to make better procedures.
NB2 There is also nobody proposing this project.
Which project?
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Oct 7, 2008, at 9:54 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Happy that you agree that we are doing a good job.
As to finding another expert, I am quite happy with the one we have.
That's great, but there are quite a few people who disagree with you, and you don't seem to be open to the concept that you might be wrong and their opinions might have validity.
-Dan
Gerard,
As I've written to you before, I very much respect your work and your commitment to Wikimedia and its goals. I sometimes find, though, that your attitude in these discussions is oppositional or defensive and unnecessarily aggressive. It may be to your benefit to pay particularly close attention when those with whom you are arguing state that you are incorrectly interpreting their position.
As to the subject of the thread - I think an element of Gerard's point is key to understanding the ethos of project approval, now and in the past. There are actually few mechanical requirements for beginning a new Wikimedia project - many languages where we don't expect to see an active project nonetheless have an ISO language code. More important is the presence of a community of contributors with a demonstrated willingness to maintain a project, and this seems to be because Wikimedia and the language committee don't see it as their role to prevent an active community of editors from working in a project and language of their choice, as long as it can be shown that there is some potential benefit to such a project. The Egyptian Arabic project would seem to meet that requirement, and while there are valid concerns about this type of project (such as those described in the first post), the "freedom" argument is that we should not prevent such a group of people from working on a project like this if that is their desire.
Nathan
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Happy that you agree that we are doing a good job.
As to finding another expert, I am quite happy with the one we have. Your proposal that we say something along the lines you indicate is not practical. For your information, you do work also in a non-observable way. Why should your work be different ? Thanks, Gerard
Personnally, I would vote against any decision on the board that cannot be made transparent. Sorry.
Ting
There are two separate issues in relation to standard language creation: ethnic/political-based and language-based. Inside of the first group are South Slavic standards based on Neo-Shtokavian dialect (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin), two Norwegian standard languages, two Belorussian standards, Romanian-Moldovan case and, possibly, some number of other cases. Inside of the second are the most of the cases all over the world: from around 800 not standardized languages of Papua New Guinea to languages of Europe which have never a possibility to get the status of "a language". Inside of the second group are Arabian languages.
Our responsibility for the languages of the first group is to find the best solution for the new project. Sometimes it is possible to make a conversion engine between standards, sometimes it is not, but it is reasonable not to create a new project, but to leave both (close) standards to be written at one. But, if both options are not possible, our responsibility is to give them a separate project.
What our responsibility in such cases is not -- is to help to those people in forming of the new standard. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are about education, not about nation formation. While it is possible to see some exceptions (including already existing projects), I would be very strict here: (1) no ISO code -- no Wikipedia; (2) conversion engine is possible -- new languages will be at the existing projects; etc.
However, I don't think that it is not our responsibility in relation to the second group of languages. In comparison with all relevant international institutions which deal with languages -- Wikimedian community is the most relevant. There are a few organizations which are willing to help in standardization of some language, but I don't know for anyone which is willing to do that if it is not about translation of the Bible (if anyone knows for such organization without such agenda, please let me know!). Wikimedian community grew up enough to deal with such things.
So, even if it needs extra efforts, I think that we should do it. Because, if we are not doing that, no one would would do.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Milos,
Thank you for the fascinating insight, linguists are like the anthropologists of culture :) .
Anyway, my opinion is simple, we may or may not be undergoing a process where our language is morphing and forming, and we may even in a decade (or less) see our version of Arabic as written (I do have reservations, Standard or formal Arabic is not dead, as it is the language of the religious text in a heavily religious part of the world, among other factors). However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to accelerate such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so. There has never been a published text in Masry in history, politics, science or any non-fiction topic AFAIK. The Masry Wikipedia will be the first to have such text, so will probably be the Lebanese, Sudanese, and Morrocan (and Gerard, you were saying worry over Lebanese is an over-reaction, how about Morrocan, its approval is under-way as far as I see). I stil strongly see that as 'original research' and a stand by the WMF to actually support the adoption of those language as written (as opposed to leaving that to be resolved by the respective community). So it may well be that those languages will become adopted as written at some time in the future, and it may well be that the partially formed standard for Masry that you speak of will come to light and somehow get adopted by the respective population, but until then, I think the WMF should stand on the sideline IMHO.
2008/10/5 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everyone,
The following is my belated, rather long, 2 cents regarding the creation
of
wikipedias for languages/dialects/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that
stem
from Arabic, this is mainly relevant to the creation of the Masry
(Egyptian)
Wikipedia, the Masry Wikitionary proposals (by virtue of the fact that I
am
Egyptian, and thus I can relate to those two projects with a better
degree
of confidence), but probably is still relevant for the proposals that subsequently stemmed for Morrocan, Lebanese, Sudanese and more will come
I
am sure.
Thanks for you email, it is a great one! Its content may be used as an example on universities: what do one educated non-linguist thinks about the situation when new standard languages are in the process of creation. I'll write a short paper/essay around your email. (Not here, even my email is long :) )
I see the situation in relation between classic Arabic and regional languages very similar to the situation when Romance standard languages were born. Few steps behind that is the situation with English languages (yes, plural); however, morphological orthography very close to the logogramic type (like Chinese; but, instead of lines, letters are used) prevents up to some extent orthographic diversification. But, such situation can't last for a long time. Actually, Scots is already treated as a separate language.
First, I may suppose that, for example, even Libyan and Egyptian spoken Arabic are not mutually understandable. But, if one Libyan may understand one Egyptian, it may be be comparable with the situation where one Portuguese may understand one Spanish up to some level.
I would say that the processes which are ongoing in Arab countries -- are natural. Learning a foreign language to be basically educated is not an advantage. It is an advantage at some higher level, but such situation leaves many people without the basic education (because they are not able or not willing to learn a foreign language). It is much easier to learn to write a native language.
Linguistic standardization is very strongly connected with politics. Mostly, it is connected because contemporary linguistics is a 19th century invent from Europe; and this was a time of romanticism, when the ideology based on premises "one language, one folk, one state[, one leader]" was dominant.
While it is possible to find different examples (Irish nation which uses English; Swiss nation which uses four languages), it is true that wherever European civilization came -- states are trying to make their own ethnicity and their own language.
At the other side, at the time when language standardization was not forced, "natural" processes of language separation were dominant. Separated by natural barriers or feudal states barriers, people developed separate languages.
In Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, where small feudal countries existed for a long time, a lot of separate language varieties exist at the areas of former feuds. For example, I think that areas Nuremberg and Hamburg have distinctively separate varieties than areas around those cities, without dialect continuum [1].
So, there are two separate social (and just because this, linguistic, too) processes: when not well connected, wider areas with one culture (like the case was with Roman and it is with Arabic), it tends to separate to different societies, states, cultures and languages. If a lot of different societies and cultures exist on smaller and well connected area, they tend to be merged. Of course, opposite historical examples may be found: Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino etc. are still separate states, while China is still one.
Let me state first though, that even though it will be obvious from my concerns below that I am against such a division (slightly oppose, to be precise), I have no opinion as to whether those languages or dialects (as proponents and opponents would call them) are really separate languages
or
not. I have some issues and worries, which is what I will expand on
below,
but ultimately, I don't know if what I speak is actually classified as a separate language or a dialect (yeah I am that ignorant :P ) so from the specific rules-based linguistic-jargon point of view, I am sadly out of
my
league.
It is hard to give a clear linguistic answer what one language is; even if we remove all political reasons. There are some obvious cases, like distinction between Arabic and English is. However, there are a lot of cases when it is not possible to give a clear answer.
A classic example for comparison of this kind is that spoken languages in Germany are (or, at least, they were in 19th century) more different than all Slavic languages between themselves. But, if we remove political reasons (one German state; a number of Slavic states) and try to give "a linguistic answer" what are the languages, we couldn't do that.
Simply, the question "is this a separate language?" is a question of the type "is the color [in RGB notation] #00xxxx blue or green?". We are sure that #00FF00 is green and that #0000FF is blue and that they are separate colors. We may be sure that even #00FF22 is green, while #0022FF is blue. However, we can't be so sure when we move numbers closer. Giving a discrete answer to a question which is a product of our [whichever] bias is sometimes impossible.
I have read most of the (rather heated) arguments for and against the proposals, here is what I understand (from a layman point of view) about
my
language: I speak Egyptian, which is a form of Arabic, it is not the same
as
'formal' Arabic, however, it is only spoken in most of the cases. I think the majority of the body of literature written by Egyptians is written in formal Arabic. I simply come to this conclusion because as an avid reader
I
must have come across only one or two literary pieces written in Egyptian Arabic as 'pioneering experimental' works (as one author called his
stuff).
Also the way of writing is not agreed upon by egyptians themselves, for example: words that contains the letter Kaaf (ق), I saw some of the
authors
who tried writing a word containing it in 'Masry' would keep it as is and other people would convert it to 'Hamza' as it is actually pronounced but
is
rather foreign to read. I can safely assume that almost all literate Egyptians who read and write in formal Arabic (actually that *is* the definition of being literate in Egypt) will find reading their own every
day
talking language rather alien (kind of ridiculous, but is the case IMHO). The point I am trying to make here is : For a language/dialect that has
only
been spoken till now for the most part, Wikipedia turning it into a
written
language would be 'original research' and this is what I actually
observed
in Wikipedia Masry, people write as they please, and the result is
sometimes
palatable and some times very foreign and alienating (as a method of delivering information). I suspect the same would be the case for at
least
the Lebanese and Sudanese proposals for example, ditto if there will ever
be
a proposal for the gulf dialects (Saudi, Yemeni, etc.), the
Egyptsystemian Sai'di
(upper Egypt dialect), etc...
My father is from the area of Serbia where a distinctive language is spoken, Torlak or Shop [2]. Unlike in the case of other geographical varieties in the South Slavic area, Torlak is not moribund, it is really alive language and speakers of it are actively adopting Serbian and Bulgarian words at the substratum of highly Balkanized (see Balkan sprachbund [3]; it's a separate, actually, opposite term from the political Balkanizaiton) mixture of Vulgar Latin [4], Thracian and dominantly Slavic languages (of course, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Slavic languages, but, from the present situation, substratum is not based on Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian standards). It has no written literature (there are some "examples", but they are examples for usage of that language for dialogs inside of dramas written in standard Serbian); the situation is analogue as in Egypt. A literate inhabitant of Southern and Eastern Serbia has to know Serbian standard, a literate inhabitant of Western Bulgaria has to know Bulgarian standard; while a literate inhabitant of Northern Macedonia has to know Macedonian standard.
When I was talking with one of the rare people who works on language there (a local one), we came to the question why inhabitants (even very educated; even professors of Serbian language) are using a dialect in all kinds of their communications in school except the most formal ones (lectures to high school students). The answer was: "Because it is easier to us, we don't need to care about rules."
This is interesting because of two reasons. First, they care about rules, even they don't think so. It is the basic characteristic of all communication systems: participants have to follow some rules to be able to send an information and understand each other. The second issue shows how hard is one language system to speakers of a different one.
But, the main difference between the situation in Egypt and in Southern and Eastern Serbia is the number of inhabitants. There is something between 200.000 and 500.000 people who are speaking Torlak (comparing with 76+ millions of Egyptians) inside of three very strong educational systems (95%+ comparing with 70%+ in Egypt). Speakers of Torlak are surrounded by speakers of standard Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian; while, AFAIK, there is no such place where standard Arabic is a common spoken language.
In other words, Masri came into the position when it is not in the position of "a dialect of a language". It is now a spoken language with all cultural attributes of one language except the normalized standard (AFAIK, some kind of standard exists, but it is not finished yet).
The situation where people are able to choose how do they want to write is not a stable one. Sooner or later some [more precise] standard will start to be followed.
My second concern is, I am worried about duplicating the efforts in the
name
of language separation, granted, I speak something that is not similar to formal Arabic etymology-wise maybe. However, there is not one literate Arabic-speaking person who can claim he understands written Egyptian/Lebanese/etc. and not understand formal Arabic (by virtue of the the above argument that my language is mostly spoken, and what is taught
in
schools, and used in everyday written communication is formal Arabic). I dont know if it is good, given the already low participation level in my area of the world, to let people have Egyptian/Lebanese/Saudi/Yemeni mini-wiki projects, keeping in mind that all users of those will be perfectly comfortable reading the information in the Arabic corresponding project.
How distant are standard Arabic and Masri? Is it possible to make a conversion engine between those two languages? If you don't think so, what are the reasons?
I believe (I say that I believe because I didn't prove it :) ) that it is possible to make very good conversion engines between similar languages (conversion engine between Bokmal and Nynorsk exists, but I don't know how good it is). And it is worth of effort. In the case of "Arabance" languages and Arabic such efforts may be very well funded.
If it is not possible, note that Arabic language has the base in more than 1 billion of people (including all other Muslim countries); as well as Masri has the base in 76+ millions of people. Masri has better position than, let's say, Italian. So, the right way for thinking about this issue is to concentrate on efforts for spreading education and Internet in Egypt and other Arab countries.
Finally, I think the division is not purely language related, there is a
lot
of socio-political issues at work, taking the Egyptian wikipedia again as
an
example, there has been a considerable debate in Egypt about getting the Egyptian language to be adopted writing-wise (and to make the grammar
more
solid so as it would overcome the current problems in writing) to bolster the national identity of Egypt, while this proposal is currently going nowhere, it wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in such
an
argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already made
by
Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the
language?
:) As I explained before, every language (in the common sense of the meaning of the word "language") is a matter of politics, not linguistics. Even when you don't realize that as an obvious fact. Arabic is a matter of politics, English is a matter of politics, German is a matter of politics, French is a matter of politics, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Japanese, Yoruba, Zulu, Mayan...
Linguists are a small minority of inhabitants of some country. They are not politically relevant to demand new language for new nation. Also, they are not politically relevant to demand preservation of old language. If one linguist says one of those things, he is not lead by linguistics, but by political motives (no matter how positive or negative those motives may be). While language standardization is a matter of sociolinguistics, again, it is more about description than about active involvement in political processes.
I understand that it may be too late for Egyptian Wikipedia, the decision
is
apparently already in, but I am currently seeing a slew of similar proposals,so I thought there should be some kind of discussion regarding
the
broader topic and not restricted to the proposal pages. I hope I haven't spammed this list with this email :).
On our eyes Arabic language is developing into "Arabence" languages, like Latin did it between the first centuries of the first millennium and 19th century; and Slavic during the first centuries of the second millennium. The conditions are now very different. There are Internet, railroads, highways... You have a lot of possibilities to keep good things from the fact that the most of educated people from Muslim world know standard Arabic fluently and you should build your new local languages to make education more achievable to more people.
And, to say again, your email is a great one. You described very well the situation in which your society is now because of the birth of new language.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak_dialect [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
There are two separate issues in relation to standard language creation: ethnic/political-based and language-based. Inside of the first group are South Slavic standards based on Neo-Shtokavian dialect (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin), two Norwegian standard languages, two Belorussian standards, Romanian-Moldovan case and, possibly, some number of other cases. Inside of the second are the most of the cases all over the world: from around 800 not standardized languages of Papua New Guinea to languages of Europe which have never a possibility to get the status of "a language". Inside of the second group are Arabian languages.
Our responsibility for the languages of the first group is to find the best solution for the new project. Sometimes it is possible to make a conversion engine between standards, sometimes it is not, but it is reasonable not to create a new project, but to leave both (close) standards to be written at one. But, if both options are not possible, our responsibility is to give them a separate project.
What our responsibility in such cases is not -- is to help to those people in forming of the new standard. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are about education, not about nation formation. While it is possible to see some exceptions (including already existing projects), I would be very strict here: (1) no ISO code -- no Wikipedia; (2) conversion engine is possible -- new languages will be at the existing projects; etc.
However, I don't think that it is not our responsibility in relation to the second group of languages. In comparison with all relevant international institutions which deal with languages -- Wikimedian community is the most relevant. There are a few organizations which are willing to help in standardization of some language, but I don't know for anyone which is willing to do that if it is not about translation of the Bible (if anyone knows for such organization without such agenda, please let me know!). Wikimedian community grew up enough to deal with such things.
So, even if it needs extra efforts, I think that we should do it. Because, if we are not doing that, no one would would do.
And one more addition here: If it is possible to make a conversion engine in the second group, it should be done that way. Our primary goal is to spread education at the most efficient way, not to build ethnic identities.
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to accelerate such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so.
This seems to be the point on which the language committee, as currently constituted, disagrees. I fear it is somewhat run by minority-language-promotion advocates, who are most interested in using Wikimedia to push their pet ideas about how language and society ought to work, shared by few other people.
-Mark
Hoi, It is sometimes great to be piggy in the middle; there are plenty people who accuse the language committee of stifling any and all new projects. I am happy that some consider us "minority-language-promotion advocates", it means that we are somewhere in the middle.. It is only sad that nobody is completely happy :) Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to
accelerate
such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so.
This seems to be the point on which the language committee, as currently constituted, disagrees. I fear it is somewhat run by minority-language-promotion advocates, who are most interested in using Wikimedia to push their pet ideas about how language and society ought to work, shared by few other people.
-Mark
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
While I am not so much worried to see a Wikimedia project helping a minority language promotion. I rather am concerned about political view promotion using a Wikimedia project.
In the discussion of Masry Wikipedia, I saw one of the proposers complain the current Arabic Wikipedia uses the ugly language the normal Egyptian cannot bear, ant another Arabic editor pointed out his claim meant that arwiki community had refused to move [[Muhammad Ibn-Abdullah]] to [[The Prophet (May piece be upon him)]] (or precisely its equivalent in Arabic).
I am worry about that unestablished editors who don't share our core principles are let start their Wikipedia whose content may not be understood by anyone else and thus not noticed and corrected their systematic biases.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:11 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to accelerate such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so.
This seems to be the point on which the language committee, as currently constituted, disagrees. I fear it is somewhat run by minority-language-promotion advocates, who are most interested in using Wikimedia to push their pet ideas about how language and society ought to work, shared by few other people.
-Mark
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
As you're aware better than I am, I'm sure, we have no effective way to ensure at any point that most communities share the core principles of Wikimedia. Those most invested in designing these principles simply don't represent ability in enough languages, and even the diversity that do we have is limited by the relatively small number of people involved in multiple projects and Foundation issues at the same time. Case in point is the Russian Wikibooks from not long ago, or any of a number of complaints lodged at the metapub which seem to demonstrate a disconnect between some projects and core Wikimedia values.
Since our ability to measure and police such things as adherence to core values is so limited, and obviously controversial, the lang com has I think reasonably restricted itself to other considerations - notably:
1) is there an active community, sufficient to give the project a good chance of long term progress 2) has the community demonstrated its ability to manage and maintain a project in its language 3) is there a sufficient audience for the language such that the project may conceivably contribute to the core goal of Wikimedia by reaching a significant segment of humanity
(describing these restrictions based on my reading of Gerard and Pathoschild on this list over the last year, as opposed to the direct wording of the policy or actual practice of which I have little experience)
There are obviously other considerations that could be applied, as demonstrated by Alsebaey and Aphaia, but the language committee doesn't seem to have the expertise or the mandate to make decisions based on such criteria. The Board may, but it seems like they have avoided becoming involved at that level. Again, probably reasonable from their perspective. There seems to be no perfectly suited forum for treating these potential objections that are outside the remit of the lang com - many have noted that it could be the role of a Wikimedia Council, but I personally haven't seen a proposal for such a thing that I could support.
Nathan
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 4:38 PM, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
While I am not so much worried to see a Wikimedia project helping a minority language promotion. I rather am concerned about political view promotion using a Wikimedia project.
In the discussion of Masry Wikipedia, I saw one of the proposers complain the current Arabic Wikipedia uses the ugly language the normal Egyptian cannot bear, ant another Arabic editor pointed out his claim meant that arwiki community had refused to move [[Muhammad Ibn-Abdullah]] to [[The Prophet (May piece be upon him)]] (or precisely its equivalent in Arabic).
I am worry about that unestablished editors who don't share our core principles are let start their Wikipedia whose content may not be understood by anyone else and thus not noticed and corrected their systematic biases.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:11 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
However, let me stress again my point, is it the WMF place to take a stand as to
accelerate
such an adoption of the spoken language as written? I dont think so.
This seems to be the point on which the language committee, as currently constituted, disagrees. I fear it is somewhat run by minority-language-promotion advocates, who are most interested in using Wikimedia to push their pet ideas about how language and society ought to work, shared by few other people.
-Mark
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello Muhammad,
as I first heard about the discussion of the establishment of an egyptian arabic wikipedia I find the situation is quite similar to the discussion two years ago, as the first minor chinase language wikipedia was about to start. So I think maybe the experience we had in the chinese language wikipedias can help you a little. Though, this is my personnal impression, it is not representative and if surely do not match the standards of an academic research (indeed I would find such a research helpful and interesting).
Before the first minor chinese language wikipedia was started there was a long during (I believe at least one year or more) discussion inside the by that time chinese community. The arguments exchanged by that time (for or against) are very similar to the arguments that are now put up in the arabic community. I personnaly took at that time a skeptic view against a new chinese wikipedia. My concern at that time was mainly of the division of the community.
Now, after more than two and a half years, we have seven chinese language wikipedias, these are zh (the standard chinese, mandarin), zh-yue (cantonese the first minor chinese language wikipedia established in march 2006), wuu, cdo (min-dong-language), gan, hak (hak-ka language) and the zh-classic (the classic language). Except the zh-classic all other languages have native speakers, some have established writing system, some not.
For me personally, after two and half a year of experience, the most important conclusion is that my original faer of a splitting of the community proved to be wrong. Especially the yue-language wikipedia developped well. It is a small (far more smaller than zh) community, but it is a vivid and sustainable community, with a lot of interchanges between zh and zh-yue communities. I find this interchange very fruitful. We have articles originally in zh-wp transfered to zh-yue-wp and vice versa. I think the creation of this language version very beneficial.
Not so well do the wuu and gan wp develop. Both languages suffer from being endangered, their native speakers diminishing rapidly and they have no really established writing system. Also after the lifting of the ban on mainland-china these two versions remain crankly.
Personnally I am especially disappointed by the hak-ka version wp. I think it should do better as it is now. But naturally, the number of Hak-ka native speakers are less than yue, wuu and gan.
So, I think that a writing system, especially a used writing system is also important. Yue has such a system and the system is very popularly used in BBSes, blogs and chatrooms in Hongkong. I think this is a vital point for the success of the yue-wk.
My friend Theodoranian said while the discussion two or three years ago, the big community should not be afraid that the minor community would splitt it. Contrary, the big community should help the minor communities. I am very happy that the time proved him right.
Ting
Hi Ting,
In the days since I have first sent my email, I talked to several people, and due to their arguments, I am less worried now about division of effort, however, I still strongly believe that my arguments about the language being mostly a spoken one with no stable orthography and that by WMF approving any of those dialects/language, it will be essentially making a political stand, still hold.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:29 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Hello Muhammad,
as I first heard about the discussion of the establishment of an egyptian arabic wikipedia I find the situation is quite similar to the discussion two years ago, as the first minor chinase language wikipedia was about to start. So I think maybe the experience we had in the chinese language wikipedias can help you a little. Though, this is my personnal impression, it is not representative and if surely do not match the standards of an academic research (indeed I would find such a research helpful and interesting).
Before the first minor chinese language wikipedia was started there was a long during (I believe at least one year or more) discussion inside the by that time chinese community. The arguments exchanged by that time (for or against) are very similar to the arguments that are now put up in the arabic community. I personnaly took at that time a skeptic view against a new chinese wikipedia. My concern at that time was mainly of the division of the community.
Now, after more than two and a half years, we have seven chinese language wikipedias, these are zh (the standard chinese, mandarin), zh-yue (cantonese the first minor chinese language wikipedia established in march 2006), wuu, cdo (min-dong-language), gan, hak (hak-ka language) and the zh-classic (the classic language). Except the zh-classic all other languages have native speakers, some have established writing system, some not.
For me personally, after two and half a year of experience, the most important conclusion is that my original faer of a splitting of the community proved to be wrong. Especially the yue-language wikipedia developped well. It is a small (far more smaller than zh) community, but it is a vivid and sustainable community, with a lot of interchanges between zh and zh-yue communities. I find this interchange very fruitful. We have articles originally in zh-wp transfered to zh-yue-wp and vice versa. I think the creation of this language version very beneficial.
Not so well do the wuu and gan wp develop. Both languages suffer from being endangered, their native speakers diminishing rapidly and they have no really established writing system. Also after the lifting of the ban on mainland-china these two versions remain crankly.
Personnally I am especially disappointed by the hak-ka version wp. I think it should do better as it is now. But naturally, the number of Hak-ka native speakers are less than yue, wuu and gan.
So, I think that a writing system, especially a used writing system is also important. Yue has such a system and the system is very popularly used in BBSes, blogs and chatrooms in Hongkong. I think this is a vital point for the success of the yue-wk.
My friend Theodoranian said while the discussion two or three years ago, the big community should not be afraid that the minor community would splitt it. Contrary, the big community should help the minor communities. I am very happy that the time proved him right.
Ting
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I am particularly curious about the status of Egyptian. How different would an Egyptian Wikipedia actually be from a Modern Standard Arabic Wikipedia? Of course, there are lots of differences, but many of them are with short vowels, which aren't regularly transcribed in Arabic anyhow.
I think it would make more sense to have a Moroccan Wikipedia than an Egyptian Wikipedia. Egyptian and Modern Standard Arabic aren't hugely different on paper. Moroccan (a dialect of Derija, the North African Arabic, according to some), on the other hand, is hardly intelligible, although again in writing it is easier than in speaking.
Of course, the Langcom trusts ISO singularly, and doesn't actually seem to debate things like whether or not a separate Wikipedia is actually necessary or a good idea. I think, personally, that the wrong decision was made in the case of Egyptian (I realize the decision is "final" and "cannot" be rescinded).
If we get proposals for other Arabic varieties, such as North Levantine Arabic or Gulf Arabic or something along those lines, I think we need to evaluate it more carefully.
While I am of the opinion that Arabic is certainly a macrolanguage with different languages encompassed by it, I don't think the Ethnologue (and by extension, ISO) makes more than the most arbitrary distinctions between varieties, often based on political rather than linguistic borders. Some of them should probably be combined based on the rubric of mutual intelligibility, or at least somebody should have looked into that idea. Algerian, Tunisian, Libyan, and Moroccan shouldn't be divided based on country as they currently are.
A good, comprehensive study is needed (and probably already exists) to better classify the varieties of Arabic, because SIL has done a piss-poor job. It's shameful, considering just how many people speak one or another variety of Arabic.
Mark
2008/10/8 Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com:
Hi Ting,
In the days since I have first sent my email, I talked to several people, and due to their arguments, I am less worried now about division of effort, however, I still strongly believe that my arguments about the language being mostly a spoken one with no stable orthography and that by WMF approving any of those dialects/language, it will be essentially making a political stand, still hold.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:29 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Hello Muhammad,
as I first heard about the discussion of the establishment of an egyptian arabic wikipedia I find the situation is quite similar to the discussion two years ago, as the first minor chinase language wikipedia was about to start. So I think maybe the experience we had in the chinese language wikipedias can help you a little. Though, this is my personnal impression, it is not representative and if surely do not match the standards of an academic research (indeed I would find such a research helpful and interesting).
Before the first minor chinese language wikipedia was started there was a long during (I believe at least one year or more) discussion inside the by that time chinese community. The arguments exchanged by that time (for or against) are very similar to the arguments that are now put up in the arabic community. I personnaly took at that time a skeptic view against a new chinese wikipedia. My concern at that time was mainly of the division of the community.
Now, after more than two and a half years, we have seven chinese language wikipedias, these are zh (the standard chinese, mandarin), zh-yue (cantonese the first minor chinese language wikipedia established in march 2006), wuu, cdo (min-dong-language), gan, hak (hak-ka language) and the zh-classic (the classic language). Except the zh-classic all other languages have native speakers, some have established writing system, some not.
For me personally, after two and half a year of experience, the most important conclusion is that my original faer of a splitting of the community proved to be wrong. Especially the yue-language wikipedia developped well. It is a small (far more smaller than zh) community, but it is a vivid and sustainable community, with a lot of interchanges between zh and zh-yue communities. I find this interchange very fruitful. We have articles originally in zh-wp transfered to zh-yue-wp and vice versa. I think the creation of this language version very beneficial.
Not so well do the wuu and gan wp develop. Both languages suffer from being endangered, their native speakers diminishing rapidly and they have no really established writing system. Also after the lifting of the ban on mainland-china these two versions remain crankly.
Personnally I am especially disappointed by the hak-ka version wp. I think it should do better as it is now. But naturally, the number of Hak-ka native speakers are less than yue, wuu and gan.
So, I think that a writing system, especially a used writing system is also important. Yue has such a system and the system is very popularly used in BBSes, blogs and chatrooms in Hongkong. I think this is a vital point for the success of the yue-wk.
My friend Theodoranian said while the discussion two or three years ago, the big community should not be afraid that the minor community would splitt it. Contrary, the big community should help the minor communities. I am very happy that the time proved him right.
Ting
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
A good, comprehensive study is needed (and probably already exists) to better classify the varieties of Arabic, because SIL has done a piss-poor job. It's shameful, considering just how many people speak one or another variety of Arabic.
It does exist, but the problem is that dozens of such studies exist, arriving at different results. =] There is also disagreement over the extent to which it even makes sense to classify Arabic into distinct varieties, given the complex varieties of diglossia (to the point of "multiglossia"), continuums along multiple axes of variation, and discrepancies between speakers' reported dialect/language and actual grammatical features.
A decent survey can be found in the editor's introduction to the collection _Understanding Arabic_ (1996, ed. A. Elgibali, ISBN 9774243722), and in more details in some of the papers therein.
Of course, I'm no expert in the field; have just read a small amount of what's written by people who are. It's a complex enough area that it's basically an entire field of research.
-Mark
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
Hi Ting,
In the days since I have first sent my email, I talked to several people, and due to their arguments, I am less worried now about division of effort, however, I still strongly believe that my arguments about the language being mostly a spoken one with no stable orthography and that by WMF approving any of those dialects/language, it will be essentially making a political stand, still hold.
No, I don't think that we make any political stand. For me politics is neither an argument for nor against anything. If you are saying that the LangCom is political insensitive, for me it is not a failure. For me it is a merit.
Ting
It is not a political stand that the first body of written non-fiction work published in Egyptian Arabic will be on Wikipedia? I said before that there is an ongoing debate in Egypt about the adoption of Egyptian Arabic as written in addition to being spoken in order to bolster the national identity of Egypt. This debate is currently dead in the water AFAIK, with a lot of argument going for and against. Wikipedia hosting the first non-fiction written work *is* a political stand in this debate IMHO.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
Hi Ting,
In the days since I have first sent my email, I talked to several people, and due to their arguments, I am less worried now about division of
effort,
however, I still strongly believe that my arguments about the language
being
mostly a spoken one with no stable orthography and that by WMF approving
any
of those dialects/language, it will be essentially making a political
stand,
still hold.
No, I don't think that we make any political stand. For me politics is neither an argument for nor against anything. If you are saying that the LangCom is political insensitive, for me it is not a failure. For me it is a merit.
Ting
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
It no more a political stand to grant Egyptian Arabic speakers a platform than it would be to deny them a platform. Remember people actually solicited WMF for this Wikipedia to exist. Making a decision either way on such a request is not a political stand.
Birgitte SB
--- On Thu, 10/9/08, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com wrote:
From: Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] On Arabic and sub-language proposals. To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008, 2:01 AM It is not a political stand that the first body of written non-fiction work published in Egyptian Arabic will be on Wikipedia? I said before that there is an ongoing debate in Egypt about the adoption of Egyptian Arabic as written in addition to being spoken in order to bolster the national identity of Egypt. This debate is currently dead in the water AFAIK, with a lot of argument going for and against. Wikipedia hosting the first non-fiction written work *is* a political stand in this debate IMHO.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
Hi Ting,
In the days since I have first sent my email, I
talked to several people,
and due to their arguments, I am less worried now
about division of
effort,
however, I still strongly believe that my
arguments about the language
being
mostly a spoken one with no stable orthography
and that by WMF approving
any
of those dialects/language, it will be
essentially making a political
stand,
still hold.
No, I don't think that we make any political
stand. For me politics is
neither an argument for nor against anything. If you
are saying that the
LangCom is political insensitive, for me it is not a
failure. For me it
is a merit.
Ting
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
It is not a political stand that the first body of written non-fiction work published in Egyptian Arabic will be on Wikipedia? I said before that there is an ongoing debate in Egypt about the adoption of Egyptian Arabic as written in addition to being spoken in order to bolster the national identity of Egypt. This debate is currently dead in the water AFAIK, with a lot of argument going for and against. Wikipedia hosting the first non-fiction written work *is* a political stand in this debate IMHO.
No, in no way. You must simply understand that we do not make decisions because one politiker want something is true or another politiker want something to be wrong. If your concern is a political, then I give Gerard right. We follow international standards. If you have a problem. Go to ISO and complain there.
Ting
I had 3 concerns (per my original email). One of them was duplication of efforts which is not a concern anymore for me.
The other 2 were those dialects being mostly spoken with no stable orthography, and the third to requote here was:
It wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in such an argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already made by Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the language?
I dont care whether the argument in my country goes whichever way, my concern is *NOT* political as such (if you meant by that whether If I am on either side of this fence), I have been called by Gerard 'a champion of standard Arabic' , which is not true, I dont oppose Masry or the others because I think Arabic is 'best'. I just dont think WMF should take a stance. and *changing* the status quo is doing so. Why do we claim we are a secondary source of information? for the exact same reasons IMHO. In my mind, the best way to go about those languages is wait and see if their actual speakers adopt them as written and THEN grant them wikipedias. i.e, have one of the rules (beside having the sacred ISO code) be ' The proposers should point to a substantial body of written literature' or something like that.
Also, the canvassing goes back to Aphaia's point, If people will be writing on this wp just to prove a point, there is bound to be heavy systemic bias created not just by the normal bias of the population of editor, but rather, by the fact that the language itself is in the middle of reforming.
On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 1:40 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
It is not a political stand that the first body of written non-fiction
work
published in Egyptian Arabic will be on Wikipedia? I said before that
there
is an ongoing debate in Egypt about the adoption of Egyptian Arabic as written in addition to being spoken in order to bolster the national identity of Egypt. This debate is currently dead in the water AFAIK, with
a
lot of argument going for and against. Wikipedia hosting the first non-fiction written work *is* a political stand in this debate IMHO.
No, in no way. You must simply understand that we do not make decisions because one politiker want something is true or another politiker want something to be wrong. If your concern is a political, then I give Gerard right. We follow international standards. If you have a problem. Go to ISO and complain there.
Ting
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 11:25 AM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.comwrote:
[snip]
In my mind, the best way to go about those languages is wait and see if
their actual speakers adopt them as written and THEN grant them wikipedias. i.e, have one of the rules (beside having the sacred ISO code) be ' The proposers should point to a substantial body of written literature' or something like that.
Good luck getting everyone to decide what is "substantial." Some would consider a single long-running magazine to be evidence, others would require a library of books.
I mean hell, we can't even come to an agreement on what's considered "notable," much less what is considered "substantial."
-Chad
Muhammad Alsebaey schrieb:
It wont be hard to imagine groups interested in promoting this canvassing just to prove their point, do we want to get involved in such an argument? is it wikipedia's place to? isnt such a statement already made by Wikimedia creating one of the first bodies of written text in the language?
No, it is not. If someone think they can use Wikipedia as a political argument, they are wrong, and it can very simply be pointed out that it is wrong. If someone do try it, he would find out very quickly, how fast this would be a boomeran for himself.
And for me to be the first is never an argument against doing something.
Ting
Muhammad Alsebaey schrieb:
The other 2 were those dialects being mostly spoken with no stable orthography, and the third to requote here was:
For me this is the only relevant argument. Is it meaningful to create a wikipedia version in a language, which doesn't have a standard writing system, what means that only few people can really use it to write or read. Would such a wikipedia version really purposeful for gathering knowledge, would it really useful for the native speakers.
Ting
By the way, fellows, I am preparing a paper on Wikipedias in lesser resourced languages, and who is interested in proof reading, is welcome to contact me. Ziko van Dijk
2008/10/9 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
Muhammad Alsebaey schrieb:
The other 2 were those dialects being mostly spoken with no stable orthography, and the third to requote here was:
For me this is the only relevant argument. Is it meaningful to create a wikipedia version in a language, which doesn't have a standard writing system, what means that only few people can really use it to write or read. Would such a wikipedia version really purposeful for gathering knowledge, would it really useful for the native speakers.
Ting
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hi Ziko,
I am definitely interested in proofreading. It's one of my favorite tasks :)
Mark
2008/10/9 Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com:
By the way, fellows, I am preparing a paper on Wikipedias in lesser resourced languages, and who is interested in proof reading, is welcome to contact me. Ziko van Dijk
2008/10/9 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
Muhammad Alsebaey schrieb:
The other 2 were those dialects being mostly spoken with no stable orthography, and the third to requote here was:
For me this is the only relevant argument. Is it meaningful to create a wikipedia version in a language, which doesn't have a standard writing system, what means that only few people can really use it to write or read. Would such a wikipedia version really purposeful for gathering knowledge, would it really useful for the native speakers.
Ting
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Muhammad Alsebaey wrote:
It is not a political stand that the first body of written non-fiction work published in Egyptian Arabic will be on Wikipedia? I said before that there is an ongoing debate in Egypt about the adoption of Egyptian Arabic as written in addition to being spoken in order to bolster the national identity of Egypt. This debate is currently dead in the water AFAIK, with a lot of argument going for and against. Wikipedia hosting the first non-fiction written work *is* a political stand in this debate IMHO.
Of course the process is political. There's nothing wrong with that. Every time two or more people differ on some issue, deciding that issue requires political interaction, whether it's choosing between the opinions offered or synthesizing a new compromise position. Politics is not just partisan activity connected with established ideologies, though politicians umbilically associated with such ideologies are the ones who give politics a bad name.
Using "too political" as an excuse for not participating in the debates of the day is itself a political act.
Ec
Of course the process is political. There's nothing wrong with that.
Every time two or more people differ on some issue, deciding that issue requires political interaction, whether it's choosing between the opinions offered or synthesizing a new compromise position. Politics is not just partisan activity connected with established ideologies, though politicians umbilically associated with such ideologies are the ones who give politics a bad name.
Using "too political" as an excuse for not participating in the debates of the day is itself a political act.
Ec
Hmm I think I meant it in the latter regard: Politics as a partisan activity connected with established ideologies, since the choice bolsters one of the sides in an ongoing -'partisan' if you may, the term is used loosely since there is no efficient official parties on the Egyptian scene except the ruling one- debate in Egypt.
However, I have to say that Gerard already made it clear that politics is not part of the equation in LangCom decision, so they dont take it as a factor, of course, we will not know what actually was a factor since the arguments are not published.
Hoi, Again, when the proposal for Egyptian Arabic was posted, I asked the members of the language committee if we should allow for these languages to have a Wikipedia. The reply was that we should. Nobody opposed this. Consequently after a week, the status of eligible was given.
This is all the argument as it happened. Again, this has been said before...
Thanks, GerardM
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 6:08 PM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.comwrote:
Of course the process is political. There's nothing wrong with that.
Every time two or more people differ on some issue, deciding that issue requires political interaction, whether it's choosing between the opinions offered or synthesizing a new compromise position. Politics is not just partisan activity connected with established ideologies, though politicians umbilically associated with such ideologies are the ones who give politics a bad name.
Using "too political" as an excuse for not participating in the debates of the day is itself a political act.
Ec
Hmm I think I meant it in the latter regard: Politics as a partisan activity connected with established ideologies, since the choice bolsters one of the sides in an ongoing -'partisan' if you may, the term is used loosely since there is no efficient official parties on the Egyptian scene except the ruling one- debate in Egypt.
However, I have to say that Gerard already made it clear that politics is not part of the equation in LangCom decision, so they dont take it as a factor, of course, we will not know what actually was a factor since the arguments are not published.
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello,
You said before:
other things are considered as well prior to giving the eligible status.
As indicated earlier, all members of the language committee were explicitly asked to consider the issue that you raise.
And
The reason why the *internal *deliberations of the language committee are
not open is because one of the members is not free to have the deliberations published.
Those imply an argument that goes beyond a simple question. And that is what I was referring to (and I guess that's what others are referring to as well).
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:36 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, Again, when the proposal for Egyptian Arabic was posted, I asked the members of the language committee if we should allow for these languages to have a Wikipedia. The reply was that we should. Nobody opposed this. Consequently after a week, the status of eligible was given.
This is all the argument as it happened. Again, this has been said before...
Thanks, GerardM
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 6:08 PM, Muhammad Alsebaey <shipmaster@gmail.com
wrote:
Of course the process is political. There's nothing wrong with that.
Every time two or more people differ on some issue, deciding that issue requires political interaction, whether it's choosing between the opinions offered or synthesizing a new compromise position. Politics
is
not just partisan activity connected with established ideologies,
though
politicians umbilically associated with such ideologies are the ones
who
give politics a bad name.
Using "too political" as an excuse for not participating in the debates of the day is itself a political act.
Ec
Hmm I think I meant it in the latter regard: Politics as a partisan activity connected with established ideologies, since the choice bolsters one of the sides in an ongoing -'partisan' if you may, the term is used loosely since there is no efficient official parties on the Egyptian
scene
except the ruling one- debate in Egypt.
However, I have to say that Gerard already made it clear that politics is not part of the equation in LangCom decision, so they dont take it as a factor, of course, we will not know what actually was a factor since the arguments are not published.
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ 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
Hoi, You are wrong. All messages are not published. It does not matter what the subject is. Thanks, GerardM
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:25 PM, Muhammad Alsebaey shipmaster@gmail.comwrote:
Hello,
You said before:
other things are considered as well prior to giving the eligible status.
As indicated earlier, all members of the language committee were explicitly asked to consider the issue that you raise.
And
The reason why the *internal *deliberations of the language committee are
not open is because one of the members is not free to have the
deliberations
published.
Those imply an argument that goes beyond a simple question. And that is what I was referring to (and I guess that's what others are referring to as well).
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:36 AM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, Again, when the proposal for Egyptian Arabic was posted, I asked the members of the language committee if we should allow for these languages to have
a
Wikipedia. The reply was that we should. Nobody opposed this.
Consequently
after a week, the status of eligible was given.
This is all the argument as it happened. Again, this has been said before...
Thanks, GerardM
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 6:08 PM, Muhammad Alsebaey <shipmaster@gmail.com
wrote:
Of course the process is political. There's nothing wrong with that.
Every time two or more people differ on some issue, deciding that
issue
requires political interaction, whether it's choosing between the opinions offered or synthesizing a new compromise position. Politics
is
not just partisan activity connected with established ideologies,
though
politicians umbilically associated with such ideologies are the ones
who
give politics a bad name.
Using "too political" as an excuse for not participating in the
debates
of the day is itself a political act.
Ec
Hmm I think I meant it in the latter regard: Politics as a partisan activity connected with established ideologies, since the choice
bolsters
one of the sides in an ongoing -'partisan' if you may, the term is used loosely since there is no efficient official parties on the Egyptian
scene
except the ruling one- debate in Egypt.
However, I have to say that Gerard already made it clear that politics
is
not part of the equation in LangCom decision, so they dont take it as a factor, of course, we will not know what actually was a factor since
the
arguments are not published.
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ 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
-- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 8:36 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Again, when the proposal for Egyptian Arabic was posted, I asked the members of the language committee if we should allow for these languages to have a Wikipedia. The reply was that we should. Nobody opposed this. Consequently after a week, the status of eligible was given.
This is all the argument as it happened. Again, this has been said before...
It seems that I missed this answer before. It is completely valid one.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org