Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:

Jimmy Wales wrote:

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Geni wrote:

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"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world " first line of the mission statement. By actively promoting minority languages you lock more people into them which is not consistent with trying to empower them.

I wrote:

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I do not share geni's views at all.

Thomas Dalton wrote:

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It doesn't seem that anyone does...

I should add at the same time that I think that it is a good thing for people to try to learn a relevant global language in addition to their local language, with the choice depending upon personal context.

I think you are really being too humble here in not mentioning the fact that despite being a native speaker of *the* global "lingua franca" you have yourself made an effort to "talk the extra mile" and learn other languages.

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In many parts of the world and for many people, English is an excellent choice of a second language. In other parts of the world (Francophone Africa for example), French is an excellent choice. Chinese might be good for some people. Russian for others. Hindi for others. There are many variables.

And I hope that Wikipedia is helpful to people both in learning about the facts of reality (usually most comfortably done in your mother tongue) and in learning another language. I don't see these goals as being in competition at all, but rather mutually reinforcing.

--Jimbo

At your service,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen