i proposed a unique criterion that nobody comments:
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Languages
* what kind of languages can have wikis?
any that has a standarized writing system and enough writers and readers to form a viable community and audience. whether a particular language qualifies depends on discussion.
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i thinks, it is a simple and workable criterion to start a unitary and congruent policy.
once again, what do you think?
C.L.
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- what kind of languages can have wikis?
any that has a standarized writing system and enough writers and readers to form a viable community and audience. whether a particular language qualifies depends on discussion.
While the basic idea is about right, I think we need to be more precise. If we adopt your criterion, we're going to get disputes over the definitions of "writer", "reader" and "viable". Do writers and readers need to be native speakers, fluent or just have a basic understanding of the language, for example?
Crazy Lover wrote:
Languages
- what kind of languages can have wikis?
any that has a standarized writing system and enough writers and readers to form a viable community and audience. whether a particular language qualifies depends on discussion.
i thinks, it is a simple and workable criterion to start a unitary and congruent policy.
once again, what do you think?
Standardized writing systems can present a problem when you consider the first nations languages of the west coast of North America. Many of the writing system were devised by anthropologists from around 1900, and were never intended to serve the speakers of the language.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Crazy Lover wrote:
Languages
- what kind of languages can have wikis?
any that has a standarized writing system and enough writers and readers to form a viable community and audience. whether a particular language qualifies depends on discussion.
i thinks, it is a simple and workable criterion to start a unitary and congruent policy.
once again, what do you think?
Standardized writing systems can present a problem when you consider the first nations languages of the west coast of North America. Many of the writing system were devised by anthropologists from around 1900, and were never intended to serve the speakers of the language.
Ec
Affirmed. I think particularly of some native languages that have a decent number of speakers, but very few who write. In my home state of Oklahoma there are some tribes in exactly that position. Yet, I think it's dangerous to ignore the potential role of a wikipedia or wiktionary in educating those speakers and turning them into writers. For instance, I can see an elder in the Yuchi Tribe, for instance, who might assign the class to write wiktionary definitions in Yuchi as part of a language assignment. That serves two goals: it grows community for a Wiki, and also helps to save a dying language.
Philippe
That's actually a great idea, and following further from your example, they could develop a wikiversity course in how to do it.
-Dan On Apr 17, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Crazy Lover wrote:
Languages
- what kind of languages can have wikis?
any that has a standarized writing system and enough writers and readers to form a viable community and audience. whether a particular language qualifies depends on discussion.
i thinks, it is a simple and workable criterion to start a unitary and congruent policy.
once again, what do you think?
Standardized writing systems can present a problem when you consider the first nations languages of the west coast of North America. Many of the writing system were devised by anthropologists from around 1900, and were never intended to serve the speakers of the language.
Ec
Affirmed. I think particularly of some native languages that have a decent number of speakers, but very few who write. In my home state of Oklahoma there are some tribes in exactly that position. Yet, I think it's dangerous to ignore the potential role of a wikipedia or wiktionary in educating those speakers and turning them into writers. For instance, I can see an elder in the Yuchi Tribe, for instance, who might assign the class to write wiktionary definitions in Yuchi as part of a language assignment. That serves two goals: it grows community for a Wiki, and also helps to save a dying language.
Philippe
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Philippe Beaudette wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Crazy Lover wrote:
Languages
- what kind of languages can have wikis?
any that has a standarized writing system and enough writers and readers to form a viable community and audience. whether a particular language qualifies depends on discussion.
i thinks, it is a simple and workable criterion to start a unitary and congruent policy.
once again, what do you think?
Standardized writing systems can present a problem when you consider the first nations languages of the west coast of North America. Many of the writing system were devised by anthropologists from around 1900, and were never intended to serve the speakers of the language.
Affirmed. I think particularly of some native languages that have a decent number of speakers, but very few who write. In my home state of Oklahoma there are some tribes in exactly that position. Yet, I think it's dangerous to ignore the potential role of a wikipedia or wiktionary in educating those speakers and turning them into writers. For instance, I can see an elder in the Yuchi Tribe, for instance, who might assign the class to write wiktionary definitions in Yuchi as part of a language assignment. That serves two goals: it grows community for a Wiki, and also helps to save a dying language.
This leads to another important point. It's not simply about the criteria for having a wiki, but about the criteria for a specific kind of wiki. A Wikisource for a pre-literate language that has no available material is pointless. The arguments for a Wikisource in a dead but literate language are much stronger.
Wiktionaries serve a different purpose, and thus merit different criteria.
One is dreaming if he expects that the Yuchi Wikipedia will have a wide range of scientific articles anytime soon, but it would be a great medium for developing material related to Yuchi culture. Those involved can write scientific articles if they want, but that's not where the real value of those wikipedias will be found.
Ec
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
This leads to another important point. It's not simply about the criteria for having a wiki, but about the criteria for a specific kind of wiki. A Wikisource for a pre-literate language that has no available material is pointless. The arguments for a Wikisource in a dead but literate language are much stronger.
Wiktionaries serve a different purpose, and thus merit different criteria.
The current policy does recognize differences between projects; for example, new Wikisources are allowed in languages with no native speakers, if the content doesn't belong on a modern-language wiki (ie, Old English is welcome on the English Wikisource). The policy can certainly be amended with other tweaks as required.
That said, there's no need to look for literature when approving a Wikisource, because we already look at test project size and activity. This will be minimal if there's nothing to add. Further, a Wikisource for a language with no real literature might still prosper in providing translations of other languages' literature.
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