In Scandinavia there are a bunch of closely related languages, they are often referred to as North Germanic Languages.[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages] Icelandic and Faroese language is often referred to as Insular Scandinavian, West Norwegian, or Old West Norse, and is somewhat different from the Continental Scandinavian.
There are four midsized Wikipedias in Scandinavia; Swedish (3 782 560 articles, 2 950 active users), Bokmål (460 848 articles, 1 631 active users), Danish (223 121 articles, 1 076 active users), and Nynorsk (132 213 articles, 205 active users). There are also two smaller Wikipedias; Islandic (41 739 articles, 161 active users), and Faroese (12 418 articles, 44 active users). Yes the biggest in number of articles is the Swedish Wikipedia, but it is mostly just bot-created articles.
Swedes have trouble speaking with both Norwegians and Danes, Danes have lesser trouble with Swedish and even less with Norwegian, Norwegians have virtually no problems wiith Swedish and Danish. People from Island and the Faroe icelands usually speaks Danish, they learn it in school, and as Norwegian and Danish is pretty close they usually understands Norwegians without any problem. It is somewhat strange how much trouble Swedes have in understanding the other Scandinavian languages, given that they are so closely related.
The reason why you see signs with Swedish text on airports are because Swedes have problems with all other Scandinavian languages. I'm not sure it is wise to continue that "tradition". Get someone fluent in the _Scandinavian_ languages, it is not uncommon for people in Scandinavia to be speak and write several of the languages, even all of them.
Yes, I'm a bit frustrated because I know that if a "language specialist" is hired because (s)he knows Swedish the rest of the languages will be forgotten. It is simply how things work in Scandinavia, Swedes are in general introvert, the rest are extrovert. (Sorry Swedes!) Some says Sweden geopolitically is located between Germany and France, and the rest of Scandinavians wonder why they haven't noticed they are way up north…
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 8:01 PM, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
As you know, we are launching a movement strategy process and want people from the community integrally involved at every stage. We are accordingly seeking active Wikimedians interested in applying for a number of Community Strategy Coordinator positions. The people hired for these positions will be part-time, remote contractors of up to 20 hours a week with a contract of 3 months. Start date should be in early March.
You can see the job descriptions and apply for the positions at < https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us%3E, but here’s a quick summary of who we’re looking for and what they’ll be doing:
*Language Specialist Strategy Coordinators*
These will be bilingual speakers of a specific list of non-English languages[1] and English who are experienced in their language project community or communities. They will be expected to be able to both conduct deep outreach to these non-English communities and to liaise between these communities and others, in order to maximize the ability of their communities to participate in the movement strategy process. They will also need to be capable of monitoring and summarizing discussions about strategy topics and will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their contract.
*Metawiki Strategy Coordinators*
These facilitators need not be multilingual (although it is a plus), but must be fluent in English and must be experienced contributors to one or more Wikimedia communities. They will be working alongside the language specialist coordinators, the global community, the Wikimedia Foundation and the strategy team to facilitate the most inclusive strategy process possible. This will include outreach to global communities, offering their own community experience and advice to those involved in the process, and leading, monitoring, and summarizing strategy-related discussions. They will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their contract.
If you think either of these sounds like you or another community member you know, I encourage you to visit the job application page and review the job descriptions for more details (again, that's at < https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us#Wikimedia_Careers%3E). Please tell us about your experiences as a Wikimedian and why you think you would be a good fit for this role. Our goal is to run the most inclusive strategy process we can, and that means we need experienced community members like you to help!
Best,
Maggie
[1]
- Arabic
- Bengali
- Chinese
- Dutch
- French
- German
- Hebrew
- Hindi
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- Japanese
- Malayam
- Polish
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- Russian
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-- Maggie Dennis Interim Chief of Community Engagement Director, Support, Safety and Programs Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
Re: the Swedish Wikipedia is mostly just bot-created articles.
There are around 620 000 all manually created. Of the botcreated "seed" articles over 200000 have been extended by manual effort, enabling us to for example have proper articles on all mammals in the world, all birds, all lakes in Sweden and Finland, which would otherwise have been impossible for a small wiki like ours. Of the others, we have a huge number being of great beneficial value. University students writing on parasite illnesses in animals really need the basic article created on the parasitises as such, and just the other day the enthusiast on mosquitoes living in Sweden who could concentrate on the name and where they exist and did not have to bother with the basic data of the mosquitoes
We have also recently run into some problems re the last set of botgenerated articles, but this does not diminish the great value of the earlier sets.
Anders (who with ease speak with my Norwegian friends and my Danish friend from the east part of Denmark)
Den 2017-01-31 kl. 15:38, skrev John Erling Blad:
In Scandinavia there are a bunch of closely related languages, they are often referred to as North Germanic Languages.[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages] Icelandic and Faroese language is often referred to as Insular Scandinavian, West Norwegian, or Old West Norse, and is somewhat different from the Continental Scandinavian.
There are four midsized Wikipedias in Scandinavia; Swedish (3 782 560 articles, 2 950 active users), Bokmål (460 848 articles, 1 631 active users), Danish (223 121 articles, 1 076 active users), and Nynorsk (132 213 articles, 205 active users). There are also two smaller Wikipedias; Islandic (41 739 articles, 161 active users), and Faroese (12 418 articles, 44 active users). Yes the biggest in number of articles is the Swedish Wikipedia, but it is mostly just bot-created articles.
Swedes have trouble speaking with both Norwegians and Danes, Danes have lesser trouble with Swedish and even less with Norwegian, Norwegians have virtually no problems wiith Swedish and Danish. People from Island and the Faroe icelands usually speaks Danish, they learn it in school, and as Norwegian and Danish is pretty close they usually understands Norwegians without any problem. It is somewhat strange how much trouble Swedes have in understanding the other Scandinavian languages, given that they are so closely related.
The reason why you see signs with Swedish text on airports are because Swedes have problems with all other Scandinavian languages. I'm not sure it is wise to continue that "tradition". Get someone fluent in the _Scandinavian_ languages, it is not uncommon for people in Scandinavia to be speak and write several of the languages, even all of them.
Yes, I'm a bit frustrated because I know that if a "language specialist" is hired because (s)he knows Swedish the rest of the languages will be forgotten. It is simply how things work in Scandinavia, Swedes are in general introvert, the rest are extrovert. (Sorry Swedes!) Some says Sweden geopolitically is located between Germany and France, and the rest of Scandinavians wonder why they haven't noticed they are way up north…
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 8:01 PM, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
As you know, we are launching a movement strategy process and want people from the community integrally involved at every stage. We are accordingly seeking active Wikimedians interested in applying for a number of Community Strategy Coordinator positions. The people hired for these positions will be part-time, remote contractors of up to 20 hours a week with a contract of 3 months. Start date should be in early March.
You can see the job descriptions and apply for the positions at < https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us%3E, but here’s a quick summary of who we’re looking for and what they’ll be doing:
*Language Specialist Strategy Coordinators*
These will be bilingual speakers of a specific list of non-English languages[1] and English who are experienced in their language project community or communities. They will be expected to be able to both conduct deep outreach to these non-English communities and to liaise between these communities and others, in order to maximize the ability of their communities to participate in the movement strategy process. They will also need to be capable of monitoring and summarizing discussions about strategy topics and will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their contract.
*Metawiki Strategy Coordinators*
These facilitators need not be multilingual (although it is a plus), but must be fluent in English and must be experienced contributors to one or more Wikimedia communities. They will be working alongside the language specialist coordinators, the global community, the Wikimedia Foundation and the strategy team to facilitate the most inclusive strategy process possible. This will include outreach to global communities, offering their own community experience and advice to those involved in the process, and leading, monitoring, and summarizing strategy-related discussions. They will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their contract.
If you think either of these sounds like you or another community member you know, I encourage you to visit the job application page and review the job descriptions for more details (again, that's at < https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us#Wikimedia_Careers%3E). Please tell us about your experiences as a Wikimedian and why you think you would be a good fit for this role. Our goal is to run the most inclusive strategy process we can, and that means we need experienced community members like you to help!
Best,
Maggie
[1]
- Arabic - Bengali - Chinese - Dutch - French - German - Hebrew - Hindi - Italian - Japanese - Malayam - Polish - Portuguese - Russian - Spanish - Swedish - Vietnamese-- Maggie Dennis Interim Chief of Community Engagement Director, Support, Safety and Programs Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
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(Note: Replying from my personal email, so User:Julle speaking rather than User:Johan (WMF). I'm not working on this and not intimately familiar with the plans for the strategy consultation; these are not comments from the WMF, which as far as I know has no position on the subject of Scandinavian languages.)
2017-01-31 15:38 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com:
Swedes have trouble speaking with both Norwegians and Danes, Danes have lesser trouble with Swedish and even less with Norwegian, Norwegians have virtually no problems wiith Swedish and Danish. People from Island and the Faroe icelands usually speaks Danish, they learn it in school, and as Norwegian and Danish is pretty close they usually understands Norwegians without any problem. It is somewhat strange how much trouble Swedes have in understanding the other Scandinavian languages, given that they are so closely related.
As far as I know, there's no major difference between Swedish and Danish understanding of the neighbouring languages. When looking at Denmark, Sweden and Norway and how well adolescents understand their neighbours, Delsing & Lundin (2005) found two things that really stand out: On average Norwegians understand Danish and Swedish significantly better than Danes or Swedes understand the other Scandinavian languages – especially the Danish understanding of their neighbours had dropped since Øivind Maurud looked at the same thing in the 1970s – and both Danes and Swedes found Norwegian the easiest foreign Scandinavian language to understand.
(They mainly performed OKish when it came to understanding written text; understanding of the spoken languages are more difficult – the Norwegians struggled with spoken Danish, too. Here's Norwegian national TV making fun of how difficult the other Scandinavians generally find Danish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk)
(Reference: Delsing, Lars-Olof & Lundin, Katarina. "Håller språket ihop Norden? : en forskningsrapport om ungdomars förståelse av danska, svenska och norska" (2005): https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/files/5905032/625654.pdf)
//Johan Jönsson --
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