so few books in Breton? Cause there are so few people able to read Breton. Why are there so few people able to read Breton? Cause there is so few content available. (among other reasons) It's a self-energizing effect. The more content there is, the more interest there will be.

nd this configuration does make sense, in my opinion. If we have a hypothetical language with one million oral speakers, but only a handful of people able to write, it will still be useful to create a written encyclopedia. Cause if you start to teach the one million analphabets how to read, they immediately have written content available. If there is no written content available, there is no incentive to learn to read. It's a chicken or egg dilemma. Why are there so few books in Breton? Cause there are so few people able to read Breton. Why are there so few people able to read Breton? Cause there is so few content available. (among other reasons) It's a self-energizing effect. The more content there is, the more interest there will be.

Gregory Maxwell hett schreven: > Only that due care is required if we don't want to end up being a tool > for isolationism and this is true for all cases where we create > distinct Wikipedia communities and is not at all limited to speakers > of sign language. If people like to be isolated, why shouldn't we allow them? It's not Wikimedia's goal to create "one world", but to provide factual knowledge to all people. Even isolated people. Why do we have a Breton Wikipedia? Cause Bretons want to isolate from French. Why do they want to isolate? Cause they are "bad people" who "hate French"? No, cause French dominance destroys Breton. But people want to stay what they are, who they are. They want to stay Breton. They want to keep their identity. Modern society makes it necessary to have a language that enables you to cope with modern society, well, that's nothing else than "to cope with life". If your language doesn't enable you to cope with life there are two ways: 1) create the means that enable you to cope with life in your language. 2) give up your language and the identity intertwined with it and assimilate and integrate into another culture. Languages like English, French, German, Chinese went path 1). Other language, like most of the indigenous languages of the Americas and of Australia went path 2). Every decision whether to grant a Wikipedia or not, is effectively a calculus, whether the language (and identity connected with it) is _worth_ the effort of being adapted to a life in modern society and whether it is feasible to adapt it to a life in modern society. By the way, when I refer to "adapting" a language, I do not mean lexical or semantical changes or additions (a "constructed standard"). but I speak of resources too. Resources like books, encyclopedias, media etc. Obviously there a few chances that a language with only five speakers wil ever be able to cope with all aspects of life. The speakers obviously have be fluent in another language too and their first language will disappear as dispensable. That's the fate of every language in a perfectly bilingual situation. Morse code doesn't deserve a Wikipedia cause nobody _needs_ it to cope with life and so nobody is interested in making it enable you to cope with life (and actually, of course, it is a script and not a language). Breton _is_ worth being adapted (in my opinion, "worth" of course is always a matter of opinion) and it is feasible too. 200-300,000 people speak it. That's the same order of magnitude as for Icelandic and Icelandic is a full-fledged language able to cope with all aspects of life. If we do the same calculus for Sater Frisian, with around 1,000 speakers it is questionable, whether it is feasible to adapt the language. It's _worth_ to be adapted (again, in my opinion), but 1,000 people is a tiny community. Iceland has several kinds of industries and it's not too hard to find a good job, where you can work without having to know a foreign language on a near-native level. But in a community of 1,000 it's quite hard to find a job like that. That means almost everyone has to know a foreign language (German in this case) to cope with his job. And as I said above, perfectly bilingual situations are highly instable. Another example: American English. It's perfectly feasible to adapt American English to cope with life (it's doing that all the time). There are millions of speakers. A Wikipedia of its own would be perfectly feasible. But it wouldn't be worth it, cause the difference to other varieties of English is very small. "Worth" again, is my opinion. There are people, who disagree and believe American English should have a Wikipedia on its own. That's showcased by a recent proposal to create an American English Wikipedia on Meta. It was made by an Englishman. He obviously fears, the American dominance will supplant British English and endanger the British identity. In the end every Wikipedia was created out of isolationism. For sign languages we should apply the same calculus. Of course the special nature of sign languages should be kept in mind while doing this. Sign languages do not form close communities. They cannot be supplanted by spoken languages. This for example means that "jobs" (as mentioned at the example Sater Frisian) does not matter. Deaf people cannot work in most "hearer" jobs. And they don't live in close territories like Bretons, Icelanders or Sater Frisians. Is it feasible? At least the bigger sign languages have enough speakers to adapt to all aspects of life. To create encyclopedias, to create media etc. Is it worth it? Those "anti cochlear" people show that there is a strong identity at least among some deaf people. The "anti cochlear" people fear, that their unique culture will have to face extinction if deafness can be healed. Others would sacrifice this culture for the higher sake of being released from their non-self-chosen isolation. _In my opinion isolationism is a normal motive for every proposed Wikipedia._ Marcus Buck _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l