Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Greetings Ting
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
-- Tim Starling
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I totally agree with you on the issue of language conservation. Actually I had even thought about the possibility to use our wiki to do such things. I had read quite some articles for example on Scientific American about the problems of language conservation that the researchers are facing. And I think that wiki can be a technical way for them.
But the classic chinese is another case. Classic chinese is a dead language, and to write about the modern Olympic games with such a language is simply original research. It has nothing to do with language conservation.
Ting
Ting Chen wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
I totally agree with you on the issue of language conservation. Actually I had even thought about the possibility to use our wiki to do such things. I had read quite some articles for example on Scientific American about the problems of language conservation that the researchers are facing. And I think that wiki can be a technical way for them.
But the classic chinese is another case. Classic chinese is a dead language, and to write about the modern Olympic games with such a language is simply original research. It has nothing to do with language conservation.
Surely a pedagogical study of Classical Chinese is more relevant to our educational mission than Wikiquote's enormous sitcom dialogue collection, or Wikipedia's in-universe sci-fi/fantasy character studies.
"No original research" should be considered a project policy, not a Foundation policy. Original research is an immensely valuable activity, and Wikimedia should not be opposed to it on principle.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
I totally agree with you on the issue of language conservation. Actually I had even thought about the possibility to use our wiki to do such things. I had read quite some articles for example on Scientific American about the problems of language conservation that the researchers are facing. And I think that wiki can be a technical way for them.
But the classic chinese is another case. Classic chinese is a dead language, and to write about the modern Olympic games with such a language is simply original research. It has nothing to do with language conservation.
Surely a pedagogical study of Classical Chinese is more relevant to our educational mission than Wikiquote's enormous sitcom dialogue collection, or Wikipedia's in-universe sci-fi/fantasy character studies.
"No original research" should be considered a project policy, not a Foundation policy. Original research is an immensely valuable activity, and Wikimedia should not be opposed to it on principle.
In that case I believe it is better to do it as a Wikiversity or Wikibooks project, and not as a Wikipedia project. Ting
Ting Chen wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote: Surely a pedagogical study of Classical Chinese is more relevant to our educational mission than Wikiquote's enormous sitcom dialogue collection, or Wikipedia's in-universe sci-fi/fantasy character studies.
"No original research" should be considered a project policy, not a Foundation policy. Original research is an immensely valuable activity, and Wikimedia should not be opposed to it on principle.
In that case I believe it is better to do it as a Wikiversity or Wikibooks project, and not as a Wikipedia project.
Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Have the Board approve it and I'll move the existing extinct languages and create several more.
-- Tim Starling
I remember the recent discussion about communication with a Polish lady ... that is quite similar for me as Japanese with Classical Chinese.
Since we at Japan consider it part of our literature heritage, we spare hours to learn it for years compulsory. I can read somehow Classical Chinese, even better than modern one, besides I am not familiar much with simplified characters and my skills in writing was not as super as Meiji era people who could freely compose poems and prose in Classical Chinese. And I sometimes used this knowledge to communicate with Chinese whose language is of curse modern one (by writing down of course).
I am not familiar with the current zh-classic community, but if it is live, we have no reason to shut it down as well as we now keep Latin Wikipedia alive.
On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
-- Tim Starling
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I totally agree with you on the issue of language conservation. Actually I had even thought about the possibility to use our wiki to do such things. I had read quite some articles for example on Scientific American about the problems of language conservation that the researchers are facing. And I think that wiki can be a technical way for them.
But the classic chinese is another case. Classic chinese is a dead language, and to write about the modern Olympic games with such a language is simply original research. It has nothing to do with language conservation.
Ting
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There is a major difference between Latin and other "ancient languages": A neo Latin movement, Latinitas Viva, is actually using Latin as a modern language. They have conventicula (meetings), Grex latine loquentium (an internet forum) and modern literature and dictionaries. I don't see that in the case of, for example, ancient Greek. All Wikipedias in ancient languages I know - with the exception of Latin - are more or less dead. For ancient languages usually a Wikisource project is more suitable, though often the ancient forms of modern languages can be integrated into an existing Wikisource - like German Wikisource embraces also texts in ancient forms of German. Kind regards Ziko
2008/9/4 Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com:
I remember the recent discussion about communication with a Polish lady ... that is quite similar for me as Japanese with Classical Chinese.
Since we at Japan consider it part of our literature heritage, we spare hours to learn it for years compulsory. I can read somehow Classical Chinese, even better than modern one, besides I am not familiar much with simplified characters and my skills in writing was not as super as Meiji era people who could freely compose poems and prose in Classical Chinese. And I sometimes used this knowledge to communicate with Chinese whose language is of curse modern one (by writing down of course).
I am not familiar with the current zh-classic community, but if it is live, we have no reason to shut it down as well as we now keep Latin Wikipedia alive.
On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
-- Tim Starling
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I totally agree with you on the issue of language conservation. Actually I had even thought about the possibility to use our wiki to do such things. I had read quite some articles for example on Scientific American about the problems of language conservation that the researchers are facing. And I think that wiki can be a technical way for them.
But the classic chinese is another case. Classic chinese is a dead language, and to write about the modern Olympic games with such a language is simply original research. It has nothing to do with language conservation.
Ting
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-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
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Sanskrit can do one better, they have native speakers (somebody in another thread just said they didn't, not true!)
Mark
2008/9/4 Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com:
There is a major difference between Latin and other "ancient languages": A neo Latin movement, Latinitas Viva, is actually using Latin as a modern language. They have conventicula (meetings), Grex latine loquentium (an internet forum) and modern literature and dictionaries. I don't see that in the case of, for example, ancient Greek. All Wikipedias in ancient languages I know - with the exception of Latin - are more or less dead. For ancient languages usually a Wikisource project is more suitable, though often the ancient forms of modern languages can be integrated into an existing Wikisource - like German Wikisource embraces also texts in ancient forms of German. Kind regards Ziko
2008/9/4 Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com:
I remember the recent discussion about communication with a Polish lady ... that is quite similar for me as Japanese with Classical Chinese.
Since we at Japan consider it part of our literature heritage, we spare hours to learn it for years compulsory. I can read somehow Classical Chinese, even better than modern one, besides I am not familiar much with simplified characters and my skills in writing was not as super as Meiji era people who could freely compose poems and prose in Classical Chinese. And I sometimes used this knowledge to communicate with Chinese whose language is of curse modern one (by writing down of course).
I am not familiar with the current zh-classic community, but if it is live, we have no reason to shut it down as well as we now keep Latin Wikipedia alive.
On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
-- Tim Starling
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I totally agree with you on the issue of language conservation. Actually I had even thought about the possibility to use our wiki to do such things. I had read quite some articles for example on Scientific American about the problems of language conservation that the researchers are facing. And I think that wiki can be a technical way for them.
But the classic chinese is another case. Classic chinese is a dead language, and to write about the modern Olympic games with such a language is simply original research. It has nothing to do with language conservation.
Ting
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
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-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
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Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given [...] team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Have the Board approve it and
No community decision? :)
Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote:
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given [...] team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Have the Board approve it and
No community decision? :)
The board should approve what the community decides.
-- Tim Starling
Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote:
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given [...] team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Have the Board approve it and
No community decision? :)
That's the reason why I put the question here.
Ting
Personally I do not think Classical Chinese is a dead language. Here in Taiwan I studied Classical Chinese when I'm in school (junior / senior high). In our higher education, Classical Chinese is an optional subject as common sense course. And we still have lots of poem writers here using the language.
As Aphaia previously stated, Japanese people are also using the Classical Chinese in their daily lives, maybe more than Chinese people.
If you think the language is dead, it's your own opinion. It's still alive somewhere in the world. But, yap, it might be my own opinion, too. ;)
Regards, Ted / H.T. User:Htchien
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ting Chen Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 2:12 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Klassical Chinese
Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote:
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given [...] team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues.
There
was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Have the Board approve it and
No community decision? :)
That's the reason why I put the question here.
Ting
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I agree with you totally that the Classic Chinese has a tremendous cultural value. I myself had studied it from the fifth class until to the eleventh class. And among the few books I took from China to Germany and kept them through all my movings was Guwen Guanzhi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guwen_Guanzhi). I am a big fan of some articles collected in that book. I can read texts from Zhou until the Qing-dynasty and had wrote classical poems at my youth myself. That's not the question.
I also totally agree with you and Tim and Aphaia that it is important to keep this cultural value and maybe find some place in our projects to keep it alive.
What I wonder is, is there a meaning to write an encyclopedia with this language. Who would look for Olympic Games in a classical chinese Wikipedia, except the people who write the article themselves?
Ting
Ted (Hsiang-Tai) Chien wrote:
Personally I do not think Classical Chinese is a dead language. Here in Taiwan I studied Classical Chinese when I'm in school (junior / senior high). In our higher education, Classical Chinese is an optional subject as common sense course. And we still have lots of poem writers here using the language.
As Aphaia previously stated, Japanese people are also using the Classical Chinese in their daily lives, maybe more than Chinese people.
If you think the language is dead, it's your own opinion. It's still alive somewhere in the world. But, yap, it might be my own opinion, too. ;)
Regards, Ted / H.T. User:Htchien
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ting Chen Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 2:12 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Klassical Chinese
Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote:
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given [...] team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues.
There
was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Have the Board approve it and
No community decision? :)
That's the reason why I put the question here.
Ting
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On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 4:23 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
What I wonder is, is there a meaning to write an encyclopedia with this language. Who would look for Olympic Games in a classical chinese Wikipedia, except the people who write the article themselves?
Usually, the most of Internet users who read English without problems won't use any other edition of Wikipedia for such purposes (current events), except the English one. Those who are not fluent in any foreign language and don't have such happiness to be born in some large culture (German, French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese...), would read about current events on professional media in their languages, not on Wikipedia. So, then, why to write encyclopedia in any other language?
But, article about Han or Qin dynasty and their times in Classical Chinese may be very useful for a lot of East Asians. AFAIK, one average Japanese is not able to read even Traditional Chinese (my friend told me that he is able just to suppose what some character means; so mistakes like reading a character for "dentist" as a "physician" is usual level of understanding), while, as Aphaia said, is able to read Classical Chinese. I may imagine that the similar situation is in Korea and maybe in some countries of South-East Asia.
The point here is that a number of non-linguists are trying to make some tautologies from linguistics; which is completely impossible. There are a number of social variables which makes one language valuable. And there are a number of other social variable which makes one language worth of efforts to help them.
BTW, note that a lot of languages with small number of speakers are not able to write an article about, let's say, nuclear chemistry. And more languages are not able to express almost anything about computer technology in their standards; and if they are able, it is usually better to read it in English because texts in standards are more foreign than English text is.
There is a very small specter of languages which, AFAIK, shouldn't have separate projects: stupidities (cf. Siberian Wikipedia), hobbyist languages (Klingon, Tengvar) and ancient languages used exclusively for research of language and cultural history (Sumerian, Phoenician). Other languages should pass careful analysis: are they useful? do they deserve needed amount of our time and energy? Also, some Wikimedia projects are more useful for some languages: Wiktionary and Wikisource, are, by default, much more useful for any language than it is, let's say, Wikinews. So, even ancient languages should get their Wiktionaries and Wikisources; but I really don't see a need for Old Church Slavonic Wikinews (while even Wikiversities may have some sense).
And to conclude: We need some more sensible rules. (And, so, I fully agree with Tim's changes.)
Milos Rancic wrote:
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 4:23 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
What I wonder is, is there a meaning to write an encyclopedia with this language. Who would look for Olympic Games in a classical chinese Wikipedia, except the people who write the article themselves?
Usually, the most of Internet users who read English without problems won't use any other edition of Wikipedia for such purposes (current events), except the English one. Those who are not fluent in any foreign language and don't have such happiness to be born in some large culture (German, French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese...), would read about current events on professional media in their languages, not on Wikipedia. So, then, why to write encyclopedia in any other language?
I don't agree with you on this point. For example a lot of German look up in German wikipedia instead of in english Wikipedia or in German media. And I personally would use chinese Wikipedia if it is a China related topic or in german Wikipedia if it is a german related topic. Only if it is an english speaking language related topic or a topic for which language I don't understand I would look in german and english Wikipedia. If it is a disputed and current event topic I would look into as most of language versions and media from different countries as I can.
What you said is may be the situation three years ago. And I am sure you will find the serbian Wikipedia in three years in much topics more useful then or as useful as the english Wikipedia.
But, article about Han or Qin dynasty and their times in Classical Chinese may be very useful for a lot of East Asians. AFAIK, one average Japanese is not able to read even Traditional Chinese (my friend told me that he is able just to suppose what some character means; so mistakes like reading a character for "dentist" as a "physician" is usual level of understanding), while, as Aphaia said, is able to read Classical Chinese. I may imagine that the similar situation is in Korea and maybe in some countries of South-East Asia.
That I disagree. The japanese version and the vietnamese version of Han-dynasty (that's the two languages that I at least know a little) are far more better than the Classic Chinese version, and I am sure that a Japanese or a Vietnamese would be more comfortable to read the article in their own language then in Classic Chinese. There is no article about the Qin Dynasty in Classic Chinese but in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. But I am sure the rest would be similar. By the next Wikimania I would ask Aphaia if she would ever think of a situation when she would look up in the Classic Chinese :-P
The point here is that a number of non-linguists are trying to make some tautologies from linguistics; which is completely impossible. There are a number of social variables which makes one language valuable. And there are a number of other social variable which makes one language worth of efforts to help them.
BTW, note that a lot of languages with small number of speakers are not able to write an article about, let's say, nuclear chemistry. And more languages are not able to express almost anything about computer technology in their standards; and if they are able, it is usually better to read it in English because texts in standards are more foreign than English text is.
There is a very small specter of languages which, AFAIK, shouldn't have separate projects: stupidities (cf. Siberian Wikipedia), hobbyist languages (Klingon, Tengvar) and ancient languages used exclusively for research of language and cultural history (Sumerian, Phoenician). Other languages should pass careful analysis: are they useful? do they deserve needed amount of our time and energy? Also, some Wikimedia projects are more useful for some languages: Wiktionary and Wikisource, are, by default, much more useful for any language than it is, let's say, Wikinews. So, even ancient languages should get their Wiktionaries and Wikisources; but I really don't see a need for Old Church Slavonic Wikinews (while even Wikiversities may have some sense).
And to conclude: We need some more sensible rules. (And, so, I fully agree with Tim's changes.)
Yes, I think at this point we agree each other. Maybe we could consider a project category, whose purpose is the conservation of languages. As I wrote in a reply to Tim earlier I think MediaWiki can help a lot. But it must not be a Wikipedia.
Ting
Yes, I think at this point we agree each other. Maybe we could consider a project category, whose purpose is the conservation of languages. As I wrote in a reply to Tim earlier I think MediaWiki can help a lot. But it must not be a Wikipedia.
Actually, this category has been discussed a countless number of times, and most often under a name of "wikicompendium". It would be good, for instance, for minor languages, where there may be not enough speakers to support a wikipedia and not so many sources to support a wikiquote or a wikisource, but if you put them all in one basket it may be a project with a chance to survive. The same is with the dead languages (with an obvious exception for latin, which is good enough to support all the projects), and possibly even with conlangs.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Friday 05 September 2008 18:46:32 Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
Yes, I think at this point we agree each other. Maybe we could consider a project category, whose purpose is the conservation of languages. As I wrote in a reply to Tim earlier I think MediaWiki can help a lot. But it must not be a Wikipedia.
Actually, this category has been discussed a countless number of times, and most often under a name of "wikicompendium". It would be good, for instance, for minor languages, where there may be not enough speakers to support a wikipedia and not so many sources to support a wikiquote or a wikisource, but if you put them all in one basket it may be a project with a chance to survive. The same is with the dead languages (with an obvious exception for latin, which is good enough to support all the projects), and possibly even with conlangs.
The problem is, that Wikipedia is by far and wide the most well-known name of all Wikimedia projects. Naming a project "Wikicompendium" would hurt recognition of the project, while naming it "Wikipedia" would help, and shouldn't hurt Wikipedia's recognition, even if technically it's not an encyclopedia.
2008/9/6 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
The problem is, that Wikipedia is by far and wide the most well-known name of all Wikimedia projects. Naming a project "Wikicompendium" would hurt recognition of the project, while naming it "Wikipedia" would help, and shouldn't hurt Wikipedia's recognition, even if technically it's not an encyclopedia.
Depends what you call "encyclopedia." There's broader reasonable definitions of "encyclopedia" than whatever en:wp uses - the quotes database, the source texts, the books, how-tos, these could all reasonably be part of an encyclopedia. Just not most of our large Wikipedias.
- d.
On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 11:49 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/6 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
The problem is, that Wikipedia is by far and wide the most well-known name of all Wikimedia projects. Naming a project "Wikicompendium" would hurt recognition of the project, while naming it "Wikipedia" would help, and shouldn't hurt Wikipedia's recognition, even if technically it's not an encyclopedia.
Depends what you call "encyclopedia." There's broader reasonable definitions of "encyclopedia" than whatever en:wp uses - the quotes database, the source texts, the books, how-tos, these could all reasonably be part of an encyclopedia. Just not most of our large Wikipedias.
I just wanted to say a word about that... We may make "fake Wikipedias" or so. Let's say that http://wikicompendium.org/wiki/encyclopedia:xyz:Main_Page is the main page of Wikipedia in language with the code xyz. Then http://xyz.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page should be a virtual redirect to http://wikicompendium.org/wiki/encyclopedia:xyx:Main_Page (I think that I would be able to make a couple of mod_rewrite commands to make that). So, speakers of small languages would have their Wikipedia (Wiktionary, Wikibooks), and we will have one project managed from one place.
I just wanted to say a word about that... We may make "fake Wikipedias" or so. Let's say that http://wikicompendium.org/wiki/encyclopedia:xyz:Main_Page is the main page of Wikipedia in language with the code xyz. Then http://xyz.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page should be a virtual redirect to http://wikicompendium.org/wiki/encyclopedia:xyx:Main_Page (I think that I would be able to make a couple of mod_rewrite commands to make that). So, speakers of small languages would have their Wikipedia (Wiktionary, Wikibooks), and we will have one project managed from one place.
Looks like a very reasonable suggestion to me. As soon as we sort out the interwiki issue (which I believe is not such a big problem).
Cheers Yaroslav
On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
I just wanted to say a word about that... We may make "fake Wikipedias" or so. Let's say that http://wikicompendium.org/wiki/encyclopedia:xyz:Main_Page is the main page of Wikipedia in language with the code xyz. Then http://xyz.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page should be a virtual redirect to http://wikicompendium.org/wiki/encyclopedia:xyx:Main_Page (I think that I would be able to make a couple of mod_rewrite commands to make that). So, speakers of small languages would have their Wikipedia (Wiktionary, Wikibooks), and we will have one project managed from one place.
Looks like a very reasonable suggestion to me. As soon as we sort out the interwiki issue (which I believe is not such a big problem).
There are two MediaWiki issues, but I don't think that they are too complex:
- Links inside of encyclopedia:xyz: name space should be like [[page name]] not like [[encyclopedia:xyz:page name]]. - Page names inside of that name space should be like "Page Name", not like "Encyclopedia:Xyz:Page Name".
Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On Friday 05 September 2008 18:46:32 Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
Yes, I think at this point we agree each other. Maybe we could consider a project category, whose purpose is the conservation of languages. As I wrote in a reply to Tim earlier I think MediaWiki can help a lot. But it must not be a Wikipedia.
Actually, this category has been discussed a countless number of times, and most often under a name of "wikicompendium". It would be good, for instance, for minor languages, where there may be not enough speakers to support a wikipedia and not so many sources to support a wikiquote or a wikisource, but if you put them all in one basket it may be a project with a chance to survive. The same is with the dead languages (with an obvious exception for latin, which is good enough to support all the projects), and possibly even with conlangs.
The problem is, that Wikipedia is by far and wide the most well-known name of all Wikimedia projects. Naming a project "Wikicompendium" would hurt recognition of the project, while naming it "Wikipedia" would help, and shouldn't hurt Wikipedia's recognition, even if technically it's not an encyclopedia.
That's true. But on the other hand, such a project is not for attracting a lot of people. It is a place for people to do conservation works for a small or already dead language. It would by nature not have a lot of editors and users. Maybe only the ethmologists who are doing the conservation works.
Ting
Hi, thank you for your positive feedback, Ting Chen,
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 11:23 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
I agree with you totally that the Classic Chinese has a tremendous cultural value. I myself had studied it from the fifth class until to the eleventh class. And among the few books I took from China to Germany and kept them through all my movings was Guwen Guanzhi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guwen_Guanzhi). I am a big fan of some articles collected in that book. I can read texts from Zhou until the Qing-dynasty and had wrote classical poems at my youth myself. That's not the question.
I also totally agree with you and Tim and Aphaia that it is important to keep this cultural value and maybe find some place in our projects to keep it alive.
What I wonder is, is there a meaning to write an encyclopedia with this language. Who would look for Olympic Games in a classical chinese Wikipedia, except the people who write the article themselves?
It may be as same as the discussion on Latin Wikipedia when we discussed what word was the most appropriate for "links" (then we decided nexus would be) or an unfinished discussion if Classical or ecclesiastic Latin should be picked up for "spoken" Latin Wikiquote for the sake of NPOV ...
On the other hand, I totally agree with you and H.T.Chien that literacy in Classical Chinese is a lively part of our common tradition and Wikimedia project as the sum of human knowledge shouldn't lack it. Maybe writing an article in Classic Chinese could fit more to a course of Wikiversity, but I am not sure about it.
Another problem in this sphere might be to introduce auto-conversion to zhwikisource; currently some classical texts are available only in simplified Chinese, and it makes its portability less to the text traditional Chinese is preferred in my humble opinion.
Ting
Ted (Hsiang-Tai) Chien wrote:
Personally I do not think Classical Chinese is a dead language. Here in Taiwan I studied Classical Chinese when I'm in school (junior / senior high). In our higher education, Classical Chinese is an optional subject as common sense course. And we still have lots of poem writers here using the language.
As Aphaia previously stated, Japanese people are also using the Classical Chinese in their daily lives, maybe more than Chinese people.
If you think the language is dead, it's your own opinion. It's still alive somewhere in the world. But, yap, it might be my own opinion, too. ;)
Regards, Ted / H.T. User:Htchien
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ting Chen Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 2:12 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Klassical Chinese
Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote:
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given [...] team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues.
There
was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions
Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Have the Board approve it and
No community decision? :)
That's the reason why I put the question here.
Ting
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Exactly.
2008/9/4 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
-- Tim Starling
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2008/9/4 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Exactly.
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
On Thursday 04 September 2008 18:08:28 geni wrote:
2008/9/4 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Exactly.
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
The fact that it can be argued still doesn't mean that there it is even a remote possibility for it to be correct.
2008/9/5 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Thursday 04 September 2008 18:08:28 geni wrote:
2008/9/4 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Exactly.
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
The fact that it can be argued still doesn't mean that there it is even a remote possibility for it to be correct.
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
This line of thought has been abandoned since the failure of the tower of Babylon. :-) -- Sir48
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
-- geni
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2008/9/5 dex2000 sir48@lite.dk:
This line of thought has been abandoned since the failure of the tower of Babylon. :-) -- Sir48
Babel perhaps and no. The reason the process has slowed significantly is that imperialism gave it a bad name. Which is understandable. The use of force by governments to enforce languages is no longer acceptable. So well fall back on natural processes.
Cornish is effectively dead. Indeed if it wasn't for scholars hobbyists and the Cornish nationalist movement it would be dead. But there are no monolingual Cornish speakers a I seriously doubt if there is much in the way of day to day communication that goes on in cornish. Welsh was pretty much killed of. Massive government support has revived it to an extent but I doubt it would last a generation without that. Even with government support scots Gallic is dieing.
The Irish language has an even higher level of support but isn't looking too healthy. Such is the fate of minor languages in a free country.
Access to a major language gives you access to science, technology ideas and art beyond what can realistically be translated. Indeed a look at the amount the EU spends on translation will tell that the translation model is a failure.
So how do people defend the minor languages. The most popular is cultural. The language is needed to preserve the culture. I take the view that any culture that requires that those within it do not have access to the kind of information that a major language can give is not one who's passing I will morn. Heh the classic case is old apartheid South Africa where the government discouraged certain groups from learning English.
Another popular argument is that it pollutes the local language. I tend not to see why this considered a problem. Living languages grow.
Another argument is the loss of information in that language. Now this is something of a problem. For smaller languages like Fayu it isn't to bad. I don't thin there is a written form of Fayu so the amount of information in Fayu is what a few hundred adults (population estimates are tricky I've seen one of 400) can hold in there head. A fair chunk of that already exists in German and a lot more would be shifted out into a switch over to a major language. Perhaps some information would be lost but I'm not prepared to deny people access to the science, technology ideas and art stored in major languages for the sake of the fairly small amount that would be lost.
Larger languages need more stuff shifted over but since the shift would take longer I imagine that could be done. Where the language had a written form I doubt we would ever lose the ability to read it due to the amount of duel language materials created by the shift.
A world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge is realistically a world that speaks one language.
Thus long term our focus should be more on simple english chinese german french probably russian probably Japaneses and spanish. Than trying to create wikis for all minor languages.
On Friday 05 September 2008 19:34:05 geni wrote:
2008/9/5 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Thursday 04 September 2008 18:08:28 geni wrote:
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
The fact that it can be argued still doesn't mean that there it is even a remote possibility for it to be correct.
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Without knowing Fayu, the Fayu would no longer be Fayu, and so the value of knowledge to the Fayu would be exactly zero.
Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On Friday 05 September 2008 19:34:05 geni wrote:
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Without knowing Fayu, the Fayu would no longer be Fayu, and so the value of knowledge to the Fayu would be exactly zero.
But the value of knowledge to the individuals in question would still be quite high.
In any case, this is mostly comparing incomparables: there is no objectively correct answer as to the relative merits of focusing on language preservation versus focusing on allowing people to acquire more information through learning second languages.
-Mark
2008/9/7 Delirium delirium@hackish.org:
Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On Friday 05 September 2008 19:34:05 geni wrote:
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Without knowing Fayu, the Fayu would no longer be Fayu, and so the value of knowledge to the Fayu would be exactly zero.
But the value of knowledge to the individuals in question would still be quite high.
In any case, this is mostly comparing incomparables: there is no objectively correct answer as to the relative merits of focusing on language preservation versus focusing on allowing people to acquire more information through learning second languages.
-Mark
Totally bi-lingal situations are not long term stable.
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:34 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/5 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Thursday 04 September 2008 18:08:28 geni wrote:
2008/9/4 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Exactly.
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
The fact that it can be argued still doesn't mean that there it is even a remote possibility for it to be correct.
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Obscure language Wikipedias do not serve the purpose of educating people in their native language. As you've pointed out, resource wise it's better to teach the Fayu speakers some popular world languages. I expect that most speakers of less popular languages also reach the same conclusion, so we find most of the speakers of less popular languages busily editing away on English, practising their English skills for personal benefit, rather than spending their time on a Wikipedia which will never be complete enough to be really useful as an encyclopedia. (look at activity levels of the speakers of many Indian languages for a great example of this.)
In terms of educating people, we could probably get away with only a dozen or so languages: Anyone who doesn't learn to read one of those languages is at a tremendous disadvantage, disconnected from the commerce and scholarship of the world. We'd be doing them a disservice in providing an excuse to not learn a more popular language… if we were ever able to build comprehensive Wikipedias in those languages (which we aren't, the speakers of those languages are able to watch out for their own interests).
Of course, there are many groups who profit greatly from the artificial barriers created by language incompatibility (linguists, translators, international businesses, some educational projects (it's easier to build an empire when you need to fund people to translate or recreate educational works in 200 languages!)), and groups who fear for their cultures or systems of governance if their public had the freedom to directly learn about those of other places.
Unfortunately, the same language barriers make it difficult for normal people who speak these languages to participate in our English language discussions. As a result, we're forced to deal with self-appointed representatives, people who's value stems directly from the existence of language barriers. Perhaps it should be no surprise that building resources to help people learn the major languages is given less consideration than finding ways to prop up Wikipedia which lack sufficient interest from native speakers to become useful in the natural fashion.
All that said Wikipedias do serve good purposes beyond being useful as encyclopedias, ones which might not be our core mission, but which are still educational in nature. For those other purposes, less popular, even dead, or unpopular constructed languages can still be useful. I agree with the notion of the harmless dead languages, but can still reject the notion that we need them in order to provide encyclopedias to everyone.
Hoi, When people find it in themselves to promote their language, they can. They can by starting a Wikipedia project. They can by writing in an encyclopaedic fashion about the things that matter to them. In this way they extend the corpus that exists on the Internet in their language. In this way they keep their language alive.
Allowing people to do this does not cost us much, it is just a bit of hard drive space, a bit of managing an extra wiki. When you propose that WE teach people to learn another language, who is to do the teaching how will you allocate the required effort ??
The question of small still living languages is one we have seen time and again. This year, 2008, is the UNESCO year of languages. In the WMF we do important work for stimulating living languages. It is particular the living natural languages that have an active community that profit from our welcoming attitude.
When people speak about "obscure" languages, they talk about languages they have not heard, languages they did not meet the people off who speak such a language. People who have such opinions are welcome to them, I am however glad that I and with me many others have a different, a more worldly point of view. thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:34 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/5 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Thursday 04 September 2008 18:08:28 geni wrote:
2008/9/4 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Exactly.
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
The fact that it can be argued still doesn't mean that there it is even
a
remote possibility for it to be correct.
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Obscure language Wikipedias do not serve the purpose of educating people in their native language. As you've pointed out, resource wise it's better to teach the Fayu speakers some popular world languages. I expect that most speakers of less popular languages also reach the same conclusion, so we find most of the speakers of less popular languages busily editing away on English, practising their English skills for personal benefit, rather than spending their time on a Wikipedia which will never be complete enough to be really useful as an encyclopedia. (look at activity levels of the speakers of many Indian languages for a great example of this.)
In terms of educating people, we could probably get away with only a dozen or so languages: Anyone who doesn't learn to read one of those languages is at a tremendous disadvantage, disconnected from the commerce and scholarship of the world. We'd be doing them a disservice in providing an excuse to not learn a more popular language… if we were ever able to build comprehensive Wikipedias in those languages (which we aren't, the speakers of those languages are able to watch out for their own interests).
Of course, there are many groups who profit greatly from the artificial barriers created by language incompatibility (linguists, translators, international businesses, some educational projects (it's easier to build an empire when you need to fund people to translate or recreate educational works in 200 languages!)), and groups who fear for their cultures or systems of governance if their public had the freedom to directly learn about those of other places.
Unfortunately, the same language barriers make it difficult for normal people who speak these languages to participate in our English language discussions. As a result, we're forced to deal with self-appointed representatives, people who's value stems directly from the existence of language barriers. Perhaps it should be no surprise that building resources to help people learn the major languages is given less consideration than finding ways to prop up Wikipedia which lack sufficient interest from native speakers to become useful in the natural fashion.
All that said Wikipedias do serve good purposes beyond being useful as encyclopedias, ones which might not be our core mission, but which are still educational in nature. For those other purposes, less popular, even dead, or unpopular constructed languages can still be useful. I agree with the notion of the harmless dead languages, but can still reject the notion that we need them in order to provide encyclopedias to everyone. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sunday 07 September 2008 08:54:06 Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:34 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a broader range of sources and knowledge.
Obscure language Wikipedias do not serve the purpose of educating people in their native language. As you've pointed out, resource wise it's better to teach the Fayu speakers some popular world languages. I
Fayu is an extreme example. But for even a small language such as Serbian (at most around 10 million of speakers), it would be cheaper to translate entire English Wikipedia to it than to educate all Serbian speakers in English; not to mention that the former is actually doable, while the latter is not.
expect that most speakers of less popular languages also reach the same conclusion, so we find most of the speakers of less popular languages busily editing away on English, practising their English skills for personal benefit, rather than spending their time on a
I hope you don't think that people are contirbuting to English Wikipedia solely so that they could practice their English.
Of course, there are many groups who profit greatly from the artificial barriers created by language incompatibility (linguists,
(Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort, and so barriers among them are natural and not artificial.
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Fayu is an extreme example. But for even a small language such as Serbian (at most around 10 million of speakers), it would be cheaper to translate entire English Wikipedia to it than to educate all Serbian speakers in English; not to mention that the former is actually doable, while the latter is not.
Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite impressive.
I hope you don't think that people are contirbuting to English Wikipedia solely so that they could practice their English.
It does appear to be a motivating factor in some cases.
(Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort, and so barriers among them are natural and not artificial.
Serbian though is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian where the barrier is highly artificial (and people now want to divide it further with Montenegrin).
An increasing number of languages only exist through large scale government support. Increasing levels of international communication means that we should see non major languages start to die off.
On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 1:17 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
I hope you don't think that people are contirbuting to English Wikipedia solely so that they could practice their English.
It does appear to be a motivating factor in some cases.
That was the primary reason I joined wikibooks in the first place: To improve my writing skills and to increase my own understanding of the topics I was writing about. They say the best way to learn is to teach, and I suspect that's a motivation for many people to participate in these projects.
On a related note, I've heard tales of language classes (teaching spanish to native english speakers, as an example) assigning writing assignments on various wikipedias or wikibooks as practice. I can't source this statement, but i've heard rumors about it in the past. Either way, I certainly wouldn't discount the idea.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Monday 08 September 2008 19:17:44 geni wrote:
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Fayu is an extreme example. But for even a small language such as Serbian (at most around 10 million of speakers), it would be cheaper to translate entire English Wikipedia to it than to educate all Serbian speakers in English; not to mention that the former is actually doable, while the latter is not.
Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite impressive.
So?
I hope you don't think that people are contirbuting to English Wikipedia solely so that they could practice their English.
It does appear to be a motivating factor in some cases.
So?
(Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort, and so barriers among them are natural and not artificial.
Serbian though is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian where the barrier is highly artificial (and people now want to divide it further with Montenegrin).
No, actually, Serbo-Croatian is a dialect of Serbian. And the barrier is highly non-existant.
An increasing number of languages only exist through large scale government support. Increasing levels of international communication means that we should see non major languages start to die off.
So?
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite impressive.
So?
It means that when there isn't an nationalist region to oppose a language which provides access to greater information and opportunities it's use can become widespread.
(Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort, and so barriers among them are natural and not artificial.
Serbian though is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian where the barrier is highly artificial (and people now want to divide it further with Montenegrin).
No, actually, Serbo-Croatian is a dialect of Serbian.
Sigh. Trying to claim that the Central South Slavic diasystem is a dialect of Serbian is unhelpful.
And the barrier is highly non-existant.
We have wikipedias in both serbian and croat. So this non existent barrier?
An increasing number of languages only exist through large scale government support. Increasing levels of international communication means that we should see non major languages start to die off.
So?
I see no reason to interfere with the natural die off.
The division between Serbian and Croatian isn't necessarily a barrier to information the way this "artificial" language barrier you speak of is. A Serb can get information from the Croatian Wikipedia if they want without having to "learn" a new language.
2008/9/8 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite impressive.
So?
It means that when there isn't an nationalist region to oppose a language which provides access to greater information and opportunities it's use can become widespread.
(Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort, and so barriers among them are natural and not artificial.
Serbian though is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian where the barrier is highly artificial (and people now want to divide it further with Montenegrin).
No, actually, Serbo-Croatian is a dialect of Serbian.
Sigh. Trying to claim that the Central South Slavic diasystem is a dialect of Serbian is unhelpful.
And the barrier is highly non-existant.
We have wikipedias in both serbian and croat. So this non existent barrier?
An increasing number of languages only exist through large scale government support. Increasing levels of international communication means that we should see non major languages start to die off.
So?
I see no reason to interfere with the natural die off.
-- geni
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On Monday 08 September 2008 22:23:09 geni wrote:
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite impressive.
So?
It means that when there isn't an nationalist region to oppose a language which provides access to greater information and opportunities it's use can become widespread.
Well that just doesn't make any sense, given that Poland is quite nationalist.
Fact is, learning languages is difficult. In Serbia, English is taught through entire primary school, but not everyone has an A, and even those who do may not have good enough grip of language to be able to fully understand a lengthy text in it, or even if they do, to read at the same speed as their native language.
(Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort, and so barriers among them are natural and not artificial.
Serbian though is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian where the barrier is highly artificial (and people now want to divide it further with Montenegrin).
No, actually, Serbo-Croatian is a dialect of Serbian.
Sigh. Trying to claim that the Central South Slavic diasystem is a dialect of Serbian is unhelpful.
But Serbo-Croatian is not a the Central South Slavic diasystem. Serbo-Croatian is a standard language, based on the Eastern Herzegovina dialect, which is generally considered to be Serbian.
2008/9/10 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Monday 08 September 2008 22:23:09 geni wrote:
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite impressive.
So?
It means that when there isn't an nationalist region to oppose a language which provides access to greater information and opportunities it's use can become widespread.
Well that just doesn't make any sense, given that Poland is quite nationalist.
Try speaking Russian in Poland. While there is a fair degree of nationalism in Poland there isn't much in the way of opposition to English
Fact is, learning languages is difficult. In Serbia, English is taught through entire primary school, but not everyone has an A, and even those who do may not have good enough grip of language to be able to fully understand a lengthy text in it, or even if they do, to read at the same speed as their native language.
That is to be expected. Look at how lowland scots moved towards english. At first only certain groups used english but over time more switched towards english and the language itself became more english like.
But Serbo-Croatian is not a the Central South Slavic diasystem. Serbo-Croatian is a standard language, based on the Eastern Herzegovina dialect, which is generally considered to be Serbian.
Serbo-Croatian is also what most of the world calls the Central South Slavic diasystem.
On Wednesday 10 September 2008 22:24:58 geni wrote:
2008/9/10 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Fact is, learning languages is difficult. In Serbia, English is taught through entire primary school, but not everyone has an A, and even those who do may not have good enough grip of language to be able to fully understand a lengthy text in it, or even if they do, to read at the same speed as their native language.
That is to be expected. Look at how lowland scots moved towards english. At first only certain groups used english but over time more switched towards english and the language itself became more english like.
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their language than to force a foreign language on them.
But Serbo-Croatian is not a the Central South Slavic diasystem. Serbo-Croatian is a standard language, based on the Eastern Herzegovina dialect, which is generally considered to be Serbian.
Serbo-Croatian is also what most of the world calls the Central South Slavic diasystem.
[citation needed]
2008/9/10 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their language than to force a foreign language on them.
Except shifting language would be a one off cost where as you would have to keep translating all the new scientific papers (and there are a lot) if you wanted education in a non majpr language to keep up. Do translations of Nature into Serbo-Croatian even exist?
[citation needed]
See the relevant wikipedia article for the mess. Serbo-Croatian is convenient and people generally know what you are talking about. Central South Slavic diasystem is rather less well known.
Hoi, Do translations of important publications in Serbo Croation exist in English? Just as if everything relevant is available in English,,, Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 3:25 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/10 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their
language
than to force a foreign language on them.
Except shifting language would be a one off cost where as you would have to keep translating all the new scientific papers (and there are a lot) if you wanted education in a non majpr language to keep up. Do translations of Nature into Serbo-Croatian even exist?
[citation needed]
See the relevant wikipedia article for the mess. Serbo-Croatian is convenient and people generally know what you are talking about. Central South Slavic diasystem is rather less well known.
-- geni
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Geni, there is one basic misconception in all your arguments. You are speaking about reduplication of effort and about efficiency. But it is not the goal of the foundation to cram the minds of all the world's population with as much information and knowledge as possible. We don't want to rear brain machines. Wikimedia has no social agenda to change society. Being dumb is okay. It's okay if you don't know the basic facts of history. It's okay if you don't know the differences between McCain and Obama, between Merkel and Steinmeier or between dos Santos and Samakuva. It's okay if you don't know any foreign languages or even your native language poorly. It doesn't matter. We don't want to force people to learn. But if people decide, they want to learn something, Wikimedia is there to help them. That's our goal. To provide the possibility.
Your philosophy matches the Borg philosophy. Assimilate as much species as possible to become as efficient as possible. Do you remember that in Star Trek every species has one characteristic feature or topic? The shortest possible description of the Borg is "Hive", of the Klingons "War", of the Ferengi "Commerce", of the Vulcans "Reasoning". The topic of the Humans is "Humanity". You are a Borg, not a Human.
Personally, I would rather die, than to live in a world speaking one language, subject to one legislature, all people watching the same movies and reading the same books. Diversity and imperfection is what makes life interesting. It was you, who said "Totally bi-lingal situations are not long term stable". That's true. Therefore don't enforce global bilinguality. It would inescapably end in a monocultural world.
When I was a child, I loved our holidays in Denmark. It was exciting. Foreign language, foreign mentality of the people, foreign food etc. The differences made it interesting. Today some things have changed since my childhood days. Many typical discounters of Denmark where replaced by international discounters, for example Aldi (for the US guys: Aldi is the German equivalent of Wal-Mart [Aldi is present in the US too, but not as well known as Wal-Mart, I guess]). You can buy typical German food in Denmark and typical Danish food in German discounters (well, most "typical" Danish food is going to be unknown even in Denmark itself, only "stereotypical" Danish food is sold elsewhere). Wherever you go, there are Burger Kings and McDonalds (in almost every single country in the world). Diversity is the salt in the soup of life. But globalization (and a "common language" is part of globalization) makes the soup very insipid.
Marcus Buck
2008/9/11 Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org:
Geni, there is one basic misconception in all your arguments. You are speaking about reduplication of effort and about efficiency. But it is not the goal of the foundation to cram the minds of all the world's population with as much information and knowledge as possible. We don't want to rear brain machines. Wikimedia has no social agenda to change society. Being dumb is okay. It's okay if you don't know the basic facts of history. It's okay if you don't know the differences between McCain and Obama, between Merkel and Steinmeier or between dos Santos and Samakuva. It's okay if you don't know any foreign languages or even your native language poorly. It doesn't matter. We don't want to force people to learn. But if people decide, they want to learn something, Wikimedia is there to help them. That's our goal. To provide the possibility.
Equally we have little interest in supporting barriers to knowledge.
Your philosophy matches the Borg philosophy. Assimilate as much species as possible to become as efficient as possible. Do you remember that in Star Trek every species has one characteristic feature or topic? The shortest possible description of the Borg is "Hive", of the Klingons "War", of the Ferengi "Commerce", of the Vulcans "Reasoning". The topic of the Humans is "Humanity". You are a Borg, not a Human.
Except your humans are "nationalist".
Personally, I would rather die, than to live in a world speaking one language, subject to one legislature, all people watching the same movies and reading the same books. Diversity and imperfection is what makes life interesting.
Really? You realise that 100 years ago my country had a culture that fulfilled that request for many people (although generally not Europeans for various reasons)? Cultures change evolve and die. Sometimes we should not morn their passing so much.
It was you, who said "Totally bi-lingal situations are not long term stable". That's true. Therefore don't enforce global bilinguality. It would inescapably end in a monocultural world.
London is not Sydney is not the US bible belt is not SF.
When I was a child, I loved our holidays in Denmark. It was exciting. Foreign language, foreign mentality of the people, foreign food etc. The differences made it interesting. Today some things have changed since my childhood days. Many typical discounters of Denmark where replaced by international discounters, for example Aldi (for the US guys: Aldi is the German equivalent of Wal-Mart [Aldi is present in the US too, but not as well known as Wal-Mart, I guess]). You can buy typical German food in Denmark and typical Danish food in German discounters (well, most "typical" Danish food is going to be unknown even in Denmark itself, only "stereotypical" Danish food is sold elsewhere). Wherever you go, there are Burger Kings and McDonalds (in almost every single country in the world). Diversity is the salt in the soup of life. But globalization (and a "common language" is part of globalization) makes the soup very insipid.
You don't need a common language for cultural homogenisation. Hollywood movies do well because they are prepared to spend millions on them and have a solid talent and skills base combined with good distribution networks. Bollywood has much the same going for it although not yet the distribution network. Franchises are somewhat skilled at crossing language barriers. Even with the more isolationist cultures like japan (do we really have that much of an idea as to what is going on on the japanese wikipedia ?) stuff moves in and out.
So you would support a barrier to information flow in the hope it maintains some kind of cultural purity when realistically it fails to do so.
Hoi, As we are not to support barriers to knowledge, we should acknowledge that people learn a new subject best in their own language. For people who know multiple languages we point to information in other languages by way of the "interwiki links".
I do not understand why people who speak English equate the ability to speak a language with a country.. English, French, German, Dutch and many many other languages are spoken in multiple countries. Consequently it is wrong to call people who support their mother tongue nationalist.
When a person knowledgeable in the English language and its dialects is confronted with people from London, Sydney, the US bible or SF it is almost certain that people can be identified to their origin based on their language. English is not a monolith, even when you have a rich vocabulary you will not know many words that are basic to people speaking native English who life in a different cultural setting.
Language is interesting, it works best if the words and concepts you use are shared. Even within one language, one region this is not a given. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 2:42 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/11 Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org:
Geni, there is one basic misconception in all your arguments. You are speaking about reduplication of effort and about efficiency. But it is not the goal of the foundation to cram the minds of all the world's population with as much information and knowledge as possible. We don't want to rear brain machines. Wikimedia has no social agenda to change society. Being dumb is okay. It's okay if you don't know the basic facts of history. It's okay if you don't know the differences between McCain and Obama, between Merkel and Steinmeier or between dos Santos and Samakuva. It's okay if you don't know any foreign languages or even your native language poorly. It doesn't matter. We don't want to force people to learn. But if people decide, they want to learn something, Wikimedia is there to help them. That's our goal. To provide the possibility.
Equally we have little interest in supporting barriers to knowledge.
Your philosophy matches the Borg philosophy. Assimilate as much species as possible to become as efficient as possible. Do you remember that in Star Trek every species has one characteristic feature or topic? The shortest possible description of the Borg is "Hive", of the Klingons "War", of the Ferengi "Commerce", of the Vulcans "Reasoning". The topic of the Humans is "Humanity". You are a Borg, not a Human.
Except your humans are "nationalist".
Personally, I would rather die, than to live in a world speaking one language, subject to one legislature, all people watching the same movies and reading the same books. Diversity and imperfection is what makes life interesting.
Really? You realise that 100 years ago my country had a culture that fulfilled that request for many people (although generally not Europeans for various reasons)? Cultures change evolve and die. Sometimes we should not morn their passing so much.
It was you, who said "Totally bi-lingal situations are not long term stable". That's true. Therefore don't enforce global bilinguality. It would inescapably end in a monocultural world.
London is not Sydney is not the US bible belt is not SF.
When I was a child, I loved our holidays in Denmark. It was exciting. Foreign language, foreign mentality of the people, foreign food etc. The differences made it interesting. Today some things have changed since my childhood days. Many typical discounters of Denmark where replaced by international discounters, for example Aldi (for the US guys: Aldi is the German equivalent of Wal-Mart [Aldi is present in the US too, but not as well known as Wal-Mart, I guess]). You can buy typical German food in Denmark and typical Danish food in German discounters (well, most "typical" Danish food is going to be unknown even in Denmark itself, only "stereotypical" Danish food is sold elsewhere). Wherever you go, there are Burger Kings and McDonalds (in almost every single country in the world). Diversity is the salt in the soup of life. But globalization (and a "common language" is part of globalization) makes the soup very insipid.
You don't need a common language for cultural homogenisation. Hollywood movies do well because they are prepared to spend millions on them and have a solid talent and skills base combined with good distribution networks. Bollywood has much the same going for it although not yet the distribution network. Franchises are somewhat skilled at crossing language barriers. Even with the more isolationist cultures like japan (do we really have that much of an idea as to what is going on on the japanese wikipedia ?) stuff moves in and out.
So you would support a barrier to information flow in the hope it maintains some kind of cultural purity when realistically it fails to do so.
-- geni
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On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I do not understand why people who speak English equate the ability to speak a language with a country.. English, French, German, Dutch and many many other languages are spoken in multiple countries. Consequently it is wrong to call people who support their mother tongue nationalist.
It may not always be the case, but for smaller languages, especially languages which are closely tied to a particular region, the two might very well be closely connected. Just because english isn't tied to a single country and there is no sense of nationalism in it, that does not prove the point for all languages. It is an over-simplification to ignore the possible ties between the two.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I do not understand why people who speak English equate the ability to speak a language with a country.. English, French, German, Dutch and many many other languages are spoken in multiple countries. Consequently it is wrong to call people who support their mother tongue nationalist.
It may not always be the case, but for smaller languages, especially languages which are closely tied to a particular region, the two might very well be closely connected. Just because english isn't tied to a single country and there is no sense of nationalism in it, that does not prove the point for all languages. It is an over-simplification to ignore the possible ties between the two.
Yes. Actually, there are such tendencies (regionalisms, nationalisms) even in English itself; especially in pronunciation. Relation between society and language is a very well known issue in (socio)linguistics.
But, at the other side, Gerard is right. The fact that language may be used by nationalists is not relevant here. The most relevant issue here is accessibility of texts for people which native languages are very diverse.
Hoi, As we are not to support barriers to knowledge, we should acknowledge that people learn a new subject best in their own language. For people who know multiple languages we point to information in other languages by way of the "interwiki links".
I do not understand why people who speak English equate the ability to speak a language with a country.. English, French, German, Dutch and many many other languages are spoken in multiple countries. Consequently it is wrong to call people who support their mother tongue nationalist.
When a person knowledgeable in the English language and its dialects is confronted with people from London, Sydney, the US bible or SF it is almost certain that people can be identified to their origin based on their language. English is not a monolith, even when you have a rich vocabulary you will not know many words that are basic to people speaking native English who life in a different cultural setting.
Language is interesting, it works best if the words and concepts you use are shared. Even within one language, one region this is not a given. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 2:42 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/11 Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org:
Geni, there is one basic misconception in all your arguments. You are speaking about reduplication of effort and about efficiency. But it is not the goal of the foundation to cram the minds of all the world's population with as much information and knowledge as possible. We don't want to rear brain machines. Wikimedia has no social agenda to change society. Being dumb is okay. It's okay if you don't know the basic facts of history. It's okay if you don't know the differences between McCain and Obama, between Merkel and Steinmeier or between dos Santos and Samakuva. It's okay if you don't know any foreign languages or even your native language poorly. It doesn't matter. We don't want to force people to learn. But if people decide, they want to learn something, Wikimedia is there to help them. That's our goal. To provide the possibility.
Equally we have little interest in supporting barriers to knowledge.
Your philosophy matches the Borg philosophy. Assimilate as much species as possible to become as efficient as possible. Do you remember that in Star Trek every species has one characteristic feature or topic? The shortest possible description of the Borg is "Hive", of the Klingons "War", of the Ferengi "Commerce", of the Vulcans "Reasoning". The topic of the Humans is "Humanity". You are a Borg, not a Human.
Except your humans are "nationalist".
Personally, I would rather die, than to live in a world speaking one language, subject to one legislature, all people watching the same movies and reading the same books. Diversity and imperfection is what makes life interesting.
Really? You realise that 100 years ago my country had a culture that fulfilled that request for many people (although generally not Europeans for various reasons)? Cultures change evolve and die. Sometimes we should not morn their passing so much.
It was you, who said "Totally bi-lingal situations are not long term stable". That's true. Therefore don't enforce global bilinguality. It would inescapably end in a monocultural world.
London is not Sydney is not the US bible belt is not SF.
When I was a child, I loved our holidays in Denmark. It was exciting. Foreign language, foreign mentality of the people, foreign food etc. The differences made it interesting. Today some things have changed since my childhood days. Many typical discounters of Denmark where replaced by international discounters, for example Aldi (for the US guys: Aldi is the German equivalent of Wal-Mart [Aldi is present in the US too, but not as well known as Wal-Mart, I guess]). You can buy typical German food in Denmark and typical Danish food in German discounters (well, most "typical" Danish food is going to be unknown even in Denmark itself, only "stereotypical" Danish food is sold elsewhere). Wherever you go, there are Burger Kings and McDonalds (in almost every single country in the world). Diversity is the salt in the soup of life. But globalization (and a "common language" is part of globalization) makes the soup very insipid.
You don't need a common language for cultural homogenisation. Hollywood movies do well because they are prepared to spend millions on them and have a solid talent and skills base combined with good distribution networks. Bollywood has much the same going for it although not yet the distribution network. Franchises are somewhat skilled at crossing language barriers. Even with the more isolationist cultures like japan (do we really have that much of an idea as to what is going on on the japanese wikipedia ?) stuff moves in and out.
So you would support a barrier to information flow in the hope it maintains some kind of cultural purity when realistically it fails to do so.
-- geni
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Geni, if you speak about nationalism, you have to look at the sources of nationalism. There are some nationalist tendencies in Catalonia. Why? Cause the Spanish tried to erase the Catalan language and the Catalans were forced to defend their identity. There are nationalist tendencies in Spain. The sucessful fight for autonomy of the Catalans takes away regions which were formerly seen as integral parts of the Spanish language area. The Spanish feel a threat for their identity. There are nationalist tendencies in the USA. Why? Cause the number of Spanish speakers rises and rises in the South (and not only in the South).
People become nationalist when they realize, that their language/culture* is threatened or on the downward path. Wanting to abolish all the languages of the world except one will lead to a massive rise in nationalist tendencies.
* Please be aware, that language is not merely a medium to transport information, it is information in itself. Language and culture are intertwined and cannot be separated. Shakespeare is popular in English speaking areas, Goethe in German speaking, Zola in French speaking, Groth in Low Saxon speaking and Si Mohand in Kabyl speaking areas. Their works can be translated and are translated, but translations rarely reach the depth of the original. They are out of their meaningful context. In a monolingual world there is no way for Germans to keep their German culture or Kabyls to keep their Kabyl culture. Goethe and Si Mohand are meaningless without the German and Kabyl language. There are 6000 languages in the world. Each of them has their own songs, traditions, tales etc. You would kill and make meaningless 99 % of that cultural production only to make it easier to write an encyclopedia? If you are worried about reduplication of effort, please first start lobbying for a ban on Britannica and Encarta.
Marcus Buck
2008/9/11 Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org:
Geni, if you speak about nationalism, you have to look at the sources of nationalism. There are some nationalist tendencies in Catalonia. Why? Cause the Spanish tried to erase the Catalan language and the Catalans were forced to defend their identity. There are nationalist tendencies in Spain. The sucessful fight for autonomy of the Catalans takes away regions which were formerly seen as integral parts of the Spanish language area. The Spanish feel a threat for their identity. There are nationalist tendencies in the USA. Why? Cause the number of Spanish speakers rises and rises in the South (and not only in the South).
You are confusing cause an effect. Catalan language was defended because people saw it as a useful tool for their nationalism. Every group (Italians Irish whatever) new to the US has had issues with integrating language is just a way of expressing that.
People become nationalist when they realize, that their language/culture* is threatened or on the downward path. Wanting to abolish all the languages of the world except one will lead to a massive rise in nationalist tendencies.
No. Existing nationalist tendencies will oppose something that will weaken their cause.
- Please be aware, that language is not merely a medium to transport
information, it is information in itself. Language and culture are intertwined and cannot be separated. Shakespeare is popular in English speaking areas, Goethe in German speaking, Zola in French speaking, Groth in Low Saxon speaking and Si Mohand in Kabyl speaking areas. Their works can be translated and are translated, but translations rarely reach the depth of the original. They are out of their meaningful context. In a monolingual world there is no way for Germans to keep their German culture or Kabyls to keep their Kabyl culture. Goethe and Si Mohand are meaningless without the German and Kabyl language.
The languages that the Epic of Gilgamesh was written in have been dead since about the time of Marcus Aurelius. We get by.
There are 6000 languages in the world. Each of them has their own songs, traditions, tales etc. You would kill and make meaningless 99 % of that cultural production only to make it easier to write an encyclopedia?
You believe information exchange is limited to what appears in wikipedia?
By denying people access to a major language you deny them access to much of the world's science, technology, engineering and culture. Realistically we have no right to deny individuals the choice nor should we be supporting groups that attempt to maintain language barriers. Most of those 6000 lack a written form and have few speakers. By comparison there are 100 million books in English.
Now we do not have the power to kill languages but I would argue we should considered if we are artificially supporting a language.
If you are worried about reduplication of effort, please first start lobbying for a ban on Britannica and Encarta.
Why? Market forces are likely to kill them off anyway and they are adding to the easy to access information in a widely used language.
So, Geni, if you want all of these languages to die, what do you propose WE do about it? Just curious. Not that I agree with you, but for all this talk, we might as well see what your proposed plan of action is. Mark
On 11/09/2008, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/11 Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org:
Geni, if you speak about nationalism, you have to look at the sources of nationalism. There are some nationalist tendencies in Catalonia. Why? Cause the Spanish tried to erase the Catalan language and the Catalans were forced to defend their identity. There are nationalist tendencies in Spain. The sucessful fight for autonomy of the Catalans takes away regions which were formerly seen as integral parts of the Spanish language area. The Spanish feel a threat for their identity. There are nationalist tendencies in the USA. Why? Cause the number of Spanish speakers rises and rises in the South (and not only in the South).
You are confusing cause an effect. Catalan language was defended because people saw it as a useful tool for their nationalism. Every group (Italians Irish whatever) new to the US has had issues with integrating language is just a way of expressing that.
People become nationalist when they realize, that their language/culture* is threatened or on the downward path. Wanting to abolish all the languages of the world except one will lead to a massive rise in nationalist tendencies.
No. Existing nationalist tendencies will oppose something that will weaken their cause.
- Please be aware, that language is not merely a medium to transport
information, it is information in itself. Language and culture are intertwined and cannot be separated. Shakespeare is popular in English speaking areas, Goethe in German speaking, Zola in French speaking, Groth in Low Saxon speaking and Si Mohand in Kabyl speaking areas. Their works can be translated and are translated, but translations rarely reach the depth of the original. They are out of their meaningful context. In a monolingual world there is no way for Germans to keep their German culture or Kabyls to keep their Kabyl culture. Goethe and Si Mohand are meaningless without the German and Kabyl language.
The languages that the Epic of Gilgamesh was written in have been dead since about the time of Marcus Aurelius. We get by.
There are 6000 languages in the world. Each of them has their own songs, traditions, tales etc. You would kill and make meaningless 99 % of that cultural production only to make it easier to write an encyclopedia?
You believe information exchange is limited to what appears in wikipedia?
By denying people access to a major language you deny them access to much of the world's science, technology, engineering and culture. Realistically we have no right to deny individuals the choice nor should we be supporting groups that attempt to maintain language barriers. Most of those 6000 lack a written form and have few speakers. By comparison there are 100 million books in English.
Now we do not have the power to kill languages but I would argue we should considered if we are artificially supporting a language.
If you are worried about reduplication of effort, please first start lobbying for a ban on Britannica and Encarta.
Why? Market forces are likely to kill them off anyway and they are adding to the easy to access information in a widely used language. -- geni
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2008/9/11 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
So, Geni, if you want all of these languages to die, what do you propose WE do about it? Just curious. Not that I agree with you, but for all this talk, we might as well see what your proposed plan of action is. Mark
Avoid actively aiding language revival. Languages should be allowed to die with dignity.
"Me ne vidn cewsel Sawznek!" That's the way to go. Creating one last story.
I would rather people remembered the Epic of Gilgamesh rather than a Babylonian revivalist movement.
As for languages dieing we need do nothing. It appears to be widely accepted that a fair chunk of those 6000 are endangered. If we accept that they are going to die and we should not attempt to prevent this the challenge becomes one of trying to salvage as much information from them as possible. Easter island shows the risks of not doing so. Unfortunately we do not at this time have the resources or the skills to do this.
We're a volunteer organization. If someone wants to try, that's their prerogative. As long as it's not costing us anything...
Mark
On 11/09/2008, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/11 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
So, Geni, if you want all of these languages to die, what do you propose WE do about it? Just curious. Not that I agree with you, but for all this talk, we might as well see what your proposed plan of action is. Mark
Avoid actively aiding language revival. Languages should be allowed to die with dignity.
"Me ne vidn cewsel Sawznek!" That's the way to go. Creating one last story.
I would rather people remembered the Epic of Gilgamesh rather than a Babylonian revivalist movement.
As for languages dieing we need do nothing. It appears to be widely accepted that a fair chunk of those 6000 are endangered. If we accept that they are going to die and we should not attempt to prevent this the challenge becomes one of trying to salvage as much information from them as possible. Easter island shows the risks of not doing so. Unfortunately we do not at this time have the resources or the skills to do this.
-- geni
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On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu wrote:
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their language than to force a foreign language on them.
Call me a centrist prick, but I've always thought it would be much more benificial to learn a common language than it is to adapt content to that language.
Either you stick with your home language and get a small Wikipedia without much content, or you learn a common language with vastly more content and fact-checking. You not only loose out on Wikipedia, but a vast majority of the world's knowlege and interaction.
Am I the only one that has a problem with having 100 Wikipedias? Look at the massive effort it takes to just maintain one decent English Wikipedia article. Then multiply that. I see it as a massive duplication of effort (a phrase I seem to use often around here...). Maybe I'm just a self-centered American with a superiority complex.
Someone tell me I'm wrong (I'm serious, if I'm incorrect or being a dick tell me)
Hoi, You have always got it wrong. When you talk about common languages, you would expect Swahili to have a large Wikipedia. When you consider Dutch, hardly a "common" language, you will find it has a substantial Wikipedia with all the trimmings. When you consider the English Wikipedia, for all its size, it is very much biased against certain topics. the roads and villages of the US are all there but where are all the roads and villages of Georgia, Russia or Spain let alone India, Kenia or Nigeria?
When people speak a particular language as their first language, it typically means that they share a particular culture. With this culture certain assumptions are shared. When you learn a second language, you do not know all the assumptions inherent in the culture that is to be associated with this language. Even when you are right that it is "easy" to have all content in a few languages, it does not imply that this text is properly understood. In order to make it understood you have to dumb down the language and that is not a good idea either. Also I am quite happy to be Dutch, I am not eager to contribute to the English language Wikipedia, it seems at times like a vipers nest to me.
By the way, there are over 250 Wikipedias and Betawiki supports substantially more languages for the MediaWiki localisation.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 7:18 AM, mboverload mboverloadlister@gmail.comwrote:
On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu wrote:
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their
language
than to force a foreign language on them.
Call me a centrist prick, but I've always thought it would be much more benificial to learn a common language than it is to adapt content to that language.
Either you stick with your home language and get a small Wikipedia without much content, or you learn a common language with vastly more content and fact-checking. You not only loose out on Wikipedia, but a vast majority of the world's knowlege and interaction.
Am I the only one that has a problem with having 100 Wikipedias? Look at the massive effort it takes to just maintain one decent English Wikipedia article. Then multiply that. I see it as a massive duplication of effort (a phrase I seem to use often around here...). Maybe I'm just a self-centered American with a superiority complex.
Someone tell me I'm wrong (I'm serious, if I'm incorrect or being a dick tell me)
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Am I the only one that has a problem with having 100 Wikipedias? Look at the massive effort it takes to just maintain one decent English Wikipedia article. Then multiply that. I see it as a massive duplication of effort (a phrase I seem to use often around here...). Maybe I'm just a self-centered American with a superiority complex.
The fact is, the majority of the world's population do not speak or read English. That's it.
Cheers Yaroslav
On 10/09/2008, mboverload mboverloadlister@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu wrote:
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their language than to force a foreign language on them.
Maybe I'm just a self-centered American with a superiority complex.
Bingo. Yes, it would be more cost-effective if the world all spoke one language, but learning a language isn't an easy task. Many Americans often assume that "most people" around the world speak or at least understand English. I've heard so many people say this, it's really sad.
The idea that things around the world are the same as at home seems to be a frequent one. The average American idea of the linguistic abilities of the world seems to go something like this, based on my experience:
Almost everybody on the planet speaks English, and those who don't, speak Spanish.
Of course, there are billions of people who don't speak English. Many millions, if not billions, of adults studied English every year of their schooling all the way through the end of university, and are still not fluent.
A handful of countries around the world can be considered mostly fluent in English as a second language, and most are in Europe.
Yes, language extinction is an every-day reality. However, it's not really a serious threat to the larger languages, let's say those with over 10 million speakers, which number at least 60, and a very minor threat to most of those with over 1 million, which number 200.
By saying that everybody speaks English, you're kind of jumping the gun. We are seeing a shift in the world today, linguistically speaking, I think.
Cultures and peoples are abandoning local languages in favor of languages of wider communication, or LWC. However, there are sort of "tiers" of LWC.
In some parts of the world, every village has a different language. Let's say, for sake of example, that we are in a part of the world that is politically subdivided like this: Country, Region, County, District, Village.
Within the village, there is only one language, but in the rural district, there are perhaps 30 different villages, each with its own language and about 50-100 residents each. One of the villages in the district is the district capital. It is bigger than the other villages, with about 500 people, and its residents are slightly wealthier and more prestigious. At the first phase of loss of world language diversity, people from the other villages in the district are abandoning their language in favor of the language of the district capital.
After this language shift is complete, or perhaps even while it is still taking place, people from the district begin to shift to the more prestigious language of the county seat, a small town of about 5,000 people.
As you can imagine, the next stage is for the entire county to shift to the highest prestige language of the region, probably the one spoken in the regional capital or the main city. The main city in the region is a modest city by world standards, of about 50,000 people, but to a man from the village who has never ventured far from home, it is a big place.
Then, of course, comes a shift by the region to the language of the national capital, where maybe 100,000 or 1 million people live.
The time each stage takes is variable. Sometimes, it is very slow; other times, entire stages can be skipped over with a shift directly from the village language to the national language.
However, none of this happens overnight. Any language shift, where a culture that was formerly speakers of one language shifts to become native speakers of another, takes at least two generations, often more.
Urbanization, of course, speeds this process greatly.
Many people overestimate the effect of colonization on language shift. Kinshasa, officially considered a Francophone city, actually only has 40% of its population fluent in French. Most use Lingala, an African language, as a lingua franca. Of course, Lingala is a Language of Wider Communication itself.
This is not to say that a colonial history cannot bring an "international" language to become the native language through urbanization. Abidjan, Cotê d'Ivoire, is estimated to be between 75% and 99% Francophone.
Lagos, the largest city in Africa, communicates in a mixture of Nigerian Pidgin and standard English.
Increased internal mobility in developing countries also promotes adoption of a common language, such as English or Hindi in India, or Swahili or English in some East African nations.
At the current rate, it is safe to say that there will be far less languages spoken on this planet in 100 years. However, I am almost certain the number will still be well above 100. Maybe someday the world will speak one language or even a handful of them, but globalization is not going quite as quickly as some might say. The linguistic situation in Africa, for example, is still developing, and it will be interesting to watch. We are in a very exciting period of history in many aspects, and while I personally think language loss is unfortunate, it does also have a few benefits.
Mark
2008/9/11 mboverload mboverloadlister@gmail.com:
Am I the only one that has a problem with having 100 Wikipedias? Look at the massive effort it takes to just maintain one decent English Wikipedia article. Then multiply that. I see it as a massive duplication of effort (a phrase I seem to use often around here...). Maybe I'm just a self-centered American with a superiority complex. Someone tell me I'm wrong (I'm serious, if I'm incorrect or being a dick tell me)
You're wrong in that volunteer effort is not fungible the way employee effort is. Volunteers will work 10x as hard as any employee ... but only on what they want to. So there are people who will be highly motivated to write an encyclopedia in their native language that wouldn't be in another language, even if it's that century's international language of choice.
Also, languages don't substitute cleanly for each other in this manner. I believe Arwel Parry explained this here a while ago - pretty much everyone who speaks Welsh also speaks perfect English, but Welsh is his native language so he still thinks (and hence writes) better in it. (Arwel, correct me if I've stated this wrongly!)
It's not a duplication of effort because the effort wouldn't be there if people weren't personally motivated to put it in.
- d.
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 12:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Also, languages don't substitute cleanly for each other in this manner. I believe Arwel Parry explained this here a while ago - pretty much everyone who speaks Welsh also speaks perfect English, but Welsh is his native language so he still thinks (and hence writes) better in it. (Arwel, correct me if I've stated this wrongly!)
I am not so sure that Welsh is the best example. According to the books (which may be wrong), English [dialect] is the first language of the most of [young] inhabitants of Wales. The best example are maybe the billions of non-native English speakers (including myself) who think in their native language and speak and write in English.
My "linguistic competence" for English exists, indeed; but it is at very low level. The most of my English is equivalent to writing mathematical calculus by non-mathematicians: Even I know what "or", "and", "by", "from"... mean, I don't process them as I process equivalent words in Serbian. If it is not about relatively simple and straight forward sentence, I have to analyze them like any student of mathematics analyzes some mathematical problem.
And note that I read and wrote much more text in English than one average non-native English speaker who uses English as a medium for communication with foreigners.
2008/9/10 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/9/10 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Monday 08 September 2008 22:23:09 geni wrote:
2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite impressive.
So?
It means that when there isn't an nationalist region to oppose a language which provides access to greater information and opportunities it's use can become widespread.
Well that just doesn't make any sense, given that Poland is quite nationalist.
Try speaking Russian in Poland. While there is a fair degree of nationalism in Poland there isn't much in the way of opposition to English
Well, You might be supprised. Actually in around 25% of Polish secondary schools there is a teaching of Russian. It is less popular than English or German, but much popular than French. Actually young people learn those languages, which they assume may help them find good job in the future. A combination of German and Russian or English and Russian looks interesting in CV, especially if you are looking for a job in international company.
On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 12:08 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/4 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Exactly.
A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core mission is best filled by active language destruction.
This post is growing on me. SJ
Tim Starling wrote:
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi folks,
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because at the time it was created, we had not yet given GerardM and his team of rules lawyers the power to decide all wiki creation issues. There was a sentiment that we as a community should make our own decisions on language issues, rather than to delegate it to some standards body who might not have similar interests at heart. And some people held the opinion that while language study and preservation is not our core mission, it'd be nice if it happened anyway, especially if there is no significant cost to the organisation.
-- Tim Starling
<AOL>
Bravo! +1
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On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
since its creation I wondered why this happend. Why is there a classical chinese Wikipedia? This language has no native speakers and is not used by any relitious or official institution as official language.
Because, like in the cases of Latin and Old Church Slavonic (more?) project was founded before LangCom started to exist (so, something like: significant amount of support, without significant opposition were enough).
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