Welsh people don't all speak English: I used to work with people from north
Wales who couldn't speak a word of it. They /only/ spoke Welsh. Unusual,
perhaps, but it happens.
-----Original Message-----
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas
Dalton
Sent: 30 September 2011 13:05
To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] A little wiki "hacking"
On 30 September 2011 11:31, <iain.macdonald(a)wikinewsie.org> wrote:
There's a lot of discussion about Scots.... But
what of Scottish Gaelic?
That's a very distinct language and of real benefit to those who still
speak
it - though that number is diminishing.
Indeed. Part of the issue there is that the number is diminishing so
much that there aren't enough speakers left to really produce a good
encyclopaedia (there's something like 60,000 global speakers). The
problem is even more apparent when you realise that what speakers
there are tend to be a lot older than our core contributing
demographic.
I'd be inclined to say that Scots isn't really a separate language and
Scottish Gaelic is too small to ever be a successful project, so we
shouldn't really worry about either. If there are speakers of either
language that want to do something, the chapter can support them
through microgrants. I wouldn't advise a proactive approach by the
chapter.
The main argument is that there is essentially no-one that speaks
Scots or Scottish Gaelic that doesn't also speak fluent English. That
means our efforts will have significantly more impact if we
concentrate on English. (Welsh is substantially larger, so it might be
worth reaching out to the Welsh community, even though they all speak
English too.)
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