> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:06:39 -0500
> From: ilooy <ilooy.gaon(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] presentation on Wikipedia goes well!
<snip>
> OpenOffice was very handy as a presentation tool.
> I used the suggested presentation from French and
> edited it and thinned it down for the time I had to
Which presentation? Do you have a link, or contact person. I've used
OpenOffice Impress myself but I there's a good looking Wikipedia
template out there I'd much prefer it instead of my crappy-looking
handwork.
--Guttorm
So, I'm involved with a group here in Montreal, Quebec, working on a
Salon du Livre Libre -- a Free Book Faire, highlighting Open Content
books and the public domain.
We'd love to have Wikipedians or Wikimedians come talk during one of our
discussions. Wikimedia is the biggest creator of Open Content reference
works in the world, and we think it'd be great to have representatives
(of varying credentials) talk about what Wikimedia is and how it works.
Especially in Canada, a bilingual country, Wikimedia's concentration on
multilingualism is an interesting issue that should be pointed up.
If anyone's interested in participating in this event, please contact me
or the people listed at the site below:
http://www.salondulivrelibre.info/
Thanks,
~ESP
--
Evan Prodromou .O.
http://bad.dynu.ca/~evan/ ..O
evan(a)bad.dynu.ca OOO
The Norwegian language code problem might get a better solution using
ISO 639-3. ISO 639-3 is not out yet, but it seems to be getting there.
Here is the url to the draft
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/render_download.php?site_id=nrsi&format=…
In ISO 639-3 we will have
nor= {nob, nno}, Norweigian (so called macrolanguage code)
nob= Norweigian Bokmal
nno= Norweigian Nynorsk
For example, one can try to use nob exculsively for Bokmal, nno
exclusively for Nynorsk, and nor for common Noreigian (mixed script,
including other minority script, etc)
Another macrolanguage example is the Serbo-Croation
hbs= {bos, hrv,srp}, Serbo-Croatian
bos= Bosnian
hrv= Croatian
srp= Serbian
best
pektiong
On the 13th of november, the steamboat of "Sinterklaas" arrives in
Alkmaar. People in the Netherlands and particularly the kids of the
Netherlands welcome the "Sint" from his summer residence of Madrid
Spain. With his boat loaded with presents for the kids who have been
good, the kids await the nameday of the Sint and on "pakjesavond" the
evening of the 5th of december the Sint will, on his white horse and his
black helpers who are all called "Piet", bring the presents to the
waiting kids..
Sinterklaas who is actually from Mira Turkey and lies burried in Bari
Italy, is the predessesor of the Santaclaus who everybody knows comes
Finland and brings the presents on Christmas on his sledge with reindeer
.....
This year, we have started a nice Christmas project. The Italian
wiktionary who will be centre stage for this,
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21 is a
page where you find "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!" in many
languages and some have pronounciations. There is already a sizable
collection but, it is not complete, it is not always correct and as
importantly, we want to HEAR how it sounds in all these languages !!
The best place to store all these .ogg soundfiles is in our Commons
project. For the use of pronounciations, the wiktionary project has come
up with a naming convention: first the ISO 639 code and then the word or
phrase e.g. "image:it-Buon Natale e felice Anno Nuovo!.ogg" is the one
for Italian.
One way in which wiktionaries can join in is by also hosting all these
merry wishes in their wiktionary with sounds and everything. Another way
is by including other seasonal wishes as well. The wikipedia's can join
in by having article on "Celebrating Christmas" and inform us how
Christmas is celebrated in various communities, the rituals and
traditions, the festivities. In Wikibooks we could do something with
Christmas stories or songs from all over the world. One way in which we
all can join this project is by enjoying it and have a great happy
Christmas and a wonderfull new year.
Thanks,
Sabine Cretella
Gerard Meijssen
Now that the Wikimedia Commons is being widely used as a central image
archive - if you haven't already, check out http://commons.wikimedia.org/
- we are facing the question again whether we want to store image
galleries in Wikipedia. There currently are a few, e.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_Fayum_mummy_portraits
My proposal would be that such galleries should reside on the Commons,
unless they include substantial encyclopedic information for individual
images. Substantial information would be at least a paragraph of text
describing the image's content. If there is no such information, the
relevant article should include a link to the Commons gallery and a couple
of striking example images.
An interesting side effect of such a policy would be that fair use images
could only be used in an encyclopedic context, as they are not allowed on
the Commons.
Any other thoughts?
Regards,
Erik
Hi fellow Wikipedians,
I'll be doing a presentation on Wikipedia for
the McAuliffe Conference and the NHAWLT
Teachers' Conference in the coming weeks
and was wondering if anyone else has done
a presentation to a large group... what features
would be good to highlight... and what seems
to work well with a group that has not heard
much about the project yet.
If you have some ideas as to what might
be good points to bring out please let me
know. I appreciate any insights you may
offer on this subject.
with sincere regards,
Jay B.
[[w:en:User:ILVI]]
Hi, everybody
First things first, I have by no means been active in the list lately, but I have been checking in with things. This is one topic I felt the need to discuss.
As a fairly competent (though not fluent) Norwegian speaker, I am well familiar with the bokmål/nynorsk contrast and the political connotations they entail. Norway's unique lingual situation has been going on for over a century. While Swedes may not get it (and I understand that leaving bokmål at no: might make a lot of sense), the use of no: (or a "macro-language" Norwegian code) for bokmål implies that bokmål is the "normal" form of Norwegian, whereas nynorsk is "specialty" Norwegian. They are neither. Nynorsk and bokmål (I'm most fluent in the latter, which is admittedly the "big brother" in this situation) truly are equal forms of the greater spectrum of Norwegian dialects, and they deserve their place. To Norwegians, dialect matters much more than in many other countries. There are a lot of viable options here, but using no: or a general Norwegian code for bokmål is simply not one of them.
Moving onto Swedish, the language of greater communication issue largely comes down to a matter of a linguistic nation's history of colonialism. Let's get real here, people: all languages are equally valuable. No language is inherently better than another language. Swedish is a large language by world standards. Let's look at some of the world's largest language populations, focusing on languages from Europe: French (colonialism), Portuguese (colonialism), Russian ("domestic" colonialism as the empire expanded; USSR connection), Spanish (colonialism), and English (colonialism: "native-language" areas, like Ireland, created in themselves by colonialism). Remaining top-ten languages tended to be spread by empires or areas where historical population booms happened. No comment. These languages are the exceptions, not the rule.
In regards to Norwegian, whatever happens, let Wikipedia be sensitive to the lingual needs of speakers of the "macro" Norwegian language. Thank you for your time.
-- Jeremy
Hi, everyone
Thank you all for your intelligent comments. This has been a most interesting discussion.
Ulf, I am glad to hear that I have as good of a grasp of the Norwegian language situation as I seem to. ;-) I started teaching myself "Norwegian" (bokmål) between ages 13 and 14 (I actually have no idea when I really started learning; it just happened over time) and quickly came to understand the situation regarding Norwegian dialects.
Lars (Alvik), you, like many bokmål users, are indeed tired of nynorsk. However, a large percentage of the Norwegian population and the Norwegian community uses nynorsk exclusively in school and in their daily life. While you might prefer for everyone to use your form (bokmål) and be done with it, you resent that nynorsk has equal status and you are required (in terms of your schooling) to use a form of the Norwegian language with which you are neither familiar nor explicitly comfortable. However, nynorsk users (people who GROW UP using nynorsk) have to do the same thing with bokmål--and they are not necessarily happy about it. "Samnorsk" doesn't work because nobody wants to change that which they have grown up using or been forced to use, and, to a large degree, both sides of the nynorsk/bokmål debate resent each other's encroaching presence in standardized language, especially if Norway were to shift to some "samnorsk" version. Nynorsk deserves its place, as does bokmål, but neither form is *the* Norwegian language, and that's a fact. There is no single "Norwegian" language form that's truly Norwegian--and if we were to find one to adopt, nynorsk would undoubtedly be it. It's really just a dialect spectrum with two standardized versions. There's nothing wrong with nynorsk or bokmål, but they are different, and that's okay.
Ja, jeg forstår bokmål, men jeg snakker bedre engelsk, og wikipedia-l er på engelsk. *shrug* ;-)
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> To most non-Norwegians, and I think also for many Norwegians, the concept of
> the "Norwegian" language (written and spoken) is easy to understand
> and unambigious. [meaning that for most foreigners, Norwegian = Bokmål]
Many people do equate bokmål with "Norwegian," but I think that's purely because most non-Norwegians initially learn to understand the Norwegian dialects with absolutely no knowledge of the dialects of Norway. People should know, but it's rarely specified to foreigners. Eventually, they realize that there are two official Norwegian forms and don't even know WHICH form they use, because happenstance arbitrarily picked a form for them (likely bokmål) and never explained that there are two equally acceptable Norwegian standards. Most foreigners really don't know of the bokmål/nynorsk contrast, and "teach yourself Norwegian" publications are usually (but never explained to be) in bokmål. We need to educate them. It's unfair to encourage people to think of bokmål, one of two official standards, as *the* Norwegian language.
Ulf wrote:
>My reply to both of these comments is (and I hope there are some Mac or Linux
>users on this list, or my point may be moot):
[...]
>When Bokmål users or Nynorsk users pretend this, the other group is
>just as upset
> as amerindians are when third generation European Americans pretend to have
> monopoly on American heritage.
Oh, your point strikes such a strong chord for me. I understand perfectly, for a variety of reasons. I am no Linux expert, but I have used Linux in the past and am currently suffering under Windows XP. More importantly, I am myself an American Indian. Additionally (and humorously!), in terms of my mother's family, I am a third-generation American, although I am really part of a long line of Americans over *millenia* (a NATIVE American!) :-). There are some fascinating things to talk about and explain here, regarding Native America and my own family, but I'll digress for sake of space. My friend, there are three main things at work in regards to our "white" friends' perceptions:
-----------------------------------------------------
"Token-Indianism" -- You are my little Indian. We ["white" people] own the Indians. "Today, many of *our* Indians live in poverty. We must help them [and we have no knowledge whatsoever about the past or about Native communities]." "My *Indian* friend says," etc. It's all about stereotypes, a "lesser evil" extension of colonialism, and ignorance.
"Pan-Indianism" -- Indians are one big culture.
AND... (drumroll)
Colonialism (cultural genocide). My culture is better than your culture, and *we* (the foreigners) are the real American culture. And the lovely "noble savage" concept (a combination of colonialism and token-Indianism).
I love statements from like the following from "all-American" middle-aged "white" women (or wannabes) with no knowledge of one Native culture, much less ALL Native cultures:
"I went up to an Indian reservation and there weren't any real Indians there/there were just a bunch of Mexicans there (1)! Where did all our Indians (2) go?! This great culture (3) must be saved (4)!"
(1) pan-Indianism + ignorance
(2) token Indianism + colonialism + ignorance
(3) Read "these noble savages."
(4) First her ancestors decimate entire cultures. Then she has no clue about Native communities and is operating out of all the wrong motives (including the pure idiocy of finding "real Indians" to her liking).
-----------------------------------------------------
Imagine the uproar in Scandinavia if everybody outside of Scandinavia thought that all Scandinavians were the same. In Norway alone, everybody would be freaking out from the village level to the fylker and onwards. And you know that Norwegians and other Scandinavians share so much in common but are very different.
Now imagine the most diverse continent possible with hundreds and hundreds of distinct cultural *groups* (not to mention distinct cultures), nearly 100 language families, hundreds of languages and thousands of traditions that change from family to family. That's how insane pan-Indianism really is, and why I am not an "American Indian," because an "American Indian" does not exist: it matters which people you come from. There was no "Indian" cohesion before Europeans set themselves down on our birthright.
But back to Norwegian! ;-)
You guys figure out what to do about no:. I agree with Ulf. Norway has a special lingual situation and the greater Norwegian language (the spectrum of dialects and the two official versions) *does* merit special treatment. It's rude to nynorsk users to act as if bokmål is *the* Norwegian, and it's even worse if we ever want foreigners to understand the bokmål/nynorsk contrast. In the best case, I am in favor of two specific Norwegian encyclopedia communities: nynorsk and bokmål. I'll leave it to you all to figure out what you will do, but to be fairest to all parties, no: should probably serve as a redirect to nynorsk and bokmål.
(I'm actually a bokmål user, mainly, but I put nynorsk first when comparing them to go against the trend of thinking of bokmål first. ^_^)
Ha det bra!
-- Jeremy Edenfield
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
(Stirling Newberry)
2. Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l? (Ulf Lunde)
3. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
(Lars Alvik)
4. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
(Lars Alvik)
5. Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for (Olve Utne)
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
At 14:16 11/11/2004 +0000, James R. Johnson wrote:
>Could you give some examples of the differences between the three forms of
>Norwegian?
Hello James,
Bokmål and Riksmål are, as already mentioned, slightly different subsets of
the same. The Riksmål end of the scale has a higher number of -en, -ene and
-et endings (rather than -a) as well as a higher number of monophthongs (e,
ø rather than ei, øy, au). Some word forms that are relatively frequently
used in Riksmål and very infrequently in Bokmål are: nu (Bm. nå; Nn. no) =
now; efter (Bm./Nn. etter) = after; sprog (Bm. & Nn. språk) = language.
Riksmål tends in general to be closer to Danish, Bokmål tends to be closer
to Nynorsk.
The differences between mainstream-to-conservative Bokmål and mainstream
Riksmål are too small to necessarily show up in a sample of, let's say,
some 5-10 lines or so of text.
The differences between Bokmål (w/Riksmål) and Nynorsk are greater. Mainly,
the personal pronouns vary (Nn. "eg", Bm. "jeg" = I; Nn. "dei", Bm.
"de/dem" = they/them; Nn. "vi"~"me", Bm. "vi" = we; etc.), there is a fully
extant three-gender system in Nn., as opposed to the two-gender or
modified/expanded two-gender system in esp. conservative Bokmål and
Riksmål; the Old Norse / Icelandic diphthongs are kept in most cases in
Nn., but more often monophthongised in Bm./Rm. (Nn./Bm. bein, Bm./Rm. ben,
bone(/leg); Nn. blaut, Bm. blaut/bløt, Rm. bløt = wet); there is much more
direct-tense writing in Nynorsk than in Bokmål -- one strongly prefers to
"investigate" rather than to "perform an investigation"; loan words from
German are lower in number and more infrequently used in Nynorsk; etc.
The following are some examples of Nynorsk and Bokmål, with other
Scandinavian written languages being thrown in for the perspective --
please bear in mind that differences within the Bm.~Rm. contrast are
subtle/fussy and that the examples are a bit of an over-simplification in
that respect. (Also please bear in mind that these examples are coming off
the top of my head here and now, so I apologise in advance for errors I may
have committed in the Swedish or Danish.
Sv: Jag körde hem hennes bil.
Nn.: Eg køyrde heim bilen hennar.
Bm.: Jeg kjørte heim bilen hennes. ~ Jeg kjørte hennes bil hjem.
Rm. Jeg kjørte hennes bil hjem.
Da:: Jeg kørte hendes bil hjem.
= I drove her car home.
Sv.: Jag målade alla husen röda.
Nn.: Eg måla alle husa raude.
Bm.: Jeg malte alle husa røde.
Rm.: Jeg malte alle husene røde.
Da.: Jeg malede alle de hus røde.
= I painted all the (those) houses red.
Sv.: Pojkarna och flickorna gette getterna hela veckan lång.
Nn.: Gutane og jentene gjette geitene heile veka lang.
Bm.: Guttene og jentene gjette geitene hele uka lang.
Rm.: Guttene og jentene gjette gjetene hele uken lang.
Da.: Drængerne og pigerne gedte gedderne hele ugen lang.
= The boys and the girls herded the goats all week long.
Sv.: Hon hadde mycket lång erfarenhet av att hantera farliga ämnen.
Nn.: Ho hadde svært lang røynsle med handsaming av farlege stoff.
Bm.: Hun hadde meget lang erfaring med håndtering av farlige stoffer.
Da.: Hun hadde lang erfarenhed i at håndtere farlige stoffer.
= She had a lot of experience in handling dangerous substances.
Sv.: Förenta staternas utrikespolitik medför stor oenighet i hela världen.
Nn.: Utanrikspolitikken åt Sambandsstatane er grunn til mykje usemje verda
ikring.
Bm./Rm.: De forente staters utenrikspolitikk forårsaker mye uenighet verden
rundt.
Da.: De Forenede Staters udenrigspolitik forårsager megen uenighed værden
rundt.
= The United States' foreign policy causes much controversy around the world.
Enjoy! :-)
All the best,
Olve
___________________
Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org
Hello Lars,
Your English is quite OK, Lars -- no need to worry about that. :-) As for
this discussion taking place on wikipedia-l (and therefore in English) in
addition to locally on no: and nn: (in the respective written language
forms of Norwegian), I think that there are good reasons for that:
* The Norwegian language situation has some characteristics similar to the
Czech/Slovak, the Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, the Bulgarian/Macedonian, and
the Langue d'Oc/Catalonian/Castilian/Extremaduran/Gallego/Portuguese
language clusters, and therefore of some interest to the general Wikipedia
community.
* A bit of international perspective and input can be useful for the
debates locally on no: and nn:.
* Potentially moving a Wikipedia of over 11,000 content pages is a
significant change and has interest beyond the local user community.
* Use of an incorrect language code, whether this be changed (for
correctness) or kept as is (for reasons of continuity of usage).
At Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:04:21 +0100, Lars Alvik wrote:
> >> Norwegian is a special language and merits special treatment.
> Wikipedia sysops may see the case of the Norwegian language as an
> exercise and a step in the direction of a multilingual Wikipedia!
>
>I still don't se the problem, and i don't like being told as a
>12th generation norwegian, that my language are foreign. I still don't
>see your point of view.
Nobody is trying to say that your language is foreign, as far as I can see
anywhere. What some people are trying to say is: Neither is the other main
written form of Norwegian. Bokmål as it currently exists is not inherently
more or less foreign than Nynorsk.
My personal view, as I have pointed out on this list as well as in the
discussions on both the no: and nn: Wikipedia, is that it would be the most
*correct* solution to move no: to nb:. This would be, as someone recently
pointed out on wikipedia-l, a pretty simple dump that would be of no
practical consequence to the no:/nb: users. I have also pointed out that
the solution of *not* moving no: is acceptable to me personally, even
though I see it as less correct in the strict sense of the term -- mostly
since a large number of nb contributors presumably would feel hurt by the
political implications a move to nb: would carry -- namely, of nb: being a
subset rather than the only standard Norwegian. While, as mentioned before,
Bokmål and Nynorsk are indeed subsets of Norwegian (each with its solid
literature, and each with equal status as official language), the political
consequences of stirring up this rather delicate "balance" by explicitly
moving Bokmål to its language code (nb, nob or nb-no) instead of the
national domain (.no) would be likely to result in much resentment amongst
high-profile Bokmål users. This resentment, regardless of its logical
accurateness, might be counterproductive for the local wikipedia society as
a whole.
I do not believe that a split of no: into no: and nb: is constructive. I do
personally believe that a move of the current no: (which is, de facto, in
Bokmål) to nb: would be best. However, if this move is going to create an
impossible ebvironment for cooperation between Bokmål and Nynorsk, then it
is NOT worth it, and no: would (will?) be better of where it currently is.
All the best,
Olve
___________________
Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org