Olve Utne wrote:
Hello,
In Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 14, Issue 5, brion vibber wrote:
There's a bug in the new wiki creation script which allows zh-tw, zh-cn, nn, and perhaps other language codes which are defined but had been intended as aliases to be automatically created as separate wikis. Such accidentally created wikis are not supported and may get closed down when noticed and someone gets around to backing up their content.
Tim Starling replied:
I've altered it now so that languages have to be listed in both langlist and languages/Names.php before they can be created. So this sort of thing shouldn't happen anymore.
I see that nn (Nynorsk) is on your list of undesired entities. Nynorsk is *an official written language* (not dialect) of Norway beside the separate written language Bokmål (nb or bm). Please note the following factors:
- Nynorsk and Bokmål are not "merely one language in different alphabets" (such as can be argued for Chinese trad. / simplified, Serbian / Croatian/Bosnian or Hindi / Urdu),
- They are not merely a slight orthographic variation of one language within different political entities (such as UK/US English and European/Brazilian Portuguese).
- They have a significant number of different basic terms, as well as significant differences in orthography, morphology and syntax.
- The current no.wikipedia is predominantly Bokmål, with only a small minority of the articles being written in Nynorsk
- There are only three registered Nynorsk users on bm.wikipedia, and there is consensus amongst these three (see below) that the development of nn.wikipedia should be worked on now -- partially because of the greater ease in finding Nynorsk writers for a Nynorsk wikipedia than for a Bokmål wikpedia with occasional Nynorsk articles. We also believe as a group (on nn.wikipedia) that Nynorsk writers joining the project will join the no.wikipedia project as well -- thus hoping to strengthen the Norwegian wikipedia project as a whole.
- The participation in more than one wikipedia project is the norm rather than the exception amongst Scandinavian "wikipedians" in general. I participate actively on nn, no/bm, sv and en.
- Our "slogan" on the nn.wikipedia.org main page is: "Samhald gjev styrke og mangfald gjev rikdom!" This translates, with as: "Samhold gir styrke og mangfold gir rikdom!" (Bokmål) "Sammenhold giver styrke og mangfold giver rigdom!" (Danish) "Gemenskap ger styrka och mångfall ger rikedom!" (Swedish) (In English, roughly:) "Cooperation gives strength and diversity gives wealth!"
I was told by a Norwegian that the Scandanavian languages are all so closely related that they are effectively one language -- if you want to look at it that way; or all quite different -- if you want to look at it the other way. If that's true, it's certainly inconsistent to accept "Norwegian" and Swedish as different languages, but regard Nynorsk as merely a dialect of "Norwegian".
Perhaps the nearest equivalent might be "Scots" vs. "English". Read http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/language/scots/index.htm to get a flavor of Scots, which is an official language of the Scottish Parliament.
-- Neil