Tim Starling wrote:
Delirium wrote:
As you noted, the choice is a political one, and
I'm not sure we ought
to be in the business of running political campaigns. Providing
resources for anyone to work on a Wikipedia in any language they choose,
sure; but to actively promote the use of particular languages over other
languages isn't our place.
If I understand correctly, it's not a political issue in the sense of
being controversial, it's a political issue in that polticians all want
to do something about it.
Well, it *is* a political issue in the sense of being controversial.
What the proper arrangement of languages should be in India is quite a
hot-button issue. For example, to what extent should the country have a
common language, at least as a second or third language that people can
use to communicate with each other? If there is to be some such
language, should it be English or Hindi? A previous BJP government
tried to expand the teaching of Hindi as a second language in
non-Hindi-speaking areas, in order to help it supplant English as the
common-denominator language, but met with fierce resistance from
non-Hindi-speakers.
In other countries the issue is even more inflamed---consider, for
example, the Tamil language in Sri Lanka, or the Tibetan language in
China. I don't really think this is a mess we should wander into.
-Mark