Mark Williamson wrote:
Jimbo claimed that when he said something to that effect, "own language" meant simply some language they understand. However, as Anthere made very clear when saying that English is NOT her "own language" even though she is obviously quite fluent, one's "own language" is the language of their hearth.
In that particular exchange, Anthere was more right than I was.
I think that there are many different levels of fluency in languages, and that we can take interest in providing Wikipedias for all of them. But my overall point is that the goals of providing an encyclopedia to everyone on the planet is different from the goal of providing encyclopedias for reasons of language preservation, etc.
A man born and raised with Nuorese Sardinian, but who at the age of 18 moved to Rome and has since lived and worked among almost exclusively non-Sardinian-speakers for the last 30 or even 50 years, his "own language" is still Nuorese.
And we should view our goal from at least two simultaneous perspectives. If we have gotten him his free encyclopedia in standard Italian, and he understands it, so that he can look up anything he's interested in, then we've succeeded at one level. If we've gotten him that *plus* the free encyclopedia in Nuorese Sardinian, then we've done something more.
--Jimbo