If I'm the one who doesn't know what consensus means, then what's up with your "Boris (was it him? I forgot) tried to come up with a consesnus and you are - again - going counter to him"?
That was the whole point of my private message to you: sarcasm.
What Boris said was his view, not an attempt at a consensus. It was also a persuasive argument for his viewpoint. However, I am not obliged to change my views just because of what Boris has said; nor are you obliged to change your views because of what I have said.
The only way to resolve such a conflict is to respond point-by-point and elaborate on our opinions with examples, analogies, and the like. Of course, this doesn't always work, but it would certainly be better than the responses I've gotten so far. Boris' message is only a starting-point for a real, constructive dialogue, not the end.
You don't need to worry that a long discussion could hold up the creation of a new Wikipedia because it will probably take a while anyways.
None of your responses to my points have been real rebuttals, and you haven't responded on a point-by-point like Boris did. You've basically just said "well, that may be true, but they're still too different to use a single Wikipedia" (this is not, I repeat _not_ a real quote), Walter has basically just said "people have already responded to your arguments, and anyways you're not a native speaker so if 5 native speakers think they need a separate Wikipedia, you must be wrong" (not a real quote, but his position largely ignores the position of R. F. Hahn who, although not an active member of the Wikipedia community, is a native speaker of LS and is very knowledgable about it and other Lowlands languages), and Servien has actually crafted some good responses but it would be much easier to follow if he responded to each point separately, as did Boris. However, some of Servien's statements are contradictory -- he says that border varieties are very similar, but later he says "Scots [...] is way closer to English than DLS to GLS", which although not *directly* contradictory is really contradictory by example.
Re what other people have said about Scots: Scots and English have an absolute boundary. Although it's not a strong boundary (there are transitional dialects), it is definite nonetheless. Also, there are only two standards for the modern languages descended from Anglo-Saxon, and from each of them there is a more or less sufficient degree of intelligibility to all dialects in written form, with some exceptions (Shetlandic and Orcadian Scots are not easily mutually intelligible with "Standard Scots").
Differences between Nynorsk and Bokmål can be exaggerated or minimised depending on choice of words and grammatical constructions. Ultimately, though, they are both recognised as separate official varieties of the same language, rather than as parts of a dialect continuum divided by national borders.
Mark
On 04/07/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
This is what Mark sent to me privately.
Here's *my* attempt at coming up with a consensus:
- Of course, Wikipedias should try to unite as many people as
possible and transcend minor variations in languages (e. g. British and American English share one Wikipedia).
- Of course, the regional variants of Low Saxon form a dialect
continuum, i. e. mutual intelligibility decreases with increasing distance.
- Of course, in linguistics national borders don't equal language
barriers.
- However, in real-life political borders in Europe have throughout
the centuries left clear marks on the way people speak and write. New words and idioms entered the dialects almost always via Standard German or Standard Dutch respectively. Whenever speakers of Low Saxon dialects write something down, they fall back on the languages they were taught writing in - that is either Dutch or German. Furthermore, all Low Saxon speakers in the Netherlands are confronted with Standard Dutch every single day while those living east of the border deal with Hochdeutsch day after day. Nevertheless, these differences may be surmountable and the issue should be explored further rather than acting rashly to create a linguistic fork.
- Of course, splitting nds into Dutch and German editions will not
eliminate the difficulties a person from Pommeria will face in trying to understand the vernacular speech of someone from East Frisia. Although it will reduce the overall spectrum the Low Saxon Wikipedia has to cover now, it won't address the other problems that are at work here, not least the fact that nds.wiki is written mostly in Missingsch.
When I first read the request for a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia I considered it a little far-fetched myself. I still do, and so far nobody's actually crafted a logical response to my arguments other than Boris, preferring instead to discount them because I'm not a native speaker, or to repeat the same thing over and over.
So I've come to the conclusion that while it might appear to be an acceptable solution from some perspectives to set up a separate Wikipedia for Low Saxon in the Netherlands, it is not a very workable solution from a real world perspective.
Mark
I cannot understand this in any other way than: "I am right, so create no nds-nl Wikipedia". Mark you seem not to know the word "consensus". That means that two opinions meet somewhere in between, not that either party gets what it wants!
Wouter
MSN Webmessenger doet het altijd en overal http://webmessenger.msn.com/
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