Well, the reason why we have separate Indonesian Malay and Malaysian Malay wikipedias is the fact that these languages are quite distinct although both are perfectly mutually intelligible. This may sounds paradoxal but it is a fact.
I have to say that the differences between these two languages are mostly on the level of vocabulary. This is due to the different histories of the two languages. Indonesian Malay has been heavily influenced by Dutch, Javanese and Sanskrit. While on the other hand Malaysian Malay has been heavily influenced by English and Arabic.
So this fact can lead to a great difference between the two languages.
I must admit that some kind of concensus can be reached but I don't think the Indonesian speaking community is willing to merge with the Malaysian speaking community and vice versa. For example, the Indonesian language interface for Wikipedia is based on the Malaysian language interface. And I got many complaints from Indonesian speakers.
Although similar to the situation between the difference of American English and Commonwealth English, it is also different. Unlike Americans or British who have been regularly exposed to each other languages, the same cannot be said of Malaysians and Indonesians. In fact it was forbidden for a long time to import (some) books from Malaysia in Indonesia and vice versa. So it is also politically charged. This may also clarify the fact why we have separate Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian wikipedias.
Meursault2004 alias Revo Arka Giri S. a sysop on the Indonesian and Malay wikipedias.
--- Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Hi all, I have a question: why do we have separate
Wikipedias for Malay and Indonesian?
I've often asked the same question, this is my
personal favourite
linguistic hobby horse. Presumably any merge would
have to occur with
much input and help from the editor communities on
each wiki, and I'm
yet to make contact with any of them. They don't
seem to be too
concerned about the issue themselves, judging by
the fact that none of
them has brought a merge proposal to the Board, the
developers or this
list.
Is there anybody who happens to participate in both communities? If so, they might be best placed to explain the situation.
--Michael Snow _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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