Well, if 10 people can write, but only 5 people write for the
Wikipedia, then there are 5 more potential contributors.
If you can already read a language, being able to write it is a little
easier to learn than if you have no literacy in it at all.
But basically, most of the minor languages people propose Wikipedias
in have at least a few monolingual speakers or people who speak that
language to a much better degree than the LWC ("language of wider
communication"). These people should not have their access to
information limited by the language they use, especially if there are
people ready and willing to build articles.
There are very few languages with 10 or 20 speakers that have been
that way for centuries or will be that way for centuries to come, and
they are limited usually to specific regions of the world, such as the
Amazon or the highlands of New Guinea, where such tiny populations can
maintain linguistic independence from the larger society because of
geographic obstacles.
Most languages with such small numbers of speakers are either going to
die very soon, and very likely they will die before anybody proposes a
Wikipedia in them, or they are going to undergo a revival and there
will be a larger population to use the Wikipedia than when it was
started (for example, some Copts in Egypt have recently been raising
their children speaking Coptic. so while in the past it may have been
a fun excercise, now it is a real access to knowledge for people who
have that as their first language. the same is true with Sanskrit).
If a language dies but it already has a Wikipedia, most likely there
would be other organisations willing to host it, and it wouldn't
require the same sort of maintenance.
I think that if there are people willing to build a Wikipedia, and
they want to, and there's not a technical solution to the problem (for
example, tc/sc can be converted to a satisfactory degree with some
work, but we cannot convert English to Assiniboine satisfactorily), we
should just let them. If other speakers of the language don't want
one, they don't have to work on it.
As for you mentioning earlier that it is extremely difficult for you
to read Peh-oe-ji, this is something you could easily fix if you
wanted to. There are websites to teach you how to read Peh-oe-ji
(zh-min-nan itself should probably have one...), and it's a clear and
fairly simple system.
If you have no motivation but rather are content to sit and despise
this Wikipedia from your padded armchair, then that is not a problem
to go complaining about. If you think there are problems with
zh-min-nan, you should bring that up with people involved in that
project.
Illiterracy is the issue here (you mentioned only 10 people being able
to write a language). Even scripts perceived as "difficult" can be
learnt by millions of people (many Westerners see Chinese characters
are difficult, but many millions of Chinese learn them and can read
them).
Illiteracy is an obstacle to having an audience for the Wikipedia,
yes, but it isn't our personal problem. If the board wants to team
with some literacy organization, that's fine, but especially in cases
like this where literacy is relatively easy to acquire (from what I
know, if you can already read the baihua and speak cantonese natively,
you might stumble at first with the colloquial written cantonese, but
after enough reading you can read it fluently), literacy should not be
our main issue.
How many people speak Cantonese? These people are all a possible audience.
For people who don't want to become literate, or can't because of a
disability, a text-to-speech technology can be used. If there is a TTS
technology to read out the Peh-oe-ji, I am sure you will be able to
readily and easily understand what it says. But the development of
this software is not our worry.
Even "mainstream language" (in sociolinguistics this is known as the
LWC or language of wider communication) Wikipedias are subject to such
problems as bias, outdated information, etc. The idea is that they
will get improved gradually as time goes on because there are
dedicated contributors.
Mark
On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 16:37:49 +0800, Jiaqing Bao <jbao.itl91g(a)nctu.edu.tw> wrote:
I believe there has to be some principles in minor
language Wikipedias.
Setting up an encyclopedia is not just about self expression, it has to
serve public good. Moreover, proposals and actual performances have to
stand some very basic prima facie scrutiny.
If a language has 1000 speakers. Only 100 can read (most of them use
another mainstream language). And only 10 of them can write (the writing
system could be difficult, e.g. Egyptian hieroglyph). And only 5 of them
sre active contributors. The five of them would become the de facto
knowledge controllers.
If each user of that language uses a mainstream language Wikipedia, it
will be good. However, to those who consult that minor Wikipedia, he or
she could be mislead by inaccurate information (e.g. bias, mistake,
outdated materials ...). Because that minor Wikipedia is written most by
a handful of people (possibly friends of similar backgrounds), it
becomes much more unlikely that a mistake could be corrected.
Even if that user knows there's a mistake, he or she may not be able to
correct it. Many minor languages users are not fluent speakers. Some may
not know how to type that particular script.
And the limited active contributors also may have a very restricted
knowledge base. The five of them may not know much about astronomy for
example. They may translate. They could make mistakes. They could also
selectively translate less important parts of an article because they
may not know much about the mathematics, physics, chemistry, history ...
about that subject. Unless they can ask others to join, their works may
not be trusted.
In case the user knows how to double check, it may not be a problem.
However, if a user still has to consult a mainstream language source, it
makes that minor Wikipedia less relevant. And if the user cannot read
another language and failed to find another minor language source, the
bug-ridden Wikipedia could do more harm than good. An encyclopedia has
to serve a public good to justify its existence.
It is a bad idea to setup encyclopedias in so many languages. I don't
mind if anyone wants to start a Wiki in Pig Latin or Nadsat. You can
easily auto translate English into these two artificial languages. But
for many minor languages, it may be not feasible. The few articles could
be untrustworthy. Wikipedia is not a language conservation project. The
reason why people trust English Wikipedia is because of the number of
contributors and fact checkers. We don't want this site to become the
largest source of rumor.
I think it will be good if they contribute to the Wiktionary.
Besides the number of active regular contributors, they may need sources
of reference materials and public domain sources. In English, you have
the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Project Gutenberg, CIA Fact Book and
many other online materials. It is easy to build many pages without much
efforts and mistakes in most major languages. They have so many printed
reference materials. To many minor languages, they have very few books
other than a language textbook, the Bible or an out-of-print dictionary.
It is really not a very good idea that they start an encyclopedia
project at this moment.
Jiaqing Bao
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