My fivepence worth. I live in Kiev, so I have a bit of a closer POV on
what's going on therem, hopefully it can help.
A number of wikis have problems connected with the existence of alternative
scripts. I suppose a common official policy for such cases would help. As
per experience with non-govt backed european minority languages, often the
most suitable way out of the fight is:
1) have the interface in the most spread variant (which would be cyrillic,
in this case)
2) have the articles that come in "other" flavours translated in the main
script-space and the original page saved and referred to from the translated
page.
3) allow all variants to exist simoultaneously on any discussion pages
This may help into giving space to everyone without compressing freedom of
expression and local variants of the culture/script/grammar.
The problem with Belarus' is in that their wonderful language is in a pretty
much decaying state, so it's a very small number of people taking care of
it. These people often are politically radicalised, and may clash with each
other. In this dynamic, a wiki may become "just another battlefield", which
is something we should really avoid. I agree with Mark here. Maybe it could
make sense to have three indipendent editions, yet the number of possible
contributors is so small that I do wonder whether it makes any sense to do
it (and it's something the three communities should decide themselves, in
anyway).
In any case I urge you not to find an "ad hoc" solution for Belarus, but to
address the problem of concurrent scripts as such in instead. I believe this
is going to be a recurrent problem in many an endangered culture, and often
it is going to be associated with local political tension. A neutrally
"general" policy would be much easier to implement, than a direct involvment
in the practical life of one single wiki.
As per making belorussian popular... sadly, it takes much more than this.
Decaying languages do need to become "trendy" in order to be used by youth
and be saved. Usually a clash in script policy is a very bad marker, as per
the health of a language. And if belorussian was really used as much as
statistics claim, nobody in his mind would have used a script that is not
understood by anyone to make a nationalistically oriented political
campaign...
As a matter of fact you can hear it mostly in the countryside, where it's
hard to imagine that internet will get soon... No way for it to exist on TV,
apart from some episodes a minor govt channel, and the youth in Minsk rates
trendy to be "russian". That is, to use as many english words as they can,
while speaking russian.
IMHO belarusian definitely is an endangered language, and should be helped
out of its unpleasant situation as much as possible. In doing this a wiki
has mostly one big function: it's a meeting place for native speakers to use
the language, exchange and "save" information, and at least virtually live
in a 100% belarusian environment, which is already impossible in reality.
This is what a wiki can do for a language, any language. In exchange,
wikimedia gets an indepth level of knowledge on local
life/traditions/everyday problems that no foreign speakers will ever be able
to put in. It's actually a fair deal, since this information can later be
translated into other wiki editions and make its way to a mainstream public
after having been collected and organized in its own original cultural
environment.
Yet I would not expect a quick rise in the number of BY contributors just
because we solve the script problem. These are very slow processes. Pretty
much will depend on the marketing, but this is going to be a hard thing to
do, if they wish to remain as politically neutral as needed by the general
wiki policies. It really depends on their capability to involve the "normal"
population, outside the radically oriented clubs. And, obviously, it heavily
depends on the access to internet that can be granted to native speakers in
the countryside, those who really still use the language in everyday's life.
My best wishes to them. It's a grand culture in a great land, and I
personally do love the place. It's great canals there for a guy in love with
boating on inland waters, and I really wish to get as much information as I
can on the canal system connecting the EU to the Dnepr and the Black Sea :)
Especially since I can personally read basic bielorussian (only in the
cyrillic variant, though).
Bèrto
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
To: <wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:15 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conflict re:Belarusan WP
The Belarusan language is spoken by 9,081,102 people worldwide
according to the Ethnologue; in Belarus it is spoken by 6,715,000, or
65% of the population (most of the rest are native speakers of
Russian, Trasianka, Yiddish, Polish, or Ukrainian).
In Belarusan schools, the Belarusan language is a cumpulsory subject
for all students who wish to graduate, totalling on average between
75,000 and 100,000 per year (graduates).
The Belarusan language used in schools and by the government and by
the vast majority of the Belarusan people is called Narkamauka,
codified in the 1960s.
However, some Belarusan nationalists favour a return to the older
Belarusan codified in the 1920s, called Tarashkievitsa. Some of the
more radical nationalists also favour a switch to the Latin alphabet,
called Latsinka.
Currently there is a fight on Meta between proponents of the official
Belarusan and proponents of the alternative Belarusan.
By sheer chance, the proponents of the alternative style were the
first to arrive at be.wikipedia, and all of the administrators there
write in the alternative style, and the entire interface is written in
it too.
New articles are supposedly allowed to be written in either variety,
however the vast majority of existing articles are written in the
alternative style. According to proponents of the official
orthography, this makes it intimidating to newcomers, and they give
that as the reason why the Belarusan Wikipedia is so small still.
You can see the entire debate here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Present_Belarusia…
Now, obviously the answer to such questions is generally "resolve
within the community". However, in this case some people are claiming
that the community leaders are acting improperly by deleting new
articles in Narkamauka and then a few minutes later posting the same
articles written in Tarashkievitsa. People also allege that policy on
be.wp favours the alternative spelling over official spelling, and
that it is not possible to change it without outside help because the
admins at be.wp are a dictatorship.
In this case I think it is appropriate for the international Wikimedia
community to get involved. Clearly a neutral third party is needed to
evaluate the claims of both sides and make things right.
Mark
--
Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l