On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 03:56:09PM -0400, Delirium wrote:
Anthere wrote:
My experience with the american press during the past year has been extremely unpleasant. If you listen to all the radio shows interviewing editors, it has been strictly restricted to english-speaking editors, so usually only reporting on english experience, which is not necessarily the only representation *we* have of the project.
What's wrong with discussing the English-language encyclopedia when talking to an English-speaking audience? The articles on Wikipedia in the German media focus on the German-language Wikipedia, which makes sense as well. Sure, from a sociological point of view it's interesting that Wikipedia serves many different communities, but if you're just trying to get information (which is, after all, the purpose of an encyclopedia), the most useful information is the information written in a language you can read.
Good points.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I come across something written in a language I don't understand, I tend to pass over it and find something in a language that I do understand. Likewise, reference to the existence and extensiveness of the French Wikipedia is interesting, but beyond the mention of that and perhaps mention of other subjects that interest me directly and just happen to involve the French Wikipedia (such as intellectual property legislation), the doings of the French Wikipedia are of considerably less interesting to me than the doings of the English Wikipedia. The reason is simple: I can read English.
All this talk of the US media this and the US public that, blaming all this supposed cultural imperialism on being a US citizen, is nonsense. Really. If the English Wikipedia is more commonly mentioned in discussion of other-language Wikipedias than other-language Wikipedias are in discussion of the English Wikipedia, it probably has something to do with the facts that:
1. Wikipedia was created by one or more English speakers, and initially was an English language encyclopedia. While this in no way limits future linguistic diversity, it is an interesting historical note and lends a little more reason to discuss the English Wikipedia in some circumstances than non-English Wikipedias.
2. The English language Wikipedia is the biggest. If that changes in the future, and the Klingon or Esperanto Wikipedia becomes the largest, I fully expect that the amount of focus in discussion and media treatments will swing away from the English language project and more toward the Klingon, Esperanto, or whatever, Wikipedia. That's just the way it is.
3. It is often the case that, though someone whose primary language is not English, he or she may also speak English. Meanwhile, it is less likely that an English speaker will also speak whatever pet language it is that you think the media is ignoring. Thus, there's likely to be greater interest in English language topics among non-English speakers than in non-English languages among English speakers, all else being equal. There were places and times where that was true of, for instance, French instead of English. Times have changed. Such is life.
4. Most Americans live in a very, very large contiguous span of English-speaking regions. There is little or no need for most US citizens to ever speak another language in day to day life. While this may or may not be a bad thing, it is a true thing nonetheless, and that being the case I'm not surprised if US citizens tend to pay little attention to matters that involve other languages most of the time. The same cannot be said so easily of other languages (with a couple of notable exceptions, perhaps): Europe, for instance, consists of a large number of countries, many of whom have their own associated languages largely distinct from the languages of their neighbors, and yet much of Europe would fit within the borders of one of the larger states in the US. This forces a certain amount of multilingual awareness on Europeans, whereas the opposite tends to be true of Americans, pretty much through no fault of their own.
5. Many US citizens are probably unmotivated to learn languages that are used regularly to call them imperialists, hicks, industrialized farmers, insensitive louts that don't address the needs of other languages, and so on.
Frankly, I'm tired of seeing, again and again, references to how an English-speaking press catering to the news and entertainment needs of an English-speaking audience is somehow wounding others for failing to spend equal time on their own languages. I'm even more tired of hearing about how awful that makes Americans, or at least American culture.
True, when a journalist says that Wikipedia has so-and-so many articles, and cites the number of articles in en.wikipedia.org rather than the total for all languages, that journalist has blundered. That being the case, it's a good idea to point this out and ridicule the individual for being obtuse. I guarantee, however, that journalists whose trade is practiced in other languages are just as often obtuse nitwits, though it's likely that the subjects of their stupidities are different. Regardless, there is NO NEED to start talking about how screwed up US culture is because some journalist biffed a reference. When Americans in the generic are mentioned in such complaints, I am to some degree included in that mention at least by some distant relationship to the target of the phrasing, and that's unjust.
When you blame "American media" or "American culture" or "Americans" for something one, single, individual journalist has done -- even if he's the fourth such individual to do so this week -- you're doing essentially the same thing he did. Just as that journalist ignored the diversity of languages involved in Wikipedia, you have ignored the diversity of individuals that make up the American public.
That, to me, is a strike against your credibility. Hopefully, you don't care what I think if you do this sort of thing regularly.
In any case, this doesn't need to become a Major Issue every time some idiot says something stupid in his or her role as a journalist. Journalists do that all the time, regardless of their native languages. Get over it, and let the list deal with something of import. Send a letter or email to the journalist, maybe make a brief mention of that error (and others, if they exist), and move on. That's all you need to do. These pity parties over my linguistic imperialism got old before they started.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]