Tim, it is my belief that Wikipedia's goal is, or if it isn't taht it should be, to provide a free, neutral, and hopefully accurate for every person on earth in "their own language".
Jimbo claimed that when he said something to that effect, "own language" meant simply some language they understand. However, as Anthere made very clear when saying that English is NOT her "own language" even though she is obviously quite fluent, one's "own language" is the language of their hearth.
A man born and raised with Nuorese Sardinian, but who at the age of 18 moved to Rome and has since lived and worked among almost exclusively non-Sardinian-speakers for the last 30 or even 50 years, his "own language" is still Nuorese.
In Shigeru Kayano's world, there aren't many people with whom he can converse in his native Ainu tongue anymore. When he was a member of the diet (Japanese parliament), obviously all motions, new laws, and everything else was done in Japanese, with an occasional translation into English being published as an afterthought.
All the radio interviews he did, the vast majority of the people he met, probably 99% of letters he got from his constituents, his utility bills, and nearly everything else about his life was conducted exclusively in Japanese. Yet he will tell you firmly that "his own language" is Ainu.
He is fluent in Japanese, and has been since a relatively young age. But his comprehension level is still better in Ainu, the language in which he forms thoughts, the language in which he dreams.
He said in an interview once that everything he says, he formulates in Ainu and translates it into Japanese before saying it.
His final speech before the Diet, he made in Ainu. In many countries, he couldn'tve done this, as they have rules restricting the languages you can use to make speeches before government bodies. But since Japan hadn't ever had it come up before, he was free to do so, and he wore traditional Ainu dress when he did so. (afterwards he wrote a book called "ainugoga kokkaini hibiku", meaning roughly "the ainu language resounds through the diet")
It isn't known how many native speakers of Ainu remain. One problem which is shared with many other "endangered languages" is that of who can and cannot be classified as a native speaker.
One woman learnt Ainu natively, but at a very young age her exposure to Ainu was cut off completely. She could speak Ainu relatively fluently, but only to talk about her childhood (I believe she's passed on now). Other people can speak a great deal of Ainu, but pepper it with Japanese words and expressions. Some people can understand even very complex constructions in Ainu, but can't speak it. Some can only speak it to certain people (I met somebody once who could speak O'odham fluently, but only to their grandparents).
Many, or even most of these people, could "recover" their native language with a little bit of effort. Until recently, they preferred to hide it away, and one woman whose sister was a prized orator revealed upon her sister's death that she was actually a very fluent speaker. She said that when her sister died, she realised that she was hiding an important cultural asset, and that she should be proud of it and share it with others rather than just pretending she doesn't know the language.
All speakers of Ainu are fluent in Japanese, just as all speakers of Klingon are fluent in English. The difference between them is that with Klingon, it is for none of its speakers a language they can call their "own language".
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In response to what Boris has said, all Wikipedias must at some point be inactive. When br.wiki was first created, it lay dormant and empty and open to vandalism for a while. Somebody came then, added 50 or so pages, and then just left again. Now, a few months ago, all of a sudden 3 native speakers descended on the Wikipedia and started adding pages slowly. Then, another new person came, and he added long, quality, new pages at lightning speed (a few a day). Now, the Breton Wikipedia is growing quickly.
The Georgian and Armenian Wikipedias are also good examples. For a long time, they were empty, dormant, and frequently vandalised. And then, all of a sudden, from nowhere, came native speakers who improved these projects. ka.wiki (georgian) now has over 1000 articles.
The Limburgish Wikipedia is an even better example. It had basically no content, and Elian proposed it to be locked. I added a table of contents, tried to translate it into what poor Limburgish I could muster, and tried to make the mainpage look inviting. I sent e-mails to people, but got no response.
Then, a couple of months later, it was discovered by Kasper ("Guaka") and another guy (forgot his name), who began to add content. (actually, I think Kasper already knew but forgot about it or something). It grew very slowly until Wouter Steenbeek ("HaafLimbo", "Caesarion", etc etc) arrived, and he added new pages - long, good, detailed ones - at a rate of a few per day. He did slow down a little by now, and the Wikipedia doesn't grow as fast, but it is still growing at a considerable rate and is fast approaching 1000 articles.
As the founding members of ja: can attest, initially it was a wasteland with even some vandalism. And they made it better.
It's so amazing, from my point of view. I monitor a list of recent changes on inactive Wikipedias. I am always very excited when I get to remove a Wikipedia from the list. So far, I have removed perhaps 10... Aragonese, Limburgish, Georgian, Armenian, Sicilian, Kashmiri, Scots Gaelic, I don't remember them all... I will remove the Breton Wikipedia when somebody translates the interface, although I no longer actually _monitor_ it since it has usually around 100 new changes each day.
Bengali and Telugu may go in the near future as well, but there are still some minor outstanding issues with them.
Most of the people who make these Wikipedias active are newbies. They've never heard of Wikipedia before, or they've at least never visited it prior to that.
Most of these people would not have the courage to request tht their Wikipedia be unlocked.
Mark
On 09/07/05, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
Strongly disagreed. That point of view would make most Wikipedias wastes of time. Everyone speaking Limburgic can read Dutch better. Virtually everyone speaking Welsh, Navajo, and Maori can read English better. Everyone able to read Bambara is supposed to read French as well. Wikipedias contribute to the status of a language and the community it is spoken by. The fact that Klingon is (probably) noone's native language makes a difference, but not entirely a substantial one: it is a nice thing to have, and it can and will benefit the Klingon speaking communities which often meet and use the language quite prominently. It becomes a diiferent story when noone reads it, even when reaching a high number of articles.
I have trouble relating to this. What do you think Wikipedia's goals are (or should be)? Why do you contribute to Wikipedia?
-- Tim Starling
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