Re: [Wikipedia-l] Language policy agreement in the Norwegian Wikipedia community

Hoi, There is a process for the start of new projects and for the start of new language versions. This is a formal process and it does not involve the voting of people. What it does involve is the existence of languages recognised in the ISO-639-3. As such Norwegian, or the no /nor code is considered a macro-language and does not qualify for a new project. It is explicitly understood that by no.wikipedia.org we expect it to be Bokmal. Thanks, GerardM http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Portal:No 2005/4/25 Bjarte Sørensen <bjarte.sorensen(a)gmail.com> > Dear all, > > Most of you would be aware of some of the discussions that have

> around Wikipedia in the Norwegian languages. Since the last round of > discussions on this list, there has been a lot of internal debate, as > well as what seems to be a fairly widely accepted agreement following > voting. > > This e-mail intends to, after a brief recap on Norwegian language and > wikipedia issues, take those interested through the latest development > and will stake out the road ahead. It is also intended to inform the > international community about the current agreement on no.wikipedia, so > as to prevent misunderstandings in the future. > > Finally, we will mention an unfortunate reaction to the vote by a small > number of users at the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål (no:) wikipedia who

> to disregard the result of the voting and are planning to create a > _third_ Norwegian wikipedia with the sole mission of mixing the

> of the two current Norwegian versions. > > == A short language history of Norway == > > Spoken Norwegian ("norsk") (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "no") is in a fairly > unique situation compared to most other languages of the world in that > it has two widely accepted written standards, Bokmål (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 > code "nb") and Nynorsk (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "nn"). By national > legislation they are both regarded as official written forms of > Norwegian. In addition, many people still make a distinction between > Bokmål and its precursor which still is in use, Riksmål. > > Briefly speaking, Bokmål and Riksmål are descendants of the Danish > written language. Until the 1800s, Danish was the only widely used > written language in Norway as a result of four centuries of union with > Denmark. With increasing independence came a wish to norwegianise the > Danish standard, with Knud Knudsen at the forefront for changing parts > of the vocabulary and orthographics. Thus, Riksmål, and later Bokmål, > resulted. These forms together are today probably used by about 90% of > Norway's population, or somewhere around 3,500,000 people. > > Parallel to this development, a new written standard was created by

> Aasen. He travelled extensively throughout Norway, and based his new > language, landsmål, on the grammar and vocabulary of dialect samples > from around the country. This was later renamed Nynorsk. Modern Nynorsk > differs significantly from modern Bokmål, and may be linguistically > looked upon as as different (or as similar if you like) as Swedish is

> Danish. For English or Dutch/German speakers, the differences may be > likened to those between (Lowland) Scots and English or Low German and > Dutch. Today it is estimated that about 500,000-600,000 people have > Nynorsk as their first written language. > > More information about the Norwegian language history can be found in > English, German, French, Spanish or Portuguese on the website of the > Norwegian Language Council: > http://www.sprakrad.no/templates/Page.aspx?id=653 > > == A short history of Wikipedia in Norwegian == > > The first Norwegian wikipedia started 26 November 2001 on the subdomain > no.wikipedia.org. As most wikipedias, its contributor and article

> started really picking up around the end of 2003. At the time, it > accepted all written standards of Norwegian, although the amount of > Nynorsk was minimal. There were already several debates about the > feasibilty and appropriateness of keeping the two languages united on > one Wikipedia. On 31 July 2004 a Wikipedia for Nynorsk was created. > > The creation of nn:, however, split the community at no: wikipedia.

> felt that given that Nynorsk now had its own wikipedia, no: should > become a Bokmål/Riksmål Wikipedia only. Others disapproved and claimed > that there was no need to change and that it should continue its > language policy of accepting all and keep its interwiki link name of > "Norsk". > > Nynorsk Wikipedia soon proved a success, as it within the next few > months gathered several people who had felt uncomfortable in the > (mainly) Bokmål environment at no:. The name displayed in interwiki > links became "Norsk (nynorsk)" (languages are not spelt with upper case > in Norwegian). To date it continues to be one of the fastest growing > wikipedias, with a steady article increase, now at over 6000 articles > and >50 editors with more than 10 edits since arrival. > > == Votes == > > The issue of no:'s language policy has come up time and again, and a > vote was held in March ([[:no:Wikipedia:Målform]]) as to which policy

> adapt. Independent of the method of the tally (whether or not to

> new contributors etc.) there was a majority for switching to a > Bokmål/Riksmål only language policy (50% for Bokmål/Riksmål, 43.2% for > Bokmål/Riksmål/Nynorsk/Høgnorsk, and 6.8% for the official variants > Bokmål/Nynorsk only). > > Following this result, there is now going to be a vote on which > interwiki link name will most appropriately reflect the current

> policy of no:. The result of this vote will most likely be either

> (bokmål)" or "Norsk (bokmål/riksmål)". > > Understandably, there has also been a debate as to whether the

> should change from "no" to "nb", as this is the correct representation > of Bokmål according to ISO 639-2. However, there is some resentment > towards such a move and currently a general acceptance in letting the > Bokmål wikipedia stay at "no". The alternative some have suggested is a > server-side redirect from "no" to "nb", in the same way that "nb" today > is a server-side redirect to the equivalent page on "no". > > == Summary of the problem == > > Unfortunately, a small group of users (who all write Bokmål/Riksmål)

> ignoring the results from the vote, and are claiming they want to > re-establish a wikipedia for all written standards of Norwegian. They > claim they have been in touch with people centrally in Wikimedia > (developers? stewards?) and that they have so far received positive > comments. With this email, we would like to state the fact that there > have been no official decisions about creating a third Norwegian > wikipedia containing both Bokmål and Nynorsk, it is merely an

> initiative from a small group of users which started a sign-on list at > [[:no:Bruker:Norsk_Wikipedia]]. A spontaneous list with signatures > against this activity was immediately created at > [[:no:Wikipedia-diskusjon:Fellesnorsk]]. The process of creating a

> Norwegian wikipedia has not gone through a voting process in any of the > two existing Norwegian wikipedias (no: and nn:) and can not be > considered as a decision by the Norwegian Wikipedia community. > > We believe the creation of a third wikipedia under the Wikimedia > foundation would have a serious and unfortunate impact on the existing > wikipedias in Norwegian, no: and nn:, and would undermine Wikipedia's > reputation in Norway. This being said, we are all for extensive co- > operation between the four Scandinavian language wikipedias (including > Swedish and Danish), as evident by the recent creation of > [[:meta:Skanwiki]], the Scandinavian meta-pages, and the use of

on > nn:) > Lars Alvik [[:no:User:Profoss]] (Administrator/bureaucrat on no:) > Øyvind A. Holm [[:no:User:Sunny256]] (Administrator on no:) > Onar Vikingstad [[:no:User:Vikingstad]] (Administrator on no:) > Jon Harald Søby [[:no:User:Jhs]] (Administrator on no:) > Chris Nyborg [[:no:User:Cnyborg]] (Administrator on no:) > Guttorm Flatabø [[:no:User:Dittaeva]] (Administrator on nn:) > Gunleiv Hadland [[:meta:User:Gunnernett]] (Administrator on nn:) > Jarle Fagerheim [[:nn:User:Jarle]] (Administrator on nn:) > Øyvind Jo Heimdal Eik [[:en:User:Pladask]] (Administrator on nn: and

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