David Rossel wrote:
And please tell me: Why is there already a Plattdüütsch wikipedia? And a Lëtzebuergesch wikipedia? They also seem to be dialects (although Lëtzebuergesch is official in Luxemburg). So, why shouldn't there be other dialect wikipedias? In Swabian, in Bernese German, in Saxony-German?
Plattdüütsch is not a dialect. Since 1998, it has been recognized by the EU:
Plattdüütsch is een eegen Spraak (eenige Lüd dink, dat is een Dialekt). Upp ingelsch seggt de Lüüt Low Saxon (wesslich vun de Ilv) ellers East Low German (össlich vun de Ilv) dorto, ook Nedersassisch, Nedersaksisch un Niedersächsisch (wat nich heet, dat bloots Neddersassen dat snackt) un Ostnederdüütsch. De offizielle Spraakencode na ISO 639-2 is nds. Plattdüütsch is in de Europääsche Kort vun de Regionaal un Minnerheetenspraaken opnahm. Dat is nu güllig vun 1998 af.
Translation (I don't know Plattdüütsch, but with German and Dutch it can be reasonably understood):
Plattdüütsch is a language (some people think it is a dialect). East of the Ilv, the English name is Low Saxon. West of the Ilv it's East Low German. The official language code is, according to ISO 693-2, nds. Since 1998, Plattdüütsch has been recognized by the European bureau for minority languages.
And yes, Baseldytsch has ist own orthography and dictionary (which many dialects don't). I think that's also an argument for this wikipedia. The interface are already translated into Baseldytsch. So lets just put it online under bsd.wikipedia.org and we shall see how it'll be running and what the reactions are. Then we can take it offline, or we just let it be in its developpment to a useful encyclopedia.
+1, for what it's worth.
regards, Gerrit Holl.