The thing is, LSC is not a language. It is a standardized dialect.
In fact, it is the official standard of the Sardinian regional government, unlike most other "standardized dialects" of minority languages in Europe (for example last time I checked, Limburgish, Lombard, Sicilian, Aragonese, do not have "official" standard forms).
Practically, linguistically, the "Sardinian language" of that macrolanguage can be divided in two parts - Corso-Sardinian, or Sassarese and Gallurese, and Autochtonous Sardinian, which includes Logudorese and Campidanese.
Legally, as far as the Sardinian region is concerned, there are 5 native languages in Sardinia: "Sardinian" including Logudorese and Campidanese, Sassarese, Gallurese, Catalan (in Alghera), and Tabarkinu (an old dialect of Ligurian).
I personally think it is wrong to say that Sardinians should be required to allow Logudorese and Capidanese "vernacular" writing in their pages - why don't you make es.wp allow Andalusian colloquial vernacular, or make the Italian Wikipedia allow Roman dialect? Linguistically, according to ISO, those varieties are part of those languages...
But those Wikipedias use a standard language. Just because ISO has separated Logudorese and Campidanese, whether it is correct or not, does not seem an approrpriate reason to split an existing Wikipedia.
However, I do personally believe that if someone requested a separate Logudorese Wikipedia it should be granted... but I do not see why a new request must be submitted to IANA by anybody at all.
Mark
On 10/09/2007, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
There is a Wikipedia in the Sardinian languagehttp://sc.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A0gina_printzipale. It uses the sc ISO-639-1 code. What was known as Sardinian became srd in the ISO-639-2. In the ISO-639-3 it was recognised as a macrolanguagehttp://www.sil.org/iso639-3/scope.asp#M; practically what was called Sardinian was split into four languageshttp://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=srd .
The Italian government has officially recognised the Sardinian language or the "Limba Sarda Comune". This is in essence a constructed language as it tries to make one language out of the four "dialects". One of the effects has been that some people prevent others from writing in one of the four languages on the sc.wikpedia.
The language committee of the Wikimedia Foundation has a request to approve a new language; one of the Sardinian languages, Sassarese with ISO code sdc.
There are two problems to deal with:
- The "Limba Sarda Comune" is not recognised as a language
- The proponents of the "Limba Sarda Comune" reserve the
sc.wikipediafor their language
This issue is political. The first thing that I understand when you go to the official website http://www.sardegnacultura.it/linguasarda/ is the notion of identity and indeed, to create one Sardinian identity it would be instrumental to have a unifying language. However, the map of the Sardinian languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lingue_di_Sardegna_mod.gif is clear, the island is divided in four.
Given that the language committee has as one of its rules that political arguments are not accepted, there are a few conclusions that we should make.
- Sassarese can have a conditional approval
- We urge the proponents of the Limba Sarda Comune to ask for the
recognition of this newly constructed language from ISO.
I have had a chat with Debbie Garsidehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_board#Debbie_Garsideabout all this, and I understand that it is necessary to apply for an ISO-639-3 code before an IANA language code is likely to be approved. At least fifty published works in the Limba Sarda Comune will be required. Thanks, GerardM _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l