Hi everyone,
ok Mark, you asked for it. Here is my opinion. (Meinung, nicht Deinung, Wirung oder Unserung, if you understand this German pun.)
The Belarusan language is spoken by 9,081,102 people worldwide according to the Ethnologue; in Belarus it is spoken by 6,715,000, or 65% of the population (most of the rest are native speakers of Russian, Trasianka, Yiddish, Polish, or Ukrainian).
9 Mio is quite a lot.
In Belarusan schools, the Belarusan language is a cumpulsory subject for all students who wish to graduate, totalling on average between 75,000 and 100,000 per year (graduates).
The Belarusan language used in schools and by the government and by the vast majority of the Belarusan people is called Narkamauka, codified in the 1960s.
Ah, this means that there is an official standard. That is fine. That makes things a lot easier.
However, some Belarusan nationalists favour a return to the older Belarusan codified in the 1920s, called Tarashkievitsa. Some of the more radical nationalists also favour a switch to the Latin alphabet, called Latsinka.
Wikipedia should use an official standard, if there is one. Here we do have one, so use it.
Currently there is a fight on Meta between proponents of the official Belarusan and proponents of the alternative Belarusan.
By sheer chance, the proponents of the alternative style were the first to arrive at be.wikipedia, and all of the administrators there write in the alternative style, and the entire interface is written in it too.
That is unfortunate.
New articles are supposedly allowed to be written in either variety, however the vast majority of existing articles are written in the alternative style. According to proponents of the official orthography, this makes it intimidating to newcomers, and they give that as the reason why the Belarusan Wikipedia is so small still.
It does not make much sense to mix. We have been very unhappy with mixed dialects in the Low Saxon wikipedia. After a lot of discussion and a lot of struggle agains a lone crusader (node_ue :) )we finally managed to have nds.wikipedia.org PLUS nds-nl.wikipedia.org. Now the western folks are happy and we are happy and both wikipedias are flowrishing.
The main question is whether or not these two Belorussian groups can get along with each other. If the differences are so big that they cannot cooperate, then they should get two wikipedias. (This seems to be the case) BUT the main wikipedia (the one with the official ISO-code) should be the one using the official language that is taught in the schools.
So the real question is: should the alternative people get their alternative wikipedia. My answer is: yes. Development of underdeveloped languages is an important task and if the Wikipedia can help, that is fine. If they really think that they can give an important cultural input into the further development of the Belorussion language, then I see no reason to put stumbling blocks on their road. Time will show, whether or not they make progress. Give both teams a chance, leave them alone, let them do their work. Revisit in a year and see what happens.
In this case I think it is appropriate for the international Wikimedia community to get involved. Clearly a neutral third party is needed to evaluate the claims of both sides and make things right.
It is always better to provide opportunities instead of taking opportunities away.
Kind regards,
Heiko Evermann