on 4/2/08 2:58 PM, daniwo59@aol.com at daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Gerard is absolutely correct here. It may be the job of the WMF to create a record of all languages living and dead, but it is not the job of the WMF to create living languages from dead ones.
D
In a message dated 4/2/2008 1:58:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, gerard.meijssen@gmail.com writes:
Hoi, You do not discover about a language when in the process you change it beyond recognition. The correct word for such an endeavour is called reconstruction. When we tell people we have a Wikipedia in a language and people turn to it in order to learn that language, we do them a disservice. This is quit against what the Wikimedia Foundation stands for because in this way we do not provide valid information. Thanks, GerardM
BOTH of you, I am not talking about "changing" anything. I am not a believer in the premise that "observing an object, alters it". If that were true, in my profession, I would be considered a sorcerer :-). To change something you must act upon it. I am talking about creating new ways of looking at old things; and discovering things we never new about them before. And, BTW, a language never dies so long as at least two people are still using it. And, the idea of discouraging anyone from creating a project to study and to learn from something is incompressible to me.
Marc Riddell