Sj wrote:
This isn't to demean the rosetta project in any way; they already have content in thousands of languages, and a million dollar grant from the US government to continue their work. But I think one of Wikipedia's important side-effects is its potential to preserve (and store useful, even self-bootstrapping, content in) disappearing languages.
Well, if the goal is to preserve ancient texts in the language, I could see wikisource as being a better location. To have a viable Wikipedia, there needs to be an interest in using it as a living language, one in which you would write about everyday topics in. I can see this for some recently-revived languages---people might be interested in there being a Cornish Wikipedia their children can look up information in. But is anyone going to look up anything in a Gothic encyclopedia? Will there be articles on global warming written in Gothic? etc.
-Mark