When writing on Phase II, I was thinking about little flags for the different languages. We'd just need a merged GB/US flag for en.wikipedia.com...
I don't like flags, and I guess many others also don't like them. If we really need some kind picture to represent a language, then please let's choose an image of a famous person who used this language to produce something important/famous/extraordinary/...
I don't like the idea of a "portal" page at all, and the idea of using flags is even worse; flags represent /countries/, and the very concept of "country" is something I want nothing to do with.
I do, however, like the idea of representing languages with images of famous contributors in that language; this could be used in lots of places writing about Wikipedia. I'd suggest Shakespeare, Hugo, Cervantes as the obvious English/French/Spanish ones. I don't know who would be appropriate for the others.
I don't see what's won with that - in most cases it would cost me quite some time to recognize a person, and I would therefore consider it a waste of space. Be that as it may, I think Goethe is the obvious choice for [de:], and Multatuli for [nl:]. With some more doubt, I would propose Dante for [it:], although I don't know whether there is any image of him. For [la:] I am doubting between Cicero and Julius Caesar, while for [eo:] Zamenhoff himself looks like an obvious choice. Maybe Tolstoy for [ru:]?
Andre Engels