Tim, it is my belief that Wikipedia's goal is, or if it isn't taht it
should be, to provide a free, neutral, and hopefully accurate for
every person on earth in "their own language".
Jimbo claimed that when he said something to that effect, "own
language" meant simply some language they understand. However, as
Anthere made very clear when saying that English is NOT her "own
language" even though she is obviously quite fluent, one's "own
language" is the language of their hearth.
A man born and raised with Nuorese Sardinian, but who at the age of 18
moved to Rome and has since lived and worked among almost exclusively
non-Sardinian-speakers for the last 30 or even 50 years, his "own
language" is still Nuorese.
In Shigeru Kayano's world, there aren't many people with whom he can
converse in his native Ainu tongue anymore. When he was a member of
the diet (Japanese parliament), obviously all motions, new laws, and
everything else was done in Japanese, with an occasional translation
into English being published as an afterthought.
All the radio interviews he did, the vast majority of the people he
met, probably 99% of letters he got from his constituents, his utility
bills, and nearly everything else about his life was conducted
exclusively in Japanese. Yet he will tell you firmly that "his own
language" is Ainu.
He is fluent in Japanese, and has been since a relatively young age.
But his comprehension level is still better in Ainu, the language in
which he forms thoughts, the language in which he dreams.
He said in an interview once that everything he says, he formulates in
Ainu and translates it into Japanese before saying it.
His final speech before the Diet, he made in Ainu. In many countries,
he couldn'tve done this, as they have rules restricting the languages
you can use to make speeches before government bodies. But since Japan
hadn't ever had it come up before, he was free to do so, and he wore
traditional Ainu dress when he did so. (afterwards he wrote a book
called "ainugoga kokkaini hibiku", meaning roughly "the ainu language
resounds through the diet")
It isn't known how many native speakers of Ainu remain. One problem
which is shared with many other "endangered languages" is that of who
can and cannot be classified as a native speaker.
One woman learnt Ainu natively, but at a very young age her exposure
to Ainu was cut off completely. She could speak Ainu relatively
fluently, but only to talk about her childhood (I believe she's passed
on now). Other people can speak a great deal of Ainu, but pepper it
with Japanese words and expressions. Some people can understand even
very complex constructions in Ainu, but can't speak it. Some can only
speak it to certain people (I met somebody once who could speak
O'odham fluently, but only to their grandparents).
Many, or even most of these people, could "recover" their native
language with a little bit of effort. Until recently, they preferred
to hide it away, and one woman whose sister was a prized orator
revealed upon her sister's death that she was actually a very fluent
speaker. She said that when her sister died, she realised that she was
hiding an important cultural asset, and that she should be proud of it
and share it with others rather than just pretending she doesn't know
the language.
All speakers of Ainu are fluent in Japanese, just as all speakers of
Klingon are fluent in English. The difference between them is that
with Klingon, it is for none of its speakers a language they can call
their "own language".
--------------
In response to what Boris has said, all Wikipedias must at some point
be inactive. When br.wiki was first created, it lay dormant and empty
and open to vandalism for a while. Somebody came then, added 50 or so
pages, and then just left again. Now, a few months ago, all of a
sudden 3 native speakers descended on the Wikipedia and started adding
pages slowly. Then, another new person came, and he added long,
quality, new pages at lightning speed (a few a day). Now, the Breton
Wikipedia is growing quickly.
The Georgian and Armenian Wikipedias are also good examples. For a
long time, they were empty, dormant, and frequently vandalised. And
then, all of a sudden, from nowhere, came native speakers who improved
these projects. ka.wiki (georgian) now has over 1000 articles.
The Limburgish Wikipedia is an even better example. It had basically
no content, and Elian proposed it to be locked. I added a table of
contents, tried to translate it into what poor Limburgish I could
muster, and tried to make the mainpage look inviting. I sent e-mails
to people, but got no response.
Then, a couple of months later, it was discovered by Kasper ("Guaka")
and another guy (forgot his name), who began to add content.
(actually, I think Kasper already knew but forgot about it or
something). It grew very slowly until Wouter Steenbeek ("HaafLimbo",
"Caesarion", etc etc) arrived, and he added new pages - long, good,
detailed ones - at a rate of a few per day. He did slow down a little
by now, and the Wikipedia doesn't grow as fast, but it is still
growing at a considerable rate and is fast approaching 1000 articles.
As the founding members of ja: can attest, initially it was a
wasteland with even some vandalism. And they made it better.
It's so amazing, from my point of view. I monitor a list of recent
changes on inactive Wikipedias. I am always very excited when I get to
remove a Wikipedia from the list. So far, I have removed perhaps 10...
Aragonese, Limburgish, Georgian, Armenian, Sicilian, Kashmiri, Scots
Gaelic, I don't remember them all... I will remove the Breton
Wikipedia when somebody translates the interface, although I no longer
actually _monitor_ it since it has usually around 100 new changes each
day.
Bengali and Telugu may go in the near future as well, but there are
still some minor outstanding issues with them.
Most of the people who make these Wikipedias active are newbies.
They've never heard of Wikipedia before, or they've at least never
visited it prior to that.
Most of these people would not have the courage to request tht their
Wikipedia be unlocked.
Mark
On 09/07/05, Tim Starling <t.starling(a)physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
Strongly disagreed. That point of view would make
most Wikipedias wastes
of time. Everyone speaking Limburgic can read Dutch better. Virtually
everyone speaking Welsh, Navajo, and Maori can read English better.
Everyone able to read Bambara is supposed to read French as well.
Wikipedias contribute to the status of a language and the community it
is spoken by. The fact that Klingon is (probably) noone's native
language makes a difference, but not entirely a substantial one: it is a
nice thing to have, and it can and will benefit the Klingon speaking
communities which often meet and use the language quite prominently. It
becomes a diiferent story when noone reads it, even when reaching a high
number of articles.
I have trouble relating to this. What do you think Wikipedia's goals are
(or should be)? Why do you contribute to Wikipedia?
-- Tim Starling
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE