Some interesting demographic data for main space edits to our largest Wikipedia projects may be found at http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
My thanks to Greg Maxwell for his invaluable assistance generating this data.
Some observations * NL and BE are language sluts. * ptwiki gets quite a bit more edits from BR than from PT, although almost 75% of edits from PT are to ptwiki. * MX has a depressingly low participation in eswiki.
Not reported in the data on the page, but possibly of interest: US accounts for 27.61% of edits to the projects sampled, followed by DE at 10.01% and GB at 8.15%.
Kelly
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
Some interesting demographic data for main space edits to our largest Wikipedia projects may be found at http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
Typo: wkimedia.org seems to belong to a domainsquatter - try: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin ;-)
- d.
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin ;-)
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hoi, There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English is the only one that has it's Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:AU
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
;-)
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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That would be native languages... add another several dozen for the immigrants and second language learners, which is who I think Akash was referring to.
Brianna
On 04/09/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English is the only one that has it's Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:AU
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
;-)
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hoi, Maybe, but isn't it sad that the Australian languages are doing so poorly ? Thanks, GerardM
On 9/4/06, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
That would be native languages... add another several dozen for the immigrants and second language learners, which is who I think Akash was referring to.
Brianna
On 04/09/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English
is
the only one that has it's Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:AU
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
;-)
- d.
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Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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I suppose thats the sad truth. Native languages are becoming extinct, slowly but steadily, and the few major international ones brought in by immigrants (like me!) are the few that prosper - besides English of course.
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Maybe, but isn't it sad that the Australian languages are doing so poorly ? Thanks, GerardM
On 9/4/06, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
That would be native languages... add another several dozen for the immigrants and second language learners, which is who I think Akash was referring to.
Brianna
On 04/09/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English
is
the only one that has it's Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:AU
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
;-)
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Native aboriginal languages? I meant languages like english, german, greek, spanish, french etc. Is there a greek wikipedia?
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English is the only one that has it's Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:AU
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
;-)
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hoi, English is considered to be a living language of Australia according to Ethnologue. And it is in this long list of languages. Yes, there is a Greek Wikipedia; http://el.wikipedia.org Thanks, GerardM
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Native aboriginal languages? I meant languages like english, german, greek, spanish, french etc. Is there a greek wikipedia?
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English
is
the only one that has it's Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:AU
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
;-)
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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On 04/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Native aboriginal languages? I meant languages like english, german, greek, spanish, french etc. Is there a greek wikipedia?
Um ... yes. Go to http://www.wikipedia.org/ and see the links.
- d.
On 04/09/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English is the only one that has it's Wikipedia.
If you mean the native languages, the problem is that a lot of them weren't written until recently, not many are used for any academic purpose (though some notably are) and orthographies vary widely. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_of_Australian_Aboriginal_language... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_sign_languages
So what we need for a Wikipedia is a few people who speak the languages and want to do a Wikipedia of a language.
- d.
A few people? Ideally a wikipedia would have 20-30 contributors to start with and grow from there, to ensure that there is some sort of editing activity. A few of the inactive wikipedias appear to have five - six edits a day.
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
There are some 231 living languages spoken in Australia. I think English is the only one that has it's Wikipedia.
If you mean the native languages, the problem is that a lot of them weren't written until recently, not many are used for any academic purpose (though some notably are) and orthographies vary widely. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_of_Australian_Aboriginal_language... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_sign_languages
So what we need for a Wikipedia is a few people who speak the languages and want to do a Wikipedia of a language.
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 04/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
or perhaps http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki).
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 12.7% of people in the 2001 Census speak a language other than English at home. Full stats:
http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310116.NSF/85255e31005a1918852556c2005508... (Excel spreadsheet ... I shudder to think what they're using for a CMS to get URLs like that)
How regularly are the stats updated?
Yes, we need dates on the dataset. I want to refer to this page for press reasons - en:wp editors by country is something they're interested in for some reason.
- d.
On 04/09/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 12.7% of people in the 2001 Census speak a language other than English at home. Full stats:
http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310116.NSF/85255e31005a1918852556c2005508...
(corrected URL-from-Hell)
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 04/09/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 12.7% of people in the 2001 Census speak a language other than English at home. Full stats:
<snip>
(corrected URL-from-Hell)
Ever heard of tinyurl? :)
Custom made in-house, terrible recode of Mambo or outsourced most likely. A friend of mine made a CMS for his school and stored all the data in mysql, assigning each file a unique identifier that appeared in the url. The value of this unique identifier? md5 of the filename and md5 of the file put together.
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310116.NSF/85255e31005a1918852556c2005508...
(Excel spreadsheet ... I shudder to think what they're using for a CMS to get URLs like that)
On 04/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Custom made in-house, terrible recode of Mambo or outsourced most likely. A friend of mine made a CMS for his school and stored all the data in mysql, assigning each file a unique identifier that appeared in the url. The value of this unique identifier? md5 of the filename and md5 of the file put together.
**SPORK** That makes the Database Jesus cry.
- d.
Is this database Jesus built around a proprietary MSSQL specification by any chance?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Custom made in-house, terrible recode of Mambo or outsourced most likely. A friend of mine made a CMS for his school and stored all the data in mysql, assigning each file a unique identifier that appeared in the url. The value of this unique identifier? md5 of the filename and md5 of the file put together.
**SPORK** That makes the Database Jesus cry.
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
These stats are not yet regularily updated; generating them is still a manual process. We might automate it in the future.
Note that the data collection process does not sample "small" projects yet; we don't yet know how many edits AU editors make to small languages. If and when we successfully automate the process, we may start doing regular runs against all projects.
Kelly
On 9/4/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
90% of australians edit on the enwiki only :( I'm sure there are many more than 10% of AUS wiki users who are fluent in a second language of which there is a wiki (frankly you'd be hard pressed to find a language spoken by Australians that didn't have a wiki). How regularly are the stats updated?
On 9/4/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/09/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
or perhaps http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin ;-)
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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HoI, Thanks for the positive apreciation of the Dutch and Belgian effort. There is no positive meaning to the word slut.. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut
Thanks, GerardM
Or is this a "jest"?
On 9/4/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
Some interesting demographic data for main space edits to our largest Wikipedia projects may be found at http://meta.wkimedia.org/wiki/Edits_by_project_and_country_of_origin.
My thanks to Greg Maxwell for his invaluable assistance generating this data.
Some observations
- NL and BE are language sluts.
- ptwiki gets quite a bit more edits from BR than from PT, although
almost 75% of edits from PT are to ptwiki.
- MX has a depressingly low participation in eswiki.
Not reported in the data on the page, but possibly of interest: US accounts for 27.61% of edits to the projects sampled, followed by DE at 10.01% and GB at 8.15%.
Kelly _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
HoI, Thanks for the positive apreciation of the Dutch and Belgian effort. There is no positive meaning to the word slut.. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut
Thanks, GerardM
I think it was meant to be humorous, since normally *English* is the slut of languages, as has been pointed out because of its indiscriminate importation of words. At least, that's how I read it.
~maru
That would make sense at the least. English has always been seen as overcomplicated, as opposed to simple languages like German (maybe thats why de wiki has so many contributors?).
On 9/4/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
HoI, Thanks for the positive apreciation of the Dutch and Belgian effort. There is no positive meaning to the word slut.. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut
Thanks, GerardM
I think it was meant to be humorous, since normally *English* is the slut of languages, as has been pointed out because of its indiscriminate importation of words. At least, that's how I read it.
~maru _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Ec
Akash Mehta wrote:
That would make sense at the least. English has always been seen as overcomplicated, as opposed to simple languages like German (maybe thats why de wiki has so many contributors?).
On 9/4/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
HoI, Thanks for the positive apreciation of the Dutch and Belgian effort. There is no positive meaning to the word slut.. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut
Thanks, GerardM
I think it was meant to be humorous, since normally *English* is the slut of languages, as has been pointed out because of its indiscriminate importation of words. At least, that's how I read it.
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Ec
Oh, c'mon. That old prejudice? Is English really more complex than Japanese, or Sumerian and Akkadian and Sanskrit? I greatly doubt it.
~maru
Hi!
I'd say that english is the easiest language I've ever met. Its grammar can be written in 20-30 pages, and basically you need only the first 3-4 to become an average speaker. BTW, this is also one of the reasons why it's so wide-spread. Having a lightweight grammar allows speakers to save memory for more words: if you look at an english dictionary it's going to be huge, if confronted (say) to italian. But if you confront grammar/dictionary pairs the overall weight gets more equilibrated.
if you want something more "strong" for grammar, you should try piedmontese and/or russian. One may object to the way english is written (that is, syllabically instead of alfabetically), but that's not going to stop people from learning to write in it, it only makes it more complicated as a spoken language. Besides, closely related languages like dutch (and even more closely related frisian) all have this derivation, because of the high number of vowels they use. So this is not even typically english.
If I have to say the plain truth, I guess english speakers love to rate their language difficult as an excuse for their being usually unable to learn just even a second language :) They mastered such a terrible language as english, so they now have the right to take a nap :) Anyway, in the next ten years native english speakers will really become a minority on the net, so I guess we (the not natives) will eventually enforce radical reforms in the language, by pure brute force. It already happened in small with en_us, it's going to big really big with en_int.
Bèrto
----- Исходное сообщение ----- От: "maru dubshinki" marudubshinki@gmail.com Кому: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Отправлено: 4 сентября 2006 г. 21:20 Тема: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Edits by project and country of origin
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Ec
Oh, c'mon. That old prejudice? Is English really more complex than Japanese, or Sumerian and Akkadian and Sanskrit? I greatly doubt it.
~maru _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 04/09/06, Berto albertoserra@ukr.net wrote:
I'd say that english is the easiest language I've ever met. Its grammar can be written in 20-30 pages, and basically you need only the first 3-4 to
Speaking *excellent* English is a lot more work, but I don't see that it would be any more than any other language. (Note that I speak no other languages.)
If I have to say the plain truth, I guess english speakers love to rate their language difficult as an excuse for their being usually unable to learn just even a second language :)
Nah, that's just not bothering because they don't have to.
Anyway, in the next ten years native english speakers will really become a minority on the net, so I guess we (the not natives) will eventually enforce radical reforms in the language, by pure brute force. It already happened in small with en_us, it's going to big really big with en_int.
Will they notice? The American Empire will need to fall first. (Starting with the US dollar bubble bursting.)
- d.
Hi!
Speaking *excellent* English is a lot more work, but I don't see that it would be any more than any other language. (Note that I speak no other languages.)
Yes... but then, you'll end up as in the joke, where "classical theater is when the actors are so english that you cannot understand what they say":) It actually already happens. More and more cases are reported, when non-native en-speakers undertand each other perfectly in english> but need an interpreter to relate to native speakers. AS per myself I love UK english much better (have many more friends living under the rule of H.M. :)
Nah, that's just not bothering because they don't have to.
True, most of my friends do barging in France and\or Holland, and as soon as they started to live abroad they also started to learn that there is much more than english, out there :)
Will they notice? The American Empire will need to fall first. (Starting with the US dollar bubble bursting.)
It's already happening. Not sure that we will not miss the American Empire once it will be gone (there always room for the worse) but I'm pretty sure that I will not die under its rule. Economy talks, and migratory movements are simply impossible to manage. In a couple of generations or so the most read wiki in the US will be ES:wiki. And that's the end of America, at least, in the way we are used to perceive it. Not that Europe faces a different destiny...
In a thousand years or so, there will be people speking of neo-anglians languages... and it will be the start of another fashinating story :) But that's something you and I will not see :)
Bèrto
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Oh, c'mon. That old prejudice? Is English really more complex than Japanese, or Sumerian and Akkadian and Sanskrit? I greatly doubt it.
Huh? I think you misread what I said.
Ec
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Oh, c'mon. That old prejudice? Is English really more complex than Japanese, or Sumerian and Akkadian and Sanskrit? I greatly doubt it.
Huh? I think you misread what I said.
Ec
Apparently. Chinese is far from simple, so the only logical way I could read it was as sarcasm and understatement. What did you mean?
~maru
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Oh, c'mon. That old prejudice? Is English really more complex than Japanese, or Sumerian and Akkadian and Sanskrit? I greatly doubt it.
Huh? I think you misread what I said.
Apparently. Chinese is far from simple, so the only logical way I could read it was as sarcasm and understatement. What did you mean?
By virtue of their historic development and grammar English and Chinese are linguistically among the simplest languages. Why would you say that Chinese is not simple?
Ec
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Oh, c'mon. That old prejudice? Is English really more complex than Japanese, or Sumerian and Akkadian and Sanskrit? I greatly doubt it.
Huh? I think you misread what I said.
Apparently. Chinese is far from simple, so the only logical way I could read it was as sarcasm and understatement. What did you mean?
By virtue of their historic development and grammar English and Chinese are linguistically among the simplest languages. Why would you say that Chinese is not simple?
Ec
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Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html
I know, because I have Chinese class in about two and a half hours and I've been trying to comprehend the textbook (it's all in Chinese) for the last week and I'm still only about four and a half paragraphs in. :-)
On 9/5/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Oh, c'mon. That old prejudice? Is English really more complex than Japanese, or Sumerian and Akkadian and Sanskrit? I greatly doubt it.
Huh? I think you misread what I said.
Apparently. Chinese is far from simple, so the only logical way I could read it was as sarcasm and understatement. What did you mean?
By virtue of their historic development and grammar English and Chinese are linguistically among the simplest languages. Why would you say that Chinese is not simple?
Ec
Because of articles I've read like these: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/skozerow/langdiff.htm http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewbaxter/howhard.html
~maru
How would you define "simple" -- Personally I'm not sure that I'd say that any natural language is simple.
Fran
On Mon, 2006-09-04 at 10:42 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
Ec
Akash Mehta wrote:
That would make sense at the least. English has always been seen as overcomplicated, as opposed to simple languages like German (maybe thats why de wiki has so many contributors?).
On 9/4/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
HoI, Thanks for the positive apreciation of the Dutch and Belgian effort. There is no positive meaning to the word slut.. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut
Thanks, GerardM
I think it was meant to be humorous, since normally *English* is the slut of languages, as has been pointed out because of its indiscriminate importation of words. At least, that's how I read it.
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On 04/09/06, Francis Tyers spectre@ivixor.net wrote:
On Mon, 2006-09-04 at 10:42 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
How would you define "simple" -- Personally I'm not sure that I'd say that any natural language is simple.
[greatly oversimplified history]
For a long while, English was the language of the lower classes, and its grammar simplified greatly because it wasn't used to say much more complicated than "Hey, Joe, where do we plant the turnips?" When it came back into fashion with the middle to upper classes, there were more complicated things to say (the sort of things you have time to worry about when you're not spending all your time on subsistence), so it started taking vocabulary on from elsewhere, and hasn't stopped. The vocabulary of English is *ridiculously* large compared to other European languages. The grammar is somewhat simpler. Pity about the spelling.
I don't know anything about Chinese (any of the spoken languages) to compare.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 04/09/06, Francis Tyers spectre@ivixor.net wrote:
On Mon, 2006-09-04 at 10:42 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
It depends on what you mean by a simple language. English is second only to Chinese in its simplicity.
How would you define "simple" -- Personally I'm not sure that I'd say that any natural language is simple.
[greatly oversimplified history]
For a long while, English was the language of the lower classes, and its grammar simplified greatly because it wasn't used to say much more complicated than "Hey, Joe, where do we plant the turnips?" When it came back into fashion with the middle to upper classes, there were more complicated things to say (the sort of things you have time to worry about when you're not spending all your time on subsistence), so it started taking vocabulary on from elsewhere, and hasn't stopped. The vocabulary of English is *ridiculously* large compared to other European languages. The grammar is somewhat simpler. Pity about the spelling.
Perhaps, as you say, oversimplified but the important points are there. It's the grammar that I consider most important, particularly the lack of complicated inflections. Joe wasn't worried about finding the correct accusative plural for "turnip" which the corresponding Latin sentence would require. This makes syntax and word order more important. English forms new words easily, and does not worry about an Académie Anglaise to debate and dictatate what those words will mean or whether they will be words. The new words are often easier to understand than the old ones, and can be context driven. Having Britannia rule the waves for a couple centuries was also an effective marketting tool for the language, as has the more recent dominance of a country with a similar language.
The spelling has lagged behind, and there is a continuing effort by some to fix that, but that's just a matter of time.
I don't know anything about Chinese (any of the spoken languages) to compare.
Chinese has even less inflection than English, and has retained its stability for a very long time. Very old texts are still readable. Of course the script is a deterent to many outsiders, but there is a peculiar logical structure to the traditional Chinese characters that has contributed to the stability.
Ec
On Mon, 04 Sep 2006, David Gerard wrote:
[greatly oversimplified history]
I speak French to a reasonable degree, and have travelled to plenty of places where English is not the first language.
I find that I can simplify my English - short sentences, easy words, repeat for emphasis - and can be easily understood by a non-native speaker.
I think English is one of the easier languages to speak and be understood, and probably one of the hardest to speak as a native. Things like collective nouns add no extra information, but considerably add to the vocabulary.
But you can brutalise English and still be understood, which I gather is not the case for Chinese.
Cheers, Andy!
On 06/09/06, Andy Rabagliati andyr@wizzy.com wrote:
I find that I can simplify my English - short sentences, easy words, repeat for emphasis - and can be easily understood by a non-native speaker.
Oh no! You mean http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Foreigner was *right*?
- d.
On 9/6/06, Andy Rabagliati andyr@wizzy.com wrote:
But you can brutalise English and still be understood, which I gather is not the case for Chinese.
Grammar for Chinese is very simple, with no conjugation of verbs. But learning the first 1,000 characters can be a pain. :) For those not used to tonal languages, pronunciation is often challenging.
Add on top of that - there are a wide variety of computer input methods for Chinese, so sitting down in front of the random computer may or may not allow you to enter Chinese they way you're used to.
But for zh:I was surprised to see the bulk of contributions coming from HK, and so many from NL...
zhwiki (1.5%): HK: 28.6%, TW: 25.9%, US: 13.7%, NL: 8.2%, CN: 6.1%, DE: 3.6%, BE: 2.3%, CA: 2.0%, FR: 1.3%, MO: 1.2%, JP: 1.2%, all others: 5.9%
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On 06/09/06, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
But for zh:I was surprised to see the bulk of contributions coming from HK, and so many from NL...
So Wikipedia isn't firewalled from HK, just from mainland China?
I'm not surprised Taiwan's contribution level is comparable.
- d.
On 9/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/09/06, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
But for zh:I was surprised to see the bulk of contributions coming from HK, and so many from NL...
So Wikipedia isn't firewalled from HK, just from mainland China?
I'm not surprised Taiwan's contribution level is comparable.
Right - Hong Kong is completely free media-wise and Internet-wise. Wikipedia's never been blocked there and nor will it be anytime soon.
As for Taiwan, I'm surprised they don't make up a larger percentage, since they have 3x the population and, from what I know, are more focused on study in Chinese language than in HK.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
Stats: zhwiki (1.5%): HK: 28.6%, TW: 25.9%, US: 13.7%, NL: 8.2%, CN: 6.1%, DE: 3.6%, BE: 2.3%, CA: 2.0%, FR: 1.3%, MO: 1.2%, JP: 1.2%, all others: 5.9%
Andy Rabagliati wrote:
But you can brutalise English and still be understood, which I gather is not the case for Chinese.
I think this is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy: semi-fluent or even broken English can be understood because people are used to reading or hearing it, since it's a common second or third or fourth language. Compare to, say, modern Greek, where people are astounded to even hear it language spoken with a foreign accent---generally you either speak it natively or not at all, so people aren't used to making sense of semi-fluent speech/writing.
-Mark
On 9/4/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
HoI, Thanks for the positive apreciation of the Dutch and Belgian effort. There is no positive meaning to the word slut.. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut
Hehe. It is a jest of sorts, yes: it merely means that the Dutch and Belgians don't appear to be very picky who they converse with. :)
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
- NL and BE are language sluts.
This does not seem very likely. I just don't see 26.7% Dutch contributors on the Danish Wikipedia. Who are they?
Even if you did include some interwiki link robot in the statistics, 26.7% of all contributions (or contributors?) seems far too much.
That users in Belgium are split between French and Dutch is the nature of this country. Belgium originates 1.8% of all contributions, which is also reasonable.
It's the number of users from the Netherlands that are far too many, 6.1% of all contributors, ranking as the 4th contributor country. They should rank lower then contributors from France (5.6%) and closer to Belgium. Perhaps they should be half their present number (3.1%).
I guess the odd statistics could be explained by some major ISP (UPC/Chello?) reporting their entire European network to be located in the Netherlands. Did you check this?
Assuming that half of the reported number are real Dutchmen, that would put their contributions 66% in the Dutch Wikipedia, 25% in the English Wikipedia, and 9% in other places. The other half of the alleged Dutchmen could be equally distributed among other European countries. The reported Dutch contributions to other languages could be moved to each native country, thus the Danish Wikipedia would have 54.8 + 26.7 = 81.5% contributions from Denmark. That makes more sense.
You need to fix the error in the geolocation database, or to exclude the IP addresses that you fail to locate correctly. Alternatively, you could count the problematic ISP as a virtual country of its own. Just don't count them as Dutch people.
On 9/4/06, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote: [snip]
You need to fix the error in the geolocation database, or to exclude the IP addresses that you fail to locate correctly. Alternatively, you could count the problematic ISP as a virtual country of its own. Just don't count them as Dutch people.
Although it's quite possible, and even likely, that some are misreported the claim that users from NL and BE are highly multilingual is supported by data across more than a dozen wikis.
The geolocation database I used is believed to be fairly accurate for country data, but swapping around some ISPs wouldn't be unlikely. There is a more accurate version of the database available for a fee, although I believe the increase in accurate is mostly in the form of identifying cities.
I could put up a tool on toolserver which will output "Based on your IP, you are in country X. If this is correct click yes. If this is incorrect select your real country code from this list...". Do you think people would use it?
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Although it's quite possible, and even likely, that some are misreported the claim that users from NL and BE are highly multilingual is supported by data across more than a dozen wikis.
Absolutely, all the honor to the Dutch and Belgians! But this cannot be taken to the level that they make up 26.7% of contributions to the Danish Wikipedia. The Danish Wikipedia was the most striking example, so I suggest you take a look at which IP address ranges (group by size /20 network) that contributed to the Danish Wikipedia were reported as coming from the Netherlands. It should be fairly easy to identify one or two big ISPs there. Then ask on the Danish village pump how this can be explained. Some local users are sure to know how their own IP addresses work. No need for separate tools, even though that could be nice too.
What was the name of the geolocation database you used?
I threw together some graphs:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Edits_by_wikipedia_edition_and_country_o...
Some of the country codes I'm not sure of, so please fix them if you know them.
To Greg Maxwell, Would it be possible to get this data for Commons? It would be immensely interesting and possiby useful, to see if we have obvious language gaps that need filling amongst our admins.
Also, are the numbers in brackets (eg - enwiki (48.0%)) percentages of total edits to all Wikimedia projects, all Wikipedias, or all the Wikipedias listed?
cheers Brianna user:pfctdayelise
On 9/6/06, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
Would it be possible to get this data for Commons? It would be immensely interesting and possiby useful, to see if we have obvious language gaps that need filling amongst our admins.
Greg has promised me numbers for *all* projects, but I don't know when he'll be able to get them to me.
Also, are the numbers in brackets (eg - enwiki (48.0%)) percentages of total edits to all Wikimedia projects, all Wikipedias, or all the Wikipedias listed?
All projects listed.
Kelly
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