on 4/2/08 2:58 PM, daniwo59(a)aol.com at daniwo59(a)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(a)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