No, it's a new conlang (well not really a conlang) called the Modern Egyptian Language. Is there any other language that has the abbreviation of "EG"?
- Mamduh Shawqi
From: Tim Starling ts4294967296@hotmail.com Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: I want to start a new language... with the code"eg" please. Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 17:54:17 +1000
Prince of Egypt wrote:
I would like to start a new langauge please. Can anyone help me with this? the code i want is "eg". it doesnt exist now in the list of available languages.
yours, Mamduh Shawqi
Do you want Ancient Egyptian? That would be "egy", not "eg" according to ISO 639.
-- Tim Starling
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On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 11:14:58AM +0300, Prince of Egypt wrote:
No, it's a new conlang (well not really a conlang) called the Modern Egyptian Language. Is there any other language that has the abbreviation of "EG"?
Which wikipedia article describes the language you would like to have? If there isn't any maybe there isn't much people interested in?
grin
Peter Gervai wrote:
On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 11:14:58AM +0300, Prince of Egypt wrote:
No, it's a new conlang (well not really a conlang) called the Modern Egyptian Language. Is there any other language that has the abbreviation of "EG"?
Which wikipedia article describes the language you would like to have? If there isn't any maybe there isn't much people interested in?
What is our policy on constructed languages? I ask because I'm really not sure.
My general feeling is that unless there's some very good reason not to have a particular language, we should have it. Some good reasons that I can think of: (1) the language is a joke or vanity project (2) the language is just a slight change of dialect from some other language.
For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think. It would be bad to have separate sites for British and American English.
And finally, I think that it's very very convenient for us to avoid arguments about this by reference to ISO standards. We could, in some cases, make exceptions, but we should be cautious about doing so.
--Jimbo
On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 08:32:45AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
What is our policy on constructed languages? I ask because I'm really not sure.
My general feeling is that unless there's some very good reason not to have a particular language, we should have it. Some good reasons that I can think of: (1) the language is a joke or vanity project (2) the language is just a slight change of dialect from some other language.
(3) we most likely will have the only encyclopedia in that language. Afaik that's true for Esperanto.
On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 08:32:45AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Peter Gervai wrote:
On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 11:14:58AM +0300, Prince of Egypt wrote:
No, it's a new conlang (well not really a conlang) called the Modern Egyptian Language. Is there any other language that has the abbreviation of "EG"?
Which wikipedia article describes the language you would like to have? If there isn't any maybe there isn't much people interested in?
What is our policy on constructed languages? I ask because I'm really not sure.
Ad-hoc. :)
My general feeling is that unless there's some very good reason not to have a particular language, we should have it. Some good reasons that I can think of: (1) the language is a joke or vanity project (2) the language is just a slight change of dialect from some other language.
My question was aimed exactly at point one: is that a joke or vanity language? If a language does not have a Wikipedia page which at least vaguely describes the language, should I consider it more than a joke, or a one-man experiment? (It's the same as creating original but completely useless and irrelevant articles in Wikipedia, which is - when I last checked - advised against, frowned upon. We have a wikipedian who created a conlang, would anyone agree to start a wikipedia for him?)
In this particular case it seems that this language doesn't even have an article (not even a stub) on Wikipedia.
For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think.
Klingon probably have more detailed description and vocabulary than, say, Toki Pona. (It is interesting for me to observe how these "extremely minority language" wikipedias live their lives. Even Latin seems to be half-dead, I have no illusions about other smaller ones.)
Not that I am for or against Klingonese (or, in fact, Modern Egyptian) wikipedia. If it's small, it doesn't need much disk space, and if it's big, then there's a reason for it to exist. Only problem is to have 197 wikipedias containing "huhuhu ahahhaa", "kilroy woz here" and "flip you all" messages... anyone checked for orphaned languages lately?
And finally, I think that it's very very convenient for us to avoid arguments about this by reference to ISO standards. We could, in some cases, make exceptions, but we should be cautious about doing so.
Sounds logical to me, and tough luck for modern egyptian...
Peter
Jimmy Wales wrote:
What is our policy on constructed languages?
You tell me ... from what I've heard it's pretty messed up :/
(1) the language is a joke or vanity project [...] For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think.
I totally don't get this. You call Klingon a "joke project" when it has a strong following, widespread enthusiasm, a complete grammar and vocabulary, etc., but then you allow something like Toki Pona, which is hardly even a language and arouses interest solely by being very much indistinguishable from a joke.
I don't understand this.
Timwi
(1) the language is a joke or vanity project [...] For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think.
I totally don't get this. You call Klingon a "joke project" when it has a strong following, widespread enthusiasm, a complete grammar and vocabulary, etc., but then you allow something like Toki Pona, which is hardly even a language and arouses interest solely by being very much indistinguishable from a joke.
Considering how difficult Klingon is, and how easy Toki Pona is, I believe the number of Toki Pona speakers already gets close to the number of Klingon speakers (and is probably growing more). Toki Pona is not just a joke, but rather a conlang linked to a certain ideology (a kind of Taoism). I wouldn't reject Klingon on the basis of it being spoken little, or it being a joke, but I think there are copyright issues about it (though I'm not an expert on that).
Anyway, I personally believe that for a conlang to be accepted in Wikipedia, it should be proved that at least three people know it (and hopefully some more can at least understand a bit), so that Wikipedia doesn't get misused for promoting completely personal conlangs. (Damn, that's going to affect my conlang Logli, but never mind.)
Additionally, copyright issues should be checked out in advance.
Marcos
Marcos Cramer wrote:
Anyway, I personally believe that for a conlang to be accepted in Wikipedia, it should be proved that at least three people know it (and hopefully some more can at least understand a bit), so that Wikipedia doesn't get misused for promoting completely personal conlangs. (Damn, that's going to affect my conlang Logli, but never mind.)
I would recommend a much higher threshold than 'three people'.
In the abscence of an ISO code, I think there needs to be an actual community of some size, as evidenced by publications, conventions, websites, mailing lists, and other things of that nature. I think there also needs to be a showing of actual interest from more than just one or two people.
--Jimbo
I would recommend a much higher threshold than 'three people'.
In the abscence of an ISO code, I think there needs to be an actual community of some size, as evidenced by publications, conventions, websites, mailing lists, and other things of that nature. I think there also needs to be a showing of actual interest from more than just one or two people.
Is disk space really so expensive that we need to be so strict with conlangs? If they are not very big, they are not going to take much disk space anyway.
Additionally, the argument about there being few changes on Toki Pona is flawed. The Toki Pona Wikipedia is more active than the Swahili Wikipedia, and has probably more useful information on it as well (the majority of articles on the Swahili Wikipedia are entries of a Swahili-English dictionary, not what Wikipedia should really be there for). But that doesn't imply that we should delete the Swahili Wikipedia.
Rather, I propose to allow any conlang that is actually used for communication. Three people knowing it well, and a few others understanding it a bit, can be enough for this.
Marcos.
"MC" == Marcos Cramer marcos.cramer@balliol.oxford.ac.uk writes:
MC> Is disk space really so expensive that we need to be so strict MC> with conlangs? If they are not very big, they are not going to MC> take much disk space anyway.
Disk space shouldn't be the issue. The issue is that a dead wiki is a security risk and a legal liability. It takes sysadmin time and effort to maintain.
MC> Rather, I propose to allow any conlang that is actually used MC> for communication. Three people knowing it well, and a few MC> others understanding it a bit, can be enough for this.
I'd say that any conlang advocates should just go out and create a wiki on another server. I think a conlang would benefit from a more open-ended wiki structure, anyways, rather than the kind of rigid divisions in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, etc.
A general wiki could have instructional texts, dictionary, translated works, original works, phrasebooks, discussion areas (for practicing the language), news, organizational discussion for meetings & clubs, etc. Of course, an encyclopedia could also be part of the mix.
MediaWiki is kinda hard to set up, but there are a ton of good Wiki engines out there that aren't.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines
I personally like PmWiki, since it's easily skinnable and extensible, and will run anywhere you can run PHP scripts.
There are a number of free (gratis) hosting services that allow PHP scripts.
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Hosting/Free/
Wikimedia is a great public service, but it's not the be-all and end-all of wiki.
~ESP
Evan-
MediaWiki is kinda hard to set up,
Bah - FUD, I say! 1) Download tarball 2) upload contents of tarball into directory on FTP server 3) Make directory tree server-writable 4) run config/ directory on webserver 5) Answer install questions 6) Copy LocalSettings.php to main directory
That's pretty much the same procedure as for any other LAMP application. I'd say that something like UseMod is in fact at least as hard to install. The difference is that MediaWiki offers some power features which make use of external apps, none of which (with the exception of ocaml for math support) are particularly exotic. But you don't need to enable any of these features. So I see no good reason to advertise other wiki software than our own.
Regards,
Erik
"EM" == Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de writes:
Me> MediaWiki is kinda hard to set up,
EM> Bah - FUD, I say!
Don't mistake me -- I was trying to forestall any objections that noone can run a wiki except Wikimedia.
EM> That's pretty much the same procedure as for any other LAMP EM> application.
Some other wiki engines leave out the M part, or make it optional, which makes them easier to run on free or low-cost hosting services where MySQL is unavailable or restricted.
EM> So I see no good reason to advertise other wiki software than EM> our own.
OK.
~ESP
Timwi wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
(1) the language is a joke or vanity project [...]
For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think.
I totally don't get this. You call Klingon a "joke project" when it has a strong following, widespread enthusiasm, a complete grammar and vocabulary, etc., but then you allow something like Toki Pona, which is hardly even a language and arouses interest solely by being very much indistinguishable from a joke.
I don't understand this.
I'm not sure what you think Jimmy had to do with that. I added Toki Pona since it was asked for several times without objections that I noticed, then afterwards several people objected strenuously on the mailing lists. So, we've put off any further 'young conlang' additions to the main Wikipedia project pending more conclusive resolution. (As a partial measure, the Toki Pona wiki was moved from a faux language code subdomain to a full name.)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
I added Toki Pona since it was asked for several times without objections that I noticed,
Klingon was asked for several times. I don't notice enough objection to a Klingon Wikipedia (much less any arguments that actually make sense) to justify forbidding it. Obviously, there is more objection now because we're talking about it. Toki Pona was never mentioned anywhere before it came into existance, so obviously there was no objection.
Additionally, to have a Klingon Wikipedia doesn't do any harm. It doesn't force anyone to contribute. Most people who "oppose" the Klingon Wikipedia are merely providing arguments for not contributing to it. The only arguments that actually oppose the introduction of a Klingon Wikipedia are (a) copyright problems (which we've established numerous times isn't an issue) and (b) reputation problems (which is a really dumb argument for keeping Toki Pona).
So, we've put off any further 'young conlang' additions to the main Wikipedia project pending more conclusive resolution.
This is unsatisfactory. This is like saying Toki Pona got lucky because it was there first. I think that's an extremely lame excuse for keeping Toki Pona while disallowing Klingon.
Additionally, what is your definition of a "young" conlang? I'm pretty sure that Klingon is at lesat five times as old as Toki Pona.
Timwi
A klingon wikipedia? isn't that from starwars? i don't think thats a real language... what's the point?
-Kit Langton
On May 18, 2004, at 9:40 PM, Timwi wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
I added Toki Pona since it was asked for several times without objections that I noticed,
Klingon was asked for several times. I don't notice enough objection to a Klingon Wikipedia (much less any arguments that actually make sense) to justify forbidding it. Obviously, there is more objection now because we're talking about it. Toki Pona was never mentioned anywhere before it came into existance, so obviously there was no objection.
Additionally, to have a Klingon Wikipedia doesn't do any harm. It doesn't force anyone to contribute. Most people who "oppose" the Klingon Wikipedia are merely providing arguments for not contributing to it. The only arguments that actually oppose the introduction of a Klingon Wikipedia are (a) copyright problems (which we've established numerous times isn't an issue) and (b) reputation problems (which is a really dumb argument for keeping Toki Pona).
So, we've put off any further 'young conlang' additions to the main Wikipedia project pending more conclusive resolution.
This is unsatisfactory. This is like saying Toki Pona got lucky because it was there first. I think that's an extremely lame excuse for keeping Toki Pona while disallowing Klingon.
Additionally, what is your definition of a "young" conlang? I'm pretty sure that Klingon is at lesat five times as old as Toki Pona.
Timwi
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
what are those? jk... however, itstead of having all of these "i dont really know what to call them" languages... why not just have a click away on the language thing.. where you choose the language that reads something that could be understood in all languages.. maybe a '...' or something. so the language list doesn't grow too big... and it is getting pretty big.. hard to find english sometimes.
-Kit Langton
On May 18, 2004, at 10:33 PM, Ralesk Ne'vennoyx wrote:
Kit Langton wrote:
A klingon wikipedia? isn't that from starwars? i don't think thats a real language... what's the point?
Star Trek.
And yes it’s more or less as "real" as Quenya or Esperanto.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Kit Langton wrote:
what are those? jk... however, itstead of having all of these "i dont really know what to call them" languages... why not just have a click away on the language thing.. where you choose the language that reads something that could be understood in all languages.. maybe a '...' or something. so the language list doesn't grow too big... and it is getting pretty big.. hard to find english sometimes.
No. “…”-ing it would involve discrimination against one or more languages, and that is something Wikipedia shouldn’t and won’t do.
I have been pondering about the idea of having a <SELECT>, that is, a drop-down list for going to another language of the article (as I guess you’re talking about the language links on the top of the page), but this would result in hardship of use, compared to the ease of hyperlinks.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
But this is rather unrelated to the current discussion about constructed languages.
Timwi wrote:
Additionally, to have a Klingon Wikipedia doesn't do any harm.
That is exactly what is in dispute, as a number of people claim that it *would* do harm to Wikipedia's reputation. (I personally think it would do no more harm than Esperanto -- which already garners the occasional smirk or raised eyebrow -- and might well do as much good in recruiting contributors. Nonetheless the objection exists and is common, including being advanced by the guy who holds the keys and the purse strings. You have to convince him, not me.)
It doesn't force anyone to contribute. Most people who "oppose" the Klingon Wikipedia are merely providing arguments for not contributing to it.
I'm not aware of any such arguments being advanced. Can you give examples?
The only arguments that actually oppose the introduction of a Klingon Wikipedia are (a) copyright problems (which we've established numerous times isn't an issue)
I would very much appreciate it if you could then establish it for us right here. Were Wikipedia run by me alone, lojban would have been added years ago; Klingon though has an explicit copyright question about it, which I'd need to see answered before endorsing it for a copyleft project.
and (b) reputation problems (which is a really dumb argument for keeping Toki Pona).
Please don't make strawman arguments. An argument against Klingon is not an argument in favor of Toki Pona; most people who make the reputation argument probably oppose the inclusion of both languages (and many have).
If you must compare Klingon and Toki Pona, note that because Klingon is well known (and oft mocked) and Toki Pona is not, there is much more weight to a reputation-based objection against Klingon than one against Toki Pona. I don't make this objection, but I recognize that it exists.
So, we've put off any further 'young conlang' additions to the main Wikipedia project pending more conclusive resolution.
This is unsatisfactory. This is like saying Toki Pona got lucky because it was there first. I think that's an extremely lame excuse for keeping Toki Pona while disallowing Klingon.
That is a literally true account of what happened. And yes, it's unsatisfactory. It's even *lame*. Howver, it's 100% factual: until a clear decision is set down, the status quo remains.
Additionally, what is your definition of a "young" conlang? I'm pretty sure that Klingon is at lesat five times as old as Toki Pona.
I'd define it in opposition to "old" conlangs such as Volapük and Esperanto (1870s-1880s), Ido and Latino Sine Flexione (1900s), Occidental (1920s) and at the young end of the old ones IALA Interlingua (1950s). These languages are older than my parents, which counts as old enough to me ;) and are either still in active use or of historical interest due to their influence in the field.
Klingon dates only to the 1980s, a mere whelp, and additionally is primarily an entertainment product owned and packaged by a media corporation rather than a general-purpose language intended and promoted for international communications, business, education, and daily life.
Anyway, my proposal for sidestepping the issue is creating a side project specifically for "young" or "entertainment" or "artistic" or "personal" or "frivolous" conlangs. This would enable people interested in such things to do them while keeping a lower profile to avoid being harassed all the time by the haters out there.
In MeatBall terminology, we want to EnlargeSpace[1] to AvoidConflict. This is the same reason we've got Wiktionary and WikiQuotes and WikiSource: 'Wikipedia is not a dictionary' but many people *want* to work on a dictionary. Working on a dictionary in a sister project is a better solution than fighting over every attempt to write a word definition-only article on Wikipedia.
Timwi, which would you prefer, given these two options: a Klingon-language encyclopedia for the hobbyists interested in it on a side project, or neverending fighting *about* one that never comes into being?
Anti-Klingonists, which would you prefer, given these two options: a Klingon-language encyclopedia in a side project that you never have to see or hear about, or neverending fighting *about* one from people who just won't shut up about it?
Everybody who doesn't give a dang, which would you prefer: never hearing about this stuff again because people are off wikiing, or *neverending fighting about hobbyist languages on this list*?
[1] http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?EnlargeSpace
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion-
Anti-Klingonists, which would you prefer, given these two options: a Klingon-language encyclopedia in a side project that you never have to see or hear about, or neverending fighting *about* one from people who just won't shut up about it?
A side project with its own domain name for conlangs and dead languages seems like a good idea. It may be possible to work with the people from the Unilang wiki on this: http://www.unilang2.org/main/wiki/wiki.phtml (Unilang also uses MediaWiki.)
I remain somewhat concerned about using foundation resources to promote a few people's pet projects. This isn't even for Jimmy alone to decide as much of Wikimedia's current resources come from outside donations. Perhaps this question should be put to a Wikimedia-wide vote.
The argument can of course be made that since Klingon, Toki Pona, Modern Egyptian et al. have practically no speakers, they aren't at risk of consuming significant resources. However, I believe that every Wikimedia or Wikipedia project should at least have the *potential* to become large and useful to thousands of people. If that potential doesn't exist, then the question may be raised why we should do it at all.
"EnlargeSpace"? People like "Prince of Egypt" strike me as not quite dissimilar to the micronation crowd, and I'm not sure it's a good idea for us to go to great lengths to attract more of them.
Regards,
Erik
On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 02:40:30AM +0100, Timwi wrote:
only arguments that actually oppose the introduction of a Klingon Wikipedia are (a) copyright problems (which we've established numerous times isn't an issue) and (b) reputation problems (which is a really dumb argument for keeping Toki Pona).
c) as far as I know Unicode (or at least that supported bottom 16 bit wide part of it) does not support klingon glyphs, therefore it is pretty impossible to actually display a klingon wikipedia for anyone not specifically had installed the required customised fonts. I do not believe in transliterated documents (do chinese want pinyin wikipedia? I doubt it).
Let there be a separate project for conlangs. Let there be a technically good way (this addresses brion :)) to be able to 'promote' a mere conlang to a wikipedia if it reaches some acceptable standard of quality and quantity of the articles. This way everyone's happy: you can start an encyclopedia in your favourite conlang, and if you don't gather followers, it'll just sit there silently and not disturbing wikipedia; if your language springs up in the air and moves half a continent of followers then great, let's convert it to a real, separate wikipedia.
my 0.02 euros.
grin
Peter Gervai wrote:
c) as far as I know Unicode (or at least that supported bottom 16 bit wide part of it) does not support klingon glyphs, therefore it is pretty impossible to actually display a klingon wikipedia for anyone not specifically had installed the required customised fonts. I do not believe in transliterated documents (do chinese want pinyin wikipedia? I doubt it).
This is all offtopic, but just FYI the Latin alphabet is in fact the canonical spelling for Klingon. There is no standard or official mapping to the decorative glyphs used in Star Trek movies.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 01:53:58PM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
Peter Gervai wrote:
c) as far as I know Unicode (or at least that supported bottom 16 bit wide part of it) does not support klingon glyphs, therefore it is pretty impossible to actually display a klingon wikipedia for anyone not specifically had installed the required customised fonts. I do not believe in transliterated documents (do chinese want pinyin wikipedia? I doubt it).
This is all offtopic, but just FYI the Latin alphabet is in fact the canonical spelling for Klingon. There is no standard or official mapping to the decorative glyphs used in Star Trek movies.
You're right, I checked my authoritative source.
...wikipedia of course! :)
Apologies for the disruption.
/me *cloaking*
Timwi wrote:
(1) the language is a joke or vanity project [...] For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think.
I totally don't get this. You call Klingon a "joke project" when it has a strong following, widespread enthusiasm, a complete grammar and vocabulary, etc., but then you allow something like Toki Pona, which is hardly even a language and arouses interest solely by being very much indistinguishable from a joke.
I think our policy has been ad hoc and inconsistent, but really I had nothing to do with Toki Pona.
I don't think that Klingon is a joke project. It's something of a cultural phenomenon. I would not be *adamantly* opposed to a Klingon Wikipedia, even though I do think it would be bad. The main upside that I can see is that it gives me something funny to say to reporters, who will very much enjoy writing about that fact.
http://tokipona.wikipedia.org/ shows 1 change in the last 7 days, and only a few changes in the past few months. I am not opposed to keeping it as a courtesy to the people who are using it, but I am also not opposed to getting rid of it if it is causing feelings of unfairness.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I am also not opposed to getting rid of it [the Toki Pona Wikipedia] if it is causing feelings of unfairness.
It would probably make more people happier if these "feelings of unfairness" were resolved by allowing at least Klingon and Lojban (which have ISO codes) as well as other conlangs in which people are seriously prepared to start writing an encyclopedia.
Timwi
Prince of Egypt wrote:
No, it's a new conlang (well not really a conlang) called the Modern Egyptian Language. Is there any other language that has the abbreviation of "EG"?
Sorry, but new personal conlangs are very unlikely to get established in the main Wikipedia project at this time.
If there's interest, we may end up setting up a side project for conlang encyclopedias...
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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