Dear fellow list subscribers,
Following on the discussion on the two or even four written and standardised variants of Norwegian, I would like to see how much two language varieties must differ from one another to be apt for a new wikipedia. Don't get me wrong: my intention is NOT to dispute the validity of two coexisting Norwegian wikipedias. Those variants have a long history and tradition of mutual incompatibility. I just think all of us agree that somewhere it has to stop - or should we wish a Texan wikipedia? "e freea cundent engcyclep~e thad annywun can eddit"? - but we might disagree where. Probably you held this discussion many times before, but I am a relative newbe on this list.
Now I would like to pose my question in a casuist way: Could requests for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted. Neither is generally considered a seperate language (those some linguists do call them languages), but Zeelandic is a clearly bordered regional language which differs about as much from Dutch proper as Nynorsk from Swedish (as far as I can judge) and is, when spoken, very problematic to be understood for Dutch speakers, while Town Frisian is a mixed language with a 16th century Hollandic vocabulary and Frisian grammar and phonetical principles. Moreover, it goes without saying that these variants (to avoid both the term "language" and "dialect") are not allowed on nl:, being a standardised language.
I don't necessarily support requests for wikipedias in those (thogh I would be willing to contribute), but I would like to know where the community draws the borders.
Thanks for reading this, Wouter
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It is my opinion that as long as you are not allowed to write in a variety on any existing Wikipedia, you should be allowed to write on it in a new Wikipedia.
In private discussions before, Jimbo has used AAVE as a sort of measuring stick to judge whether or not some language should or should not get a Wikipedia, ie that AAVE itself should not.
I'm perfectly aware of many of the reasons he has for this, but I disagree primarily on the following grounds:
If we allow people to write in the vernacular on en.wikipedia and do not chase after them 'correcting' their grammar, then it is a more complicated question whose answer lies more in whether or not there is a community desire among proponents of AAVE to use entirely separate literature.
However, since this is not the case - if I wrote a new, detailed, thoughtful, complex, well-researched non-stub article in AAVE, Scots, Singlish, or any other language which is considered by some to be a "non-standard form of English" (whether correctly or incorrectly), I think there is a 25% chance it would be listed of VfD for being 'utter nonsense', a 25% chance it would be "corrected" right away - ie, translated to standard English - a 25% chance it would be listed for cleanup, and a 25% chance that nobody would know what on earth to do with it. But I know there would be a 0% chance that people would agree to let it stay in its current form: the current trend on Wikipedia is towards prescriptivist enforcement, "correcting" others' "incorrect" spellings, their "bad grammar", "poor punctuation", etc. While some "misspellings" or "grammatical errors" on Wikipedia are in fact typos or unintentional, the simple fact is that the majority of them were intentional, either because the user did not know the so-called "correct" spelling, or in the case of grammar because they based it on WHAT REAL PEOPLE ACTUALLY SAY where they come from rather than the stuffy middle-aged millionaire bureaucratic language that the DoE tried so diligently but ultimately failed to make them use.
If an article is entirely beyond understanding, that's one thing - if I write "Zuwolojii z' dh'sayints v'kritrs 'n sotx. Yi 'z tri maan brons o'zuwologii, alvim 'ndivizali 'portnt n' ts' oon raat" I would expect it to be deleted as vandalism, and while I would certainly rather somebody changed it to make it more understandable, I have no particular problem with its deletion. However, if I write "A creol langage is a langage who is fairmed whin a pijin-langage is gains native speakres", I do not believe that should be changed - pijin-langage should be wikified as [[pidgin language|pijin-langage]] and native speakres should be [[native speaker|native speakres]], but the rest should be left alone.
Of course there will probably be dozens of responses about how people should use proper language, understand, comprehension, blah blah blah, what is really _correct_, blah, blah, blah, but this is my opinion.
Mark
On 03/05/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
Dear fellow list subscribers,
Following on the discussion on the two or even four written and standardised variants of Norwegian, I would like to see how much two language varieties must differ from one another to be apt for a new wikipedia. Don't get me wrong: my intention is NOT to dispute the validity of two coexisting Norwegian wikipedias. Those variants have a long history and tradition of mutual incompatibility. I just think all of us agree that somewhere it has to stop - or should we wish a Texan wikipedia? "e freea cundent engcyclep~e thad annywun can eddit"? - but we might disagree where. Probably you held this discussion many times before, but I am a relative newbe on this list.
Now I would like to pose my question in a casuist way: Could requests for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted. Neither is generally considered a seperate language (those some linguists do call them languages), but Zeelandic is a clearly bordered regional language which differs about as much from Dutch proper as Nynorsk from Swedish (as far as I can judge) and is, when spoken, very problematic to be understood for Dutch speakers, while Town Frisian is a mixed language with a 16th century Hollandic vocabulary and Frisian grammar and phonetical principles. Moreover, it goes without saying that these variants (to avoid both the term "language" and "dialect") are not allowed on nl:, being a standardised language.
I don't necessarily support requests for wikipedias in those (thogh I would be willing to contribute), but I would like to know where the community draws the borders.
Thanks for reading this, Wouter
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Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 5/3/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
Now I would like to pose my question in a casuist way: Could requests for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted. Neither is generally considered a seperate language (those some linguists do call them languages), but Zeelandic is a clearly bordered regional language which differs about as much from Dutch proper as Nynorsk from Swedish (as far as I can judge) and is, when spoken, very problematic to be understood for Dutch speakers, while Town Frisian is a mixed language with a 16th century Hollandic vocabulary and Frisian grammar and phonetical principles. Moreover, it goes without saying that these variants (to avoid both the term "language" and "dialect") are not allowed on nl:, being a standardised language.
I don't necessarily support requests for wikipedias in those (thogh I would be willing to contribute), but I would like to know where the community draws the borders.
I don't think there's any clear definitions yet, but the points that I think would be worth considering are: * The amount of difference to an existing language * Whether it is generally, somewhere or hardly anywhere considered a language rather than a dialect * Whether there exists a well-defined and generally accepted orthography * Whether there are Wikipedians willing to write for the Wikipedia and how many.
In general, we have gone with ISO-639 in deciding what is a language and what a dialect, only Allemanish and Aromanian have been accepted without such a code. However, that too is not an official policy, just a "the way we have done it till now".
Andre Engels
I don't think there's any clear definitions yet, but the points that I think would be worth considering are:
- The amount of difference to an existing language
- Whether it is generally, somewhere or hardly anywhere considered a
language rather than a dialect
- Whether there exists a well-defined and generally accepted orthography
- Whether there are Wikipedians willing to write for the Wikipedia and how
many.
In general, we have gone with ISO-639 in deciding what is a language and what a dialect, only Allemanish and Aromanian have been accepted without such a code. However, that too is not an official policy, just a "the way we have done it till now".
Andre Engels
I am aware of most of this, but my concern is: how much must a poorly recognised and unstandardised language variety differ from its prestigious sister to be granted a wikipedia?
Wouter
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I disagree with what you have said about ISO - Ainu has no ISO code, yet nobody would argue that it is part of the same language as one that does have one, and this is the case with many more languages as well.
A language not having an individual ISO code does not nessecarily mean that the ISO organisation considers it to be a dialect of another language.
Mark
On 03/05/05, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
Now I would like to pose my question in a casuist way: Could requests for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted. Neither is generally considered a seperate language (those some linguists do call them languages), but Zeelandic is a clearly bordered regional language which differs about as much from Dutch proper as Nynorsk from Swedish (as far as I can judge) and is, when spoken, very problematic to be understood for Dutch speakers, while Town Frisian is a mixed language with a 16th century Hollandic vocabulary and Frisian grammar and phonetical principles. Moreover, it goes without saying that these variants (to avoid both the term "language" and "dialect") are not allowed on nl:, being a standardised language.
I don't necessarily support requests for wikipedias in those (thogh I would be willing to contribute), but I would like to know where the community draws the borders.
I don't think there's any clear definitions yet, but the points that I think would be worth considering are:
- The amount of difference to an existing language
- Whether it is generally, somewhere or hardly anywhere considered a
language rather than a dialect
- Whether there exists a well-defined and generally accepted orthography
- Whether there are Wikipedians willing to write for the Wikipedia and how many.
In general, we have gone with ISO-639 in deciding what is a language and what a dialect, only Allemanish and Aromanian have been accepted without such a code. However, that too is not an official policy, just a "the way we have done it till now".
Andre Engels _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Andre Engels wrote:
In general, we have gone with ISO-639 in deciding what is a language and what a dialect, only Allemanish and Aromanian have been accepted without such a code. However, that too is not an official policy, just a "the way we have done it till now".
And it is worth noting in this context that deference to ISO codes was primarily done as a convenience, to avoid having to have a lot of complex arguments inside the community. The thought was that the ISO codes are defined by a neutral, standard body, and that we could just defer to their judgment.
As it turns out, in my opinion, the ISO codes are only really "correct" for the major languages. In terms of the question of dialect vs. language, they are highly politicized and quite often wrong.
--Jimbo
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
many times before, but I am a relative newbe on this list.
Why don't you take a look in the list archives.
Now I would like to pose my question in a casuist way: Could requests for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted.
If you could organize an active crowd of serious contributors, and have them write the first 3000 articles offline, and good articles, I think the Wikimedia board would find it very hard to refuse your request. So the answer would be "yes", such requests could be granted. And the new Town Frisian Wikipedia would be just past the Icelandic, which now has 2500 articles. But if you want to start a Wikipedia that never gets beyond 20 articles, you would instead find it very hard to convince the Wikimedia board. So the limit is somewhere in between. How strong are your arguments?
If you could organize an active crowd of serious contributors, and have them write the first 3000 articles offline, and good articles, I think the Wikimedia board would find it very hard to refuse your request. So the answer would be "yes", such requests could be granted. And the new Town Frisian Wikipedia would be just past the Icelandic, which now has 2500 articles. But if you want to start a Wikipedia that never gets beyond 20 articles, you would instead find it very hard to convince the Wikimedia board. So the limit is somewhere in between. How strong are your arguments?
3000 articles off line is too much, it is the fun of contributers, especially new ones, that their edits are immediately visible and accessible for anyone. But I will certainly try to find willing contributers first. On the other hand, I might gain little willing contributers if they can't be sure the encyclopedia will ever be a real wikipedia. How strong are my arguments? You mean for granting them a wikipedia for themselves? Well, some basic dates about both regional languages then:
Town Frisian Mixed language, spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland, in towns. Originated around 1500, when Frisian had little prestige. Akin dialects in some rural areas. Total number of speakers (Ameland, Bildt, Heereveen and Midsland dialects incl.): 100,000 Differences from Dutch: maintanance of the pronoun 'þu' (realised 'dou') whereas Dutch dropped it; retention of [i] and [y] instead of the modern diphthongs [Ei] and [Ey]; maintanace of inlaut [f] and [s] rather than weakened [v] and [z]; absence of the prefix ge- in past participles; a lot of Frisian loan words; predominantly Frisian idiom; typical Frisian pronunciation (with a.o. nasalisations of n's between vowels and consonants). Best described as Frisian in Dutch disguise.
Zeelandic Regional language in southeast of the Netherlands, spoken mainly in rural areas (replaced by Dutch proper in towns). Total number of speakers: at least 250,000 Differences from Dutch: three genders rather than two, maintenance of the old [i] and [y] rather than breaking into [Ei] and [Ey] (see above under Town Frisian), consewuent mutation of the [a:] into [E:]; rendering of old Germanic ai and au as [e@] and [O@], not [ei] and [ou] as in Dutch; maintenance of final schwas; consequent dropping of the h.
Would that be enough?
Wouter
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Zeelandic
consewuent mutation of the [a:] into [E:];
Oops, forget about the wordt "consequent", apart from the typing error. The [a:] mostly turns into [E:], but not consequently.
Wouter
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Also, the English word "consequent" does not have the meaning of the Dutch "consequent" as one of its meanings. The word you meant is "consistently".
Andre Engels
On 5/3/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
Zeelandic
consewuent mutation of the [a:] into [E:];
Oops, forget about the wordt "consequent", apart from the typing error. The [a:] mostly turns into [E:], but not consequently.
Wouter
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2005/5/3, Wouter Steenbeek:
3000 articles off line is too much, it is the fun of contributers, especially new ones, that their edits are immediately visible and accessible for anyone. But I will certainly try to find willing contributers first. On
You might want to try at meta-wikipedia first. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/YOUR_LANG_CODE_HERE I've used the place for os-wikipedia once and I've also seen others using it.
Sl. Ivanov
You might want to try at meta-wikipedia first. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/YOUR_LANG_CODE_HERE I've used the place for os-wikipedia once and I've also seen others using it.
Sl. Ivanov
You're right. I am currently doing the same with the Seeltersk wikipedia. But first of all I would like to figure out if such a request has any chance at all.
Wouter
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Hi Wouter,
There are no standards for determining what does and what doesn't get a Wikipedia. If you are told to your face by Jimbo or the board or the community or whatever that You Do Not At This Time Qualify For A Wikipedia, the solution is to start your own off-site "Wikipedia" using a diffferent name, such as Seelterpedia or whatever, and when you reach perhaps 200 articles, bring the issue back and the official position will probably change.
This is the process that happened with zh-min-nan (not sure if they got an outright "you can't have one" message). People will always be willing to reconsider when they see an article base of a reasonable size.
Even if your request is "accepted", often it takes a while before it is actually created (limited developer resources), but that too can often be expidited by showing them that you really are ready to go.
And if there appears to be no consensus, start the off-site test, and then when you reach between 100 and 500 articles, return, bring up that fact, and people will probably reach a consensus
Mark
PS On a side note... trojan pandas??
On 03/05/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
You might want to try at meta-wikipedia first. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/YOUR_LANG_CODE_HERE I've used the place for os-wikipedia once and I've also seen others using it.
Sl. Ivanov
You're right. I am currently doing the same with the Seeltersk wikipedia. But first of all I would like to figure out if such a request has any chance at all.
Wouter
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Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hi Wouter,
There are no standards for determining what does and what doesn't get a Wikipedia. If you are told to your face by Jimbo or the board or the community or whatever that You Do Not At This Time Qualify For A Wikipedia, the solution is to start your own off-site "Wikipedia" using a diffferent name, such as Seelterpedia or whatever, and when you reach perhaps 200 articles, bring the issue back and the official position will probably change.
This is the process that happened with zh-min-nan (not sure if they got an outright "you can't have one" message). People will always be willing to reconsider when they see an article base of a reasonable size.
Even if your request is "accepted", often it takes a while before it is actually created (limited developer resources), but that too can often be expidited by showing them that you really are ready to go.
And if there appears to be no consensus, start the off-site test, and then when you reach between 100 and 500 articles, return, bring up that fact, and people will probably reach a consensus
Mark
Thank you Mark, that's clear, then. Anyway I feel sure enough now to post the requests on the requests page, and I will do my very best to attract users. For I think they right in saying the number of users interested is more important than the linguistic status of the variety-in-question. Consider all those empty ore barely filled wikipedias coveringclearly separate languages...
Wouter
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(Wouter asked me privately to please personally comment on this thread, so I will.)
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
Could requests for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted.
Not knowing anything about these two particular variants, I am unable to make a proper guess or judgment.
This thread has done a very good job I think of discussing some or most of the factors that should properly go into a decision such as this.
We are currently inconsistent in our treatment of different linguistic situations. I do not think this inconsistency is good, but I also do not think it is a grave crisis. I am not even certain that consistency is desirable -- there may not be a "one size fits all" solution to this question.
One thing I think we can all agree upon: there is a difference between us *needing* a certain language in order to fulfill our global vision of a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet (in a language they can easily enough understand) and us *wanting* a certain language in order to fulfill a secondary goal of language preservation and support for minority communities.
"Every single person on the planet" is a bit of rhetoric, but a serious bit of rhetoric. I will feel that this mission is complete if we have an encyclopedia written in enough languages so that 99.99% of all people _who are able to read in some language_ can read a Wikipedia.
Let me take as an example Welsh. I am happy that we have a Welsh wikipedia. But it is all true that virtually every Welsh reader can also read English. Therefore, to meet our *central* mission, English does the trick for Welsh speakers. And for this *secondary* goal, Welsh is a nice thing to have too.
Are all people who could read Zeelandic and Town Frisian also people who can read standard Dutch? Then we don't *need* them for our primary mission, but they would be a nice thing to have as well, if it makes social sense for the community. (Meaning, if there are enough people who want to do it, etc.)
--Jimbo
You said, and I quote, "It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet in their own language."
"In their own language" is unambiguous. Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "own language" is Gikuyu. He can read English very well, and Swahili very well. He would be able to read those Wikipedias. But they are not "in his own language".
Mark
On 09/06/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
(Wouter asked me privately to please personally comment on this thread, so I will.)
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
Could requests for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted.
Not knowing anything about these two particular variants, I am unable to make a proper guess or judgment.
This thread has done a very good job I think of discussing some or most of the factors that should properly go into a decision such as this.
We are currently inconsistent in our treatment of different linguistic situations. I do not think this inconsistency is good, but I also do not think it is a grave crisis. I am not even certain that consistency is desirable -- there may not be a "one size fits all" solution to this question.
One thing I think we can all agree upon: there is a difference between us *needing* a certain language in order to fulfill our global vision of a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet (in a language they can easily enough understand) and us *wanting* a certain language in order to fulfill a secondary goal of language preservation and support for minority communities.
"Every single person on the planet" is a bit of rhetoric, but a serious bit of rhetoric. I will feel that this mission is complete if we have an encyclopedia written in enough languages so that 99.99% of all people _who are able to read in some language_ can read a Wikipedia.
Let me take as an example Welsh. I am happy that we have a Welsh wikipedia. But it is all true that virtually every Welsh reader can also read English. Therefore, to meet our *central* mission, English does the trick for Welsh speakers. And for this *secondary* goal, Welsh is a nice thing to have too.
Are all people who could read Zeelandic and Town Frisian also people who can read standard Dutch? Then we don't *need* them for our primary mission, but they would be a nice thing to have as well, if it makes social sense for the community. (Meaning, if there are enough people who want to do it, etc.)
--Jimbo
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
You said, and I quote, "It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet in their own language."
"In their own language" is unambiguous. Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "own language" is Gikuyu. He can read English very well, and Swahili very well. He would be able to read those Wikipedias. But they are not "in his own language".
If you can competently read a language, it's "your own language".
In terms of an actual practical definition of success, we have to use something like 99.9% or 99.99%, because there will always be a handful of quirky situations leftover.
Let me put it this way. If I die young (100 years from now ;-)) having only gotten a free encyclopedia to 99.99% percent of the people in the world, I won't feel that I've failed.
--Jimbo
It's not "their own language".
I can read, write, and speak Japanese to a sufficient degree that I can read articles in Japanese, but it's not "my language".
For example, do you think Anthere considers English to be her language? Definitely not.
Similarly Ngugi wa Thiong'o (formerly known as James Ngugi), winner of a nobel prize for his writing, would tell you that neither English nor Swahili -- his language is Gikuyu (ki.wikipedia.org, which just recently got its mainpage translated, but still has 0 pages... it has redlinks to pages about television, democracy, and the like though), the language of his mother, his father, his home.
The language of former Japanese Diet member Shigeru Kayano is similarly not Japanese nor English. If you ask him what his language is, he will tell you that his language is Ainu without taking a moment to think.
Susan Aglukark (Inuktitut "Susan Aglukkaq"), famous Canadian singer, will tell you that "her language" is Inuktitut -- not English or French -- the language of her hearth, of her family, of the arctic.
Patrick Pearse would've told you "his language" was not English but Irish.
Joseph Stalin (Georgian "Ioseb Jugashvili") may not be admired by everybody, but nevertheless he is a well-known figure and "his language" was not Russian but Georgian -- the language of his family, his ancestors.
Joe Shirley, president of the Navajo Nation, will tell you that English is not "his language" -- although he can speak it well, "his language" and the language of his people is Dine bizaad, "the language of the humans".
Vivian Juan-Saunders, the first ever female leader of the Tohono O'odham Nation (the US part of which is about the size of Connecticut), will tell you that "her language" and the language of the Nation is 'O'Odham Ni'ok -- again "the language of humans".
"their language" could've been a bit ambiguous, but you said "their own language" -- their OWN language -- which goes deeper and implies more strongly that it truly belongs to them.
Mark
On 10/06/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
You said, and I quote, "It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet in their own language."
"In their own language" is unambiguous. Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "own language" is Gikuyu. He can read English very well, and Swahili very well. He would be able to read those Wikipedias. But they are not "in his own language".
If you can competently read a language, it's "your own language".
In terms of an actual practical definition of success, we have to use something like 99.9% or 99.99%, because there will always be a handful of quirky situations leftover.
Let me put it this way. If I die young (100 years from now ;-)) having only gotten a free encyclopedia to 99.99% percent of the people in the world, I won't feel that I've failed.
--Jimbo
To add on to this, we already have Georgian, Irish, and Navajo Wikipedias.
Of these languages, Gikuyu and Georgian both have over 1 million speakers, Navajo has about 180000 (including about 4000 monolinguals), O'odham probably has around 45000 but it is not listed as a language in records from the 2000 census for some reason so we can't know for sure. (besides that, there are thousands of speakers on the Mexican part of the reservation as well, and Native American languages are often counted very inaccurately by the census, which has been known to miss entire languages with thousands of speakers due to problems with getting accurate census information from reservations)
Inuktitut has around 70000 speakers.
Irish cannot be placed for sure. Some people count all people who have been taught Irish in school, which would be almost the entire population of the Republic of Ireland (over 1 million); others count only those residents of the Gaeltachta, others use various other statistics.
Mark
On 10/06/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
It's not "their own language".
I can read, write, and speak Japanese to a sufficient degree that I can read articles in Japanese, but it's not "my language".
For example, do you think Anthere considers English to be her language? Definitely not.
Similarly Ngugi wa Thiong'o (formerly known as James Ngugi), winner of a nobel prize for his writing, would tell you that neither English nor Swahili -- his language is Gikuyu (ki.wikipedia.org, which just recently got its mainpage translated, but still has 0 pages... it has redlinks to pages about television, democracy, and the like though), the language of his mother, his father, his home.
The language of former Japanese Diet member Shigeru Kayano is similarly not Japanese nor English. If you ask him what his language is, he will tell you that his language is Ainu without taking a moment to think.
Susan Aglukark (Inuktitut "Susan Aglukkaq"), famous Canadian singer, will tell you that "her language" is Inuktitut -- not English or French -- the language of her hearth, of her family, of the arctic.
Patrick Pearse would've told you "his language" was not English but Irish.
Joseph Stalin (Georgian "Ioseb Jugashvili") may not be admired by everybody, but nevertheless he is a well-known figure and "his language" was not Russian but Georgian -- the language of his family, his ancestors.
Joe Shirley, president of the Navajo Nation, will tell you that English is not "his language" -- although he can speak it well, "his language" and the language of his people is Dine bizaad, "the language of the humans".
Vivian Juan-Saunders, the first ever female leader of the Tohono O'odham Nation (the US part of which is about the size of Connecticut), will tell you that "her language" and the language of the Nation is 'O'Odham Ni'ok -- again "the language of humans".
"their language" could've been a bit ambiguous, but you said "their own language" -- their OWN language -- which goes deeper and implies more strongly that it truly belongs to them.
Mark
On 10/06/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
You said, and I quote, "It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet in their own language."
"In their own language" is unambiguous. Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "own language" is Gikuyu. He can read English very well, and Swahili very well. He would be able to read those Wikipedias. But they are not "in his own language".
If you can competently read a language, it's "your own language".
In terms of an actual practical definition of success, we have to use something like 99.9% or 99.99%, because there will always be a handful of quirky situations leftover.
Let me put it this way. If I die young (100 years from now ;-)) having only gotten a free encyclopedia to 99.99% percent of the people in the world, I won't feel that I've failed.
--Jimbo
-- 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
Mark Williamson a écrit:
It's not "their own language".
I can read, write, and speak Japanese to a sufficient degree that I can read articles in Japanese, but it's not "my language".
For example, do you think Anthere considers English to be her language? Definitely not.
No. It is other people language. I have the chance to be able to communicate with this people thanks to it. I have the chance to understand most of it. But not all (I certainly could not read easily philosophy in english) and not everyone (I hardly understand Angela for example).
I can handle a lot with it. But it is not "my language".
Yes...
And the same is true for many people handling a second language -- they will naturally not understand as well as a native speaker.
Many -- if not most -- people who are working in a second language will find the Wikipedia in their second language less accessible than one in their first.
My Navajo teacher was getting her PhD in English the last time I talked to her, yet she said that for her Navajo is still easier. You might expect that she's very old but in fact she's very young, in her 20s or 30s, and actually a former Miss Navajo Nation. As far as I know, right now her main job is teaching English as a second language.
Mark
On 11/06/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Mark Williamson a écrit:
It's not "their own language".
I can read, write, and speak Japanese to a sufficient degree that I can read articles in Japanese, but it's not "my language".
For example, do you think Anthere considers English to be her language? Definitely not.
No. It is other people language. I have the chance to be able to communicate with this people thanks to it. I have the chance to understand most of it. But not all (I certainly could not read easily philosophy in english) and not everyone (I hardly understand Angela for example).
I can handle a lot with it. But it is not "my language".
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"Every single person on the planet" is a bit of rhetoric, but a serious bit of rhetoric. I will feel that this mission is complete if we have an encyclopedia written in enough languages so that 99.99% of all people _who are able to read in some language_ can read a Wikipedia.
African language Wikipedias aren't very useful for this goal. Most Africans who are able to read are able to read in some colonial language (fr, en, pt, es, ar). In Bamako you have to look hard to find books, papers, or anything written not in French...
I think actually that the mission is complete if people who are not able to read in some language are included. By using text-to-speech synths and voice recognition anybody who can either read or hear could access Wikipedia. Otherwise some 80% of Mali's population is excluded from the mission.
The fact that there is more information available in people's mother tongue will be an incentive to actually learn to read (and write) in that language. But the same would count for Zeelandic or Limburgish, actually. The difference is the literacy rate and the (dis)similarity between the written and non-written languages.
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 01:09:38PM +0200, Guaka wrote:
"Every single person on the planet" is a bit of rhetoric, but a serious bit of rhetoric. I will feel that this mission is complete if we have an encyclopedia written in enough languages so that 99.99% of all people _who are able to read in some language_ can read a Wikipedia.
African language Wikipedias aren't very useful for this goal. Most Africans who are able to read are able to read in some colonial language (fr, en, pt, es, ar). In Bamako you have to look hard to find books, papers, or anything written not in French...
I think actually that the mission is complete if people who are not able to read in some language are included. By using text-to-speech synths and voice recognition anybody who can either read or hear could access Wikipedia. Otherwise some 80% of Mali's population is excluded from the mission.
The fact that there is more information available in people's mother tongue will be an incentive to actually learn to read (and write) in that language. But the same would count for Zeelandic or Limburgish, actually. The difference is the literacy rate and the (dis)similarity between the written and non-written languages.
On the other hand, I think it's worth noting that if promoting literacy and delivering encyclopedia content to the illiterate (worthy goals to be sure, but primary goals for other projects, or for the future after Jimbo's stated primary goal is already met) actually hinders the goal Jimbo has elucidated here, it's something that should probably be on the back burner. The Wikipedia project can't be everything to everyone: we should ensure that it's successful at being something for someone, though, and that requires a certain narrowing of focus.
The originally intended focus of it strikes me as a good choice.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Chad Perrin wrote:
On the other hand, I think it's worth noting that if promoting literacy and delivering encyclopedia content to the illiterate (worthy goals to be sure, but primary goals for other projects, or for the future after Jimbo's stated primary goal is already met) actually hinders the goal Jimbo has elucidated here, it's something that should probably be on the back burner. The Wikipedia project can't be everything to everyone: we should ensure that it's successful at being something for someone, though, and that requires a certain narrowing of focus.
This I agree with---we shouldn't try to become some vertically integrated organization that solves all the world's problems, but instead a focused grass-roots organization that does a good job at a narrow set of problems.
There are a number of problems in the world somewhat related to our mission---illiterate people can't read a written encyclopedia in any language; people in countries with no internet access can't edit wikipedia; people in poverty don't have time to work on a wiki encyclopedia; people living under oppressive governments can't edit wikipedia freely; etc.
I certainly don't think we should try to solve all those. We can try to mitigate problems where it's not that hard to do so (e.g. by producing paper versions to distribute to non-internet-connected areas), but some of them---like solving the "digital divide" or world hunger, or overthrowing oppressive governments---are somewhat out of our areas of core competence.
-Mark
There are a number of problems in the world somewhat related to our mission---illiterate people can't read a written encyclopedia in any language; people in countries with no internet access can't edit wikipedia; people in poverty don't have time to work on a wiki encyclopedia; people living under oppressive governments can't edit wikipedia freely; etc.
I certainly don't think we should try to solve all those. We can try to mitigate problems where it's not that hard to do so (e.g. by producing paper versions to distribute to non-internet-connected areas), but some of them---like solving the "digital divide" or world hunger, or overthrowing oppressive governments---are somewhat out of our areas of core competence.
Or by receiving money in order to do something about specific problems. :)
I don't think we can or should try to solve any of those problems. But we can help a little bit, at least with the stuff you mention in the first paragraph. I don't see any reason to mention world hunger, digital divide or similar general concepts in this discussion...
On the other hand, I think it's worth noting that if promoting literacy and delivering encyclopedia content to the illiterate (worthy goals to be sure, but primary goals for other projects, or for the future after Jimbo's stated primary goal is already met) actually hinders the goal Jimbo has elucidated here, it's something that should probably be on the back burner. The Wikipedia project can't be everything to everyone: we should ensure that it's successful at being something for someone, though, and that requires a certain narrowing of focus.
Delivering (encyclopedia) content to the illiterate should never be Wikimedia's main goal. But there is money to be found to do this kind of stuff. And why not get some of it and use it to set something up to further these worthy goals :)
The originally intended focus of it strikes me as a good choice.
Maybe the goal should be "one of people's mother tongues" instead of any language they can read. This would exclude Zeelandic and other European regional languages but would definitely include many African languages.
Guaka wrote:
The originally intended focus of it strikes me as a good choice.
Maybe the goal should be "one of people's mother tongues" instead of any language they can read. This would exclude Zeelandic and other European regional languages but would definitely include many African languages.
But if our core purpose is to get information to people, isn't simply any language they can read well the proper criterion?
(And what is a "mother tongue" anyway? There are definitely people who claim some European regional language as their only "mother tongue", and say they only read/write/speak the "mainstream" language out of necessity.)
-Mark
But if our core purpose is to get information to people, isn't simply any language they can read well the proper criterion?
From http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home: "Imagine a world in which
every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
If the core purpose is primarily to provide information to people who can read then this should be accordingly changed on the website. And, there is a huge amount of human knowledge hidden away in many nearly-only-oral languages.
(And what is a "mother tongue" anyway? There are definitely people who claim some European regional language as their only "mother tongue", and say they only read/write/speak the "mainstream" language out of necessity.)
That's true, but I think they are wrong :) Though giving examples would probably lead to a big flame war :)
We are currently inconsistent in our treatment of different linguistic situations. I do not think this inconsistency is good, but I also do not think it is a grave crisis. I am not even certain that consistency is desirable -- there may not be a "one size fits all" solution to this question.
There isn't any. Think about Norwegian (bokmaol and nynorsk), Swedish and Danish - they could easily be grouped as variants of one language, "Continental Nordic". Yet I think it would have been madness to grant them only one Wikipedia, certainly as all Scandinavian Wikipedias are among those with the best speakers-size comparision.
Are all people who could read Zeelandic and Town Frisian also people who can read standard Dutch? Then we don't *need* them for our primary mission, but they would be a nice thing to have as well, if it makes social sense for the community. (Meaning, if there are enough people who want to do it, etc.)
Yes, they all can, as they learn Dutch proper only at school (and Frisian, for the Town Frisian speakers). But they have a certain pride of their languages, especially the Zealandic speakers, and I am pretty sure I can get some willing contributors behind a Wikipedia. (I won't even request it if my quest for other contributors fails!)
Wouter
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Hi Wouter,
Can you tell me, do you think Zeelandic is further or the same distance linguistically from Dutch as Limburgish??
Mark
On 11/06/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
We are currently inconsistent in our treatment of different linguistic situations. I do not think this inconsistency is good, but I also do not think it is a grave crisis. I am not even certain that consistency is desirable -- there may not be a "one size fits all" solution to this question.
There isn't any. Think about Norwegian (bokmaol and nynorsk), Swedish and Danish - they could easily be grouped as variants of one language, "Continental Nordic". Yet I think it would have been madness to grant them only one Wikipedia, certainly as all Scandinavian Wikipedias are among those with the best speakers-size comparision.
Are all people who could read Zeelandic and Town Frisian also people who can read standard Dutch? Then we don't *need* them for our primary mission, but they would be a nice thing to have as well, if it makes social sense for the community. (Meaning, if there are enough people who want to do it, etc.)
Yes, they all can, as they learn Dutch proper only at school (and Frisian, for the Town Frisian speakers). But they have a certain pride of their languages, especially the Zealandic speakers, and I am pretty sure I can get some willing contributors behind a Wikipedia. (I won't even request it if my quest for other contributors fails!)
Wouter
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Hi Wouter,
Can you tell me, do you think Zeelandic is further or the same distance linguistically from Dutch as Limburgish??
Mark
Yes Mark, I can. It is closer to Dutch than Limburgish. That is why I am not sure at all if Zealandic can get a Wikipedia of its own. Limburgic is clearly different from Dutch for its tonal nature and features like umlaut in diminutives and irregular verbs. I already pointed out the main differences at this list earlier. The differences between Dutch proper and Zeelandic are comparable with those between English and Scots. An advantage is that Zeelandic is far more coherent than Limburgic: the differences between the dialects are minor. While some Zeelandic sentences will be so similar to their Dutch equivalents that it would seem madness to request a separate Wikipedia, spoken Zeelandic remains very problematic to be understood by those who speak Dutch as their native language. Imagine Western Europe having remained in earlier stages of development, and Africa being the leading area in modern politics and science. Imagine an African linguist coming in through the polders, trying to record the languages of the Lowlands that need yet to be investigated. He would probably conclude that Zeelandic and Hollandic (Dutch) are two closely related but separate languages, connected by a dialect continuum, that Limburgic is slightly more distant but also connected to both of them with a dialect continuum (being is the Brabantic dialect area), and that Frisian is also somewhat more distant, but unlike Limburgish hardly connected with Hollandic by a dialect continuum. Respecting to the Low Saxon dialects in the Northeast part of the country, *we* consider it a seperate language on for historical reasons, but our African linguist would draw a similar conclusion for Netherlands Low Saxon as for Zeelandic. Interestingly, Ethnologue names a lot of Low Saxon dialects in the Netherlands as separate language: Veenkolonial, Twentish, Stellingwervish, Achterhoeks... It is ridiculous, I think, to consider them all seperate languages. But they made a big mistake /not/ to mention Zeelandic - I think they just forgot, considering the otherwise low threshold for language variants to be called languages.
As I said before: I myself am not absolutely convinced Zeelandic (and Town Frisian) should get a project of its (their) own. But I would like to know if it could get your support, as I have the impression the defintion for languages/ dialects in the Netherlands is rather strict. If most of you can't approve this, I could request a Wikicity, of course, but for cases like these (imo on the border of what it a language and what isn't) I found a discussion desirable.
Wouter
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Yes, they all can, as they learn Dutch proper only at school (and Frisian, for the Town Frisian speakers). But they have a certain pride of their languages, especially the Zealandic speakers, and I am pretty sure I can get some willing contributors behind a Wikipedia. (I won't even request it if my quest for other contributors fails!) Wouter
Same with Cashubians in Poland - the goal of Cashubian Wikipedia is mostly preserving the language.
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