-- Oldak Quill (oldakquill@gmail.com) ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:45:57 -0600 From: "Muke Tever" muke@frath.net Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list" wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: op.tp8kivmc2okkek@maadim.hsd1.co.comcast.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Dmcdevit dmcdevit@cox.net wrote: >> First off, what kind of attestation are you seeking here? There are published >> reference books on the language and several translations into Klingon have been made: >> Gilgamesh and a couple of Shakespeare plays are in print; online of course there's >> more, such as extensive selections from the Bible (linguist Nick Nicholas has >> the full text of the book of Mark on his website, among other things)... This is >> as much as if not more than many minority natural languages have. >> > *All* natural languages have a right to be included when they meet the > requirements for starting a new language project, which is part of > Wikimedia's mission to provide the sum of all human knowledge *to every > single person*. That is a false comparison. Ok, so you're drawing a distinction between natural languages and artificial languages. That's perfectly fine; I'd support a difference in the rules on that ground myself. But my response was not to that concern. > So, you have no original literature whatsoever, and a hodgepodge of fan > translations of famous works into this fictional alien language, and > that ought to constitute enough use? I don't have anything; it's not my language. I responded to your statement that the words "cannot be attested," with attestation; the concept of 'enough use' had not yet entered, and if you expect it to be met, you'll have to phrase it more quantitatively. > Why is it that no one seems able to tell me how many fluent speakers there are? "Counting second language speakers is extremely difficult and approximate at best and would run into the additional problem of deciding how well a person is supposed to speak the language in order to be counted." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_speaker_data > At least other languages have educational uses, including cross-lingualcommunication, ease of use or learning, simplification of existing languages, etc. All right, now you are proposing criteria for acceptable constructed language wikis. That's fine too, though they are not the currently accepted criteria. >> I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language". > > I apologize if my concern that the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable > organization we volunteer for, be used for significant, educational > purposes, as it is intended, appears elitist. I wasn't speaking about the Wikimedia Foundation; I'm speaking of your opinion of the language which seems largely to be based on its origin as the language of a fictional alien race on a popular American television show, as if this were somehow a less serious language origin than, say, having been cobbled together in the altogether serious belief that it would bring about world peace, like several of the more acceptable alternatives. > That does not fit my definition of elitism, however, and bandying about the termis just an ad hominem distraction. The point is to indicate your own argument seems to be rather _ad linguam_ (if I may so mangle the phrase) -- it seems to be against Klingon because it is Klingon, not because it meets any objective standard. >> If Klingon (or any other language) is to be rejected it should be on at least >> moderately objective criteria, which would pertain to the language's present, >> not its origin--the bar can be higher for a constructed language, but it should >> at least be presented an opportunity to rise above its birth. > > Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a > popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate > from its origins is absurd. I hope I didn't indicate I held such a notion. I intended to say its origins are irrelevant to its status as a language, or ought to be. > It only needs to be rejected for its present: which is as a linguistically > unimportant, functionally nonexistent, and educationally useless language towrite a dictionary in. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy indicates that the only additional criterion for a fictional language wiki as opposed to a natural language one is "a reasonable degree of recognition", not linguistic importance, functional existence, or educational usefulness. (It also links to the discussion saying tlh.wikipedia was closed due to inactivity; if there is a more correct discussion, it may be helpful to update the link appropriately.) *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:51:50 -0600 From: "Muke Tever" muke@frath.net Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list" wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: op.tp8ksomz2okkek@maadim.hsd1.co.comcast.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote: > Hoi, > When having only 60 articles is a criterion for deletion of a Wikipedia > project, there are many more projects in the danger zone. 50 of the current > 250 Wikipedias do not have this number of articles. This is as far as I am > concerned no valid reason. Of course, if it's a natural language. But in a constructed language I can see justifying a minimum amount of activity. *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:31:47 +0200 From: Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed To: wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 46136273.4040402@forget-me.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hello, Dmcdevit wrote: (...) > Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a > popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate > from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its > present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally > nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in. I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all. > Dominic Best regards, Yann ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 04:35:59 -0600 From: "Muke Tever" muke@frath.net Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list" wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: op.tp8819j92okkek@maadim.hsd1.co.comcast.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote: > Dmcdevit wrote: > (...) >> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a >> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate >> from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its >> present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally >> nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in. > > I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all. It is not an argument, it is rhetoric. And very weak, at that. It can be used with equal force by the other side, e.g. >> Our language is considered linguistically unimportant, functionally >> nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the more imperative >> that we produce a dictionary in it. Prejudice like that against a natural language (which is very often expressed in the world) would, I hope, never stand here against the opening of a wiki. The only remaining part of the agreed-with argument is that it is a constructed language, and we have not been deleting wikis merely because they belong to constructed languages. *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:47:48 +0200 From: Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list" wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 46138254.3060809@forget-me.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hi, And claiming the Klingon should be supported by Wikimedia without giving any information about numbers of speakers, is not rethoric??? I think we don't have the same definition of this word. Regards, Yann Muke Tever wrote: > Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote: >> Dmcdevit wrote: >> (...) >>> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a >>> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate >>> from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its >>> present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally >>> nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in. >> I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all. > > It is not an argument, it is rhetoric. And very weak, at that. It can be used > with equal force by the other side, e.g. > >> Our language is considered linguistically unimportant, functionally > >> nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the more imperative > >> that we produce a dictionary in it. > > Prejudice like that against a natural language (which is very often expressed in > the world) would, I hope, never stand here against the opening of a wiki. The only > remaining part of the agreed-with argument is that it is a constructed language, and > we have not been deleting wikis merely because they belong to constructed languages. > > *Muke! ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:58:49 -0700 From: Dmcdevit dmcdevit@cox.net Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list" wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4613BD29.4060906@cox.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Muke Tever wrote: > Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote: > >> Dmcdevit wrote: >> (...) >> >>> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a >>> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate >>> from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its >>> present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally >>> nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in. >>> >> I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all. >> > > It is not an argument, it is rhetoric. And very weak, at that. It can be used > with equal force by the other side, e.g. > >> Our language is considered linguistically unimportant, functionally > >> nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the more imperative > >> that we produce a dictionary in it. > > Prejudice like that against a natural language (which is very often expressed in > the world) would, I hope, never stand here against the opening of a wiki. The only > remaining part of the agreed-with argument is that it is a constructed language, and > we have not been deleting wikis merely because they belong to constructed languages. > > *Muke! > You are under the misimpression that I don't like Klingon *because* it is a constructed language. Nowhere have I said that. I have given actual reasons, including its lack of speakers, lack of literature, lack of significance, lack of educational use. On the other hand, if your argument *is* "Our language is considered linguistically unimportant, functionally nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the more imperative that we produce a dictionary in it" that's not a problem. The problem would be using that argument to create an admittedly "educationally useless" dictionary as a WMF project rather than on an external site. Inclusion guidelines are not prejudice; if you are against any vetting of supposed languages at all, I think you are fighting a losing battle. Wiktionary is not for promotion of your pet project, so this is beginning to sound rather like the sort of argument I hear when I delete some kid's protologism on Wiktionary, of some high school band on Wikipedia ("The world doesn't know about it/us yet; that's why we need an article!"). In fact, it *is* important that our work support educational purposes, and it's not unreasonable to demand that. Dominic ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wiktionary-l mailing list Wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l End of Wiktionary-l Digest, Vol 29, Issue 3 *******************************************