[Foundation-l] Priorities

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 10/23/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> There are some 100,000,000 people in Bangladesh, some 70,561,000 peoplein
> India

...and the people in india with Internet connectivity clearly prefer
the English Wikipedia.

Which isn't shocking, if we include second and third languages English
is one of the most spoken languages in India, probably only second to
Hindi.. and if we factor in literacy English is almost certainly #1.

We have heard multiple times from multiple experts in education in
India that English is very effective.
It's not clear that without substantially more interest in the other
languages of india that the Wikipedias in those languages could ever
be comprehensive enough to be effective educational tools.

Furthermore, if we were somehow successful at making a fantastic
Wikipedia we'd be contributing to the intellectual isolation of the
people that use it: English is the language of academia in India.


> I dare you to explain how the preservation of a language can come at the
> expense of the people that need it.

If a language is widely used and needed it can't be dead. If a
language is dying it isn't widely used and needed, nearly by
definition.

>I could as easily say that this
> imperialistic tendency to promote a language like English over others comes
> at the expense of bringing education to people.

I don't much care what languages we use. We should use what people
want, and what we can effectively offer.

You have asserted that we should be preserving dying languages. My
disagreement doesn't mean that I think we should promote English (or
French, or..) if some other language would actually be more effective.