[Foundation-l] Priorities

[GerardM]

Hoi,
The majority of the people that speak Bangla live in Bangladesh. So you got
it wrong again.

Also when academics prefer English, you ignore my point. The point is that
kids do better academically when they first learn to read and write in their
mother tongue. Academic interests are academic at best when people learn to
read and write. So yes, another language is for non-native English speakers
more effective.

When we invest in issues that are particularly of relevance to the English
language Wikipedia our money does not give us the return that an investment
in other languages gives us.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 10/23/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
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