[Foundation-l] Priorities

[Ray Saintonge]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 10/24/07, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Languages die because there is no education available in those languages.
>>     
> Why would there not naturally be education available in languages that
> people were interested in using?  I think you may have the causation
> reversed there. :)
>   
Not at all.  You seem to ignore the effects of European imperialism on 
many native languages, something that in many cases amounted to cultural 
genocide.  The imperial powers did a lot to make the natives feel that 
using their own language made them inferior.
>> Think about that for a second, and you see that a side-effect of Wikimedia's
>> goal of bringing free content to all the people in the world in their own
>> language, is actually saving languages.
>>     
> Yes, the side effect. It's great if that happens as a side-effect in
> some cases, but saving languages isn't the mission.
>
> When there is no conflict and we can work side by side with language
> preservationists, extreme polyglots, and conlang advocates thats
> great. But if we reach a point where language preservation is being
> advocated as a core part of the foundation's mission and when some
> people are advocating that funding be diverted from the true
> educational mission we will need to put a stop to that.
Nobody is saying that saving languages should be our "mission".Being 
polyglot has nothing to do, though it is important for everyone 
(especially anglo-chauvinists) to have at least the rudiments of a 
second language. Constructed languages have nothing to do with the 
present discussion. It is a part of the core to make knowledge available 
to everyone in his or her own language.  Diverting funds to that end for 
an endangered language is not contrary to our mission.

Ec