[Foundation-l] Conlangs, ancient languages, non-active Wikipedias, non-written languages and priorities

[Milos Rancic]

Something is a language even it has to use neologisms and it is a
"dead" language. While I definitely support low priority of
ancient/dead languages, I don't think that this argument about
neologisms is relevant. One language is something more than a
vocabulary.

On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 7:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
>  The starting premise is wrong. We have arguments why not to start historic
>  languages. When you write in a dead language you will invariably start to
>  used neologisms or start to give a different meaning to a words that they
>  originally did not have. As a consequence you do not learn the language as
>  it was at the time of its demise. It is no longer that language.
>
>  There are constructed languages like Lingua Franca Novo who are already
>  working on their Wikipedia outside of the WMF. This project is of a quality
>  that we would be proud of if it were a WMF project of similar size. The only
>  reason why it is not accepted as far as I am concerned is politics; the
>  widespread aversion of some against constructed languages. In contrast to
>  historic languages neologisms are fine in constructed languages.
>  Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
>
>
>  On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:17 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  > Conlangs and ancient languages are usually treated similarly. The
>  > issues which are related to them are, also, our relation to
>  > non-written languages, as well as non-active Wikipedias (note that I
>  > am not talking about other projects; treat the word "project" as a
>  > synonym for the word "Wikipedia"). All of them don't have a clear
>  > future at Wikimedia.
>  >
>  > I would like to reformulate those issues in relation to our
>  > priorities. The main goal of WMF and Wikimedia community is to spread
>  > free knowledge. According to that, we need to make our priorities and
>  > to work according to them. It is, also, important to treat this issue
>  > without personal (or whichever) POV, but as more neutral as it is
>  > possible. We should, also, treat those issues not only synchronically,
>  > but with a clear vision of some very predictable parts of our future.
>  >
>  > So, I'll write about our priorities as I see them according to "some
>  > very predictable parts of our future" as I see them.
>  >
>  > Before I start, I want to say my POV about all of the issues: (1) I
>  > don't think that conlangs except Esperanto and a couple of specific
>  > conlangs more are too useful. Besides that, I really don't like
>  > wannabe-world languages based on a couple of Indo-European languages,
>  > including Esperanto. (2) Artistic conlangs are, at my opinion, even
>  > lower. (3) I am not interested in developing neo-classical languages.
>  > (4) In this moment non-written languages are not a Wikimedia issue;
>  > some other institutions should take care about such languages before
>  > they become our issue. (5) I already said that if for some project may
>  > be reasonably said that it is not active ("reasonable" is a criteria
>  > about we may talk...) -- then it should be locked, but unlocking
>  > should be allowed if a new speaker of that language want to take care
>  > about that project.
>  >
>  > But, let's see what do we have:
>  >
>  > 1. (Projects in) natural and living languages:
>  > 1.1. The biggest encyclopedia in the history of humans: English Wikipedia.
>  > 1.2. Very soon, the second biggest encyclopedia in the history of
>  > humans: German Wikipedias.
>  > 1.3. Well developed projects which are at a good path to become the
>  > biggest encyclopedias in the history of humans, too. Generally, those
>  > are projects which have more than 50,000 articles or which will have
>  > that number relatively soon.
>  > 1.4. Emerging projects: active projects with, let's say at least 5000
>  > articles and living communities.
>  > 1.5. Projects which started to exist: projects with around 1000
>  > articles at least and a a couple of active contributors.
>  > 1.6. Not active projects which may become active: with less than
>  > around 1000 articles and a couple of not so active contributors.
>  > 1.7. Not active projects: with less than around 1000 and without
>  > active contributors.
>  > 1.8. Hundreds of living written languages which don't have a Wikipedia.
>  > 1.9. Thousands of living non-written languages which don't have a
>  > Wikipedia.
>  >
>  > 2. (Projects in) conlangs:
>  > 2.1. Two useful projects: Esperanto (the only relevant conglang
>  > community) and Volapuk (similarity with English and a lot of data
>  > added by one person).
>  > 2.2. (Do we have any other non-artistic conlang?)
>  > 2.3. A number of potentially useful conlangs which don't have a
>  > Wikipedia because of various out-of-Wikimedia reasons, usually
>  > copyright reasons. (Slovio is an example of such language; it may be
>  > read by any educated person which native language is one of the Slavic
>  > languages.)
>  > 2.4. All other non-artistic conlangs which wouldn't get a project
>  > because of the policies.
>  > 2.5. All artistic conlangs which wouldn't get a project because of the
>  > policies.
>  >
>  > 3. (Projects in) ancient/dead languages:
>  > 3.1. Actually, some of them are not dead (Latin, even a Church
>  > Slavonic, but the later one doesn't have a project, Old Church
>  > Slavonic has). Such are definitely useful: any educated Roman Catholic
>  > (in the Roman Catholic matters) should know Latin.
>  > 3.2. Some of definitely dead languages, like Gothic, Anglo-Saxon...
>  > 3.3. A number of them which don't have projects because of our policies.
>  >
>  > And, I'll try to put them in one priority list, with explanations.
>  >
>  > 1) 1.1. English Wikipedia is definitely our first priority. This is
>  > not because I like English, but because of the fact that it is a
>  > lingua franca of the contemporary world. If you have some knowledge
>  > written in English, you may easily have that knowledge in other
>  > languages, too. However, this project may take care about itself.
>  > 2) 1.2. German Wikipedia is at the same priority as the next group,
>  > but it share one characteristics with English one: it may take care
>  > about itself.
>  > 3) 1.3. Well developed projects are, also, often a lingua franca of
>  > some region, or even more widely. Their importance is similar to the
>  > importance of English Wikipedia in that sense. Because of those
>  > projects we need to have the Volunteer Council: to give them
>  > possibility to take care about themselves.
>  > 4) 1.4.-1.5. Emerging and starting projects are our next priority:
>  > They need a lot of technical and other help to become a stable, well
>  > developed projects. Their importance lays at the fact that a lot of
>  > people are talking those languages.
>  > 5) 1.6. Of course, our next priority should be Wikipedias which have
>  > some activity. If we see that some people are interested in Wikipedia
>  > in their language, we should encourage them to participate in the
>  > project.
>  > 6) 1.7. Not active projects are important, too. At some time someone
>  > came to us and asked for the Wikipedia in their language. We should
>  > try to find some people who are interested in writing project in that
>  > language. But, it goes out of the scope of online community and it is
>  > a matter of WMF and their contacts.
>  > 7) 1.8. The same is for the written languages which don't have
>  > projects. People who are speakers of some language and asks for the
>  > project in their language are very important: it means that they would
>  > be maybe able to go into the more stable state in the near future. At
>  > this point I really support Gerard's position that MediaWiki messages
>  > should be translated: It doesn't just allow other speakers to read MW
>  > messages, but it shows to us that a person is (or persons are) really
>  > willing to create their project.
>  > 8) 1.9. The last group, non-written languages, are, again, a matter of
>  > the WMF. It should be incorporated into the international efforts to
>  > make written forms of non-written languages.
>  > 9) 2.1.-3.1. Useful conlangs should be the next priority. At least,
>  > some number of humans are able to communicate in those languages. And
>  > we should allow them to write their encyclopedias. However, in this
>  > category are only *really* useful conglangs, like Esperanto is.
>  > However, again, Volapuk became a useful one, too -- because of its
>  > similarity with English and a work of one person. This is the category
>  > for useful ancient/dead languages, too, like Latin is. Also, if
>  > Klingon (or whatever artistic language) becomes enough widespread to
>  > be useful -- it should go into this category.
>  > 10) 3.2.-3.3. Definitely dead languages are the next. If we have
>  > resources, and there are people who are willing to do some
>  > neo-classical work -- it may be useful (somehow).
>  > 11) 2.2.-2.4. Non-artistic conlangs are the next. There are a lot of
>  > them; some may be useful for scientific purposes or even for
>  > communication ;)
>  > 12) 2.5. Then, here are artistic conlangs, too. If someone wants to
>  > enjoy while making an encyclopedia in an artistic language and we have
>  > resources -- why not to allow that. Maybe such languages would be used
>  > for real communication sometime in the future.
>  > *  2.3. (and similar) Of course, the only type of conlangs (artistic
>  > or not) which are out of the scope of our interests are copyrighted
>  > languages.
>  >
>  > And the point is the question: Where are we now? Hm. While we are
>  > doing partially other tasks, the answer is simple: We are now in the
>  > process of making Volunteer council, which means that we are finishing
>  > the third global task out of 12.
>  >
>  > And, what to do? Of course, we should analyze our possibilities,
>  > first. Maybe it should be one of the first tasks of the VC. I am sure
>  > that the most of use will accept to take care about projects up to the
>  > priority 7. However, WMF and VC should give to us an analysis of our
>  > possibilities. If we need to spend $10 and 10 working hours (usually,
>  > steward's working hours) per year for one new project in an artistic
>  > language (priority 12), then I think that it is reasonable. However,
>  > if we need to spend $50.000 and a lot of working hours per year for
>  > useful, but not so important Volapuk Wikipedia, instead of giving
>  > $10.000 per one African language for making five relevant
>  > encyclopedias in their languages: I am definitely for the second
>  > choice.
>  >
>  > So, this was my contribution to relatively connected issues about we
>  > are talking a lot. I tried to move discussion from arbitrary choices
>  > to a bigger picture. Of course, I don't pretend for a perfect
>  > construction. I just hope that we may move toward more rational talks
>  > than arguing for one or another option.
>  >
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