[Foundation-l] Ancient Greek reconstructed an analysis of a proposal for a new Wikipedia

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
There is a request for a Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. This request has so far
been denied. A lot of words have been used about it. Many people maintain
their positions and do not for whatever reason consider the arguments of
others.

In my opinion their are a few roadblocks.

   - Ancient Greek is an ancient language - the policy does not allow for
   it
   - Text in ancient Greek written today about contemporary subjects
   require the reconstruction of Ancient Greek.
      - it requires the use of existing words for concepts that did
      not exist at the time when the language was alive
      - neologisms will be needed to describe things that did not
      exist at the time when the language was alive
      - modern texts will not represent the language as it used to be
   - Constructed and by inference reconstructed languages are effectively
   not permitted

We can change the policy if there are sufficient arguments, when we agree on
a need.

When a text is written in reconstructed ancient Greek, and when it is
clearly stated that it is NOT the ancient Greek of bygone days, it can be
obvious that it is a great tool to learn skills to read and write ancient
Greek but that it is in itself not Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek as a
language is ancient. I have had a word with people who are involved in the
working group that deals with the ISO-639, I have had a word with someone
from SIL and it is clear that a proposal for a code for "Ancient Greek
reconstructed" will be considered for the ISO-639-3. For the ISO-639-6 a
code is likely to be given because a clear use for this code can be given.
We can apply for a code and as it has a use bigger then Wikipedia alone it
clearly has merit.

With modern texts clearly labelled as distinct from the original language,
it will be obvious that innovations a writers needs for his writing are
legitimate.

This leaves the fact that constructed and reconstructed languages are not
permitted because of the notion that mother tongue users are required. In my
opinion, this has always been only a gesture to those people who are dead
set against any and all constructed languages. In the policies there is
something vague "*it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as
determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language
subcommittee <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_subcommittee>)."* It
is vague because even though the policy talks about a discussion, it is
killed off immediately by stating "The proposal has a sufficient number of
living native speakers to form a viable community and audience." In my
opinion, this discussion for criteria for the acceptance of constructed or
reconstructed languages has not happened. Proposals for objective criteria
have been ignored.

In essence, to be clear about it:

   - We can get a code for reconstructed languages.
   - We need to change the policy to allow for reconstructed and
   constructed languages

We need to do both in order to move forward.

The proposal for objective criteria for constructed and reconstructed
languages is in a nutshell:

   - The language must have an ISO-639-3 code
   - We need full WMF localisation from the start
   - The language must be sufficiently expressive for writing a modern
   encyclopaedia
   - The Incubator project must have sufficiently large articles that
   demonstrate both the language and its ability to write about a wide range of
   topics
   - A sufficiently large group of editors must be part of the Incubator
   project

Thanks,
      GerardM