[Foundation-l] Arabic, a non native language

[Mark Williamson]

If we had the 347 most-spoken languages of the world covered (that is,
all those languages with over 1 million speakers), we would still be
missing 6% of the world.

Someone asked on this list once which tiny number of languages we
could translate documents into to reach the whole world. They seem to
forget the Tower of Babel - even with the 75 most-spoken languages,
you're still missing 20% of humans. When you use a more convenient
number like 8, you're missing a whopping 60%.[1]

Of course, all of these statistics ignore the fact that adults on
Earth are only 82% literate.[2]

We have relatively good coverage of about the 100 most-spoken
languages, and after that, it gradually gets spottier and spottier.

Mark

[1] http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size
[2] http://earthtrends.wri.org/

On 11/08/2008, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is already an Arabic Wikipedia - I'm assuming its in Standard Arabic.
> I think Crazy Lover's point was that the native speaking audience
> requirement
> was flawed, because few people speak Standard Arabic as a native language.
>
> I think that falls under the "exceptions can be made" rule of common sense,
> and the language policy itself is, I think, flexible enough to make use of a
> major language even if the number of native speakers is small.
>
> This was discussed previously, but can anyone point me to the thread where
> GerardM and others discussed what proportion of the world's population
> did not have a Wikimedia project in a language they speak, and also what
> proportion is unrepresented with a native language project? It seems like
> the
> focus ought to be on recruiting people who speak the languages of the
> projects
> we already have, rather than tweaking our policies to get the maximum number
> of empty projects.
>
> Stupid question, perhaps - I know Wikimedia projects don't accept
> advertising,
> but do we advertise ourselves? Main page banners of popular projects asking
> for native speakers to contribute in other projects, banners on websites of
> local
> or national popularity in areas where the number of our contributors are
> small,
> etc.? I'm thinking of the CIA's banner ads, like the one with an Arabic
> phrase
> and then an English one that says "If you can read this, and you're an
> American
> citizen, you could work for the CIA."
>
> Nathan
>
> On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Andrew Whitworth
> <wknight8111 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> Arabic, if there are a large number of speakers and if it can be used for
>> efficient communication between speakers of divergent dialects, would
>> seem like a great choice for a new language project. If the language
>> is classified as "dead" or "ancient" or if it has no "primary
>> speakers", those factors can be taken into account, but the language
>> needs to be evaluated from a holistic standpoint to see that it is
>> indeed worthy of having a project.
>>
>> --Andrew Whitworth
>>
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