[Foundation-l] Preservation of cultural diversity and minority languages

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi.
When you speak multiple languages, there are things you can express really
well in one but not in another language. The notion that all languages are
equal is wrong. Consequently there are no "perfect" sub or supersets of
languages. When you state that "we should" I would prefer that you speak for
yourself because I do not feel included and I could not disagree with you
more.

When you talk about "noble minded people", you are talking about people who
do their own thing. Who volunteer to do their own thing. It is not for you
or anyone to determine what they can or cannot do. It does not detract from
what you do, it does not make what you do any less relevant. When you argue
that we have to abandon certain causes, I would ask you what causes you are
involved in are you willing to abandon. If you value the causes that you are
involved in too highly to abandon any of them, I ask you why should others.
If there are causes that you would abandon, my question would be why are you
involved in them in the first place, would it not make sense for you to
concentrate on what is more relevant to you? Having abandoned a cause, does
it make a difference to you when others persevere with the cause that you
abandoned?

I have moved on from Wikipedia and largely from Wiktionary. I am now
involved in languages, localisations and opening up data. I am concentrating
more on the things that are truly valuable and dear to me. The continued
success of Betawiki is more relevant to me then having writing about all the
fish swimming in the rivers and ponds of the Benelux. You should leave it to
the "noble minded" people what they do. When they do a good job they prepare
the way for others to follow. They do you know. :) and consequently what you
perceive as a problem is no problem. It sorts itself out and in the end it
needs neither you not me.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On Feb 9, 2008 6:32 PM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 8, 2008 7:43 PM,  <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > With reference to Upper, Lower, Middle, or Lost in Limbo Sorbian (or any
> > other such language), while I quote from memory, the foundation's goal
> is to
> > create reference works for people "in their own languages." In other
> words, as
> > long as there is a viable body of speakers, it would merit a wikipedia
> and
> > other  projects.
>
> But if all Lower Sorbian speakers are also German speakers, then
> German is just as much "their language" as Lower Sorbian is.
> Presenting information in German to a group of people which all
> understand German should satisfy this mission, regardless of what
> other languages those people might also happen to know.
>
> In cases where the speaking population of one language are a perfect
> subset of the speaking population of another language, we should
> always provide projects in the larger language, and never provide
> projects in the smaller one. The only time we should provide projects
> in both of two languages that perfectly overlap is when there is no
> clear superset/subset relationship between them.
>
> Noble-minded people who try to do all good to all people spread
> themselves too thin and end up doing no good to anybody. We can't
> pursue all just causes, and attempting to will dilute our core
> mission, and will make us less effective at doing anything. A little
> bit of focus and efficiency, while it means that we need to abandon
> certain causes, will enable us to do more good to more people for more
> time then the alternative.
>
> --Andrew Whitworth
>
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