[Foundation-l] Fwd: Tokipona

[Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)]

Hello,

The exception for constructed languages that GerardM mentions is not
an exception at all.

The line he's referring to is the second sentence in this requirement:
"The proposal has a sufficient number of living native speakers to
form a viable community and audience. If the proposal is for an
artificial language such as Esperanto, it must have a reasonable
degree of recognition as determined by discussion."

That phrase has been in the policy since the very beginning, before
there was a requirement for native speakers. You can see this in the
very first draft written on 11 November 2006, at <
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy?oldid=466496
>. (This draft predates my joining the subcommittee, so no
subcommittee discussion shaped it.)

That original draft reads as such: "The proposal has a sufficient
number of speakers to form a viable community and audience. If the
proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto, it must have
a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion."

It was then intended not as an exception, but as an __additional
requirement__. The requirement for native speakers was introduced
nearly a year later on 17 October 2007 (see <
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy?diff=711692
>). The __extra requirement__ for constructed languages did not then
exempt them from the new requirement; it was simply left behind by
accident, and only noticed recently and misinterpreted.

As such, the current policy prohibits constructed languages *and* has
a special requirement for them (which is contradictory, but that's
because it's just an omission), it does *not* exempt them from needing
native speakers.

This is the current matter of discussion: should we have an exception
for constructed languages after all? If we exempt them from needing
native languages, do we apply a special requirement for them or not?

-- 
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
(No messages by those on the language subcommittee are official.)