[Foundation-l] "Historical" languages and constructed languages

[Pharos]

>Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>There is no real difference between a historical language used by
>enthusiasts and a constructed language used by enthusiasts.

I agree with this point, but from an opposite, more inclusionary perspective.

If fact, I think I hear echoes of some of the points I raised at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Language_subcommittee and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Language_subcommittee/2008
:)

Which is why I must protest the recent decision by the Language
subcommittee against any and all Wikipedias in "historical" languages,
and the possibility of that decision being extended to any and all
Wikipedias in constructed languages.

Now, all "historical" languages are not created equal. Some have no
contemporary literature, like Anglo-Saxon. Others have an active
contemporary literature, like Latin. Languages like Latin I would
classify as living "classical languages" that have a contemporary
literature, but few or no modern speakers. It is these languages that
are comparable in application to constructed languages, and that
should share the same criteria for inclusion, which IMO should be the
breadth of their contemporary literature.

Some people would say that languages without native speakers are
useless. I disagree profoundly. When Newton wrote Principia, was he
writing in a 'useless' language? If a language has an active
literature, it is not useless. Yes, primarily written languages are
not ideally suited for teaching young children basic facts about the
world. But they do have an important place in the intellectual sphere.
Imagine Catholic seminary students, from different parts of the world,
writing articles on church history, using the original Latin sources.
Would not such articles be ripe for translation into many different
languages?

And the argument that people are being siphoned off from their native
language Wikipedia to work on Latin just doesn't make any sense; it is
far more likely that the unique prospect of a Latin Wikipedia is
drawing people in who would not otherwise be associated with Wikimedia
projects at all.

Of course, the big question is, where do you draw the line? And how do
you draw it effectively, so that we don't exhaust the resources of the
resources of the Language subcommittee in fruitless research? As you
might have guessed, I'm a strong proponent of requiring active
contemporary literatures. ISO doesn't evaluate this, so we need
alternate criteria. One way to determine if a contemporary
contemporary literature is legitimate, is if its legitimacy is
respected by scholars of the "historical" language (as opposed to just
being a product of amateurs with no connection to mainstream
academia).

But if the Language subcommittee wants something really simple and
quantifiable, I'll give you this modest proposal: Is a language's
contemporary literature notable enough to be the subject of a Featured
Article on English Wikipedia?

Yup, simple as that. So, can [[Modern Latin literature]] make it?-
probably, with some work. [[Modern Anglo-Saxon literature]]?- almost
definitely not. [[Modern Ancient Greek literature]]?- maybe. This way,
-you- don't have to do the research. The Featured Article Candidates
team will do it for you.

And of course, these prospective Wikipedias would also still need a
significant initial contributing community, like all prospective
Wikipedia.

Thanks,
User:Pharos




Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote: