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

[David Gerard]

On 25/01/2008, Pharos <pharosofalexandria at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rather, I believe in a reasonable compromise that retains the
> useful-to-the-modern-world "historical" and constructed languages, and
> keeps out those that aren't written anymore.
> And I know you have been an advocate of Latin Wikipedia.  I would not
> call such a language "reconstructed", but rather, a living and
> evolving "classical language", with an active contemporary literature.
>  And I do not believe Latin to be unique in this regard.


Comparing Volapuk to Esperanto is interesting in this regard. (Not
considering the issues of concern about the Volapuk Wikipedia.)
Volapuk is a conlang which is actually older than Esperanto and was
designed to fill a similar need. However, Esperanto has retained its
popularity and is actively used as an auxiliary language, with a
reasonable number of speakers and an active community using and
writing in it - whereas Volapuk has all but fallen into disuse. A
Wikisource and Wiktionary in Volapuk would arguably be useful to the
world, a Wikipedia not so much.


> What do you think of the proposal for using the demonstrated
> notability of a language's contemporary literature (as demonstrated by
> a Featured Article on the subject in the English Wikipedia) as the
> criteria for the approval of a primarily-written language (such as the
> "historical" and constructed languages)?


I think it's a bit too subjective to make it a criterion, but it may
be a useful indicator if such an article has reached some sort of
quality status (e.g. FA or GA in en:wp) in a large natural language
Wikipedia.


- d.