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

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
When you are a reader, a student of a constructed language, encyclopaedic
content provides the material that allows you to learn the language in the
most optimal way. It is exactly the reading of content in a particular
subject matter what allows you to learn the vocabulary. This is not achieved
by finding the words in a dictionary. This makes an encyclopaedia
educational on several levels and Wikipedia the best project for a
constructed language.

NB I do not speak any constructed language.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On Jan 25, 2008 12:13 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 25/01/2008, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > For a constructed language writing an encyclopaedia is in many ways the
> holy
> > grail. Being able to do so succesfully proves that the constructed
> language
> > can be used to express about any subject. Both a Wikisource and a
> Wiktionary
> > are static resources while the value of constructed languages is in
> active
> > resources.
> > As you indicate that there are arguments why you come to exactly the
> > opposite viewpoint, I am interested in learning them.
>
>
> I'm speaking in terms of reader usefulness. It's not a question of the
> writing so much as the reading. I do agree it's an important milestone
> for a conlang to be useful enough to write an encyclopedia,
> particulary a living wiki-based one.
>
> (Getting back to the question of machine-generated articles, these
> seem to me to be more like building infrastructure for further
> development rather than creating useful work - I didn't think the
> Rambot US placename articles on en:wp were very useful when created,
> but lots have had good stuff added to them by humans since then.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>