[Foundation-l] Signal languages Wikimedia projects

[Marcus Buck]

Andre Engels hett schreven:
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Marcus Buck <me at marcusbuck.org> wrote:
>   
>> Andre Engels hett schreven:
>>     
>>>> nd this configuration does make sense, in my opinion. If we
>>>> have a hypothetical language with one million oral speakers, but only a
>>>> handful of people able to write, it will still be useful to create a
>>>> written encyclopedia. Cause if you start to teach the one million
>>>> analphabets how to read, they immediately have written content
>>>> available. If there is no written content available, there is no
>>>> incentive to learn to read. It's a chicken or egg dilemma. Why are there
>>>> so few books in Breton? Cause there are so few people able to read
>>>> Breton. Why are there so few people able to read Breton? Cause there is
>>>> so few content available. (among other reasons) It's a self-energizing
>>>> effect. The more content there is, the more interest there will be.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> That may be a laudable task, but it is not our task.
>>>       
>> Are you sane? That's _exactly_ our task! Give access to information to
>> people, who nobody else cares about.
>> English Wikipedia is a great project, but almost all information in it
>> can be found elsewhere on the internet. There are other online
>> encyclopedias, databases, private and institutional websites, Google
>> Books. English Wikipedia is just a more convenient way to access the
>> information out there. It saves you time sorting out the good and bad
>> information on the world wide web. That's it, a convenience tool. But a
>> well-developed Yoruba Wikipedia or Gan Wikipedia or Sango Wikipedia or
>> [add in here one of hundreds of other languages] could be the only
>> easily accessible information resource at all. Nobody cares about giving
>> information access to the five million Sango speakers or the hundreds of
>> thousands signers. We should care! I doesn't cost us much. Well,
>> actually it doesn't cost us anything.
>>     
>
> You grossly misunderstood me. What I claimed was NOT that we should
> not be making information available in 'smaller' languages. What I
> want to claim is that we should do so to make the *information*
> available, not to help the *language* develop. Wikipedia is there to
> spread the information. We should have Wikipedia in Yoruba and Sango,
> not because that helps develop the Yoruba and Sango _languages_ to get
> more useful and have a higher status, but because it helps the Yoruba
> and Sango _speakers_ to get the information they want.
>   
But those two are Siamese twins. You cannot separate them. That's what I 
wanted to say. Chad said "there's no audience" and I said "of course 
there is no audience when the stage is empty. the balcony will fill once 
the actors enter the stage".
In 1880 there were no gas stations. And there were no good roads. Horses 
were cheap and motor cars were expensive and loud and they stank. They 
were not even quicker than the horses. There was no market for motor 
cars. And still some guys tried to sell motor cars. It took decades 
until the car was able to replace horses. It will possibly too take 
decades to make Sango and American Sign full-fledged languages. But 
isn't it worth to take a start?
For a person born deaf, learning to read the written oral language of 
his environment is like learning Chinese for a person speaking English. 
It's a big mass of signs and the deaf person cannot make much sense out 
of them cause they are meant to represent sounds. Sounds that have no 
meaning to the deaf person. For them it's only an array of strokes and 
curves.
I speak three languages and can read some more. But those are all 
closely related (and well-equipped with resources) Germanic languages. 
If I were a Sango speaker I had to learn French or English to obtain 
non-local bound knowledge. Those languages are completely unrelated. 
It's again like learning Chinese. I am sure the Sango speakers would be 
very glad if they had not to learn "Chinese" (perhaps they still would 
learn it, but they weren't forced any more).
If you speak Sango natively and there is a well-developed Sango 
Wikipedia around, the information becomes available once you attain 
school and have gained basic reading skills. If there is no Sango 
Wikipedia around, information only becomes available once you attained 
school for several years and gained reading and understanding skills in 
a foreign language. It'll save you some years.

An important point is: Wikimedia's goal is not bottling the brains of 
humankind with as much information and knowledge as possible. That would 
be easiest achieved with teaching a world language to all people (as a 
standardized filling spout). No, we only want to _provide_ information. 
An easily accessible information repository. Everybody who wants 
information can obtain it from Wikimedia's projects. As a provider we 
should provide our material in the easiest accessible format (language). 
And for most people that's the native (or "first") language.

Marcus Buck