[Foundation-l] On Arabic and sub-language proposals.

[Muhammad Alsebaey]

Hi Gerard, thanks for the reply, just a couple of points:

There is no need for a fixed or formal orthography, there are many projects
> where there is no fixed orthography. Muhammed writes about a duplication of
> effort, we support many languages and there are those who say that people
> should learn English because all the rest is a duplication of effort. These
> people are right however it is not *their *effort that does the
> duplication.
> When people feel a need to write in Egyptian, they can and you do not need
> to. When people ask for a Wikipedia, they have their reasons. The language
> committee does not know these reasons and does not really care to know
> them.
> People do their thing for their reasons and as long as it is within the
> bounds of the rules that the Wikimedia Foundation has set, they can.


Two things here

   1. Your example here is not the same, People are not 'learning' Arabic to
   participate in Arabic wikipedia, I actually can claim that they are
   'learning' how to write and read in the perspective dialect/language (in
   this case Egyptian).
   2.   I certainly am not against people giving their volunteer time
   anywhere they choose, however my point about duplicating is not about
   duplicating work in different languages, it is about duplicating work in say
   10 slightly different versions of Arabic when everyone knows how to read the
   original version perfectly. I too, dont know the reasons of the people who
   request this, but by a simple logic deduction, if the main purpose of a
   wikipedia would be to transfer knowledge to people of a certain tongue, it
   doesnt seem this reason applies to any of those because simply, all the
   people who speak those dialects/languages almost dont *read* anything except
   in formal Arabic if they know how to read.



> In the end it is about freedom. Are you free to determine for others what
> they can and cannot do?


Actually, I dont get how it is about freedom, it is about process, the
current process of selection allows for some languages/dialects that I
personally feel will be superfluous, and I am stating my opinion, how is
that affecting anyone's freedom?


> Thanks,
>        GerardM
>
>

-- 
Best Regards,
Muhammad Alsebaey