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

[Milos Rancic]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are two separate issues in relation to standard language
> creation: ethnic/political-based and language-based. Inside of the
> first group are South Slavic standards based on Neo-Shtokavian dialect
> (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin), two Norwegian standard
> languages, two Belorussian standards, Romanian-Moldovan case and,
> possibly, some number of other cases. Inside of the second are the
> most of the cases all over the world: from around 800 not standardized
> languages of Papua New Guinea to languages of Europe which have never
> a possibility to get the status of "a language". Inside of the second
> group are Arabian languages.
>
> Our responsibility for the languages of the first group is to find the
> best solution for the new project. Sometimes it is possible to make a
> conversion engine between standards, sometimes it is not, but it is
> reasonable not to create a new project, but to leave both (close)
> standards to be written at one. But, if both options are not possible,
> our responsibility is to give them a separate project.
>
> What our responsibility in such cases is not -- is to help to those
> people in forming of the new standard. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia
> projects are about education, not about nation formation. While it is
> possible to see some exceptions (including already existing projects),
> I would be very strict here: (1) no ISO code -- no Wikipedia; (2)
> conversion engine is possible -- new languages will be at the existing
> projects; etc.
>
> However, I don't think that it is not our responsibility in relation
> to the second group of languages. In comparison with all relevant
> international institutions which deal with languages -- Wikimedian
> community is the most relevant. There are a few organizations which
> are willing to help in standardization of some language, but I don't
> know for anyone which is willing to do that if it is not about
> translation of the Bible (if anyone knows for such organization
> without such agenda, please let me know!). Wikimedian community grew
> up enough to deal with such things.
>
> So, even if it needs extra efforts, I think that we should do it.
> Because, if we are not doing that, no one would would do.

And one more addition here: If it is possible to make a conversion
engine in the second group, it should be done that way. Our primary
goal is to spread education at the most efficient way, not to build
ethnic identities.