[Foundation-l] Klassical Chinese

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:34 PM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/9/5 Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu>:
>> On Thursday 04 September 2008 18:08:28 geni wrote:
>>> 2008/9/4 Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>>> > Exactly.
>>>
>>> A slight problem is that it can be argued that Wikipedia's core
>>> mission is best filled by active language destruction.
>>
>> The fact that it can be argued still doesn't mean that there it is even a
>> remote possibility for it to be correct.
>
> Okey lets take a real world example then. Which is going to take less
> resources translating 2.5 million articles into the Fayu language or
> teaching what's left of the Fayu English? Which is going to create
> longer term benefits. Providing the Fayu with wikipedia in Fayu or a
> teaching them to speak English which will allow them to access a
> broader range of sources and knowledge.

Obscure language Wikipedias do not serve the purpose of educating
people in their native language.  As you've pointed out, resource wise
it's better to teach the Fayu speakers some popular world languages. I
expect that most speakers of less popular languages also reach the
same conclusion, so we find most of the speakers of less popular
languages busily editing away on English, practising their English
skills for personal benefit, rather than spending their time on a
Wikipedia which will never be complete enough to be really useful as
an encyclopedia. (look at activity levels of the speakers of many
Indian languages for a great example of this.)

In terms of educating people, we could probably get away with only a
dozen or so languages:  Anyone who doesn't learn to read one of those
languages is at a tremendous disadvantage, disconnected from the
commerce and scholarship of the world.  We'd be doing them a
disservice in providing an excuse to not learn a more popular
language… if we were ever able to build comprehensive Wikipedias in
those languages (which we aren't, the speakers of those languages are
able to watch out for their own interests).

Of course, there are many groups who profit greatly from the
artificial barriers created by language incompatibility (linguists,
translators, international businesses, some educational projects (it's
easier to build an empire when you need to fund people to translate or
recreate educational works in 200 languages!)), and groups who fear
for their cultures or systems of governance if their public had the
freedom to directly learn about those of other places.

Unfortunately, the same language barriers make it difficult for normal
people who speak these languages to participate in our English
language discussions. As a result, we're forced to deal with
self-appointed representatives, people who's value stems directly from
the existence of language barriers. Perhaps it should be no surprise
that building resources to help people learn the major languages is
given less consideration than finding ways to prop up Wikipedia which
lack sufficient interest from native speakers to become useful in the
natural fashion.

All that said Wikipedias do serve good purposes beyond being useful as
encyclopedias, ones which might not be our core mission, but which are
still educational in nature. For those other purposes, less popular,
even dead, or unpopular constructed languages can still be useful.  I
agree with the notion of the harmless dead languages, but can still
reject the notion that we need them in order to provide encyclopedias
to everyone.