[Foundation-l] Klassical Chinese

[Nikola Smolenski]

On Sunday 07 September 2008 08:54:06 Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:34 PM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 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

Fayu is an extreme example. But for even a small language such as Serbian (at 
most around 10 million of speakers), it would be cheaper to translate entire 
English Wikipedia to it than to educate all Serbian speakers in English; not 
to mention that the former is actually doable, while the latter is not.

> 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

I hope you don't think that people are contirbuting to English Wikipedia 
solely so that they could practice their English.

> Of course, there are many groups who profit greatly from the
> artificial barriers created by language incompatibility (linguists,

(Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort, and so 
barriers among them are natural and not artificial.