[Foundation-l] Klassical Chinese

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
As we are not to support barriers to knowledge, we should acknowledge that
people learn a new subject best in their own language. For people who know
multiple languages we point to information in other languages by way of the
"interwiki links".

I do not understand why people who speak English equate the ability to speak
a language with a country.. English, French, German, Dutch and many many
other languages are spoken in multiple countries. Consequently it is wrong
to call people who support their mother tongue nationalist.

When a person knowledgeable in the English language and its dialects is
confronted with people from London, Sydney, the US bible or SF it is almost
certain that people can be identified to their origin based on their
language. English is not a monolith, even when you have a rich vocabulary
you will not know many words that are basic to people speaking native
English who life in a different cultural setting.

Language is interesting, it works best if the words and concepts you use are
shared. Even within one language, one region this is not a given.
Thanks,
      GerardM



On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 2:42 PM, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2008/9/11 Marcus Buck <me at marcusbuck.org>:
> > Geni, there is one basic misconception in all your arguments. You are
> > speaking about reduplication of effort and about efficiency. But it is
> > not the goal of the foundation to cram the minds of all the world's
> > population with as much information and knowledge as possible. We don't
> > want to rear brain machines. Wikimedia has no social agenda to change
> > society. Being dumb is okay. It's okay if you don't know the basic facts
> > of history. It's okay if you don't know the differences between McCain
> > and Obama, between Merkel and Steinmeier or between dos Santos and
> > Samakuva. It's okay if you don't know any foreign languages or even your
> > native language poorly. It doesn't matter. We don't want to force people
> > to learn. But if people decide, they want to learn something, Wikimedia
> > is there to help them. That's our goal. To provide the possibility.
> >
>
> Equally we have little interest in supporting barriers to knowledge.
>
> > Your philosophy matches the Borg philosophy. Assimilate as much species
> > as possible to become as efficient as possible. Do you remember that in
> > Star Trek every species has one characteristic feature or topic? The
> > shortest possible description of the Borg is "Hive", of the Klingons
> > "War", of the Ferengi "Commerce", of the Vulcans "Reasoning". The topic
> > of the Humans is "Humanity". You are a Borg, not a Human.
>
> Except your humans are "nationalist".
>
> > Personally, I would rather die, than to live in a world speaking one
> > language, subject to one legislature, all people watching the same
> > movies and reading the same books. Diversity and imperfection is what
> > makes life interesting.
>
> Really? You realise that 100 years ago my country had a culture that
> fulfilled that request for many people (although generally not
> Europeans for various reasons)? Cultures change evolve and die.
> Sometimes we should not morn their passing so much.
>
>
> >It was you, who said "Totally bi-lingal
> > situations are not long term stable". That's true. Therefore don't
> > enforce global bilinguality. It would inescapably end in a monocultural
> > world.
>
> London is not Sydney is not the US bible belt is not SF.
>
> > When I was a child, I loved our holidays in Denmark. It was exciting.
> > Foreign language, foreign mentality of the people, foreign food etc. The
> > differences made it interesting. Today some things have changed since my
> > childhood days. Many typical discounters of Denmark where replaced by
> > international discounters, for example Aldi (for the US guys: Aldi is
> > the German equivalent of Wal-Mart [Aldi is present in the US too, but
> > not as well known as Wal-Mart, I guess]). You can buy typical German
> > food in Denmark and typical Danish food in German discounters (well,
> > most "typical" Danish food is going to be unknown even in Denmark
> > itself, only "stereotypical" Danish food is sold elsewhere). Wherever
> > you go, there are Burger Kings and McDonalds (in almost every single
> > country in the world). Diversity is the salt in the soup of life. But
> > globalization (and a "common language" is part of globalization) makes
> > the soup very insipid.
>
> You don't need a common language for cultural homogenisation.
> Hollywood movies do well because they are prepared to spend millions
> on them and have a solid talent and skills base combined with good
> distribution networks. Bollywood has much the same going for it
> although not yet the distribution network. Franchises are somewhat
> skilled at crossing language barriers. Even with the more isolationist
> cultures like japan (do we really have that much of an idea as to what
> is going on on the japanese wikipedia ?) stuff moves in and out.
>
> So you would support a barrier to information flow in the hope it
> maintains some kind of cultural purity when realistically it fails to
> do so.
>
> --
> geni
>
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