[Foundation-l] Push translation

[Shiju Alex]

>
> really? It's a) not
> particularly well-written, mostly and b) referenced overwhelmingly to
>
>> English-language sources, most of which are, you guessed it.. Western in
>>
> nature.
>

Very much true. Now English Wikipedians want some one to translate and use
the exact copy of en:wp in all other language wikipedias. And they have the
support of Google for that.






On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 5:52 AM, Oliver Keyes <scire.facias at gmail.com>wrote:

> "The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and
> written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any
> such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.' - really? It's a) not
> particularly well-written, mostly and b) referenced overwhelmingly to
> English-language sources, most of which are, you guessed it.. Western in
> nature.
>
> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 3:43 AM, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I would like to add to this that I think the worst part of this idea
> > > is the assumption that other languages should take articles from
> > > en.wp.
> >
> > The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and
> > written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any
> > such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.'
> >
> > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Nobody's arguing here that language and culture have no relationship.
> > > What I'm saying is that language does not equal culture. Many people
> > > speak French who are not part of the culture of France, for example
> > > the cities of Libreville and Abidjan in Africa.
> >
> > Africa is an unusual case given that it was so linguistically diverse
> > to begin with, and that its even moreso in the post-colonial era, when
> > Arabic, French, English, and Dutch remain prominent marks of
> > imperialistic influence.
> >
> > Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > > This is well suited for the dustbin of terrible ideas.  It ranks right
> > > up there with the notion that the European colonization of Africa was
> > > for the sole purpose of civilizing the savages.
> >
> > This is the 'encyclopedic imperialism' counterargument. I thought I'd
> > throw it out there. As Bendt noted above, Google has already been
> > working on it for two years and has had both success and failure. It
> > bears mentioning that their tools have been improving quite steadily.
> > A simple test such as /English -> Arabic -> English/ will show that.
> >
> > Note that colonialism isnt the issue. It still remains for example a
> > high priority to teach English in Africa, for the simple reason that
> > language is almost entirely a tool for communication, and English is
> > quite good for that purpose.  Its notable that the smaller colonial
> > powers such as the French were never going to be successful at
> > linguistic imperialism in Africa, for the simple reason that French
> > has not actually been the lingua franca for a long time now.
> >
> > > Key to the growth of Wikipedias in minority languages is respect for
> the
> > > cultures that they encompass, not flooding them with the First-World
> > > Point of View.  What might be a Neutral Point of View on the English
> > > Wikipedia is limited by the contributions of English writers.  Those
> who
> > > do not understand English may arrive at a different neutrality.  We
> have
> > > not yet arrived at a Metapedia that would synthesize a single
> neutrality
> > > from all projects.
> >
> > I strongly disagree. Neutral point of view has worked on en.wp because
> > its a universalist concept. The cases where other language wikis
> > reject English content appear to come due to POV, and thus a violation
> > of NPOV, not because - as you seem to suggest - the POV in such
> > countries must be considered "NPOV."
> >
> > Casey Brown <lists at caseybrown.org> wrote:
> > > I'm surprised to hear that coming from someone who I thought to be a
> > > student of languages.  I think you might want to read an
> > > article from today's Wall Street Journal, about how language
> > > influences culture (and, one would extrapolate, Wikipedia articles).
> >
> > I had just a few days ago read Boroditsky's piece in Edge, and it
> > covers a lot of interesting little bits of evidence. As Mark was
> > saying, linguistic relativity (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) has been
> > around for most of a century, and its wider conjectures were strongly
> > contradicted by Chomsky et al. Yes there is compelling evidence that
> > language does "channel" certain kinds of thought, but this should not
> > be overstated. Like in other sciences, linguistics can sometimes make
> > the mistake of making *qualitative judgments based on a field of
> > *quantitative evidence.  This was essentially important back in the
> > 40s and 50s when people were still putting down certain
> > quasi-scientific conjectures from the late 1800s.
> >
> > Still there are cultures which claim their languages to be superior in
> > certain ways simply because they are more sonorous or emotive, or
> > otherwise expressive, and that's the essential paradigm that some
> > linguists are working in.
> >
> > -SC
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>