[Foundation-l] An agenda for the meeting of the language committee

[Lodewijk]

{{sofixit}} :)

2011/2/24 M. Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>

> There are currently 13 members of the committee, all of them live in
> Europe, the US or Canada with the sole exception of Amir Aharoni, who
> currently lives in Jerusalem but lived in Russia until 1991 and whose
> native language is Russian. I find it hard to believe that the
> language committee has been actively recruiting Wikimedians or others
> in Asia, Latin America or Africa but faced constant rejection and lack
> of interest from all people in those places, which is the impression I
> got from what you said. I think the appropriate reaction to such a
> strong imbalance (and it is a very strong one) is not to say "Well, we
> will be happy to have them if they ever want to join" but to say "We
> recognize that this is an issue and we will actively recruit people to
> try to rectify it."
>
> 2011/2/24, Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org>:
> > As far as I am aware, but please correct me if I'm wrong, the language
> > committee has always tried to gather a large diversity from all over the
> > world. However, it seems hard to find people from underrepresented
> regions
> > to bother themselves with this boring matter (no offense). So if you know
> a
> > good candidate from a region you feel is underrepresented, just put them
> in
> > touch with Gerard and I'm confident they will be able to at least
> > incorporate the knowledge.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > 2011/2/24 M. Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
> >
> >> To me, this is still a problem. If the committee never made any
> >> decisions and instead relied 100% on the opinions of others, then
> >> perhaps the composition wouldn't matter. However, think about this: if
> >> you gather a committee to make decisions about agriculture and recruit
> >> only from European countries, you will find a very different group of
> >> opinions than if you recruit from Africa or India. The same is
> >> certainly the case here. The way people think about languages and
> >> linguistic diversity differs around the world, and it is not to our
> >> benefit to have a committee composed of mostly people from one part of
> >> the world, especially considering that over 60% of Earth's population
> >> lives in Asia. What I am not suggesting is that we should invite the
> >> world's foremost expert on Hindi or Sino-Tibetan languages to be a
> >> member of the committee; what I am suggesting is that we should invite
> >> people similar to existing members, except that they happen to be from
> >> Asia, Africa, Latin America, etc. So people with a deep interest in
> >> many languages, who can bring us different perspectives.
> >>
> >> 2011/2/23, Casey Brown <lists at caseybrown.org>:
> >> > On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 3:12 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> >> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 06:55, Bishakha Datta <
> bishakhadatta at gmail.com>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>> One thought occurred to me: there is no representation of Asian
> >> languages
> >> >>> in
> >> >>> the committee (and I don't mean only Indian languages). Would the
> >> >>> committee
> >> >>> want to consider an expansion in membership to include someone who
> is
> >> >>> fluent
> >> >>> in one or more Asian languages?
> >> >>
> >> >> In principle yes, but... [1]
> >> >>
> >> >> Linguistic qualifications for becoming a LangCom member are not so
> >> >> simple. After a couple of years in LangCom, I may say that many
> >> >> professors of linguistics don't fit. And the main reason is not their
> >> >> knowledge, but attitude toward languages. Or, to be more precise,
> >> >> their boldness. For example, LangCom tasks require from one
> >> >> Indo-Europeanist to give expertize on any Indo-European language, but
> >> >> many of them would say that the classification of, let's say, Kurdish
> >> >> languages is not the part of their job, but the part of the job of an
> >> >> expert in Iranian languages. Such expert in LangCom is basically
> >> >> useless.
> >> >
> >> > Doesn't the language committee also actively seek out experts in
> >> > different languages when they need to?  I seem to recall you guys
> >> > having all test wikis checked by a linguist/expert who speaks the
> >> > language before they are created.
> >> >
> >> > So it's not like people who speak Asian (or other similar) languages
> >> > aren't being actively involved, it's just that none of them are in the
> >> > "administrative committee" at this time.  At least that's how I
> >> > remember it being explained many threads ago. :-)
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Casey Brown
> >> > Cbrown1023
> >> >
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> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> skype: node.ue
> >>
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>
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>
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