[Foundation-l] multilingual mailing list

[Milos Rancic]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 05:08, Waldir Pimenta <waldir at email.com> wrote:
> Milos,
>
> Basque is not spoken on that list. I haven't heard of any interest in
> creating a Basque chapter (and I've recently been in contact with a few
> people from the Basque Wikipedia, for a chapter-like activity, so I believe
> I would know if such interest existed), and the Iberocoop list, on the other
> hand, is focused on existing and planned chapters.
>
> In any case, although we firmly defend a multilingual setup, we've
> thoroughly discussed this and agreed that it can only work when the
> languages are, like Thomas said, mutually intelligible. Basque would not fit
> there, because of this, but AFAIK most Basque people speak Spanish as well,
> so that wouldn't be a (hypothetical) problem.

I supposed that it is so.

However, my point wasn't about inclusion of people from Basque region
in regional cooperation -- as I am sure that initiative for chapters
cooperation on Iberian peninsula will include them -- but about
linguistic issues. And I described that above in relation to the
situation in former Yugoslavia. Albanian speakers from Kosovo are in
very similar position as Basque speakers from Basque Country are:
their language is distant from the surrounding languages and they use
regional lingua franca when they want to communicate even on the lists
intended to be multilingual.

So, nothing organizationally, just about the fact that even on
multilingual lists there are more and less equal languages. And that's
not because some group wants to discriminate other group, but because
it is communication reality.