[Foundation-l] Montenegrin request for new language wikipedia

[Birgitte SB]

--- Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi!
> I am an outsider in this dispute, but I would like
> to give my opinion on the
> state of these four languages as I see them, after
> learning for some time
> Croatian, and having spoken with a friend who is
> more knowledgable than me.
> 
> What I see is that Montenegrin uses the ijekavica
> dialect of the so-called
> Serbo-Croatian language (which I think is THE
> artificial one from the 5
> mentioned), while the Serbians use the ekavica
> dialect. This makes every
> second word different. Even though either is
> acceptable, you wouldn't wanna
> mix them in an article (as mixing British or
> American spelling: no one would
> really notice), it would stop your "train of
> thought" to decode each woord
> and decide which dialect it was written in.
> Requiring the use of either one
> would be unfair, and would violate the free speech
> rights of either of them,
> also it would lead to some more unnecessary tension.
> 
> Croatian uses latin script, and ijekavica (at least
> the official dialect),
> so Montenegrins could integrate there? Wrong.
> Montenegrin has many words
> borrowed from Turkish that Croatians might not
> understand, or would
> constantly replace with their Croatian counterparts,
> or just remove from
> articles.
> 
> The difference of words and dialect is a main
> difference between Serbian in
> Croatian. Apart from the dialet problem mentioned
> with the Montenegrins,
> Serbian language tends to use Western words by
> transliterating it
> phonetically into Serbian language, while Croatian
> tends to invent their own
> words. Compromise on this ground would either ignite
> tension, or be a factor
> in "deteriorating" Croatian language by introducing
> foreign words, for which
> there is already a Croatian version in use.
> 
> Bosnian: I'm no expert here, why this is a separate
> language :), if not for
> political reasons. I guess they have many Turkish
> words too. Anyway, if
> there is a Bosnian wiki, a Montenegrin one could
> also be.
> 
> Also, if I'm correct Montenegro had its state
> television in the Serbia and
> Montenegro era, that was broadcast it Montenegrin
> (language/dialect).
> 
> In conclusion, Serbo-Croatian was an invented
> language, without machine
> translation between the ijekavica/ekavica/ikavica
> dialects choosing either
> that is not the official in any a part of the region
> would lead to tensions,
> and the difference in words might also lead to
> misunderstandings, or at
> least heart national feelings if a "dialect version
> of a word" is changed to
> an other "for better understanding".
> 
> Anyway, I hope I didn't upset any one, and that I
> wasn't factually wrong, or
> misleading.
> 
> Regards, Bence Damokos
> 
> ps. OFF. why are there so many wikis in Italy?
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> 

I believe there is misunderstang over how the
variations of English are handled on en.WP.  There is
no mixing of the variations (which are more than just
spelling), and people would definately notice if there
was.  The way it works is that in an article on
England, British conventions are used.  In an article
on America, the American conventions are used.  In an
article on Canada, Canadian conventions are used. 
Whenever there is a general article common to all
areas (such as Dog) the original editor who started
the article chooses which conventions to  use.  No one
is allowed to go around changing the grammer and
spelling to their prefered standards on general
articles.  In article where the title would be
different (i.e. Petrol/Gasoline) a redirect is made to
the original title.  Of course people have not always
liked this method and have tried to go around changing
standards, but they are stopped and everyone moves on.
 I don't know these languages myself and I could be
wrong here, but I do not see any significant
differences from the situation in English.

BirgitteSB


 
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