[Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2013 scholarship now accepting application

[Mathieu Stumpf]

Le lundi 18 février 2013 à 09:16 +0000, Liam Wyatt a écrit :
> So... Apparently this is where you are expected to write something that
> convinces people you have a firm grasp of English. Unfortunately, this is a
> written test, not an oral test - because an oral test might be quite
> useful. I know many people from my own country and other
> English-native-speaking countries that are officially literate but when
> asked to speak in a formal setting (or even semi-formal situation like
> Wikimania) are incapable of clear enunciation, diction, grammar,
> intonation, accent and speed. Certainly, they can be understood by *other*
> native English speakers but they have no concept of how difficult it is for
> non-native speakers to understand them.
> 
> Perhaps a mandatory class for native speakers before the conference
> entitled:
> "Speak English, like, more good 'n stuff for all y'all. Mmm'kay?"

And why not propose an "introduction to esperanto[1] and why it would be
by far a beter solution than using english in all international
conferences" ?

Seriously, there's so much time and energy spended to learn English (but
any native langage would give you problem, I suppose) as a second/third
language around the world  for such a poor result that even someone who
have no problem to write an academic text can't be understood by other
non-natives when he speaks oraly.

This would really be an interesting topic in fact. Clearly the English
language is strickly pushed by/for economical reasons, not because it's
an efficient communication tool like it's suggested in an answer by
geni[2] to "New proposal for a wiki Project!" to preserve minority
languages.

So reasons why we use English on this list is obvious for now, but
promoting a constructed international auxiliary language and aiming (as
a long term project) to make it the default language for Wikimedia
mailing lists and international meetings, to me it sounds like it would
fit with the “imagine a world in which every single human being can
freely share in the sum of all knowledge” goal.

Now I hope no one will read this message as a diatrib against English, I
think every language have is genius[3] and I don't believe there are
better or perfect language. But I do believe that for specific goals
some languages may be more or less fitted.

So please, really don't take this message as an attack against anything
or anyone, I love you all! I just hope we may better understand each
other through a communication mean more fitted to our community
diversity. :)

[1] Or any language as efficient for international communication the
community would prefer (and you know it can't be a native one).
[2] To be fair, here is the relevant quotation :
>>As language minorities mostly live in rural areas they are perfectly
>>adapted to their environment and in their linguistic world/lexicon
>>>there are more concepts and ideas than people from the cities have.
>
>English can deal with concepts ranging from the Australian outback to
>the housing projects of Detroit to CERN. Minority languages can only
>be compared logarithmically (assuming they have the concept of
>logarithms).

[3] As in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_%28literature%29 . And by
the way, to my mind this sounds like an important point in favor of
defending language diversity, in the same time as you promote
international communication through a constructed languag.