On Apr 6, 2004, at 1:39 AM, Andre Engels wrote:
"Erik Moeller" erik_moeller@gmx.de schrieb:
Yes, I agree that conlangs are the more serious problem than natural languages. However, I don't think that there should be no criteria at all for natural languages. The three criteria that Andre proposed - ISO 639-2, more than 50 archived documents, or more than 10,000 speakers - seem reasonable, and would probably kick out most obscure conlangs, while leaving in legitimate spoken tongues, and dead languages too, if there's a written record of them (not that I care at all about those, but in the interest of wikipeace ..).
Actually, I think these might be too inclusive when looking at dead languages. While I am all for the Latin Wikipedia, and would not mind a Sanskrit one, Hittite or Sumerian are another matter. Many dead languages are only in passive use, and to exclude those, I would like to restrict ourselves to those languages in which (new) documents have been written within the last 50 years or so.
I agree instinctively with your point, but I must ask: why exactly? If a group of speakers can maintain a Wikipedia in that language, isn't that requirement enough? Contrast this issue to that of Klingon, where some have made the argument that seeing "Klingon" (or tlh... whatever) at the top of certain pages might be offensive. I can't think of a good reason why not to let people have a go at Sumerian if they feel up to it. If it never gets big it takes up that much less room. :) If it's a substantial burden on Brion and others though, then that's a good answer to my question.
Peter
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