[Wikipedia-l] Re: no:/nb:/nn:/etc. - modified suggestion

[Olve Utne]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:17:35 +0200, Andy Rabagliati wrote:
>Amongst some truly great discussion, we should remember pt:, and ask again 
>if all the nn: and nb: folks could swallow their differences and skim 
>through the other dialect as if it were their own. We have been told that 
>they all understand both.

Dear Andy Rablagliati:

Norwegians also understand English, Swedish and Danish. Swedes mostly 
understand Norwegian and English, and, to varying degrees, Danish. Danes 
mostly understand Norwegian Bokmål and English, and, to varying degrees, 
Swedish. Most Dutch and many Belgians understand English.
Bokmål and Nynorsk are not dialects, they are written languages -- each 
with a solid tradition. Should we then close down all but one of the four 
Scandinavian Wikipedias, as well as the Dutch one? And how about the 
Afrikaans one? (English, Dutch) Or the Alemannish one? (German, French) Or 
the Panjabi one? (Hindi, Urdu)  How about the 
Spanish/Asturian/Galego/Portuguese situation? If you know either Spanish or 
Portuguese and you know a bit of language history, it is reasonably easy to 
read all of them! But that doesn't make it any more or less "justified" for 
them to have a feeling of what is their language identity!

As for Alemannish, I have no serious problem reading it with my background 
in knowing German, Yiddish and some Dutch. But I will not ask for it to be 
closed down, and I do not think would be appropriate in any way for me as 
an outsider to tell them to quit their project and work only within the 
German or French wikipedias instead!

>Balkanisation has irretrievable consequences. We are in the information 
>business, and the information comes first.

Information indeed comes first.

In this case, we are talking about two literary languages, each with a 
solid tradition going back about a hundred years as a separate language for 
Bokmål (defined as the time of the first major orthographic reform away 
from Danish) and 150 years for Nynorsk (defined by the publishing of Ivar 
Aasen's dictionary and grammar of "Det norske Folkesprog". Both Bokmål and 
Nynorsk have their own, extensive literature -- with authors like Olav 
Duun, Tarjei Vesaas, Aslaug Moren Vesaas, Arne Garborg, Kjartan Fløgstad, 
Olav H. Hauge and many others in Nynorsk; and André Bjerke, Knut Hamsun, 
Johan Falkberget, Johan Bojer, Anne-Cath. Vestly, and many others in 
Bokmål. Both Bokmål (< Riksmål < Rigsmaal < Danish) and Nynorsk (< Landsmål 
< Landsmaal < "Det norske Folkesprog") have had separate, clear identities 
continually since the mid-1800s.

Both Bokmål and Nynorsk each have status as official languages in Norway.

The morphology and orthography of Bokmål and Nynorsk differ to a much 
higher degree than is the case of UK vs. US English or the Portuguese of 
Portugal vs. Brazil.

It has also been made clear a few times already in this discussion that we 
are not talking about splitting up Bokmål and Nynorsk. *That has already 
happened,* after it became clear that the experiment of joining the two 
didn't work all that well for practical reasons. It appears that that was a 
good move in that it created a new base of recruitment, and the new users 
tend to work in both Nynorsk and Bokmål, making it a win-win situation for 
everyone. There is what appears to be a minority opinion (Ulf Lunde) of 
splitting the "mostly Bokmål" and an "entirely Bokmål" Wikipedia -- a 
proposal it appears that most of the debattants on wikipedia-l do not in 
fact support. The topic we are discussing is whether the mostly Bokmål 
Wikipedia on no: should move from the countrycode no: for Norway to the 
language code nb: for Bokmål. Also, we are discussing -- and your input 
would be appreciated there -- is how to implement a solution where we can 
let these two languages, together with Swedish and Danish, have optimal 
opportunities for integration and cooperation while also keeping them 
separate enough that it is possible to have a good workspace for 
fine-tuning of grammar and orthography within each language as well as 
having an easier time figuring out what information is lacking in one or 
more of these languages.

Looking forward to your input in these topics.


All the best,

Olve


___________________

Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org