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

[Lars Alvik]

På 16. nov. 2004 kl. 22.51 skrev 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.

Never the less, it's these users that should decide the fate of no:, 
perhaps a vote for these suggestions:
1. My (profoss) suggestion (identical to Utnes except no: stays on no: 
and becomes de jure (compared to todays de facto) bokmålwiki.
2. Utnes suggestion (no: moves lock, stock to nb: and no: is kept 
(forever!) as a redirect to nb:
3. Status quo.

The redirect serverside ensures that we don't have to mess with manual 
redirects and supervise an otherwised closed wiki, perhaps give a 
special status to nn: interwikilinks, print "Denne artikkelen finnes 
også på nynorsk (articlename on nynorsk) on the top or some other 
solution. The permanent no: redirection is to ensure that the 
dominating language in norway can still use no: without hassel, 
disambigulationpages only serve to confuse. Someone that clicks on no: 
expects to end up with bokmål, it's after all the perfered written 
language for around 90% of the population.

As much as i respect nynorsk (it's not my language, but some of my 
fellow countrymen use it)

It's nessicary that the debate is dropped dead after that, really dead.

mvh. Lars Alvik