[Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki

[Delirium]

Mark Williamson wrote:

>2. An academic excersise?
>http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_3_110/ai_73064217/pg_1
><- Gothic was last heard in the Crimea by outsiders between the 1780s
>and 1790s, according to the page (and if travellers passing through
>still heard it in the 1780s, it probably survived in remote areas
>until the 1800s or 1810s). As is normal with language death,
>descendants of the last native speakers undoubtedly knew some of the
>language, less with each generation, until perhaps the 1850s or 1870s
>(though it could hardly be declared fluency most likely), and I would
>not be surprised if there are still a couple of hundred Gothic words
>in use by their descendants today in Tatar/Ukrainian/Russian/whatever
>language it is they speak now.
>  
>
I can't speak for everyone here (obviously), but IMO there's nothing 
wrong with promoting a Gothic revival of course, just a concern that a 
Gothic Wikipedia is not currently the best way to do it.  It seems it is 
not actually spoken by anyone fluently, or used in day-to-day 
communication, which is the sort of thing Wikipedias are for (for 
looking up encyclopedia-type facts).  It is apparently an interesting 
language, with some amount of information available and a community of 
people interested in it, which would make it a good candidate for 
hosting the extant historical texts in wikisource, and developing a 
working dictionary of the language in a Gothic Wiktionary.  If that were 
done, and if people started to use the language, then the case for a 
Gothic Wikipedia would be much stronger.  It's just odd for there to be 
an encyclopedia for a language in which there is apparently no 
contemporary writing and no good dictionary.

-Mark