[Wikipedia-l] Indian languages and grants (was Re: Combined effort)

[Yann Forget]

Le Sunday 5 June 2005 23:06, Delirium a écrit :
> Tim Starling wrote:
> >Choice of language is a political
> >issue, see e.g.
> >
> >http://www.languageinindia.com/feb2004/langnewsfeb2004.html
> >
> >I think the production of content accessible to less well educated
> >people who aren't connected to the Internet is a goal in line with
> >Wikipedia's mission. Much closer to our mission than a producing a
> >species database, in any case. Perhaps there might be funding available
> >for generating content in these languages.
>
> There are, of course, two solutions to this problem.  One is to help
> less-well-educated people become better educated, which in India means
> learning English (or, to some extent, Hindi). 

This is really NOT a solution. It may even be seen as a provocation.
I believe that most of the education problems India has are because of poorly 
thought suggestion like this. People get thought in a foreign language and 
are illetrate in their mother tongue.

> The other is to produce 
> content in less-widely-spoken languages of India.
>
> As you noted, the choice is a political one, and I'm not sure we ought
> to be in the business of running political campaigns.  Providing
> resources for anyone to work on a Wikipedia in any language they choose,
> sure; but to actively promote the use of particular languages over other
> languages isn't our place.

Well, imposing a foreign language is a political choice, even if it is because 
this is not enough content in the local language.

> -Mark

Yann
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