[Wikipedia-l] Request for creation of Dutch-Low Saxon (nds-nl)

[Mark Williamson]

(forwarded to Reinhart (Ron) Hahn to get his opinion)

[Some basic background on the issue for Ron: As you know there is
already a Low Saxon Wikipedia. Somebody just requested a "Dutch Low
Saxon" Wikipedia, complaining that nds.wiki is in "German Low Saxon".
I expressed a few concerns, not least among them that in a case of a
dialect continuum, it will be difficult for us to decide where to draw
lines between varieties, and which varieties should get their own
Wikipedias.]

Concerns that nobody has responded to yet:

* As I noted before, it is a dialect continuum. Stellingwarfs and
Middel-pommersch are surely not easily mutually intelligible, but
Grunnegers and Oostfreesk very well should be.

* Dividing Platt along national boundaries is illogical. If we had an
Oostfreesk Wikipedia, Grunnegers-speakers would surely understand it
and vice-versa, even though Grunnegers is in the Netherlands and
Oostfreesk is mostly in Germany. There are no definite borders between
one and the next, and the national border is just as arbitrary as any.

This would also mean that a man from the tiny village of Laar (in
Germany) would use a different Wikipedia than a man from the tiny
village of Gramsbergen (in the Netherlands), even though they're about
4km (~2.5mi) apart and their speech is identical. Does this make much
sense?

* A case of a dialect continuum is a very new thing for us. We have no
experience with it so far, or we have crammed them all into a single
Wikipedia.

Mark