[Wikipedia-l] Problems with finding native Seeltersk speakers

[Wouter Steenbeek]

Hi all,

Trying to set up a Wikipedia in Seeltersk, I e-mailed Pyt Kramer, who is an 
important authority on this language, and has good contacts with many native 
speakers. He already promised his collaborations on the project. Now I 
explained him in my e-mail that the community wants native speaker support, 
but that would be problematic. Most native speakers are to be found among 
elderly people, who are relatively unfamiliar with the internet and have 
learned no English. There is only one potential contributor, who - luckily - 
was also willing to work on it. The second category of native speakers 
consists of children, who are not yet supposed to collaborate. The number of 
native speakers between 15 and 60 is really very low.

But among those, we can recruit some willing contributors: the parents 
raising their children in Seeltersk. They are real Seelters, and in their 
daily life they speak the language every day. That makes them as good as 
native speakers.

Therefor I would like to ask: is it possible, with a language which is being 
revived, to grant requests like these when language revivers rather than 
native speakers are showing their interest?

Thanks,

Wouter

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