[Wikipedia-l] Re: multilingualism (was Q1 drive)

[V. Ivanov]

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:00:14 -0500, Henry Tan-Tenn wrote:
>  Another is the
> assumption that should en: fail (or be judged to have failed), one can
> safely assume smaller and less active editions will also fail.

It's not exactly the fact.

While the larger language Wikipedias compete with commercial
encyclopedias (and the larger language speakers have the choice), the
smaller language Wikipedias are _unique_, the speakers of such
language don't have much choice -- and Wikipedia appears to be the
only _try_ to create an encyclopedia. It also can become the main
source for a future "official" encyclopedia, which might be too
expensive for a not so large people, if all the authors are paid.

So, Wikipedia might exist as a set of _relatively good_ sources for
the languages, which do not have large choice. E. g. I am not sure if
there had ever appeared any Ossetic text on the Laplandian War before
the "translation of the week" has been done (though there are
certainly lots of texts, including large novels, on the WWII in Soviet
territory).

Wikipedia for a nation of 500 thousand to, say, 5 million seems to be
the best way of writing an encyclopedia in their language. And even if
the English WP fails, that will not mean the idea is all wrong for
every language on the Earth.

Sl.
-- 
Esperu cxiam!