[Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia

[Boris Lohnzweiger]

Hi Wouter !

First of all, let me point out that I fully agree that there is no sense in including Saterlandic Frisian articles in the existing West Frisian Wikipedia. The language (along with North Frisian and its dialects) is just too distinct for that. I think Mark got it right  - even though living in Arizona! - when he was writing about three Frisian languages. One might add that - as far as I know - Saterlandic is the only surving dialect of the East Frisian language which formerly covered basically the whole region of East Frisia (including the East Frisian islands). By the way, in Germany only the terms "Saterländisch" or "Saterfriesisch" are used for the language while "Ostfriesisch" nowadays refers to the regional variant of Lox Saxon (Plattdeutsch) spoken in East Frisia. When talking about the Frisian language spoken in the north of the Netherlands Germans generally use the term "Westfriesisch" in order not to confuse it with Frisian spoken in Germany. However the Dutch simply call it "Fries" or "Frysk" and many might not be aware of the variants spoken in Germany because they have relatively few speakers compared to West Frisian.

Having said all that, here's my main point. I value your enthusiasm and I am in favour any appropriate means for preserving and promoting endangered minority languages (which are a precious cultural heritage) such as Saterlandic Frisian. However, I think it's just impossible to create a useful online encyclopedia depending on volunteer editors out of a community of barely 2000 native speakers. Please think about it. From looking at your name, I guess you are not a native speaker, are you? Please don't get me wrong. Of course, you can set up a Saterlandic wikipedia technically. But once it is installed would it ever have the slightest chance of becoming a useful, reliable source of information? Could it ever really flourish? If so, great! But given the small number of Saterlandic speakers I really doubt that. And please remember that even for those, say, 1.800 people the language they read and write in is German. 

How many editors does a wikipedia need to work (even if only at a very modest level)? E. g. the Dutch wikipedia (with c. 55,000 articles) currently has 9,333 registered editors, out of a language community of maybe 23 million. That equals a ratio of 0.04 % editors - and even if that number might still grow in the future, most wikipedia languages probably won't even reach that percentage. Now try to break that down for Saterlandic! In my opinion the only way for a wikipedia to become a success is to bring together a large number of people to cooperate. As far as Saterlandic is concerned, that is just not possible. That is a pity, of course. But it's the truth. 

If you think I am too pessimistic please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_ranking_February_2005, ranks 86 through 161. It's not that those wikipedias have just been established recently. Matter of fact, most of them have existed for quite some time now. Some of them have been around for a couple of years or more. And all of them have been them have been set up with the best of intentions by committed people just like you. And many of those languages have millions of speakers. But nevertheless, those wikipedias just aren't running. I always get kind of sad when I look at them. I surely wouldn't like to see a Saterlandic edition ending up like that.

Just some thoughts that crossed my mind

Boris


wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 04.03.05 20:43:28:

I would like to apply for a Wikipedia in Saterlandic (East) Frisian. Further 
details can be read at 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterlandic_Frisian_language and soon at the 
requests page.

Thanks in advance,

Caesarion

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