[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

[Daniel Mayer]

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I obviously speak only for myself here, not Jimbo, but IMO promoting 
> minority languages is separate from the main goal.  The goal of creating 
> an *encyclopedia* is to get information to people, in a language-neutral 
> way.  The only importance of any language in that context is that the 
> encyclopedia needs to be available in enough languages so that everyone, 
> or at least as many people as possible, can access information in a 
> language they feel comfortable using---only creating an English 
> encyclopedia, for example, would leave out in the cold people who don't 
> understand English well enough to make good use of it.

Let’s not forget that language is not only a means by which information is
presented, it is also part of the human experience we are documenting. One of
the main reasons why many schools require students to learn a second language
is to expose students to a different culture and way of codifying thought (this
contrast is often very instructive in showing the student how their own
language works). 

Thus helping to preserve an endangered language by hosting an encyclopedia in
it also directly furthers our goal. This would not include non-famous conlangs
since those are largely original research. 

-- mav


	
		
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