I think that rmy.wp should be used for Vlax, but obviously if anyone wants to write anything else there they'll be welcome.
Somehow, though, I think any effort to have a single Romani Wikipedia, or rather to share articles (ie, not have separate articles for the different Roma languages as they do at ku.wp), is ultimately destined to fail because they are simply so wildly different.
Someone who speaks Ursari, the dialect of most Roma in Rep. Moldova, will have a difficult time understanding anything spoken or written in Vlax, and it may be impossible.
This would be like you having to read all WP articles in Aromanian, I think, or maybe worse.
Regarding script, while it is certainly true that Devanagari is obviously crafted for Indic languages and thus fits naturally to the phonology of many (though not all) Romani varieties, as far as I know the movement to use it has very little actual support among the Roma community, or rather, the *literate* Roma community (important distinction).
Nearly all literate Roma use Latin AFAIK (with some using Cyrillic although not nearly as much as earlier years), and it doesn't seem possible that there is a single person literate in Devanagri but not Latin for Romani.
Along these lines I think it would be a bit funny to make a Vlax Wikipedia entirely biscriptal with both scripts on equal footing. I think it would be a good compromise to have Latin as default, and if people wanted to, they can click a button to convert. I also think it's a bit strange to have both on interwikis, but whatever.
Mark
On 25/03/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
I think, at the moment, it's best on focusing RMY to be a general Romani Wikipedia. I presume in many ways the code RMY is better than ROM since it doesn't confuse with Romanian (which for some reason uses "ron" as its three letter code). In any way, if there are problems with intelligibility, then a new version of the Wikipedia can be made in the same way that nds-nl split from nds, with the original "rmy" remaining as "Vlax Romany". But I think there is increasing work by Roma bodies to standardise the language, and all the Roma bodies call the language "Romani", not differentiating between the different variants (though, as Mark pointed out, there is a significant degree of intelligiblity).
Another issue we are faced with is script. Alin (Desiphral) said that he writes in Devanagari, and that the Devanagari script is the best representative script for Romani, even though it's used to a lesser extent officially than Latin. I think the best solution would be to have an automatically-biscriptal Wikipedia. Currently, there are articles in both Latin and Devanagari, but as long as there is no automatic conversion, the system is clunky and requires duplication by hand.
Would it be possible to adapt the Serbian Cyrillic-->Latin script to work for Latin-->Hindi? The conversion is 1-on-1 and quite conventional.
Another thing - the interwiki descriptor should be changed from "Romani" to "Romani / रोमानी". I will file a bug report about this (this is the proper procedure, is it not?)
Thanks,
Ronline
2006/3/26, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
With a pluricentric language such as Romani, there is no realistic hope of real linguistic regulation in the modern world.
Even languages which are "controlled" by specific countries such as Spanish, French, German, or Portuguese, have had major problems in aligning national standards.
Romani, on the other hand, is considered by linguists to be a family of languages, rather than a single language, because the three main dialect groups are not really mutually intelligible.
Here is a list of the words for "woman" in some Romani varieties:
džuvel -- welsh manušňi -- sremski gurbet dženi -- sinte džuuli -- romungro džuvli -- macedonian džambazi manušňi -- lovara džuuli -- latvian źuvli -- kalderaš manušňi -- gurvari džuuli -- finnish džuvli -- dolenjski džuvli -- burgenland manušňi -- banatiski gurbet džuvi -- bugurdži dźuvli -- crimean rani -- east slovak džuvli -- gurbet žuvli -- hungarian vend džuvli -- kosovo arli džulî -- lithuanian džuvli -- macedonian arli dźuvlî -- north russian romni -- sepečides dženi -- sofia erli žuvli -- ursari
With such differences as this in even such a basic word, it is unrealistic to expect people to be able to understand each other, without studying the so-called "unified romani" for years beforehand.
From what I've heard from Roma people, Unified Romani is not really
wide-spread.
On the other hand, if we have separate Wikipedias for each Romani variety, they will be able to reach all literate Roma.
Mark
On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei desiphral@gmail.com wrote:
By now the "Standard Romani" is a bit in a ideal phase, with more
centers of
developement worlwide. Already there are some differences in the way I
have
written and the way the other Romani user has written, but this does
not
impede the mutual understanding. Personally I don't have in my mind a
wiki
confined only to some specific patterns of the Romani language picked
from
those disponible worldwide. Speakers of every dialect would be welcomed
to
contribute to rom.wiki, and if there is standing power to make wikis in specific dialects, let them run. But for the beginning there is standing power for a general Romani Wikipedia.
Also, the evolution of the standardized form, is not based only on Vlax Romani. As I wrote in the English article abot the Romani language,
Romani
taught in schools from Romania has mostly the pronunciation and grammar style of the older non-Vlax dialects, considered closer to the original language. The language used till now for the Romani Wikipedia is not
quite
Vlax, it does not stand for a Vlax Wikipedia.
Desiphral
On 3/25/06, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The comparison to Kurdish isn't exactly valid -- the Kurdish Wikipedia doesn't use a single "standard form", but rather has separate "sections" for each dialect, beccause quite simply there is no Standard Kuridsh.
Mark
On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei desiphral@gmail.com wrote:
Have a look at the debate for the test Romani Wikipedia, at my last
comment:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Vlax_Romany/Discus...
My point is that if it is will to make Wikipedias in other dialects,
it's
OK, but I don't think this is an impediment to have one for the
standard
form.
On 3/25/06, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
As far as I know, although there is a "standard romani", it
doesn't
totally bridge all Romani languages as it intends (it is
apparently
based mostly on Kalderash), and is not intelligible to diverse varieties such as Ursari, Sinte, or Baltic.
I don't think it's right for any single language to claim to be
"*the*
Romani language", I think rom.wp should be a portal.
mark
On 25/03/06, Alin Dosoftei desiphral@gmail.com wrote: > Thank you! > > But the proposed code name is rom. not rmy. which is only for
the
Vlax
> Romani dialect. Is it because I forgot to change it at the Meta
page
for
> requests? Vlax was the first proposal but then the test changed
to
Standard > Romani and I made the changes from rmy to rom wherever I found
the
older
> code. > > Also in English it is favoured the spelling Romani instead of
Romany,
> because this is the way the other Indo-Aryan languages are
spelled:
Hindi, > Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri etc. The Romani dialects are spelled
also
like > this: Drindari, Erli, Jambashi etc. and even the dialects of
other
languages > spoken by Roma (with only Romani vocabulary) like Pogadi.
*Romany*
look
> awkward together with other Indo-Aryan languages. > > On 3/25/06, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) rowikipedia@gmail.com
wrote:
> > > > Just a question - none of the Wikipedias so far seem to have a localised > > interface. The Romany Wikipedia (code RMY) has a nearly fully-translated > > localisation file at: > > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageRom.php > > > > (This file still contains some Romanian-language fragments) > > > > Once this file is fully translated, how is it possible to
update
the
> > interface? > > Neither me nor the native Romani user, Desiphral, know how to
use
the
CVS > > system. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Ronline > > > > 2006/3/25, Servien Ilaino servien@gmail.com: > > > > > > YEEEAAAH!! Finaly!! :D > > > > > > Serv > > > > > > > > > 2006/3/25, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <
rowikipedia@gmail.com>:
> > > > > > > > WOO HOO!!! > > > > Thanks so much for that! > > > > > > > > 2006/3/25, Jens Frank < JeLuF@gmx.de>: > > > > > > > > > > Hello, > > > > > > > > > > the following wikipedias have been created: > > > > > > > > > > nds-nl > > > > > rmy > > > > > lij > > > > > bat-smg > > > > > map-bms > > > > > ksh > > > > > pdc > > > > > vls > > > > > nrm > > > > > frp > > > > > zh-yue > > > > > tet > > > > > xal > > > > > pap > > > > > > > > > > See also > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Approved_requests_for_new_langua...
> > > > > > > > > > Regards, > > > > > > > > > > JeLuF > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft für 0,- Euro*! > > > > > "Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list > > > > > Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list > > > > Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list > > > Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikipedia-l mailing list > > Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikipedia-l mailing list > Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l >
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin