[Wikipedia-l] About creating a new language on Wikipedia

[Rodolfo M Vega]

I agree. I think that Wikipedia is not only a good vehicle for language 
preservation but more interestingly for language development as a good 
reference source for education and intellectual endeavor.
Rodolfo

Sulev Iva wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Yes, one week seems more realistic. It took me about two weeks to fully
> localize MediaWiki to Vòro (in Southern Estonia) and to check the
> translation with another native user of Vòro.
>
> About the small Finno-Ugric language Veps in Russia. They have some strong
> leaders (like Nina Zaiceva) who are also linguists and have written good
> school materials and children books in Veps and even a grammar books
> entirely in Veps, linguistic terminology developed in Veps etc. But
> unfortunately Veps has very low prestige and there is not even a single
> Veps-language school nor kindergarten.
>
> Karelian has basically the same situation, but much more speakers. There
> are hundreds of young people who have prepared as teachers or linguists of
> Karelian language in University of Petroskoi/Petrozavodsk. But
> Karelian-language workground of these people is very limited, because
> Karelian (and Veps) are teached only in some schools and only as an
> optional subject. I think wikipedia in Karelian (or even in Veps) would be
> function and grow not too slowly (as Vòro and Samogitian are doing now) if
> at least some of these educated young Karelians and Veps' were attracted
> with the idea of the Wikipedia.
>
> Regards
> Sulev Iva
>
>   
>> Hoi,
>> Two days is a reasonable amount of time for someone who knows what he is
>> doing to do a complete MediaWiki localisation. Experience suggests that
>> when
>> the terminology is not readily available, it can take a week. A week as in
>> amount of time spend on the job not as in within a week it is ready.
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>> On 7/18/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>     
>>> Berto 'd Sera wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>>> Just getting a minimal user interface in their language is a
>>>>> considerable challenge.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> This is a myth. It takes 2 days to ONE person to fully localize
>>>>         
>>> Wikimedia.
>>>       
>>>> And if you don't have one person willing to spend a couple of days (and
>>>> more) you won't get any server space anyway.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> That two days assumes a reasonable degree of computer literacy among the
>>> affected people, and a stable symbolic representation of the language in
>>> question.  It also takes a tremendous effort to bridge the gap between
>>> the concepts of a highly technical society, and those of a pre-literate
>>> society whose language was suited to an agricultural or nomadic
>>> lifestyle.  The gap between Italian and Piedmontese is tiny by
>>> comparison; both are romance languages.
>>>
>>>       
>>>>> Some of
>>>>> the languages from mountainous areas may not have the critical mass
>>>>> needed to keep them alive.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> True. I'd say that most linguistic entities with only several thousands
>>>> native speakers left are in serious trouble, Western Europe included.
>>>>         
>>> Based
>>>       
>>>> on what I saw thus far I seriously doubt that such small populations
>>>>         
>>> can
>>>       
>>>> make any positive use of a wiki (and of anything else).
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> I was thinking of languages like Haida and Kootenai where ther are fewer
>>> than 100 native speakers.  What makes the latter interesting is that it
>>> is also a linguistic isolate.
>>>
>>>       
>>>> They usually developed their cultures based on total insulation, while
>>>> living in places that offered very little food (like mountains, but
>>>>         
>>> also
>>>       
>>>> tundra, deserts or jungles) but very good protection based on
>>>> inaccessibility, and can hardly stand the overwhelming cultural impact
>>>>         
>>> that
>>>       
>>>> comes with a sudden increase of social connectivity.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> In the great prairie areas of North America when food became scarce in
>>> one place it was relatively easy to travel to a better area.  The
>>> culture was built around such a nomadic existence, and became spread
>>> over a wider area.  In rain forests food tends to be more plentiful, and
>>> the barriers to migration are greater
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Besides, basically all such entities are exposed to get the "social
>>>> stigmata". Most young people from the community will rather hide their
>>>> origins, trying to integrate in the dominant culture asap. When this
>>>>         
>>> happens
>>>       
>>>> often the number of female speakers starts to contract, since mothers
>>>>         
>>> feel
>>>       
>>>> they should provide their children with better "social identifiers". In
>>>>         
>>> time
>>>       
>>>> this leads to a situation in which children can hear the linguistic
>>>>         
>>> entity
>>>       
>>>> used only by elders.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Here there has been some reversal of this in recent years, but it may
>>> not be enough to undo the damage done by the cultural genocide of the
>>> residential schools where native children were taken from their families
>>> and put into an English environment where they were forbidden to speak
>>> their native languages.
>>>
>>>       
>>>> When you have a big population (say millions) you often find a
>>>>         
>>> determined
>>>       
>>>> minority wishing to "get their roots back", based on what they heard
>>>>         
>>> from
>>>       
>>>> their elders. But if you start from just several thousands people your
>>>> statistical chances of success get very low.
>>>>
>>>> I can't see how you could change their social self-perception either.
>>>>         
>>> The
>>>       
>>>> efforts of the Russian Government to protect the Veps minority did not
>>>>         
>>> keep
>>>       
>>>> it from getting smaller and smaller, and the one Veps I know admitted
>>>>         
>>> to
>>> be
>>>       
>>>> a Veps only years after we got to be friends, while perfectly knowing
>>>>         
>>> that
>>>       
>>>> I'm the kind of person that can only have a positive impression of such
>>>>         
>>> a
>>>       
>>>> thing.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> The pride and positive self-perception cannot be supplied by outsiders.
>>> For the successful native populations in North America cultural revival
>>> has needed to be accompanied by economic opportunity within their own
>>> territories.  It also requires having a leadership that is capable of
>>> pulling a population out of chronic depression.
>>>
>>>       
>>>> "Declaring yourself a Veps" in Karelia (among other things) means
>>>>         
>>> access
>>> to
>>>       
>>>> special elite Moscow schools (there are a number of places reserved for
>>>> minorities). Yet, the number of people making such a declaration of
>>>>         
>>> identity
>>>       
>>>> got 50% smaller since the help started to be given.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> It says something about governments when they put such facilities in the
>>> capital instead of the indigenous territory where it would involve more
>>> people.  If the most capable individuals among the Veps are being
>>> marinaded in the culture of the capital they may no longer be useful to
>>> their own people.
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Maybe for such desperate cases one should choose a conservative stance,
>>>>         
>>> like
>>>       
>>>> saving all the material that can be saved (audio recordings, samples of
>>>> crafts, elements of grammar, etc). In such cases I don't think there's
>>>>         
>>> much
>>>       
>>>> we can do as WMF, unless we open an entirely different set of projects
>>>>         
>>> and
>>>       
>>>> start to work in close connection with UNESCO.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> A lot of these documents could fit into the mandate of Wikisource.  It's
>>> also important not to get entangled in a lot of futile wranglings about
>>> intellectual property rights.  Bureaucratically waiting until 50 years
>>> after the apparent author's death simply because you cannot determine
>>> who has the rights can be highly damaging to some of this material.  All
>>> the people who can read and understand it now may not be alive in
>>> another 50 years.
>>>
>>>       
>>>> No matter how you try, it cannot be done without some active "foreign"
>>>> intervention. So while helping mankind to save knowledge about itself
>>>>         
>>> it
>>>       
>>>> will also push the linguistic entity towards death, by exposing it to
>>>>         
>>> an
>>>       
>>>> enhanced foreign presence/influence/attention. This is why I'm saying
>>>>         
>>> that
>>>       
>>>> such operations are dangerous in nature and they should be coordinated
>>>>         
>>> by
>>>       
>>>> expert neutral parties like UNESCO.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> God save us from the experts!
>>>
>>> Outsiders can provide the means in the form of such things as hardware,
>>> but they need to avoid introducing their expectations, and the
>>> presumptions that they take for granted.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>>     
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>