[Wikipedia-l] be: and be-x-old: interwiki

[Yury Tarasievich]

Just to clarify things a bit right now.

==Linguistics==

In Belarusian informal usage, word "pravapis" (literally,
"orthography") is often denoting "grammar".

* So, when the "it's only orthography" grammar is trotted out for the
"ignorant foreigners", one should keep in mind that there are really
plenty of differences in other branches of grammar and in lexicon,
too.

The introduction of these differences was motivated primarily by
ideology, which is not at all hidden in Belarusian-language
publications, and leaks into the English-language publications,
internet included. You could see plenty of political labels words like
"Russification", "Stalinist", "Narkamauka" and "historical justice".

The net effect is we have two variants/branches of Belarusian language.

* Notice how I'm not saying *anything* about the ideological soundness
or scientific veritability of the alternative branch. All I'm saying
now is these two branches diverge, linguistically, while at the same
time bearing the name "Belarusian".

** Also notice that comparisons with British/American or German are
very lame in this context. In those, ideology doesn't enter the
picture, while here it's the basis, and the drastic divergence is
intentionally introduced here.

==Normative==

Now, it's completely no wonder that quite a part of the Belarusian
language community is completely dis-interested in the mission of
promoting "the only true and classical" variant of Belarusian
language.

People just want to create a Wikipedia content in their native language.

Incidentally, as their native language is Belarusian, there is around
a state-sponsored, widely-known, school-taught, state-status,
iso-coded, standard Belarusian language. Incidentally, it is quite
adequate for the stated purpose.

So, there is this alternative branch of language, and it has numerous
supporters in Internet. So what?

Why should Belarusian speakers be *forced* to "maintain the unity"
with something, in which they are completely *dis-interested*, and
which is completely *un-needed* for the task stated?

Now there is this be-x-old which is now submitting for the renaming to
be-tarask. One linguistic entity -- one WP. Quite fair.

=="Unity"==

What kind of "unity" is envisioned by the be-x-old crew, was clearly
demonstrated by the 2004-2006 experiences in the old [[be:]], which
were at least once exposed in this list, in the May-June 2006.

The alternative Belarusian speakers which comprise the majority of old
[[be:]] crew simply *hate* the normative variant of Belarusian, and
that's the start and the end of it.

Of course, they could not explicitly forbid the "Stalinist
Narkamauka", not without hurting themselves, but there are plenty of
ways for the adminning group to discourage the creation of undesired
content.

All attempts to reach some more balanced solution failed, and no
wonder. Looking back, and accounting for the ideology backing the
alternative, those attempts were doomed from the very beginning.

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