Mark Williamson wrote:
Hey hey hey... hold it.
Quenya, not having an official supporting organisation like Klingon or
Lojban, deserves to at least be considered, although it should
probably be relegated to the same second-class status currently
afforded to the Klingon and sometimes Lojban Wikipedias.
However, the fact that the proposer speaks only passing Quenya and
does not refer to an individual or organisation on whose behalf he
presumes to request this language (as I have done, and as has done
Pektiong Tan), makes me wary. The Wikipedia should probably not be
created until somebody floats along who can claim real fluency in the
language, or the requester contacts an organisation to confirm
support.
Good points.
I think the most important criterion, though, should probably be this:
Will there be people interested in researching in the language?
I strongly suspect this is why the Klingon Wikipedia is a marginal
failure. As a concept, it sounds great, and it's true that there are
some fluent and literate speakers of Klingon, but when the chips are
down even the Klingon speakers will be doing their research in English,
or French, or German, or whatever other language they use in their
day-to-day lives to get by in the world.
Interest and fluency aren't really enough for a successful reference
work. You also need it to be useful, or it won't sustain and increase
its pool of interest.
Personally, I'd rather see the various Elvish languages of Middle-Earth
in Wikipedia than Klingon, and I'd be more likely to use it than
Ossetian, but frankly I think Ossetian might have a place in Wikipedia
at the present time, and Quenya really doesn't (in my estimation).
Then again, maybe that's just me.
--
Chad