[Wikipedia-l] Languages: crossing a border?

Mon Apr 5 08:29:24 UTC 2004

"Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> schrieb:

> Concentrate, yes. Ignore the noise, no. We have to draw the line  
> *somewhere*, and if you do not suggest an alternative to the 10,000  
> speaker requirement I have to presume that you want to draw it *nowhere*.  
> The inclusion of Toki Pona sets a highly questionable precedent.

10,000 speakers, or whichever other number, does not sound like the best of
limits. For one thing, I don't want to disqualify the Nauruan Wikipedia (or
the Manx one, for that matter). I'd say the rules for ISO 639-2 are quite
close to what we would want: One needs to be able to prove that there are
5 institutes which taken together and discounting equal documents, have 50
documents in the language.

I'd say that a similar requirement, but used less strict, would be a good
criterium. Thus I would propose to allow languages in the following three
categories:
* that are on the ISO 639-2 list
* for which it is made likely that there are 50 or more different documents
  in various archives
* which are spoken by at least 10,000 people, provided there exists some kind
  of generally accepted spelling

As another thing, what do we do with dialects? Would dialects with a reasonable
amount of speakers and some kind of literature in the dialect be allowed to
get their own Wikipedia version?

Andre Engels