[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request

Thu Feb 10 05:28:01 UTC 2005

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