[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Day 4 Fund Drive Report (updated)

Wed Feb 23 06:16:12 UTC 2005

Mark Williamson wrote:

>For that matter, in the computerless world, even languages such as
>German and French and Spanish are relatively rare. We are talking here
>about targeting entire continents such as Africa which are best served
>by native-language content which we cannot currently provide in any
>way shape or form. We have growing Arabic and Afrikaans Wikipedias, a
>minimal Swahili Wikipedia, just beginning Wolof, Bambara, Zulu,
>Somali, and Amharic Wikipedias, and can already obviously provide
>English, French, and Portuguese-language content for those Africans
>who can speak these languages fluently.
>  
>
I'd question that: I think Africa is "best served" by whatever content 
the most people can read, which is likely to be English.  Even expanding 
to say, four languages, the best choices are likely to be English, 
French, Arabic, and Swahili (although I can't find very good statistics 
on this).  Unless you have a plan to simultaneously publish editions in 
500 different languages, publishing in the major languages---i.e. those 
that the most people are able to make use of---seems like the best plan.

-Mark