While most definitely speakers of Sicilian will identify with the
Sicilian flag, not all people who identify with the Sicilian flag will
speak Sicilian - undoubtedly there are proud Sicilians who speak only
Italian, or who speak some other language.
This being the one-way thing that it is (ie, that all speakers of the
language can identify wit the flag but not nessecarily vice versa), of
course it is OK to have a Sicilian flag on your own Wikipedia, in fact
I support it because it adds color to the mainpage and evokes feelings
in people that might make them more likely to continue into the site.
However, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to have it on an
international portal to represent the Sicilian language. If flags MUST
be used, then without a question that is the flag that should be used
to represent the Sicilian language, but otherwise I think flags should
be absent altogether.
Mark
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 03:56:45 +0100 (CET), Giuseppe DAngelo
<pippudoz(a)yahoo.it> wrote:
I accept that for all of the major languages, there is
rarely (probably never) a single flag capable of representing that language, completely
and without complications. That alone is probably as good an argument as any for not
allowing flags. On the other hand, when we start looking at minority languages, these can
often be associated with the whole of a region within a country, which may happen to have
a flag, or coat of arms, or whatever, that represents that region. So you can end up with
a very close alignment (although rarely perfect) between regional symbol and regional
language. I think that is the case with Sicily and her language and regional flag.
The next argument might be: but isn't that a political statement? (showing the
regional flag). To which I would respond, there are many who would view simply having a
wikipedia in a regional language as making a political statement! In the case of the
Sicilian wikipedia, neither is a political statement, both have a cultural intention
(although that too may be considered as being political by some). If flags were banned
outright, I would simply put up the Sicilian Triskelion, a symbol as old as her language
itself, i.e. over 2,500 years. Why? For the reason already given that it looks drab
otherwise - I'm trying to entice people into registering and becoming active
contributors. I know the main languages have fancy main pages with bells and whistles, but
that isn't realistic for the minority languages. Beyond banning the flag, what next?
the coat-of-arms? a picture of an influential literary figure? etc. The Manx would be
able to do the same, and I say good on 'em
!
The flag is not necessarily something I feel overly strong about, but I would want some
sort of symbol, picture, or whatever, on our front page - something that can become
immiediately identifiable with scn:wiki, that tells you straight away where your are, that
might encourage you to linger, maybe even get you thinking about the first language you
spoke as a child, before it was drummed out of you through various means, or the language
you heard your grandparents speak when you were little, etc. Isn't that part of what
we are on about?
Salutamu
pippu d'angelo, canberra
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