[Wikipedia-l] Re: Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

Sun Jan 8 21:38:19 UTC 2006

Caroline Ford wrote:

>But linguistically almost _the_ test of "what is a language" is mutual
>comprehensibility.
>
A helpful tool, perhaps, but hardly the defining test. Consider the 
Scandinavian languages.

I would venture that the linguistic relationship between 
Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian is somewhat like the relationship between 
Danish/Norwegian/Swedish was from the Kalmar Union to the 19th-century 
period of romantic nationalism (after accounting for the increased 
uniformity promoted in more modern times by the printing press and 
universal education). The present differences are partly exaggerated for 
political reasons, but the political side of the equation is also likely 
to produce increasing distinguishability in a real sense over time. A 
single Serbo-Croatian wiki might be the right choice if we thought 
language was something frozen in place. If we conclude that languages 
continue to evolve, separate wikis might ultimately be more appropriate. 
In the interim, while this remains unsettled, I don't think it's 
necessarily awful that we're working along both tracks simultaneously.

--Michael Snow