[Foundation-l] A proposal for new language creation

Fri Nov 25 10:12:18 UTC 2005

Hoi,
When we consider if a language is appropriate for having a wikipedia, you
may find old respectable languages that have gone in official disuse like
Neapolitan and consequently diverged in spelling because there was no longer
an education in a language. Neopolitan is a  language that some see as a
dialect of Italian. I understand that the Andalusian statute does not say
that Andalusian is a language while it is as different, as distinct as many
of the other languages spoken in Spain. I know that Andalusian is known for
its many songs which is one form of literature. On the I&I conference I
spoke with someone from Guatamala and discussed Mayan languages. I learned
that for many people it is their first and only language. It does not have a
literature or standardised orthography because it is primarily a spoken
language.

My point is that by creating artificial barriers, you prevent us from making
our aim come true; all information for all people. When a small
dialect/language is good for codifying that culture, it serves our purpose.
I doubt that we would get these same people to write about their culture as
much in a language that they are forced to use. When we insist on literature
and one orthography we may exclude the people that use predominantly a
spoken language and prevent us from getting our information to these people.

As I mentioned on the wikitech list, the whole idea of voting is broken
anyway because when you vote for a language, you are supposed to actively
support this project to be while a nay-sayer is excused from any effort.  I
do not vote for Dutch nds or for Andalusian because I will not work on these
projects.

Artificial languages are different from dialects and languages as they do
not represent a culture, a people. Consequently comparing natural and
artificial languages is problematic. It also helps to be a little more
relaxed about artificial languages; even with Klingon it works as a project
for as long as there is a community willing to put a lot of effort in it. As
it is a rather silly thing, I am sure that these people will reach this
conclusion at some point. In the mean time it does not detract from the
value of our other projects. It only becomes a problem when we adopt or care
about the value system of the officious.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 11/25/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > ilooy wrote:
> >
> >>I'd like to suggest that taking into consideration ISO codes or SIL
> codes may
> >>be one solution. This would mean that an outside group which is well
> >>established and has looked into the matter has deemed a certain language
> >>important enough to be assigned a separate code.
> >
> >
> > This is exactly the policy we adopted several years ago, which has
> proved
> > insufficient.
> >
> > Relying on existence of ISO codes brings us:
> > * split Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian replacing Serbocroatian [controverial]
> > * Klingon
> > etc
> >
> > and denies various languages/dialects/whatever which don't have their
> own codes
> > but which are oft asked for.
>
> Yes.  It's really important that everyone gets this.  The idea of
> referencing these external codes is and was a great one in many ways...
> it gets the argument out of our hands, it could presumably be a
> professionally-decided list, etc.
>
> The only problem is that the list of ISO codes is highly politicized and
> broken in many many ways.  It was fine for getting a list of things like
> "English" and "German" and "French" and so on, but it breaks down when
> you start looking at it more closely.
>
> --Jimbo
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