[Foundation-l] A simple question on languages.

Wed Jan 23 16:20:51 UTC 2008

Hoi,
It is an irrelevant question. Research has shown that kids that learn to
write in their mother tongue first will do better academically. As our aim
is to provide educational content, it makes a difference to be aware of
this. When people apply to start a project in a language new to the WMF, it
is accepted under certain criteria. The criteria do not consider that there
is a finite number of languages that we support. Otherwise we might have had
to prevent new projects in the past because they would not fit in your
minimum number of languages. I am afraid that the aim of your question is to
maximise the number of languages that the WMF supports.

So I disagree where you say that it is an important question I would even
suggest that the languages that do not have a big reach do not cost us much
but have an inverse value to their cost. You may find that as a resource
they are of an extreme value. In my opinion good information in more
languages makes what we do more valuable not less valuable.
Thanks.
     GerardM

On Jan 23, 2008 5:08 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> What is the minimum number of languages must you write in to
> effectively communicate with 99.9999% of all the world's literate
> people?
>
>
> Note that I'm asking 'effectively communicate' not 'communicate in a
> language historically spoken by the ancestors of each person' or other
> interpretations.  Well understood and comfortably used second and
> third languages are acceptable.
>
> I think I vaguely know an answer to this, but I'd like a good citation
> so that I will not be called a bigot by the sort of people who think
> we must support 25,000 'languages' in order to support the world.
>
> Ideally I'd like to know the number of people reached as a function of
> supporting the N top languages.
>
> This seems like a simple and important question which others should
> have asked and answered definitively long ago, yet I can't seem to
> find a good reference. It also seems to me to be the sort of question
> which should play an important role in the foundation's long term
> resource allocations.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>