[Foundation-l] "Historical" languages and constructed languages

Mon Jan 28 03:05:43 UTC 2008

I agree that Sumerian is unacceptable, at least at this point in time,
for a Wikipedia.

I do not think it is OK that we can exclude Coptic, Ancient Greek, Old
Javanese, &c, as long as they meet all other requirements already
established (which I personally think are arbitrary and too harsh
anyways, but oh well)

Mark

On 25/01/2008, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/01/2008, Pharos <pharosofalexandria at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > And I know you have been an advocate of Latin Wikipedia.  I would not
> > call such a language "reconstructed", but rather, a living and
> > evolving "classical language", with an active contemporary literature.
> >  And I do not believe Latin to be unique in this regard.
>
> I suppose the difference between modern versions of Latin and, say,
> modern versions of Sumerian (and I know a couple of people who could
> attempt to write in the latter) is that Latin is the product of an
> unbroken line of use - maybe a rather minor one at times, but there's
> always been a continuing usage of it since the year dot. Sumerian,
> however, is reconstructed from surviving fragments; we know how it
> works, but there's no "connection", it's just a philological curiosity
> for researchers.
>
> So acceptable ancient languages would presumably be things like Latin,
> or classical Greek, or the various languages mostly known for
> liturgical purposes.
>
> > What do you think of the proposal for using the demonstrated
> > notability of a language's contemporary literature (as demonstrated by
> > a Featured Article on the subject in the English Wikipedia) as the
> > criteria for the approval of a primarily-written language (such as the
> > "historical" and constructed languages)?
>
> I wouldn't go so far as to specify "an article on enwp", but some
> similar kind of positive demonstration of widespread contemporary
> literature, in the absence of a large "native" population, feels like
> a good measure.
>
> The converse, a large native-speaking population and not much
> contemporary literature isn't a problem, of course - these are exactly
> the cases where we need to put lots of effort into helping kickstart
> the project.
>
> In how many languages is Wikipedia the *only* major encyclopedia? I
> know there's at least one smallish European language where we're the
> first general encyclopedia in most of a century...
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
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