[Foundation-l] Projects in simple languages

Mon Jun 20 18:55:53 UTC 2011

Hello Milos,

Thank you for the elaboration. Indeed I am afraid that the concept is
a little too narrow. A language like Dutch is not really a "world
language", but it as a lot of speakers with Dutch as a foreign or
second language. Also, as far as I know Simple English Wikipedia
mentions Basic English but does not base itself explicitly and
willingly on it.

The step of the committee looks to me as if only the concept of
(elligible) artificial languages has been extended to the group of
basic languages. You could add "Weltdeutsch" to your list of examples.

Maybe the case needs more consideration. I ackknowledge that it is a
difficult thing and that we don't want every language version to exist
in a second version.

Kind regards
Ziko

2011/6/20 Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>:
> After a month of on-list talk -- sometimes very heated, sometimes very
> quiet -- Language committee has agreed about the next wording of the
> part of the new policy [1] related to the simple languages:
>
> * Can there be wikis in "simple" languages?
> *: Yes, in principle. But two special criteria would need to be met: the
> language should be a "world language" with many L2 users, and there must
> be a reliable, published specification of the controlled language to be
> used. Examples are [[w:en:Basic English|Basic English]] and
> [[w:fr:Français fondamental|Français fondamental]]. (In reality it does
> not appear that there ''are'' many controlled languages other then
> English and French.)
>
> In practice, it means that:
> * It is likely that just Wikipedia in simple French would be approved.
> If there are reliable and published specifications of other world
> languages (Russian, Spanish, Arabic etc.), group interested in creating
> project in simple language has to present it to the LangCom.
> * It is likely that border cases would be discussed in Language
> committee on case-by-case basis. For example, German is not a world
> language, but at least discussion would be opened if strong arguments
> would be given, including widely accepted definition of simple language.
> * It is not a matter of LangCom would any Wikipedia (or any other
> Wikimedia project) host project in corresponding simple language inside
> of a separate namespace -- with or without specification.
>
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-- 
Ziko van Dijk
The Netherlands
http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/