[Wikipedia-l] Languages: crossing a border?

Mon Apr 5 05:34:37 UTC 2004

Brion-
> There are also many endangered languages with *fewer* speakers than
> there are active speakers of Toki Pona or Klingon.

Well, considering Toki Pona has about a handful of "speakers" (none of  
which speak Toki Pona exclusively or even for a substantial amount of  
their time), I doubt that they would be worth including.

> Getting _them_ to
> put together some encyclopedia material in their native languages would
> probably earn somebody a nice PhD in linguistics or anthropology, and
> would be very very worthy of our support.

Why? They can set up their own wiki (or use my affordable wiki hosting  
service). Wikipedia is about building an encyclopedia, not about earning  
PhDs in linguistics. You are entering original research territory here.  
Not everything that some people may consider worth doing is worth doing on  
Wikimedia's property.

> The cost is minor,

I disagree. If we lose professionals because of our Elvish or Klingon  
factions, that is a major cost. If this whole multilanguage thing gets out  
of control, that is more and more likely to happen.

> and we've got plenty of "real languages" with fewer
> interested contributors (total speakers or not), with dozens of
> barely-scratched wikis already set up and unused.

Most of the inactive wikis at least have the realistic potential to become  
highly active when the respective speaking population gains Internet  
access, and they can read whatever it is we produce (given a print  
edition).

> If you want to
> improve the signal/noise ratio, I humbly suggest you concentrate on
> boosting the signal.

Concentrate, yes. Ignore the noise, no. We have to draw the line  
*somewhere*, and if you do not suggest an alternative to the 10,000  
speaker requirement I have to presume that you want to draw it *nowhere*.  
The inclusion of Toki Pona sets a highly questionable precedent.

Regards,

Erik