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On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 1:04 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek@gmail.com> wrote:
> I did't want to come back to Belarus Wikipedia case, but at that time
> I have found quite easily 2 good experts. One from Univ. of Warsaw,
> vice-head o Belaruss literature department and one from Univ of Oxford
> (an emeritus professor, specializing in Belaruss politics and
> history). It wasn't very difficulit to ask them and get the answers -
> quite long and IMHO quite professional.I asked at that time if there
> is any interst for LangComm in reading this. The answer was "no", as
> at that time the decission was already taken, the situation was quite
> hot and arguments showing that the decission wasn't so clever were not
> listen simply by default. The stinky egg was already broken and
> members of LangComm were simply trying not to smell it :-)
>
> I don't think that such kind of experts good in one case only should
> be members of LangComm. It probably doesn't make sense. But it does
> make sense to find them for specific purposes and then ask questions
> before making final decission. It can be done. Most of them give you
> an answer or at least point you to the places you can find it itself.
> LangComm should consist of the people who are clever enough to ask
> relevant questions and be able to understand and analyse the asnwers.

Yes, this is a good point. As far as I am introduced, this is
LangCom's practice for a longer period of time. But, it is good to
organize those contacts.

I also agree with your point related to LangCom members profile. But,
it is also good to have in-house solution for regular issues (and we
have it now).

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Marcus Buck wrote:
> Tim Starling hett schreven:
>> Marcus Buck wrote:
>>
>>> In the Arabic world there's a prevalent POV, that Arabs form one nation
>>> united by the use of the Arabic language. But in reality Standard Arabic
>>> is something like Latin. With the difference, that Latin fell out of use
>>> to make place for the Romance languages. So Egyptian Arabic vs. Standard
>>> Arabic is like French vs. Latin. And the Egyptian VIP is like a 13th
>>> century monk. "Writing in the language of the people. How stupid...
>>> Latin is a godly language."
>>>
>> I have heard this before, but I am not convinced, because I have heard
>> conflicting things from Egyptian people. I don't suppose you have a
>> credible reference where I can read more about this, and which supports
>> these claims?
>>
>> -- Tim Starling
>>
> There's no obvious or agreed-upon measure for the proximity of dialects
> or languages nor for identity attitudes. All findings are inherently vague.
> What did you hear conflicting things about?

Specifically the nature of the difference between Standard Arabic and
Egyptian Arabic.

> About the big differences
> and problems with mutual intelligibility of Arabic dialects or about the
> notion of "one Arabic nation"?
> Well, that Arabic has a wide variety of different dialects, is obvious,
> if we look at the basic facts. Arabic is spoken over an area that spans
> thousands of kilometers. Arabic spread from its central area in Arabia
> in the 7th century due to the spread of Islam.

Arabic may have spread from Morocco to Malaysia, but Cairo is quite close
to the Arabian peninsula, so I wonder if you're not overgeneralising.

An attendee at Wikimania 2008 compared the difference between Egyptian
Arabic and Standard Arabic to the difference between written English and
spoken English, or written and spoken French, which seems to me to be
somewhat different to the difference between French and Latin. It is, of
course, a matter of degree.

> So Latin Vulgar had 2000 years to
> change and Arabic Vulgar only 1300 years. Therefore Latin Vulgar should
> be roughly 50% more diverse than Arabic Vulgar (Please put the emphasis
> on "roughly" cause language change is of course not linear).

I'm not really interested in your back-of-the-envelope calculations. I was
hoping that you might have some more detailed study that you can point me to.

Quoting again:
> There's no obvious or agreed-upon measure for the proximity of dialects
> or languages nor for identity attitudes. All findings are inherently vague.

You seem to be preparing the ground to dismiss any kind of study which
contradicts your opinion. Linguistics might be hard work, and fraught with
subjectivity, but that's no reason to dismiss the whole field out of hand.

-- Tim Starling


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On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 5:12 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Arabic may have spread from Morocco to Malaysia, but Cairo is quite close
> to the Arabian peninsula, so I wonder if you're not overgeneralising.

From: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?menu=004&LangID=51

"Egyptian Arabic is distinguished by a larger vowel inventory than
Classical Arabic, with four short vowels (plus epenthetic schwa) and
six long vowels, compared to three short vowels and six long vowels in
Classical Arabic. Consonantal changes have included the loss of
interdental fricatives. Egyptian Arabic is also characterized by two
regular phonological processes lacking in Standard Arabic. First, all
long vowels become shortened in unstressed positions and before
consonant clusters. And second, many instances of short i and u are
dropped by a process known as high vowel deletion. For example, when
the feminine suffix -a is added to the participle kaatib "having
written (masc.)", the i is deleted, resulting in katba.

Like other varieties of Arabic, Egyptian Arabic derives the bulk of
its vocabulary by applying a number of patterns or templates to a
stock of consonantal roots. For example, from the triliteral root
(three-consonant root) g-w-z with the basic meaning of "pair" is
derived gooz "pair; husband", yiggawwiz "to get married", gawaaz
"marriage", and migwiz "double". As an example of a template, the
template maCCaC is used to derive many nouns referring to a place
where an activity is done by substituting the C's in the template with
the consonants of a triliteral root, such as: maktab "office" (a place
where one writes) and maTbax "kitchen" (a place where one cooks).

Verbs occur in two aspects: the perfective and the imperfective. The
perfective is usually translated as a past tense or present perfect.
Its conjugational morphology consists entirely of suffixes, for
example: katab "he wrote", katabit "she wrote", katabt "I wrote",
katabna "we wrote". The plain imperfective form is used much like an
infinitive or subjunctive, as yiktib "he writes" in biyHibb yiktib"he
likes to write". The imperfective also serves as the basis for the
present and future tenses with particles bi and Ha, as in biyiktib "he
writes" and Hayiktib "he will write". The conjugational morphology of
the imperfective employs both prefixes and suffixes.

For example, from the imperfective stem ktib we get yiktib "he
writes", tiktib "she writes", and yiktibu "they write". The imperative
is formed by leaving off the prefix of the imperfective. Verbs, and
certain other elements, are usually negated by simultaneous use of the
particles ma- and -š. Sometimes these particles are affixed to either
side of the verb, as in the past tense makatabš "he didn't write",
while in other cases, the particles combine to form the separate word
miš "not" which occurs before the verb, as in the future miš Hayiktib
"he won't write".

In addition to the direct object clitics found in Standard Arabic,
Egyptian Arabic also has indirect object clitics which follow any
direct object clitic but precede negative -š. For example, "he wrote"
is katab, "he wrote it (fem.)" is katabha, "he wrote it to you" is
katabhaalak, and finally "he didn't write it to you" is makatabhalakš.

As in Standard Arabic, nouns are either masculine or feminine, and
either singular, dual, or plural, and plurals are either sound
(regular) or broken (irregular) employing a suffix or broken
(irregular) employing a different template, as described in the Arabic
Overview. Broken plurals are not restricted to a small subset of the
vocabulary and are frequently used even with loanwords having three or
four consonants, such as the English loanword sikšin "section" >
sakaašin"sections". Many adjectives also have broken plural forms.

Egyptian Arabic is much less averse to borrowing than Standard Arabic,
and the sources from which it has borrowed reflects the influence that
different peoples have had in Egypt over its history. Many borrowings
remain from Coptic, a Cushitic language which has been dead for
several centuries but which was the dominant language in Egypt when
the Arabs first arrived. Borrowings from Coptic are concentrated in
fields of activity for which were foreign to Peninsular Arabic
culture, such as agriculture. Later borrowings came primarily from
Greek, Italian, French, and English. Most new borrowings are from
English.

Like other modern dialects, though unlike Standard Arabic, the
predominant word order in Egyptian Arabic is Subject Verb Object
(SVO)."

This is a lot. Not like difference between Hittite and English, but it
is like differences between Old Church Slavonic and Serbian or between
Latin and Italian.

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Most of the grammatical features you cited are shared with Standard
Arabic... that's not a list of differences, it's a general description
of Egyptian Arabic with a couple of differences noted. Written in
Arabic script, short vowels aren't distinguished most of the time, so
that's irrelevant anyhow.

Mark

2009/1/11 Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 5:12 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> Arabic may have spread from Morocco to Malaysia, but Cairo is quite close
>> to the Arabian peninsula, so I wonder if you're not overgeneralising.
>
> From: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?menu=004&LangID=51
>
> "Egyptian Arabic is distinguished by a larger vowel inventory than
> Classical Arabic, with four short vowels (plus epenthetic schwa) and
> six long vowels, compared to three short vowels and six long vowels in
> Classical Arabic. Consonantal changes have included the loss of
> interdental fricatives. Egyptian Arabic is also characterized by two
> regular phonological processes lacking in Standard Arabic. First, all
> long vowels become shortened in unstressed positions and before
> consonant clusters. And second, many instances of short i and u are
> dropped by a process known as high vowel deletion. For example, when
> the feminine suffix -a is added to the participle kaatib "having
> written (masc.)", the i is deleted, resulting in katba.
>
> Like other varieties of Arabic, Egyptian Arabic derives the bulk of
> its vocabulary by applying a number of patterns or templates to a
> stock of consonantal roots. For example, from the triliteral root
> (three-consonant root) g-w-z with the basic meaning of "pair" is
> derived gooz "pair; husband", yiggawwiz "to get married", gawaaz
> "marriage", and migwiz "double". As an example of a template, the
> template maCCaC is used to derive many nouns referring to a place
> where an activity is done by substituting the C's in the template with
> the consonants of a triliteral root, such as: maktab "office" (a place
> where one writes) and maTbax "kitchen" (a place where one cooks).
>
> Verbs occur in two aspects: the perfective and the imperfective. The
> perfective is usually translated as a past tense or present perfect.
> Its conjugational morphology consists entirely of suffixes, for
> example: katab "he wrote", katabit "she wrote", katabt "I wrote",
> katabna "we wrote". The plain imperfective form is used much like an
> infinitive or subjunctive, as yiktib "he writes" in biyHibb yiktib"he
> likes to write". The imperfective also serves as the basis for the
> present and future tenses with particles bi and Ha, as in biyiktib "he
> writes" and Hayiktib "he will write". The conjugational morphology of
> the imperfective employs both prefixes and suffixes.
>
> For example, from the imperfective stem ktib we get yiktib "he
> writes", tiktib "she writes", and yiktibu "they write". The imperative
> is formed by leaving off the prefix of the imperfective. Verbs, and
> certain other elements, are usually negated by simultaneous use of the
> particles ma- and -š. Sometimes these particles are affixed to either
> side of the verb, as in the past tense makatabš "he didn't write",
> while in other cases, the particles combine to form the separate word
> miš "not" which occurs before the verb, as in the future miš Hayiktib
> "he won't write".
>
> In addition to the direct object clitics found in Standard Arabic,
> Egyptian Arabic also has indirect object clitics which follow any
> direct object clitic but precede negative -š. For example, "he wrote"
> is katab, "he wrote it (fem.)" is katabha, "he wrote it to you" is
> katabhaalak, and finally "he didn't write it to you" is makatabhalakš.
>
> As in Standard Arabic, nouns are either masculine or feminine, and
> either singular, dual, or plural, and plurals are either sound
> (regular) or broken (irregular) employing a suffix or broken
> (irregular) employing a different template, as described in the Arabic
> Overview. Broken plurals are not restricted to a small subset of the
> vocabulary and are frequently used even with loanwords having three or
> four consonants, such as the English loanword sikšin "section" >
> sakaašin"sections". Many adjectives also have broken plural forms.
>
> Egyptian Arabic is much less averse to borrowing than Standard Arabic,
> and the sources from which it has borrowed reflects the influence that
> different peoples have had in Egypt over its history. Many borrowings
> remain from Coptic, a Cushitic language which has been dead for
> several centuries but which was the dominant language in Egypt when
> the Arabs first arrived. Borrowings from Coptic are concentrated in
> fields of activity for which were foreign to Peninsular Arabic
> culture, such as agriculture. Later borrowings came primarily from
> Greek, Italian, French, and English. Most new borrowings are from
> English.
>
> Like other modern dialects, though unlike Standard Arabic, the
> predominant word order in Egyptian Arabic is Subject Verb Object
> (SVO)."
>
> This is a lot. Not like difference between Hittite and English, but it
> is like differences between Old Church Slavonic and Serbian or between
> Latin and Italian.
>
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> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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Mark Williamson wrote:
> Most of the grammatical features you cited are shared with Standard
> Arabic... that's not a list of differences, it's a general description
> of Egyptian Arabic with a couple of differences noted. Written in
> Arabic script, short vowels aren't distinguished most of the time, so
> that's irrelevant anyhow.

That may be so, but the rest of the linked page, and some other pages on
that site, did answer most of my questions. The fact that MSA exists as a
spoken form, and that standard written Arabic is an accurate rendering of
it, certainly puts to rest my comparison with historical spelling in
English. Also the fact that it has a different word order (SVO vs VSO)
suggests that characterising the differences as "spelling" is not
accurate. The section on literacy was also relevant. So my thanks to Milos
for pointing it out.

I think it sorts out most of the linguistic questions for me, so that just
leaves the political ones, which as always are more complex and
emotionally charged.

-- Tim Starling


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The differences are certainly more than spelling, but there exists a
continuum for a variety like Egyptian Arabic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-creole_speech_continuum

I don't know if it would be accurate to classify Egyptian Arabic as a
creole, but such a continuum certainly exists AFAIK between the most
basilectal, rural varieties and more urban varieties that are more
influenced by education.

Word order in most regional varieties of Arabic is different from
Classical Arabic.

As far as the differences between "written" Egyptian Arabic and fus'ha
(standard), from what I have seen so far, much of arz.wp is written in
a style that is easily intelligible with fus'ha for me at least, but
then I've only studied the language for 4 semesters so I would defer
that question to native speakers.

Mark

2009/1/11 Tim Starling <tstarling@wikimedia.org>:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>> Most of the grammatical features you cited are shared with Standard
>> Arabic... that's not a list of differences, it's a general description
>> of Egyptian Arabic with a couple of differences noted. Written in
>> Arabic script, short vowels aren't distinguished most of the time, so
>> that's irrelevant anyhow.
>
> That may be so, but the rest of the linked page, and some other pages on
> that site, did answer most of my questions. The fact that MSA exists as a
> spoken form, and that standard written Arabic is an accurate rendering of
> it, certainly puts to rest my comparison with historical spelling in
> English. Also the fact that it has a different word order (SVO vs VSO)
> suggests that characterising the differences as "spelling" is not
> accurate. The section on literacy was also relevant. So my thanks to Milos
> for pointing it out.
>
> I think it sorts out most of the linguistic questions for me, so that just
> leaves the political ones, which as always are more complex and
> emotionally charged.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Platonides wrote:
> Mohamed Magdy wrote:
>> * I think it would be doable to make a tab that Egyptianizes (or any other
>> dialect) the Arabic article, that is, if we have some sort of conversion
>> memory, that is if the dialect is stable (or standard), the dialect differs
>> from a place to another, from a muhafazah to another (
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhafazah). if anyone knows the technical
>> method we could make a trial instead of the great mess of dialect
>> Wikipedias. I'm not too sure about this compromise yet.
>
> If there're clear (algoritmic) rules for that, it can be done.
> See at http://zh.wikipedia.org/ how it can be viewed on seven! different
> variants.

The Chinese variants just use conversion tables, not an algorithm. That's
the only kind of conversion that can be done by the current software.

If literacy is the aim of this Egyptian Arabic project, then perhaps a
useful first step would be to implement a de-vocalising filter. That
should be possible with the current software. Then, with the filter on by
default, editors can add vocalic marking in the edit box without annoying
too many people. That's the approach that seems to be indicated by pages
7-12 of this paper:

http://papers.ldc.upenn.edu/EALL/ArabicLiteracy.pdf

Like zh-min-nan, we'd probably be accused of encouraging baby-talk, but if
the community was behind it then it could go ahead.

-- Tim Starling


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Marcus Buck wrote:
> Tim Starling hett schreven:
>
>> Marcus Buck wrote:
>>
>>> In the Arabic world there's a prevalent POV, that Arabs form one nation
>>> united by the use of the Arabic language. But in reality Standard Arabic
>>> is something like Latin. With the difference, that Latin fell out of use
>>> to make place for the Romance languages. So Egyptian Arabic vs. Standard
>>> Arabic is like French vs. Latin.
>>>
>> I have heard this before, but I am not convinced, because I have heard
>> conflicting things from Egyptian people. I don't suppose you have a
>> credible reference where I can read more about this, and which supports
>> these claims?
>>
> There's no obvious or agreed-upon measure for the proximity of dialects
> or languages nor for identity attitudes. All findings are inherently vague.
> What did you hear conflicting things about? About the big differences
> and problems with mutual intelligibility of Arabic dialects or about the
> notion of "one Arabic nation"?
>
As one attended Wikimania in Alexandria I found that Egyptians were
quite proud to let it be known that they are not Arabs. The notion of
"one Arabic nation" seems more like an imperial Saudi attitude.
> Well, that Arabic has a wide variety of different dialects, is obvious,
> if we look at the basic facts. Arabic is spoken over an area that spans
> thousands of kilometers. Arabic spread from its central area in Arabia
> in the 7th century due to the spread of Islam.
Islam as a religion, or as a political force?
> Since then the dialects
> developed different from the standard that didn't change much since then
> due to it's liturgical character (just like Latin). Latin was in vulgar
> use since about the 1st century. So Latin Vulgar had 2000 years to
> change and Arabic Vulgar only 1300 years. Therefore Latin Vulgar should
> be roughly 50% more diverse than Arabic Vulgar (Please put the emphasis
> on "roughly" cause language change is of course not linear).
In Egypt Latin only had about 700 years beginning in the first century
BC, and even then it had to compete with Greek and Coptic. The
introduction of Latin in Egypt was also more imperial than religious.
Similarly the roots of Latin in Europe were with the Roman conquests.
Ecclesiastical Latin only became a factor after the fall of the Roman
Empire, and in more countries than the ones who now speak Romance
languages. Islam succeeded in Turkey and Persia, yet these countries
retained their languages. It could very well be that Islam conquered
Egypt at a time of linguistic instability. In the rest of sparsely
populated North Africa there wasn't much of a literate environment to
put up any resistance. With all the foreign invaders wanting a piece of
Egypt over the centuries, with the British meddling in Egyptian affairs
as late as 1956, they deserve credit for their efforts to distill their
own language from a very noisy background.
> [.English is
> spread over a very wide area too and does not show that much variation.
> But English spread from England only 400 years ago and most of the
> speakers shifted to English only in very recent times. So outside of
> England there are no real dialects (and even England is no country with
> a pronounced dialectal landscape). Therefore the whole subject of
> "dialects" is a very obscure thing to many speakers of English.]
>
Dialects don't need so much as 400 years to develop. In the US there
can be remarkable differences between the way of speaking in the eastern
and western parts of Tennessee. Ebonics is viewed by some as a separate
language. In the some parts of the US the influence of Spanish causes a
great deal of concern. In French visitors from France can find it
difficult to understand some Québécois, and it is only 250 years since
the Conquest.
> The notion of the "one Arabic nation" is even more vague. We have to
> keep in mind, that mentalities do not necessarily differentiate between
> different identity-building elements. Identity can be based on
> ethnicity, on language, on religion, on common history, on citizenship
> or on arbitrary mixtures of these aspects. The most important connecting
> element for people in the Middle East is religion. The Islam. The Islam
> connects them to people with entirely different languages too. But the
> Standard Arabic language is connected to the Islam also, cause it's the
> liturgical language of the Islam. Saying, that Arabic is a macrolanguage
> can easily touch religious feelings. That's irrational, but happens. So
> there are many different levels of identity and interconnections between
> those levels of identity. It's possible, that you talked to Egyptians
> and they said "those damned Syrians" or otherwise showed few "Panarabic
> loyalty". But that doesn't mean there is no common identity.
What common identity? Just because both speak a form of Arabic, and both
are predominantly Muslim doesn't stop them from being Egyptians and
Syrians first.
> I'm sure
> you will easily find New Yorkers saying "those damned New Jerseyians" or
> US Americans saying "those damned Canadians".
Canadians are more likely to say "those damned Americans." Americans are
more likely to ignore us, which in many ways is a good thing.
> It's normal to have
> animosities with the people you know best, your closest neighbors (cause
> there's few reason to be angry about people you have no contact to). But
> if it comes to identity or loyalty, New Yorkers and New Jerseyians,
> Americans and Canadians, and Egyptians and Syrians will stand close and
> stick together.
>
That's an outrageous assumption. Canadians who attend an international
sporting event between Americans and any other country will most often
cheer for the other country. Since 1959 Canada has never broken
diplomatic relations with Cuba, and has not participated in the US
adventures against Vietnam and Iraq.

Ec


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Hoi,
At the time there was a request for the STANDARD orthography of the Belarus
language to be supported, The then be.wp community refused *any *content in
that orthography with the argument that the current orthography is Stalinist
and, that they reject it because of this. Given that Wikipedia is intended
to be educational, it is important that it connects to people who are taught
in the Belarus educational system. This makes the political and exclusive
choice for the old orthography unacceptable.

We only accept one Wikipedia for one language. The fact that we still have
what is called the be-tarask.wikipedia.org is only because people were of
the opinion that we should retain the work that was done. Now I wonder what
more experts could add to this.

This does however not mean that the be-tarask.wp is a bad project. There are
other projects that are way more problematic.
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/1/12 Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek@gmail.com>

> 2009/1/11 Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com>:
> > On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 9:34 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> Well, I think there should be not only computer-linguists experts like
> >>> Evertype in LangCom, but you desperately need people who have good
> >>> knowledge about culture, sociology and history of the main language
> >>> groups, or at least you should be ready to ask relevant outside
> >>> experts. I have a feeling that current LangCom completely ignores
> >>> historical and cultural background related to language problems which
> >>> is quite often a key to make resonable decissions.
> >>
> >> Actually, it is a misunderstanding of Michael's knowledge. His
> >> expertise is, for example, making an orthography for a random language
> >> [without orthography]. In fact, we need exactly his kind of linguists.
> >> As I mentioned, we are working on raising expertise quality inside of
> >> LangCom.
> >
> > And just to be more precise. After a couple of years of interacting
> > with people in relation to Wikimedia projects, I realized that it is
> > not so possible to get a random academician and put them into some
> > Wikimedian working body. Usually, those persons are not so interested.
> >
> > I see that we have two more options for finding persons with relevant
> > level of expertise:
> > * to find Wikimedians with this kind of expertise; or
> > * that some interested academician contacts us.
>
> Well,
>
> I did't want to come back to Belarus Wikipedia case, but at that time
> I have found quite easily 2 good experts. One from Univ. of Warsaw,
> vice-head o Belaruss literature department and one from Univ of Oxford
> (an emeritus professor, specializing in Belaruss politics and
> history). It wasn't very difficulit to ask them and get the answers -
> quite long and IMHO quite professional.I asked at that time if there
> is any interst for LangComm in reading this. The answer was "no", as
> at that time the decission was already taken, the situation was quite
> hot and arguments showing that the decission wasn't so clever were not
> listen simply by default. The stinky egg was already broken and
> members of LangComm were simply trying not to smell it :-)
>
> I don't think that such kind of experts good in one case only should
> be members of LangComm. It probably doesn't make sense. But it does
> make sense to find them for specific purposes and then ask questions
> before making final decission. It can be done. Most of them give you
> an answer or at least point you to the places you can find it itself.
> LangComm should consist of the people who are clever enough to ask
> relevant questions and be able to understand and analyse the asnwers.
>
> --
> Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
> http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
> http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
> http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html
>
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2009/1/12 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>:
> We only accept one Wikipedia for one language. The fact that we still have
> what is called the be-tarask.wikipedia.org is only because people were of
> the opinion that we should retain the work that was done. Now I wonder what
> more experts could add to this.

I am not an *expert* in Belarusian, but i know a little more about
this language than the average Russian speaker does.

Both projects are OK. Both have several dedicated and caring people
working on them. Both have certain problems. But their biggest problem
is shared: the duplication of effort hurts them all.

Merging them will benefit Wikipedia as a whole and its Belarusian
edition in particular and there should be free choice of orthography,
as it is in the Wikipedias in English, Portuguese and Catalan.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni

heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com
cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com

"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore

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Hoi,
It is tragic to learn that the two Wikipedias cannot find it in themselves
to cooperate. The two projects did not merge because at the time the
position was taken that the standard orthography was not accepted. It would
be really cool if a sense of sanity and friendship would prevail and have
the two projects merge..

My question remains; what could an expert do more ?? In the end it is about
what we accept in our projects and we do allow for this sad situation to
persist
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/1/12 Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni@gmail.com>

> 2009/1/12 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>:
> > We only accept one Wikipedia for one language. The fact that we still
> have
> > what is called the be-tarask.wikipedia.org is only because people were
> of
> > the opinion that we should retain the work that was done. Now I wonder
> what
> > more experts could add to this.
>
> I am not an *expert* in Belarusian, but i know a little more about
> this language than the average Russian speaker does.
>
> Both projects are OK. Both have several dedicated and caring people
> working on them. Both have certain problems. But their biggest problem
> is shared: the duplication of effort hurts them all.
>
> Merging them will benefit Wikipedia as a whole and its Belarusian
> edition in particular and there should be free choice of orthography,
> as it is in the Wikipedias in English, Portuguese and Catalan.
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni
>
> heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com
>
> "We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Ray Saintonge hett schreven:
> That's an outrageous assumption. Canadians who attend an international
> sporting event between Americans and any other country will most often
> cheer for the other country. Since 1959 Canada has never broken
> diplomatic relations with Cuba, and has not participated in the US
> adventures against Vietnam and Iraq.
>
> Ec
>
Rivalry in sports is a good example of what I spoke of: animosities
between neighbors. There can even be outspoken rivalries between
neighboring villages or towns, although both places share every single
value or custom or mentality. The mindset is identical and still they
can be engaged in contention. But if their basic values or customs are
threatened by a third party, they will forget their little animosities
and stand side by side.
Cuba is just a little Communist island off the coast of America. There's
no reason for Canada to show aggression towards Cuba cause Cuba does not
threaten anybody. If Cuba would threaten common values of the USA and
Canada, Canada would join the USA in its anti-Cuban actions.
But we are rapidly degressing from the topic...

Identity has layers. Some layers are very emotional, but still
unimportant. Sports for example. People can get very hot about sports,
but they won't fight wars about it (the Football War being no
counter-example). Other layers seem to be less hot-blooded, cause they
emerge only rarely, but they can be existential and thus lead to
embittered enmities.

Marcus Buck

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On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Marcus Buck <me@marcusbuck.org> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge hett schreven:
>> That's an outrageous assumption. Canadians who attend an international
>> sporting event between Americans and any other country will most often
>> cheer for the other country. Since 1959 Canada has never broken
>> diplomatic relations with Cuba, and has not participated in the US
>> adventures against Vietnam and Iraq.
>>
>> Ec
>>
> Rivalry in sports is a good example of what I spoke of: animosities
> between neighbors. There can even be outspoken rivalries between
> neighboring villages or towns, although both places share every single
> value or custom or mentality. The mindset is identical and still they
> can be engaged in contention. But if their basic values or customs are
> threatened by a third party, they will forget their little animosities

I must say, I find this a bit of a difficult claim to make just out of
the air. What is your supporting evidence for US and Canada having
"the same mindset" and "the same mentality", other than the mindset
which both states also share with Germany, France, Britain,
Switzerland, Norway, Sweden etc.?

Michael

--
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler@gmail.com

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Michael Bimmler hett schreven:
> I must say, I find this a bit of a difficult claim to make just out of
> the air. What is your supporting evidence for US and Canada having
> "the same mindset" and "the same mentality", other than the mindset
> which both states also share with Germany, France, Britain,
> Switzerland, Norway, Sweden etc.?
>
> Michael
I didn't state they have any particular shared mindset that sets them
off from the countries you named.

Marcus Buck

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As another historical note from Wikimania 2008 ...

In our session (of mine and Arria Belli) which focused on translation,
a girl who seemed to be Arabic but not known to me from where she came
asked me if there would be a possibility of âmmiyya Wikipedias. I
don't know which âmmiyya she cared for and don't know if she has
joined the Egyptian Arabic. But it could be a sign some literal people
thought it serious ... despites of other folks' questionable attitude.

I am rather inclined to Alsebaey's position. If they think it the best
aim they could achive, just give them a chance and blessings. It won't
ruin other projects at worst, hopefully.

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia-inc.com> wrote:
> Mohamed Magdy wrote:
>> (I heard that people were happy at Wikimania (Florence?)
>> because of that proposal but I fail to understand why the Egyptian people
>> there didn't express their opinion about it (it was in Egypt :!).
>
> I was sitting next to an Egyptian VIP in the front row when the
> announcement was made, and he laughed and indicated that he thought this
> was stupid.
>
> It is not up to me to make any decisions nor have any particular opinion
> about Egyptian, but this is one of many data points that suggest to me
> that the current process is widely regarded as being broken.
>
> --Jimbo
>
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--
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
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My proposal:

1.- Have a set of simple rules approved by community.

2.- A langcom integrate enterly by lingüists.

C.m.l.



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A month ago i propose thi (bellow), no body comment it. I think it contents reasonable arguments.

The community must the unique "Law-maker" organization.

The langcom must simply be a "Law-taker" organization.

C.m.l.




________________________________
From: Crazy Lover <always_yours.forever@yahoo.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 9:20:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] How to dismantle a language committee

My proposal:

1.- Have a set of simple rules approved by community.

2.- A langcom integrate enterly by lingüists.

C.m.l.



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