Comments on: Your language or mine? http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/ EthanZ's musings on Africa, media and international development Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:45:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Anon http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-1274170 Anon Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:59:58 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-1274170 I heard unpublished Wikipedia statistics from its founder that most of the South Asian language wikipedias were edited from IPs outside the region ! Hows that for linguistic ties getting stronger when one is distanced... I heard unpublished Wikipedia statistics from its founder that most of the South Asian language wikipedias were edited from IPs outside the region ! Hows that for linguistic ties getting stronger when one is distanced…

]]> By: Blurring Borders » Blog Archive » Why is the Arabic Wikipedia So Small? http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-1242456 Blurring Borders » Blog Archive » Why is the Arabic Wikipedia So Small? Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:24:46 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-1242456 [...] preparation for the 2006 Wikimania Conference, Ethan wrote an insightful post about the bilingual Wikipedians who decide to write in English instead of their native language. He notes that the tendency to edit the English Wikipedia probably comes from the desire to [...] [...] preparation for the 2006 Wikimania Conference, Ethan wrote an insightful post about the bilingual Wikipedians who decide to write in English instead of their native language. He notes that the tendency to edit the English Wikipedia probably comes from the desire to [...]

]]> By: Why is the Arabic Wikipedia So Small? « Blurring Borders http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-1101490 Why is the Arabic Wikipedia So Small? « Blurring Borders Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:05:16 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-1101490 [...] preparation for the 2006 Wikimania Conference, Ethan wrote an insightful post about the bilingual Wikipedians who decide to write in English instead of their native language. He notes that the tendency to edit the English Wikipedia probably comes from the desire to [...] [...] preparation for the 2006 Wikimania Conference, Ethan wrote an insightful post about the bilingual Wikipedians who decide to write in English instead of their native language. He notes that the tendency to edit the English Wikipedia probably comes from the desire to [...]

]]> By: …My heart’s in Accra » Your language or mine? (Part 2) http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-52091 …My heart’s in Accra » Your language or mine? (Part 2) Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:12:32 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-52091 [...] By contrast, Wikipedias with 250,000 articles currently exist only in four languages: English, German, French and Polish. (The Japanese wikipedia is 242,000 as I’m writing this post.) Of languages with 100 million or more native speakers, the Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia/Bahasa Malaysia, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese and Punjabi wikipedias still need work - the Punjabi wikipedia is apparently up to 50 articles, eight more than the last time I wrote about it. [...] [...] By contrast, Wikipedias with 250,000 articles currently exist only in four languages: English, German, French and Polish. (The Japanese wikipedia is 242,000 as I’m writing this post.) Of languages with 100 million or more native speakers, the Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia/Bahasa Malaysia, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese and Punjabi wikipedias still need work – the Punjabi wikipedia is apparently up to 50 articles, eight more than the last time I wrote about it. [...]

]]> By: Ragib http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-22131 Ragib Sun, 02 Jul 2006 06:55:16 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-22131 Just a follow up to your comments ... the Bengali language wikipedia now has 2801 articles. Not too many, but definitely a 400% (or 5 times) growth since March (we had 542 articles back then). --Ragib Just a follow up to your comments … the Bengali language wikipedia now has 2801 articles. Not too many, but definitely a 400% (or 5 times) growth since March (we had 542 articles back then).

–Ragib

]]> By: Ntwiga http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-15465 Ntwiga Tue, 16 May 2006 20:47:51 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-15465 Great piece Ethan, definitely worth the time it took me to read and absorb it. Some comments if I may. While you quite correctly identified a ton of issues with regards to work on wikipaedia (and on the web in general), I see one fundermental issue that you may have missed simply because you are monolingual. I speak about 5 languages but, paradoxically, I only WRITE one very well (and another pretty badly). The reason is that most of the (traditional ) languages I know are spoken, not written. They have non-roman alphabets and I have not (and I know that this is true for a large part of the population I come from) had a chance to study them in a formal setting. I simply picked them up through use. All this might be neither here nor there but the end effect which is the crux of the issue is that when I have to document something by writing, I have no choice but to write it in English. Now, I will grant you that many of the South East Asian languages that you listed have users who can write in them since they have written alphabets but I am willing to bet a tremendous amount (how about 50cts?) that you will invariably find that most of these languages are not taught formally or used as official languages. There lies the issue: lots of people who can speak the language but no one who can write it. Steve Great piece Ethan, definitely worth the time it took me to read and absorb it.

Some comments if I may.

While you quite correctly identified a ton of issues with regards to work on wikipaedia (and on the web in general), I see one fundermental issue that you may have missed simply because you are monolingual.

I speak about 5 languages but, paradoxically, I only WRITE one very well (and another pretty badly). The reason is that most of the (traditional ) languages I know are spoken, not written. They have non-roman alphabets and I have not (and I know that this is true for a large part of the population I come from) had a chance to study them in a formal setting. I simply picked them up through use.

All this might be neither here nor there but the end effect which is the crux of the issue is that when I have to document something by writing, I have no choice but to write it in English.

Now, I will grant you that many of the South East Asian languages that you listed have users who can write in them since they have written alphabets but I am willing to bet a tremendous amount (how about 50cts?) that you will invariably find that most of these languages are not taught formally or used as official languages.

There lies the issue: lots of people who can speak the language but no one who can write it.

Steve

]]> By: Ethan http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-12818 Ethan Mon, 15 May 2006 15:30:46 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-12818 Sorry, Esperantist. I'd understood that Esperanto was supposed to be a second language so that everyone would be at an equal disadvantage speaking it - hadn't realized that people had learned it as a native language. Sorry, Esperantist. I’d understood that Esperanto was supposed to be a second language so that everyone would be at an equal disadvantage speaking it – hadn’t realized that people had learned it as a native language.

]]> By: Esperantist http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-12652 Esperantist Sun, 14 May 2006 17:35:07 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-12652 Esperanto has native speakers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers Esperanto has native speakers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers

]]> By: …My heart’s in Accra » A history of digital communities… in seven minutes http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-12517 …My heart’s in Accra » A history of digital communities… in seven minutes Fri, 12 May 2006 21:04:26 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-12517 [...] And if that wasn’t complicated enough, Ward Cunningham decided it was important that anyone be able to edit a webpage, collaboratively, inventing the wiki. Which was useful mostly for small gangs of geeks creating tech documentation, until Jimmy Wales thought it would be a clever idea to compile an encyclopedia - or perhaps a whole mess of encyclopedias - using one. [...] [...] And if that wasn’t complicated enough, Ward Cunningham decided it was important that anyone be able to edit a webpage, collaboratively, inventing the wiki. Which was useful mostly for small gangs of geeks creating tech documentation, until Jimmy Wales thought it would be a clever idea to compile an encyclopedia – or perhaps a whole mess of encyclopedias – using one. [...]

]]> By: Ethan http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/05/10/your-language-or-mine/comment-page-1/#comment-12500 Ethan Fri, 12 May 2006 16:10:50 +0000 http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=544#comment-12500 I am now, Ian - that would have saved me a lot of time... but hey, sometimes it's worth working the data yourself to get a better understanding of what it really means... I am now, Ian – that would have saved me a lot of time… but hey, sometimes it’s worth working the data yourself to get a better understanding of what it really means…

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