"The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.' - really? It's a) not particularly well-written, mostly and b) referenced overwhelmingly to English-language sources, most of which are, you guessed it.. Western in nature.
On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 3:43 AM, stevertigo <stv...@gmail.com> wrote: > Mark Williamson <node...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I would like to add to this that I think the worst part of this idea > > is the assumption that other languages should take articles from > > en.wp. > > The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and > written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any > such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.' > > Mark Williamson <node...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Nobody's arguing here that language and culture have no relationship. > > What I'm saying is that language does not equal culture. Many people > > speak French who are not part of the culture of France, for example > > the cities of Libreville and Abidjan in Africa. > > Africa is an unusual case given that it was so linguistically diverse > to begin with, and that its even moreso in the post-colonial era, when > Arabic, French, English, and Dutch remain prominent marks of > imperialistic influence. > > Ray Saintonge <sainto...@telus.net> wrote: > > This is well suited for the dustbin of terrible ideas. It ranks right > > up there with the notion that the European colonization of Africa was > > for the sole purpose of civilizing the savages. > > This is the 'encyclopedic imperialism' counterargument. I thought I'd > throw it out there. As Bendt noted above, Google has already been > working on it for two years and has had both success and failure. It > bears mentioning that their tools have been improving quite steadily. > A simple test such as /English -> Arabic -> English/ will show that. > > Note that colonialism isnt the issue. It still remains for example a > high priority to teach English in Africa, for the simple reason that > language is almost entirely a tool for communication, and English is > quite good for that purpose. Its notable that the smaller colonial > powers such as the French were never going to be successful at > linguistic imperialism in Africa, for the simple reason that French > has not actually been the lingua franca for a long time now. > > > Key to the growth of Wikipedias in minority languages is respect for the > > cultures that they encompass, not flooding them with the First-World > > Point of View. What might be a Neutral Point of View on the English > > Wikipedia is limited by the contributions of English writers. Those who > > do not understand English may arrive at a different neutrality. We have > > not yet arrived at a Metapedia that would synthesize a single neutrality > > from all projects. > > I strongly disagree. Neutral point of view has worked on en.wp because > its a universalist concept. The cases where other language wikis > reject English content appear to come due to POV, and thus a violation > of NPOV, not because - as you seem to suggest - the POV in such > countries must be considered "NPOV." > > Casey Brown <li...@caseybrown.org> wrote: > > I'm surprised to hear that coming from someone who I thought to be a > > student of languages. I think you might want to read an > > article from today's Wall Street Journal, about how language > > influences culture (and, one would extrapolate, Wikipedia articles). > > I had just a few days ago read Boroditsky's piece in Edge, and it > covers a lot of interesting little bits of evidence. As Mark was > saying, linguistic relativity (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) has been > around for most of a century, and its wider conjectures were strongly > contradicted by Chomsky et al. Yes there is compelling evidence that > language does "channel" certain kinds of thought, but this should not > be overstated. Like in other sciences, linguistics can sometimes make > the mistake of making *qualitative judgments based on a field of > *quantitative evidence. This was essentially important back in the > 40s and 50s when people were still putting down certain > quasi-scientific conjectures from the late 1800s. > > Still there are cultures which claim their languages to be superior in > certain ways simply because they are more sonorous or emotive, or > otherwise expressive, and that's the essential paradigm that some > linguists are working in. > > -SC > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l