As far as I am aware, but please correct me if I'm wrong, the language committee has always tried to gather a large diversity from all over the world. However, it seems hard to find people from underrepresented regions to bother themselves with this boring matter (no offense). So if you know a good candidate from a region you feel is underrepresented, just put them in touch with Gerard and I'm confident they will be able to at least incorporate the knowledge.
Best regards, Lodewijk 2011/2/24 M. Williamson <[email protected]> > To me, this is still a problem. If the committee never made any > decisions and instead relied 100% on the opinions of others, then > perhaps the composition wouldn't matter. However, think about this: if > you gather a committee to make decisions about agriculture and recruit > only from European countries, you will find a very different group of > opinions than if you recruit from Africa or India. The same is > certainly the case here. The way people think about languages and > linguistic diversity differs around the world, and it is not to our > benefit to have a committee composed of mostly people from one part of > the world, especially considering that over 60% of Earth's population > lives in Asia. What I am not suggesting is that we should invite the > world's foremost expert on Hindi or Sino-Tibetan languages to be a > member of the committee; what I am suggesting is that we should invite > people similar to existing members, except that they happen to be from > Asia, Africa, Latin America, etc. So people with a deep interest in > many languages, who can bring us different perspectives. > > 2011/2/23, Casey Brown <[email protected]>: > > On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 3:12 AM, Milos Rancic <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 06:55, Bishakha Datta <[email protected]> > >> wrote: > >>> One thought occurred to me: there is no representation of Asian > languages > >>> in > >>> the committee (and I don't mean only Indian languages). Would the > >>> committee > >>> want to consider an expansion in membership to include someone who is > >>> fluent > >>> in one or more Asian languages? > >> > >> In principle yes, but... [1] > >> > >> Linguistic qualifications for becoming a LangCom member are not so > >> simple. After a couple of years in LangCom, I may say that many > >> professors of linguistics don't fit. And the main reason is not their > >> knowledge, but attitude toward languages. Or, to be more precise, > >> their boldness. For example, LangCom tasks require from one > >> Indo-Europeanist to give expertize on any Indo-European language, but > >> many of them would say that the classification of, let's say, Kurdish > >> languages is not the part of their job, but the part of the job of an > >> expert in Iranian languages. Such expert in LangCom is basically > >> useless. > > > > Doesn't the language committee also actively seek out experts in > > different languages when they need to? I seem to recall you guys > > having all test wikis checked by a linguist/expert who speaks the > > language before they are created. > > > > So it's not like people who speak Asian (or other similar) languages > > aren't being actively involved, it's just that none of them are in the > > "administrative committee" at this time. At least that's how I > > remember it being explained many threads ago. :-) > > > > -- > > Casey Brown > > Cbrown1023 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > foundation-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > > > -- > skype: node.ue > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
