Thank you, Oliver! I am resetting counter (now + 7 days is deadline) with the proposal to approve one Dinka Wikipedia, with the "macrolanguage" code "din".
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 3:36 PM, Oliver Stegen <[email protected]> wrote: > I received replies from five Dinka language scholars (one of them a native > speaker), representing DILDA (the Dinka Language Development Association), > SIL International and the University of Edinburgh. They all unanimously > declared that one wikipedia for ISO code [din] will be sufficient. They also > were supportive of Prof. Myhill's efforts on behalf of the Dinka wikipedia > and for a unified orthography. > > Individual reasons given included: > > "To the best of my knowledge, the dialects are mutually intelligible." > "I would find it really pretty tragic if Wikipedia forced the Dinkas to > pursue multiple written standards. With only a few million speakers in an > unsettled political context, Dinka is going to have a hard enough time > making a success of creating a written standard as it is; chop it up into > four or five "languages" and you more or less guarantee that they are too > small to have any impact. Obviously there will be lexical and grammatical > differences in the work of different writers, but that's true of different > varieties of English, too, without implying that we're dealing with a > collection of separate languages." > "The designation of four Dinka languages reflect dialect cluster identities > and church denominational areas where attitudes favour separate Bible > translations, but are not highly developed identities in other ways > (political/military). The designation of one Dinka macrolanguage reflects > not only high overall lexical similarity (80%+) and mutual intelligibility > (90%+) as assessed in the SIL survey (Roettger & Roettger 1989), but also a > larger ethnolinguistic identity expressed through one common agreed > orthography, and more recently through one language development > association." > "Dinka people look to Thuɔŋjäŋ [ethnonym for Dinka language] as one language > but not languages. Those Dinka varieties can be realized as dialects in a > spoken language." > > So, I guess, that clinches it, and we can go ahead with din.wikipedia.org > (on the condition of successfully concluding verification, of course!). > > Best, > Oliver > > > On 02-Feb-17 13:24, Oliver Stegen wrote: > > I know a couple of linguists working on Dinka. Bible translations are > definitely existing or going on in different varieties but maybe, one > wikipedia may still work. I'll keep you posted once I've heard from my > contacts. > > > On 29-Jan-17 06:50, Milos Rancic wrote: > > Oliver, I think this is your area... According to Ethnologue, Dinka > [1] is a Nilo-Saharan "macrolanguage", with languages Northeastern > Dinka [2], Northwestern Dinka [3], South Central Dinka [4], > Southeastern Dinka [5] and Southwestern Dinka [6]. > > The whole population is 1.4 million, it's about very poor South Sudan. > Is there a sense to create one Wikipedia or to go with separate > languages? > > [1] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/din > [2] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/dip > [3] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/diw > [4] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/dib > [5] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/dks > > _______________________________________________ > Langcom mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Langcom mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > > > > _______________________________________________ > Langcom mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
