Hi Milos, We have had discussions in Cascadia Wikimedia User Group about possible outreach to Native American tribes regarding language and culture. There are endangered Native American languages, and Wikimedia projects seem well position to assist with language preservation. I hope that the Wiktionary partnership with Matica srpska is successful and that you will keep us informed of how it goes.
Regards, Pine On Feb 13, 2015 4:03 PM, "Milos Rancic" <[email protected]> wrote: > This story is at once a personal one, but its products could affect > our whole movement. Thus I feel a duty to share it with you. > > (Disclaimer: I am under the influence of sljivovica [1], which means > that my English syntax could betray me. > > Also, keep in mind that one of the comments which I got after the > first AfroCrowd [2] session was that it's hard to follow me, as my > narration makes people sleepy. Besides that comment, I actually helped > on that occasion my fellow friend Milica to fell asleep. And I see > that as one of my contributions to the better world: If my narration > helps people to fell asleep, then it's at least more natural > medication than sleeping pills. > > So, brace yourselves! If you really want to read my whole email -- > which I warmly suggest :D --, it's good idea to read it in bed, > immediately before you want to sleep.) > > * * * > > Back to 1985, as 12 years old boy, I got my first computer. It was > Schneider [3] branded version of Amstrad CPC 664 [4]. Although I was > fascinated by computers earlier, that was the real beginning of my > geekness. I still remember my first programs in Locomotive Basic. > > But, during my high school years, I decided that I definitely don't > want to study anything which requires mathematics. So, I wanted to > study world literature, but was enough successful just to enter the > course of Serbian language and literature. > > Almost immediately after I started my studies, I realized that I am > much more interested in grammar than literature and my divergence from > my initial idea became wider as time was passing. > > It actually culminated with starting studies in theoretical physics. > However, I realized then that there are "studies" and *studies*. > Theoretical physics obviously belongs to the real ones. So, I > abandoned it and went back to my linguistics "studies"... > > But the difference between "science" and *science* made quite a big > influence on me. During my first and the only year of studying > theoretical physics, I realized that all social sciences are on the > level of pre-Newton physics. And linguistics is probably the best of > the social sciences. > > So, I wanted to fix that. I started to be interested in all the fields > which intended to make linguistics more scientific. (All my interests > were so diverse, that I could write another long story for each of > them, so I'll avoid all of them except the most relevant one.) At the > end I settled with formal/computational linguistics. And I got full > support of my linguistics professors. The reason why I got such > support has become much more clear to me during the next decade: > Basically, I was the only student interested in that. > > I went to the Computational Center of the Faculty for Electrical > Engineering in 1995 and the new phase of my life began. Thanks to that > institution and people around it, instead of working on formal > linguistics issues, I became more and more interested in system > administration. Speaking from today's perspective, system > administration is my profession, while linguistics is my hobby. > > In 1999 the third of my journeys began. While reading documentation, > at the time when I could have been easily become a collateral damage > of the bombs of the sole superpower, I was bizarrely but genuinely > interested in the fact that GNU GPL can't be realistically implemented > into the jurisdiction of my country as it wasn't localized. Thus I > sent an email to [email protected] and one person responded to me. Just > years later I realized who is RMS. > > Between 1999 and 2003 I was a bit depressed because I knew that free > software is not possible without free knowledge. Then I found > Wikipedia and my fourth journey started. (I am still aware that free > knowledge is not possible without free and just society and that free > and just society is not possible without free love. But I didn't come > yet to the position to work on that more systematically.) > > With one year of absence, I am a member of the Language committee > since 2008. During the first years of my duty I deeply believed that > there are people who care about the global language diversity in > general and systematic way. And I was quite disappointed to realize > that nobody actually cares about them in that way. > > So, for a long time I was thinking that the duty of Wikimedia movement > is to take that responsibility. > > Back to the present... > > The project [5] of starting cooperation with Matica srpska [6] has > been formally approved by WMF. And that's the crossroads of my five > journeys: computers, Serbian language, free software, Wikipedia and > one more. > > The last one is the most important one. I see this project not just as > a local initiative, but as the beginning of one initiative which only > Wikimedia movement could achieve. Yes, it's about the idea that every > language which has Wikipedia has a chance to survive. And this project > will make the foundations for making that idea reality. To be able to > tackle that issue, we have to have the software and the movement > willing to work on it. And I am sure that we'll get both during the > duration of the project. > > That doesn't mean that it will be successful just thanks to the work > of the core team of this project. It requires wide participation of > all of you, all of us. So, please, join us! You have this thread and > my email and there is no valid excuse to wait. > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slivovitz > [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/AfroCrowd > [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schneider_Rundfunkwerke_AG > [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_CPC#CPC664 > [5] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Interglider.ORG/Wiktionary_Meets_Matica_Srpska > [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matica_srpska > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
