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Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Prussian

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Prussian Wikipedia

See also second request (on hold)

submitted verification final decision
  This proposal has been rejected.
This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy based on the discussion on this page.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

this is an extinct language since the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century. Reviving a language will make it necessary to create new terminology. That is not what Wikipedia is there for. GerardM 11:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal summary
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Arguments in favour

  • I know prussian (new) a little bit. It has clear writing and small but strong community. Prussian is baltic latin or sanscrit. It has the same situation as cornish. I know by my self about 10 persons who could write good articles. Zordsdavini 02:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Latin and Sankrit has been international languages of science and religion for millennia. I very much doubt that the same can be said about Prussian, which never achieved a consolidated written form.
      • I don't speak from the international side - I speake about its secrifide. For baltic religion it is very important. I can't about millennia, but in Prusa was religion center of Baltic people. Zordsdavini 05:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • At the same time, the Neo-Prussian language, which would be used in a "Prussian" Wikipedia is almost certainly not the same language as the long extinct, largely undocumented speech which has been assigned the ISO 639-3 code "prg". It is not a natural, but a constructed language and should be treated as such. Else, we might end up with the same mess as with the "Siberian" Wikipedia. While constructed languages are not generally barred from having their own Wikipedia editions, I feel that such proposals need to be thoroughly scrutinised and that sufficient external reference needs to be provided to proof that the language is question is fully documented, has a consolidated grammar and vocabulary and a real community behind it. --Johannes Rohr 09:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Guys, guys, we have a significant Prussian writing and speaking community in countries like Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Latvia, Germany and USA and the fact that it was once extincted should not be an argument for reducing the possibilities to fully revive it. The fact is that Prussian descendants are scattered all over the world and the only environment we can communicate in Prussian now is Internet and Wikipedia would be one of ways to promote the language. At the moment we have a Prussian forum and a webdictionary. Some more info on the old and new Prussian might be found here. Ragutis 18:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am Pruss because my ancestors were. I'm speaking prussian and some memebers of my family also, in level sufficient for daily talks. People such us want to share information about various things and collect articles in their mother tongue, even if it's not their first.
      The argument about to small amount of users falls - there are a lot of artificial languages in Wikipedia, with comparable amount of users. I know about 10 people, who can write here articles, but at least twice more, who could read it. Of course, amount of potential users can not be approximate from one's people amount of contacts.
      Yes, the modern prussian is not the same, as known from historical sources - any other language is also not the same what was few ages ago. But we can honestly say - all historical data is contained in modern prussian.
      For people like us - dispersed and mostly assimilated already ethnic minority it would be great information of big importance. This would mean for us possibility of sharing articles in our language, no more in any other. I think, that there is a lot of other languages - sometimes more natural and never extinct, but in this languages Wikipedia grows were slowly. I think, that we should get a chance, to prove the usefullness of prussian Wikipedia. --Written by Nertiks
  • I learn new prussian, but I have not a good place, where can I practice this language. Wikipedia would be a perfrect place to use prussian.
    • Writing in wikipedia is good for prussian language because I think, prussians use too few their laguage. Prussians and their friends could use Prussian more. I think that wikipedia is only one good place, where we can write all our creations. --Written by Lantan

Welcome to Wikipedia - it is a language with history and the Prussians is alive, for that reason it deserves its place in the Wikipedia - Numa

  • Writing in Wikipedia is part of the reconstruction of Prussian language. When we wright in Wikipedia we need new words. It's a good occasion for words reconstructing. So, if we wright in wikipedia, Prussian will be reconstructed faster. - Lantan
    • However, according to the language proposal policy, this is exactly what wikimedia projects are not intended for: The Wikimedia Foundation does not seek to develop new linguistic entities; there must be an extensive body of works in that language. If interpreted strictly, this proposition would clearly disqualify New Prussian. --Johannes Rohr 21:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is another possible interpretation of the rules: let alone prussian, if we were to require a large set of PUBLISHED works in the language we would clearly cut off most african and amazonic linguistic entities and we would basically discriminate in favour of richer societies. So works will usually be understood as active use + literary corpus + other similar factors which may vary depending on the local peculiarities of the involved human culture. It's human science, so it's always impossible to simply add numbers (although one would really like to have that, for the sake of verifiable objective justice). Anyway, this does not mean that this particular proposal will be approved, just to name an immediate source for doubt the ISO code seems to refer to Historic Prussian and not to his revival version. We will have to analyze this issue quite in deep. We all want to diffuse alphabetization and culture in all linguistic environments, but we cannot make Original Research and LangCom will not allow (judging by precedent decisions) any improper use of an ISO code. --Bèrto 'd Sèra 16:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • May I ask why Cornish got wikipedia. I don't see differences. This "New Prussian" are next generation of this language. These new constructions are only for new words as geōgrafija, kultūri etc. now. But it is the same in mostly all languages (exept icelandian or like that). What steps has to be that Prussian people got the same status as Cornish? Zordsdavini 06:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Plus. In wikipedia new words are not be created. They already are and in wikipedia will not be new language in reality. Prussian are allready in standart form. Zordsdavini 07:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support --Battousai 16:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against

  • The Old Prussian language is extinct since the 17. century. It is sparsely documented, there are basically some text fragments and some word lists. So, the "N" next to the proponents' names come as a surprise...
  • Apparently, there is a Neo-Prussian language, created by some enthusiasts, with heavy borrowings from neighbouring Baltic languages. It is just as much a constructed language as the Neo-Cornish used at kw: and Yaroslav Zolotaryov's "Siberian language". While I have nothing against Wikipedias in historical or constructed languages, I doubt that constructed-languages-claiming-to-be-historical are a viable basis for an encyclopaedia, apart from the fact, that the number of potential contributors and users will be extremely small. --Johannes Rohr 12:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think it has to be named historical. This wikipedia will be written in new Prussian. Zordsdavini 17:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I now about 8 men who said will write here (without me) :) In the begining Samogitian wikipedia had only one real person, after month there were 5 (N). Now there are not many contributors, but it is being reading in Samogitia. Already 3 times was about it written in newspapers. Prussian has sentements. If here will be less articles - I think they will be about Prusa (Prussia) and it will be briliant information. Zordsdavini 17:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Extinct languages can have Wikipedias even when they are not classical languages like Latin, but the fact is that, as far as I know, there is no ethnicity that identifies itself with this language, as is the case with Cornish, among others. If this condition is met, and a revival movement for Prussian gains considerable support, we can consider a Wikipedia in it again.

General discussion

  • What status has to be for Prussian?
    1. It can't be historical, because it will be written in new Prussian (but it is called Prussian)
    2. It can't be constructed us Esperanto or other languages of this type, this reconstruction is living language + some things from other balt languages for missing areas. It is the same situation as Cornish.
    3. It can't be natural, because there are no (or to few) persons with real status of mother tongue of Prussian. Zordsdavini 17:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know one local newspaper in polish part of Prussia, where for a half year were printed articles is modern prussian. --Written by Nertiks
  1. Please everyone, sign your contributions to the discussion, else it will become unreadable. Signing is done by appending --~~~~ (two dashes and four tildes) to your statement.
  2. Feel free to develop your test project at the incubator. While doing so, please follow the guidelines in the language proposal policy. The test project is, as I understand, the most important test of the viability of a language.
  3. It would be useful if you provided firm evidence, that Neo-Prussian is a complete, consolidated language. This would include pointers to a grammar, information as to who created (or reconstructed, if you will) the language and when, and some estimates on the app. number of speakers. --Johannes Rohr 21:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Who wants to contribute in this project has to write his name (~~~) in Proposal summary -> Users interested in forming an editing community.
  5. May we have consensus for the (N) mark, which means the person is natural speaker. You can't write (N) if You can speak. But according to the situation I suggest the person who is prussian and can write in Prussian (mostly 1st language is Lithuanian, Polish, Germany or others) could mark him self with (N). Zordsdavini 06:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think there should be a new category compiled languages for languages based on some historical, extinct, dialectical or uncodified natural languages with considerable artificial impact by those who took duty to codify them. These may be laguages based on historical ones about which we have little (but some) information or ancient languages with no modern vocabulary or some group of raw dialects or languages with no writing system. All these need much work to make them suitable for writing on modern topics and this work makes them something close to artificial ones.--Nxx 05:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see some proximity here to languages such as Manx, Cornish, probably Gothic; and for the sake of just and equal treatment, I cannot but suggest to let Prussian to have it Wikipedia, too. On the other hand, we now have the opportunity of using incubator as long as needed to have open questions sorted out: Is there a community that gets it going? Is the use of a language code explicitly assigned to the historical version of the language appropriate? -- if there is a community, and the modern revived form of the language turns out to be rather stable, then imho no big numbers are needed to prove viability. If ISO aggrees to have the modern variety under the same language code, then fine (there are precedents, like Latin, afaik) Else, they will have to assign another code, also fine. Of course, there may be no use in prodding ISO, unless a community is there. --Purodha Blissenbach 12:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is one huge difference, when you compare Prussian to Gothic: There is a considerable body of Gothic writings which survived through the centuries, most notably Wulfila's bible. By contrast, Prussian never developed into a literary language, all we have are fragments. I don't know how this compares to Cornish, but if I recall correctly, Cornish became extinct only in the 18th century, i.e. some two centuries after Prussian had gone away. Therefore I would suspect that more thoroughly documented. So there is a huge difference between reviving a written extinct language and constructing a language based on fragmentary evidence of a would-be historical ancestor. --Johannes Rohr 19:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • In prussian was writtin 3 books (catheckisms), small dictionaries between prussian and germany and some fragments. Prussians such as Cornish became extinct only in the 18th century (the last persson) but in 20th century here founds new prussians who tried to write in this language. So, I say it's the same as Cornish only one thing - Cornishes weren't departured from their home as prussians in 1945. (Zordsdavini) 78.60.81.205 20:26, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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