Requests for new languages/Wikisource Ancient Greek 2

Ancient Greek Wikisource edit

submitted verification final decision

 

This language has been verified as eligible.
The language is eligible for a project, which means that the subdomain can be created once there is an active community and a localized interface, as described in the language proposal policy. You can discuss the creation of this language project on this page.

Once the criteria are met, the language committee can proceed with the approval.

If you think the criteria are met, but the project is still waiting for approval, feel free to notify the committee and ask them to consider its approval.

A committee member provided the following comment:

Eligible with the condition that the default interface has to be in English. As this project doesn't require interface translation, please make Multilingual Wikisource project alive and project creation will be approved. --Millosh 17:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The community needs to develop an active test project; it must remain active until approval (automated statistics). It is generally considered active if the analysis lists at least three active, not-grayed-out editors listed in the sections for the previous few months.
  • The community needs to complete required MediaWiki interface translations in that language (about localization, translatewiki, check completion).
  • The community needs to discuss and complete the settings table below:
What Value Example / Explanation
Proposal
Language code grc (SILGlottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name Ancient Greek Language name in English
Language name Ἀρχαία ἑλληνικὴ γλῶττα Language name in your language. This will appear in the language list on Special:Preferences, in the interwiki sidebar on other wikis, ...
Language Wikidata item Q35497 - item has currently the following values:
Item about the language at Wikidata. It would normally include the Wikimedia language code, name of the language, etc. Please complete at Wikidata if needed.
Directionality LTR Is the language written from left to right (LTR) or from right to left (RTL)?
Links JACT, Perseus Project, Sacred Texts Archive Links to previous requests, or references to external websites or documents.

Settings
Project name "Wikisource" in your language
Project namespace usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace "Wikisource talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads no Default is "no". Preferably, files should be uploaded to Commons.
If you want, you can enable local file uploading, either by any user ("yes") or by administrators only ("admin").
Notes: (1) This setting can be changed afterwards. The setting can only be "yes" or "admin" at approval if the test creates an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) first. (2) Files on Commons can be used on all Wikis. (3) Uploading fair-use images is not allowed on Commons (more info). (4) Localisation to your language may be insufficient on Commons.
Optional settings
Project logo This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone Continent/City "Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings Anything else that should be set
submit Phabricator task. It will include everything automatically, except additional namespaces/settings. After creating the task, add a link to the comment.

This will be the first member of a family of projects in this culturally very important language (Ancient Greek), a family which will hopefully include a grc-Wikipedia,
as well.

The reasons of having a grc-Wikisource is quite evident; the huge number of literary works (the texts to be digitized ranging from Mycenaean Greek to Late Koine Greek and even some contemporary revival attempts) written in Ancient Greek justifies its existence.

Arguments in favour edit

  1. Support: I hope that the following arguments are convincing: 1) In fact, the policy only recommends to include the projects of wikisource of old languages within the versions of the corresponding modern languages, but it does not prohibit they have it independently: "Where possible, such languages should be bundled with the modern equivalent (such as Old English with English), though that is not required." 2) Ancient Greek is not comparable with Old English or Middle Dutch, while these only have a cultural influence limited to their national cultural environments, Ancient Greek has, without doubt, a world-wide importance. the truly international character of the Ancient Greek is obvious. 3) I disagree that decoupling Grc material from El - Wikisource implies curtailing Greek heritage, just share it. In any case, the wikimedia projects are not aimed at meeting a national agenda, if that were the case. 4) Decoupling can attract the participation of a wider international audience. I think that can also encourage the use of ancient Greek as language to use in discussions, as in Latina Wikipedia. 5) As Omnipaedista said The test is currently inactive, but is not a problem, because the work will only consist of moving the pages towards the prefix Grc. 6) Many people with hight Gr proficiency want to have Ancient Greek interface by default. Crazymadlover.
1) Yes, you are right on that; let me restate my argument: despite the fact that (de jure) it is not required, in many cases it is (de facto) the case that there is a national entity that claims the heritage of an ancient literature. The case of Literary Chinese (lzh) and Traditional Greek (grc, gkm) are the most famous examples of this kind. On the contrary, Latin, Gothic, Old Norse, and Sanskrit are examples of languages whose heritage is claimed by multiple modern ethnic groups. 2)&3) For me it is very unfortunate that lzh and grc are so closemindedly associated with a modern ethnic group, but this is not a view shared by the majority of wiki-users. 4) In fact, only Wikipedias are known for promoting the use of marginal dialects and ancient languages in discussions among users. Thus, the goal of reviving grc as a colloquy language has chances to be achieved only if the wp/grc opens. 5) First of all, the whole idea of opening a wikisource-test in the Incubator is faulty. Wikisource test-projects traditionally open in the Oldwikisource (see for example the Sanskrit one). On the other hand, User:-jkb- has explicitly denied the admission of grc texts in the Old Ws on the grounds that there already exists the Modern Greek Wikisource for this purpose. This situation seems like a dead-end to me. Plus, noone besides you cared enough so far to do any edits to the ws/grc test or defend its existence on Meta. 6) I agree with you on that, since I am one of these people! However, the only project on whose independence from the corresponding el-project most users would agree is the grc Wikipedia. Wikiquotes and Wikisource projects in grc cannot exist independently according to the current consensus (and though I am perhaps the only Greek user who disagrees with this consensus, I have no intention to start a battle against it). --Omnipaedista 15:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly that Lzh and Grc also belong to the literary traditions of China and Greece, but like classical languages article rightly says they are aditionally global influential along with Latin, Sanskrit and Arabic, not limited to people who speak their daughter languages (a German or japanese professional philosopher needs to read Plato in original Language. As well as many non Greek orthodox christians need (Protestant and also catholic clergy) or want (believers) to read the New testament in Ancient Greek - the original source), Thus the "transethnic" character of both languages have to be recognized. and i know you share that idea. Furthermore the Greek is the language of the founding culture of the western civilization. Crazymadlover
  1. Support this language has a lot of non-native speakers. It should have a Wikisource Cosmopolitanist (talk) 09:11, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against edit

  1. Weak oppose As a proud contributor to the grc-Wikipedia test-project and as the major translator of the grc-interface, I hate to say this, but I (weakly) oppose to this proposal. The explicit policy says that a project (especially a Wikisource one) can only be independent if there is no other more general wiki to host its content. The latter has been the case so far only with Latin. Other major historical languages such as Middle Dutch or Old English have their texts incorporated in the respective Dutch and English Wikisources. Moreover, a huge number of grc-texts is already hosted in the Greek Wikisource, while the grc-Wikisource test-project has been pretty dead and empty for a long time. The main problem (and I am well aware of it) is that Ws/el is kind of hostile to nonGreek and Ancient Greek speakers (yes, there exist people speaking grc but not el). This, however, is not such a huge problem anymore thanks to User:AndreasJS, and the grc-interface translators. So, now users can visit Βικιθήκη, log in, and select the grc(or en or any other)-interface-language by using their "My preferences"-options, and then they practically have a Wikisource in grc. There are only minor details to be solved such as how we should translate Wikisource into grc: -θήκη ("Wiki-theca" as in el Βικιθήκη) or -πηγή ("-source" as in Latin -fons). --Omnipaedista 05:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I fail to see why the Italian Wikisource couldn't host the Latin works. It is the linear descendent of Latin and the current point of the continuous language tradition of Rome and the Italian peninsula.--Prosfilaes 02:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Because French, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Provençal are in the same way its descendants, no more, no less. Bogorm 17:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    No, they're not Italian languages like Latin is, in the same way that the Dutch Wikisource hosts Middle Dutch, not the Afrikaans Wikisource.--Prosfilaes 00:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There exist no Italian languages, Latin is an Italic language, whose descendants are called Romance languages (already listed above) and are in the same extent its descendants, no more, no less. Bogorm 07:16, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There certainly are Italian languages, of which the language spoken in west-central Italy has a continuous 2800 year history; geographically and ethnologically speaking, they have a stronger claim over Latin than anyone else.--Prosfilaes 23:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose as per Omnipaedista and per policy: Wikisource wikis are allowed in languages with no native speakers, although these should be on a wiki for the modern form of the language if possible.. We do not want to alienate the Greek users who generally regard the Greek language as a unity, especially comprising Biblical Greek. Greeks generally say their prayers in Ancient Greek and use quotes from the Bible and the classical literature in Ancient Greek. Removing the Ancient texts from :s:el: would be regarded by the Greek community as curtailing their heritage. I do not see any hostility to non-Greek editors. One obstacle is the meta-language which is Modern Greek, although English is well understood and accepted by the Greek Wiki community. Reading for example the s:el:Βικιθήκη:Γραμματεία one could use http://translate.google.com and the like with a little imagination. So I invite all those who want to see Ancient and Bibilical Greek texts in Wikisource to come and help improve el:s:Κύρια Σελίδα/Αρχαία. Andreas 16:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree that thanks to Googletranslate, the wikisource is not so hostile to unregistered nongrecophone users as it used to be, but for me there are still some practical problems. 1) I've just typed on Google searchbox the keywords "Βικιθήκη Τυρταῖος" and the only result I got was a couple of ws:el pages that contain the name Τυρταῖος but no result concerning Tyrtaeus' main page http://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Τυρταῖος because it redirects to the monotonic transcription http://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Τυρταίος. The same happened when I tried to google "Βικιθήκη Ξενοφῶν". Of course, by navigating in the ws:el's searchbox you can eventually find them, but if you try to do the same thing via Google, it seems that one has to transcribe first any word that contains a perispomene into the monotonic system. In other words, ws:el's policy to abolish the polytonic system from the titles of its content is unprecedented in the history of serious electronic sources of grc texts and there should be a discussion about this, since it seems to even hamper someone from easily finding the title they are looking for or knowing the Traditional Greek form of the title of many grc works (see here: http://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Ορφέως_Αργοναυτικά ; currently, there is no reference whatsoever to the original title of the work: ρφέως ργοναυτικά). 2) AFAIK, there is currently no forum in the ws:el where non-el speakers can ask questions or make proposals about anything without being scolded for not using Greek. Maybe, we should create an Agora for nongrecophones (I have in mind something like this page from the Japanese Wikipedia). --Omnipaedista 05:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1) regarding Google: This is a technicality. The main reason is that Google does not handle polytonic characters correctly: Βικιθηκη Τυρταιος works. In any case, we can compensate for this by using polytonic titles and author names within the article. However, Google is inconsistent: Θρᾷξ Βικιθήκη does not find the article about Διονύσιος ὁ Θρᾷξ, whereas Θρᾷξ Διονύσιος does. Ὀρφέως Ἀργοναυτικά finds the article although there are no breathings on the page. Of course, polytonic redirect pages have to be created, a task for diligent volunteers. 2) There are several entries in s:el: Βικιθήκη:Γραμματεία and in various talk pages in English; I am not aware of any "scolding". I am putting a notice at the top of the page to encourage el-0 editors to add their comments. Andreas 13:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
1) Yes, there is still some to work to be done with the redirects and the input of breathings in some articles (btw, I hope there aren't many more pages left whose texts totally lack grc diacritics like the Ορφέως Αργοναυτικά one). However, I would be much more contented if one day the Greek Wikisourcians decided to redirect the monotonic titles to the Polytonic ones as is the case of the grc texts with every other academically reputable internet source. 2) I have to admit that the notice you have added is very helpful; I am just wondering why it took four years for it to appear on the top of the Secretariat's page :) --Omnipaedista 15:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The proposers did not even try to work in el.wikisource before deciding that a separate project is needed. To me, there is little reason for ripping a project in two parts on the grounds of an arbitrary cutoff date (1453) as a classification standard. Crazymadlover wrote "the work will only consist of moving the pages towards the prefix Grc". It takes much more for a project to be successful than just moving some content from another project. We do not just collect texts in wikisource. We also maintain them, we format them, we categorize them, we proofread them, we put templates for citing them easily [1]. And yet there is are lot more texts to be included, it is not a finished-ready to lock-project. A project needs a community! In el.wikipedia there is a small community constantly dealing with all this stuff. I don't believe that there are a lot of willing people who would do such maintenance in a new project besides the ones that they are already doing it. I believe that breaking the project in two will not magically create two communities but will just break the existing one, leaving the content with no improvements. --Geraki TL 23:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose I was in favour of such a project in the beginning. But after much time I saw that Crazymadlover wants to just simply move the pages from el to grc wikisource. This is not a solution. The project should make its own texts in the beginning and if one day launches, then it should find a way to deal with the ancient greek texts in the el project (always with the agreement of the el community). So I don't think that the project that Cml proposes should qualify.--ZaDiak 13:19, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Let me explain better. The move would be only for existing texts (at the time the approval), at the test we can begin to write texts have not typed at Wikisource. Crazymadlover.
Yeah but as far as I am concerned there are not many texts in grc that do not exist in ws/el. Also I haven't seen any activity in the project from the beggining of this request. So you could persuade me that there are more texts in grc. But I don't see the request will become active in the near future.--ZaDiak 15:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other discussion edit

Remember all arguments explained at Requests for new languages/Wikisource Ancient Greek. -Aleator (talk) 19:14, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Multilingual Wikisource edit

  • Note: this project has been transferred to the Multilingual Wikisource (Aka: "Oldwikisource"). The requirements attached with needing a test project in the Multilingual Wikisource have now been met. Please do not edit or create pages for Ancient Greek WIkisource at Incubator; the incubator pages for Wikisource test projects are now defunct. Participants may edit as they wish on Ancient Greek Wikisource pages at the Multilingual Wikisource, found in this Category, or edit the Main Page here. Thank you. ~Troy 19:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]