Talk:Artificial languages equal rights

The question reads badly, or rather doesn't appear to be the intent of discussion I've read previously. Isn't the intent of the question to place 'articifical' languages (here specified as a particular two lanuguages but they are not the only ones) as equal to (as equally valid as) 'natural' languages? Instead the question asks whether artificial language 'a' should be equal to artificial language 'b'. I don't think this was the intention --VampWillow 10:19, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This vote is obviously an expedient to promote the Klingon language. AMA those "languages" (including Toki Pona) have nothing to do in Wikipedia. As it has been told to you already, you should set up your own wiki elsewhere. Don't try to compare them to really interesting projects like the Esperanto Wikipedia, it's flawed. Yann 11:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This vote is obviously an expedient to promote the Klingon language allowing klingon to be in the wikipedia is like allowing star trek to get free advertising on tv and also if you allow klingon to be placed in the wikipedia it'll only be pushed to far by the star trek tv show they'll eventually start coming with 1000's of words every day and then they'll email wikipedia to add it to the klingon page also who cares about artifical languages only real and especially real and dieing out languages should be allowed in wikipedia hey before I forget if wikipedia did allow klingon a page next thing you would know it usually words would start appearing on star trek as names of space ships for example they might call a fast space ship on the show froomboom and then wikipedia would pretty much have to write a essay on that not that is absurd in other words destroy klingon it is only a advertising technique spoken only by a few nerds also wikipedia could make a seperate wikipedia for natural languages this could be used to expand the speakers of nearly dead languages such as Yiddish and Ladino "

uh ... nothing has been told to me already as it happens as I'm not a promoter of either (or both) though I do support the right of anyone to be interested in such ideas. I was reading a comment (not on WP) earlier that "A language is just a dialect with an army" but anything which helps in communication between people can't be all bad and, of course, 'artificial languages' also includes the various sign languages around the world ...--VampWillow 11:39, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Does 'absolutely equally' mean ignoring the size-differences in the speaking community, or is this itended only to address that some people think a Klingon Wikipedia would hurt our reputation because it's a silly scifi language that people will recognise as such? I would treat Klingon as more worthy of a full-fledged Wikipedia than Toki Pona, but I get the feeling a 'no' voter would be construed to be a vote for just the opposite. Given my view (if I've explained it clearly enough), how should I vote? -- General Wesc 12:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think the potential issue of governance in Wikipedia is a big one, bringing in thoughts about voting powers and general proportional representation. I think giving more power to larger Wikipedias is flawed because the project grows so quickly and in many ways irregularly (some Wikipedias have quick growth spurts, others grow consistently, etc.) Therefore, such a system would always have to be readjusted. On the other hand, I think it is unfair that, for example, the French Wikipedia and the Romanian Wikipedia should be treated the same as the Hungarian Wikipedia or the Arabic Wikipedia, which are much smaller. Any thoughts? Ronline 09:45, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

in Romanian: Cred că conceptul de guvernământ la Wikipedia este unul important, care aduce gânduri despre puteri de vot şi reprezentaţie proporţională. Cred că dând mai multă putere la Wikipedii mai mari nu este bine fiind că proiectul creşte atât de repede şi incosistent. Din cauza asta, aşa un sistem ar trebui să fie mereu readjustat. Pe cealaltă parte, cred că este necinstit că, de exemplu, Wikipediile franceze şi române să fie tratete la fel ca şi Wikipediile maghiare sau arabe, care sunt mult mai mici? Ceva gânduri? Ronline 09:45, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

case sensitiviy

On a side note, I like the case-sensitivity feature implemented on tlh.wikipedia.org, it may be useful for the wiktionaries; is it activable by namespaces or only for the whole project?

(another side note: MediaWiki:linktrail should be changed to:

/^([a-zA-Z']+)(.*)$/sD

on the Klingon wikipedia, as uppercase and apostrophe can happen in the suffixes apparently.

It's not to us to decide, let language speakers decide

Yes, a lot of natural languages are currently unable to make live a wikipedia; but the main reason is lack of internet access; we could expect that as internet access become more affordable for those speakers, then wikipedia in those languages will become a reality.

That being said, I'm not against extending the test to natural languages; but as everybody seems to agree that all natural languages listed on ISO 639 should be alowed without condition there isn't much of a problem.

The problem arises for languages that are likely not to be fit for wikipedia, but that some of the people using the language doesn't agree with that, and see a refusal to accept a wikipedia in that language as personal thing against them, etc. A good way to deal with that is to do a test where it is the proponents of the new language that have all the power, and all the responsability, to make it a reality or not. Srtxg 20:09, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ruthless rearrangement

I have shuffled the page around so that the grouping of questions makes sense. NB I have not moved any votes away from their associated heading! HTH HAND --Phil 15:25, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

---

The reason I voted "no" is because it is easy to construct artificial ( ;) ) questions where the two languages should be treated differently. Where is the meta page with a decent discussion of how to treat conlong, "lesser"lang pedias? Coming here from the en village pump, it is clear that someone has ulterior motives, but we are not told what they are. User:Pcb21, logged out.

Only languages that are in use should be granted equal rights (Esperanto, Volapuk). Gerritholl 13:15, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

There may be some ways in which all artificial languages should be treated the same, for example, if we were to decide to not allow any, then they should both be disallowed. However, aside from that sort of global statement, each language should be judged on its own merits, by objective criteria. I suppose you could call that being "treated the same", but the outcome for any two languages may be very different. -Rholton 13:22, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I just want to point out that Volapuk is less used than Klingon or Toki Pona. Also, it seems like there would be an easier solution. Could we just perhaps put an option in Wikipedia so that people could choose to show Toki Pona and Klingon interwiki links? It seems like this way everyone would be happy. Those who want to see them would have them and everyone else would never see them except when editing articles. --Chuck SMITH 15:24, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a fantastic solution. Sj 20:23, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, quite. --Eequor 23:17, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My personal opinion is similar to that in [1] by Jimbo, so I would not consider the two languages comparable. (FWIW, another language I wouldn't mind seeing on Wikipedia is Lojban, which I'd group pretty much with Klingon in terms of suitability for a Wikipedia.) IMO Toki Pona is not in that league, and its underlying philosophy ("as simple as possible") seems to me to actively discourage creating an encyclopaedic repository of knowledge. -- pne 18:29, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's not to us to decide, let language speakers decide

I mean, no vote, no "consensus" will ever solve the problem, there will be endless discussions... And that is because all the discussion and votes so far have been done on irrational basis (by irrational I don't mean stupid or invalid, but based on feelings instead of being based on mere facts).

What should be done is to let the requesting people have a test wikipedia with the exact same functionality of a normal one with only two differences: 1. links from other wikipedias are not possible, 2. the domain is different (eg: xxx.test.wikipedia.org maybe); and have it be tested. Most will fail the test indeed, and then the test wikipedia could be simply deleted, and there won't be complaints, because it wouldn't have the feeling of a dictatorial and unfair decision.

What should be the only rational criterion to decide to accept or not a wikipedia is that enough people are willing to make a cooperative encyclopedia in that language to live. That means enough people wanting to increase their knowledge by learning things using that language as a medium, and enough people wanting to share their knowledge using that language as a medium.

As the current situation the klingon wikipedia has been allowed purely on irrational basis (it has been allowed because people objected to it on feelings, not on facts); while if a clear and objective living test had been done, it would have probably failed. Right now it exists from 3 days, and it only has one article, which is more like a stub, and the interface has not been localized (only "main page" has); that doesn't surprise me at all, people don't use Klingon as a functional medium to communicate and share knowledge, they use it for fun.

Setting precedents

Some people thought allowing Tokipona wasn't creating a precedent; some people think allowing (or disallowing) Klingon won't be a precedent. They are wrong. Those are precedents; in fact, much of the force pushing for allowing Klingon was because of the precedent of Tokipona; and you can bet on it that there will be future demands for other similar languages in the future, and they will point at Klingon and say "unfair!" if denied.

What is needed is a clear, neutral, and objective way to decide; the best way is, imho, to just let them try; most will learn how reality is much harder than their wishes and give up. In some cases it can be possible that there are enough users of the language that actually want to share knowledge in the language, then it deserves to be accepted as a full wikipedia indeed. But there is no way to know without trying.

strxg's proposal

So, what about this:

• accept demands for test wikipedias for any language (that hasn't been asked before; and that are real languages ("real" here doesn't mean "natural", but that is has its own lexicon and grammatical rules, not just a modification of an existing language that can be done through a search-and-replace process, like the case of "pig-latin" or English written phonetically)
• create a fully working xxx.test.wikipedia.org
• but don't allow xxxx: interwiki links yet.
• let it go from some time (6 months maybe?)
• if at the end of the test time there are enough articles (500 maybe? and real articles, not one line stubs; the count should be based on the "alternate" count) then:
  • the DNS and apache config is changed so that it becomes xxx.wikipedia.org
  • the old xxx.test.wikipedia.org displays a message telling of the change and redirects
  • interwiki links to xxx: are allowed
• if it fails, then the test wiki is closed, and xxx.test.wikipedia.org displays a page telling it failed the test and is closed, maybe with a link to lastes sql dump of the data and to the meta page explaining how to install mediawiki by oneself.

• a language that failed couldn't apply again for some time (maybe 2 years?)
• the test period could be shortened if there is clearly a lot of activity, but it should be at least of 2-3 months (it would be too easy otherwise to just push hard in order to pass the test then abandon it after)

Such thing should be put in place before the demands for quenya wikipedia arrive.

I'm also all for retroactively applying those rules to all constructed and extinct/resurrected languages; that is: Klingon, Tokipona, Volapuk, Sanskrit, Manx. (I would add also Latin and Interlingua, but with some ~2500 articles they have already passed the test, I think; same for Esperanto with more than 10000 articles); however I understand that retroactively applying it may be problematic.

This last bit, about 'failing' tests, disallowing reapplication -- what's gotten into you? Just let the test wiki sit there, with only inbound (and no outbound) interlang links, until its content reaches a suitable level and it has, say, a single active ambassador (who visits it regularly). To address some of your specific points:

• Vandalism: You don't have to be an editor for a small WP to note and revert vandalism on it. Vandalism doesn't have to be instantly reverted.
• Abandonment: Not inherently evil. A number of the current active WPs were abandoned by their initial supporters... then when later supporters came and found a few hundred stubby articles to work with, their own surge of energy brought the whole up to a comfortable level of usability, at which point other speakers of that language started using it as a resource --> sustained growth.
• Self-installation: If anyone wants to start up a wikipedia-like project, involving collecting encyclopedic articles and a corpus of useful text in a particular language, they should be welcome here. They don't have to be linked-to from the major meta pages or from other Wikimedia projects, but they should be able to benefit from this community and from our economies of scale wrt hosting, support, and statistics generation.

Sj 20:36, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, I thought the discussion was about how to decide which languages to allow and which not, and I proposed a way to help make that decision.

If all languages will be allowed no matter what, then no decision making mechanism is needed, obviously. But the fact that the Klingon wikipedia had been (even if temporarly) shut down seems to me a clear indication that there isn't a unanimity on just allowing any language; and the various discussions and this page (which I didn't create) a proof that there is a conflict of ideas on the subject.

About "bureaucratism", I think that deciding by means of votes and/or decisions by people in power are much more bureaucratic than just let people test and see how it works.

I don't care that much about the matter, I don't have anything in particular with the wikipedias involved, and won't participate in them anyway; it's just that I can see it coming: the same scenario will repeat again and again for other languages.

Srtxg 12:09, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

strxg Summary

So, to summarize:

• a distinction has to be made between "natural" (eg: languages that people speak in their everyday lives) and "constructed" ones; simply because the fact that people live in a given language is a clear indication that they communicate and share knowledge in that language.
• however, being a "constructed" language is not, by itself, a reason to deny a language (as the example of Esperanto clearly illustrates that a constructed language can be a good knowledge sharing medium); but, to avoid the creation of ghost-wikipedias that nobody cares about, not even the first people that asked for them, a test should be done to see if the language could actually make a useful wikipedia or not (asking for it is easy, filling it is harder)
• I don't have any animosity against constructed languages, simply I refuse to decide out of thin air which ones deserve to have a wikipedia and which don't; and I instead propose to the users of such languages to prove us their language deserves it, by showing us that it indeed can make a wikipedia full of content; or, alternatively, have them accept themselves that it isn't possible; but the result will be entirely the consequence of the actions of that language community and nobody else.

Srtxg 16:10, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Can the admins make it work? Grendelkhan 17:56, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, and in general having a workable size seems like a good test. -- pne 18:30, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've been following the conversations on the mailing list and still don't get it. Whether a natural language or a constructed one, the real question to me is whether there is enough interest to allow a given project to grow and to ward off vandalism and abuse. Many natural languages don't meet the test, and so the natural/conlang distinction seems of doubtful utility to me. Ultimately, a decision should be made on a case-by-case basis. UninvitedCompany 18:36, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

All languages are not equal. What applies to Polish or Klingon should not apply to some language made up by one guy, and we can't apply rules indiscriminately to them all. DJ Clayworth 14:27, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

(I'm replying on the talk page) Srtxg 20:09, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I just want to say that all this talk seems rather silly as Brion Vibber pointed out to me in a personal IM conversation tonight. I mean, Google of all people supports the use of quite a bit of absurd languages (like Bork, bork, bork!, Elmer Fudd, and Hacker) and no one seems to think that Google is unprofessional because of it. Also, we've never gotten any criticism from having a Klingon version of TEJO's multilingual website along with our other 24 languages. If nothing else, we should allow interwiki links to be visible for those who want to see them as I mentioned in my compromise proposal above. It's a very simple and effective solution without all the bureaucratic red tape involved in strxg's proposal. Whatever happened to the simple wiki way? --Chuck SMITH 08:35, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Creating interest and support for a lang through Wikipedia

We had a discussion on IRC the other night about using wikipedia to boost dying languages. I like Srtxg's comment about testing it out. However, I would add 2 points, I feel the bar for an "active" wikipedia should be 1 active user, editing at least 2 out of 3 days. We should then coordinate with that user and see if we can promote Wikipedia in that language.

As an aside, I feel this can jive very well with Jimbo's stated goal of a encyclopedia in the hands of every poor child. Burgundavia 23:32, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes. It breaks my heart that there are poor Klingon children growing up without an encyclopedia in their native tongue. --Evan 22:57, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Boosting dying languages seems very POV. Enabling them to boost themselves is something else. Rich Farmbrough 01:25, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ni ne traktu ĉiujn planlingvojn same / Let us not treat every planned language the same / Hai să nu tratăm toate limbile construite la fel

Mi opinias ke ne ĉiuj planlingvoj meritas saman traktadon. La mondo bezonegas efikan neŭtralan komunikilon. Esperanto estas serioza kandidato por tio. Ne indas konsideri ĉiujn fantaziaĵojn same serioze. Tamen la vikia vojo lasas lokon al ĉiuj. Sed ne hazarde Esperanto estas en deka pozicio dum neniu alia planlingvo povas rivali tiunivele. Arno Lagrange ✉ 23:04, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Translation of above: I think that not all planned languages deserve the same treatment. The world really needs an effective neutral language. Esperanto is a serious candidate for that. It is not worth considering every fantasy language as seriously as each other. However, the wiki way gives space to all of them. But, it's not by chance that Esperanto is in the tenth position while no other planned language can rival at that level. --Translation by Chuck SMITH

Translation in Romanian: Cred că nu toate limbile construite merită acelaşi tratement. Lumii îi trebuie o limbă neutră şi eficace. Esperanto este un candidat serios pentru asta. Nu trebuie să considerăm toate limbile fantasmagorice şi imaginare atât de serios cât alte limbi construite, deşi Wikipedia are loc pentru toate limbile. Dar, nu este doar şansă că Wikipedia în Esperanto este pe locul 10 pe când alte limbi construite nici nu pot să rivalizeze acest nivel. --Traducere de Ronline 09:38, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Esperanto should be and already is considered like a 'natural' language in Wikipedia, whereas fantasy languages are not. The fact that Wikipedia already uses Esperanto as a language of transfer (like in the above message) is great. I think we can drive the Esperanto revolution! Also, instead of arguing about obscurities like Klingon, how about we make a poll to see what should be the common working languages of Wikipedia (those used in Meta). English and Esperanto? Ronline 09:38, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Translation in Romanian: Da, eu agreez. Esperanto trebuie şi deja este considerată ca o limbă naturală pe Wikipedia, pe când limbi imaginare nu sunt. Faptul că Wikipedia deja foloseşte Esperanto ca o limbă de transfer (de exemplu, mesajul de mai sus) este extraordinar! Cred că putem să începem revoluţia Esperanto! Deasemenea, în loc să ne argumentăm despre obscurităţi ca şi Klingon, de ce nu facem un vot despre ce limbi vom alege ca limbi comune a Wikipediei, folosite pe Meta. Engleza şi Esperanto? Ronline 09:38, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ha. What a terrible proposal. Esperanto was not created to quash other languages, sorry. That goes against the whole point of why the language was created in the first place. If you're going to try to be the only worthwhile constructed language on Wikipedia you're going to have to do it through your own efforts, not by bullying other IALs. Ido and Interlingua also have a large body of literature and seem to have a good number of articles here. The test of whether a language is 'real' is whether 1)it facilitates communication between people who otherwise wouldn't be able to communicate and 2)it has a collection of literature thus proving that it is able to express anything that a natural language can. 211.58.237.50 01:36, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Let us treat Languages according to their support, not according to their "naturality"

I think it's obvious that a language that is not enough supported does not deserve the same treatment as a language that is. Although I seriously dislike esperanto, there are many persons that want to support it, so I respect it, and support its inclusion in wikipedia. In the same way, a natural language that is not enough supported by its own speakers should be subject to deletion if under 500 articles or so... I am not sure about the correct limits.

If an article has not an ISO abbreviation (like en,es,eo) let us use a special notation for artificial languages like _tp, _kn for tokipona and Klingon; after all, there are too many artificial languages to be given an ISO notation, and a dynamic standard should be used for them.

Actually, Klingon does have an ISO abbreviation. It's tlh. Since ISO-639 allows both three-letter and two-letter codes, there should be more than enough abbreviations to accommodate all languages. --Eequor 00:51, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The way Wikipedia seems to be doing it for languages which have no ISO-639 code is to use the ISO-639 code for the parent family followed by some way of specifying the language within that family, e.g. roa-rup for Aromanian uses the ISO-639 code roa for Romance (Other) plus the SIL code RUP for the language. Artificial languages should then (IMO) use art for Artificial (Other) plus some distinguishing code: say, a SIL code if the language has one, or the name of the language (à la RFC 3066). For example, the RFC 3066 name for Lojban was art-lojban before it received an ISO 639 code of its own, jbo. Similarly, one could use art-tokipona or whatever. _tp is bad since underscores are not allowed in domain name components.

I do agree that some degree of support would be desirable. -- pne 08:38, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Literary output criteria and other requirements

I proposed on the article page making literary output the criteria for the acceptance of artificial languages. There is no way to quantify the speakers of a language objectively; English, for example, has reasonably accurate figures for the number of native speakers, but estimates of the number of second-language users of English vary from 300 million to 1.4 billion. I've seen VERY different figures touted by authorative sources for the numbers of Esperanto speakers, too. If well established languages cannot be quantified by the number of speakers, it is a waste of time trying to estimate how many users a more recent invention has.

I don't think we should make a sharp distinction between "natural" and "artificial" languages, per se. Just what constitutes an "artificial language" is itself a subjective question. To some extent, ALL languages are somewhat artificial: rules of grammar, spelling, etc. have been set and in some cases changed by deliberate decision. Examples include American spellings (Webster). Conversely, many languages known as "artificial" are in fact based more or less on "natural" languages (the vocabulary of Esperanto, for example, is recognizable to the speakers of most European languages). Klingon may be in a different category.

I do think we need some rules.

Grammar and vocabulary

(1) Does the language have a codified grammar and a vocabulary able to express a normal range of thoughts? I'm not saying that a language needs to be a perfect medium of thought; no language is - as is evidenced by the fact that every language is capable of nuances not quite expressible in any other language. But I will insist that any language that qualifies for inclusion in Wikipedia must be able to express all thoughts and concepts normally expected of a language. I seriously question whether a language with a total vocabulary of 118 words (Toki Pona) is able to do that. When I was a kid, I invented a "language" (intended to be a secret code for me and my sister) with a vocabulary not much smaller than that! Hey, may I dust it off and start a Wikipedia project in it? Just kidding - and that's the point. To me, it sounds more like a joke. Such micro-vocabularies are little more than a joke. They might do as a secret code for kids or for pirates smuggling contraband, but I can't see what else.

As for Toki Pona, my personal opinion is that the concept of 'encyclopædia' is alien to the language. After all, it's supposed to be "a simple language of good"; something which looks at the world in simple terms. Making fine distinctions and describing things precisely seems to go against its very goals. -- pne 08:40, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contradicting viewpoints and NPOV

(2) Is the language capable of expressing contradiction equally? Wikipedia subscribes to NPOV. Looking at the Tokipona article makes me wonder whether the language is capable of neutral expression. Now, I recognize that NO language is totally neutral; English, for example, uses the male gender as the generic name for most species (cows, ducks, and geese are exceptions), and even a language created to be neutral such as Esperanto establishes the masculine as the default gender, with the feminine formed by affixation (some have tried to remedy that by using VIR- as a prefix, or ICX as a suffix; the latter is more logical, but acceptance is limited). Nevertheless, every side of every issue can be expressed in English, and even more naturally in Esperanto. I am not so sure that Tokipona passes the test. We read, "Toki Pona is a minimal language that focuses on what Sonja [Sonja Kisa, the inventor of the language] believes to be the good things in life." Is that neutral? Is is capable of neutrality? Dunno. I have my doubts. The article further describes the language as "designed around Daoist philosophy." Is that able to be neutral? The article goes on to explain that Tokipona is "a language designed to shape the thought processes of its users." That last quote is very telling. A language is supposed to EXPRESS thought, not SHAPE it. A language designed to shape thought smacks of mind control, rather like George Orwell's en:Newspeak, and its capacity for expressing concepts contrary to its philosophy is doubtful.

I'd say that it's difficult to express fine shades of meaning in Toki Pona without becoming rather verbose, since it's designed to be simple and vague - things are either pona ("good, simple, positive, nice, correct, right") or ike ("bad, negative, wrong, evil, overly complex, (figuratively) unhealthy"). How to say "not quite optimal"? I suppose ike. But that's the same as "despicable". -- pne 08:43, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You could use ike lili, "a little bad". I agree that it's difficult to be specific in Toki Pona. It's a very idiomatic language. However, to a person fluent in the language, these idioms make sense. It may be a totally alien method of expressing ideas, but that doesn't necessarily limit the ideas that can be expressed. --Eequor 16:17, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Be careful what you assume. Something written for NPOV in one language may appear biased from the viewpoint of another language. Don't try to find a literal interpretation of text in Toki Pona. Words in Toki Pona carry very little meaning by themselves; any such translation will be very subjective. It's somewhat like taking English text and asking what the individual letters mean. Toki Pona must be read in the context of Toki Pona. --Eequor 16:59, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Body of literature

(3) Does the language have a decent body of literature? Now, you'll tell me that many natural languages don't. True. You won't likely find them on Wikipedia, either. This is important, because publications in a language are proof that a market for them exists - i.e., that the language has a substantial body of users. Esperanto qualifies, as does Interlingua; Volapuk is somewhat more marginal, but I think it would pass. Tokipona? All I could find was The Lord's Prayer and a VERY brief quote from Genesis. As for Klingon, I am aware of no serious literature published in that medium. I am not convinced that a market exists for these two languages.

The Klingon Language Institute sells a number of books in Klingon, including translations of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Much Ado about Nothing as well as the Gilgamesh saga. There's also the beginnings of a Bible Translation Project, and a recent issue of their magazine announced that a project is underway to translate some award-winning science fiction stories whose authors have given permission for this. Finally, some users have "published" translations into Klingon of various material on their web pages (e.g. Nick Nicholas). However, I'll grant that while the volume of published literature in Klingon is not nonexistent, it is very small. I'll also grant that the market for Klingon literature is likely to be small (and that for Toki Pona minuscule, I imagine). -- pne 08:51, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Another point about literature: there are quite a few languages that have little literature since they don't have a big tradition of writing in their own language, being predominantly a spoken form. (For example, there's a bit of a discussion on WikiDE-L about whether to have a Swiss German Wikipedia; however, most German-speaking Swiss do their writing in standard German rather than their local dialect, and there's not a strong tradition of standardised orthography for Swiss German, as I understand it.) But on the other hand, if the language is not usually written down, it may not be that appropriate for Wikipedia, either, even if the language, as a language, has merits for conveying information. -- pne 08:54, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Another scenario is that of languages that had a great written tradition but are now less often or even rarely written due to language shift toward a dominant language. Thus the historical literature may not reflect presentday demand. The examples most familiar to Western Europe are the Celtic languages. But so long as the remaining speakers (including any new recruits) desire a practical, "non-decorative" literature, Wikipedia should open its collective arms and welcome them. A-giâu 18:01, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Cautious acceptance

(4) I think every language needs to wait its turn. I'm getting sidetracked, but for quite a while, some project calling itself "Ekspreso" squatted the space reserved for the Kashmiri Wikipedia. That should not have been allowed. I hope our Stewards will take a firm line against such abuses in future.