dhampyresa (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dhampyresa) wrote2020-08-27 09:44 pm
dhampyresa) wrote2020-08-27 09:44 pm
>:[
So I just found out that some US jerkass vandalised the Scots language version of Wikipedia by writing articles in English with a phonetic accent which WOW FUCK YOU.
As a speaker of a minority language (brezhoneg) I am kind of righteously mad? It's hard enough finding resources about/in small languages without people deliberately pissing in the pot, ffs.
Thankfully brezhoneg looks nothing like French, so whenever I visit the bzh wiki in peace, but that doesn't help Scots speakers, does it?
(Yes. I sometimes visit the brezhoneg wiki. I am trying to improve my literacy, ok.)
(Most recently I was looking at the page for Kartada (Carthage), because I was looking for thie bit of info "Dont a ra hec'h anv eus ar Fenikianeg Qart-ḥadašt (diskrivadenn vrezhonekaet: Kart C'hadacht)" ie "Its name comes from the Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt (transliterated in breton as Kart C'hadacht)" (bolding mine). Just needed to make sure I was pronouncing it right in my head. Which I was, having assumed the ḥ to be be equal to c'h on absolutely no basis at all. /end tangent)
As a speaker of a minority language (brezhoneg) I am kind of righteously mad? It's hard enough finding resources about/in small languages without people deliberately pissing in the pot, ffs.
Thankfully brezhoneg looks nothing like French, so whenever I visit the bzh wiki in peace, but that doesn't help Scots speakers, does it?
(Yes. I sometimes visit the brezhoneg wiki. I am trying to improve my literacy, ok.)
(Most recently I was looking at the page for Kartada (Carthage), because I was looking for thie bit of info "Dont a ra hec'h anv eus ar Fenikianeg Qart-ḥadašt (diskrivadenn vrezhonekaet: Kart C'hadacht)" ie "Its name comes from the Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt (transliterated in breton as Kart C'hadacht)" (bolding mine). Just needed to make sure I was pronouncing it right in my head. Which I was, having assumed the ḥ to be be equal to c'h on absolutely no basis at all. /end tangent)
no subject
However, as a result of being a member of all these groups, I did find out some good news: a Scottish academic, himself a native speaker of Scots, is organising a massive Wiki editathon by people literate in Scots. They are going to keep the links and underlying architecture of the pages created by this idiot American teenager, and rewrite the text.
Scottish academics have a strong presence in terms of organising Wiki editathons — I remember hearing about an undergraduate course at Edinburgh University which had a coursework component requiring students to create Wikipedia pages devoted to notable women academics/students in the university's history, as part of a push to increase the number of Wikipedia pages about women. (In this case these were English-language, I just thought it was an interesting parallel.)
no subject
I can only imagine how furious your colleagues (rightfully!) are.
Such excellent news! Snatch victory from the jaws of defeat!