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List:       wikipedia-l
Subject:    [Wikipedia-l] Creation of nds-nl (Low Saxon wikipedia,
From:       Heiko Evermann <heiko.evermann () gmx ! de>
Date:       2005-07-13 20:57:31
Message-ID: 200507132257.32179.heiko.evermann () gmx ! de
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Hi everyone,

for quite some time we have had a discussion about the pros and cons of a 
separate wikipedia in Low Saxon for the "Dutch" spelling.

I would like to summarize the main points.

1) Low Saxon on both sides of the Dutch-German border differs 
1.1) in the spelling up to a point of being unrecognizable for the average 
user.
1.2) in the vocabulary, where Low Saxon (due to its decline over the 
centuries) does not have words of its own, or where these original words were 
forgotten. In such cases there has been a steady import of German words (in 
the eastern part) and of Dutch words (in the western part). This too leads to 
words that make the text "from the other side" difficult to understand.
2) We have had a discussion in nds.wikipedia.org about this and came to the 
conclusion that these two variants of Low Saxon are too different to be 
mixed. Otherwise there would be a continous quarrel over article titles and 
article content. Both sides (the "eastern fraction" and the "western 
fraction") agreed about this and came up with the idea to have two different 
wikipedias, just like Norwegian and Romanian wikipedias come in two different 
versions for two different language forms.
3) We proposed this in 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Dutch-Low_Saxon
where we have gathered the neccessary amount of supporters. This has caused a 
wild discussions about language variants, language competence of the people 
involved etc. Apart from one lonly cruisader (node_ue) there has been a lot 
of support and the tally is 9 ayes against 1 nay (guess from whom).
4) In the meantime a main page for the proposed nds-nl.wikipedia.org was 
written. It can be found in 
http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Servien/Heufdbladsyde and besides, it 
shows that the two variants of Low Saxon (see nds.wikipedia.org for the 
"eastern" version) are quite a lot apart.

In order to put an end to the discussion and in order to allow everyone to 
calm down and get back to work, I would therefore like to request the 
immediate creation of nds-ln.wikipedia.org and I propose to make Servien (who 
has put a lot of effort into this) a temporary Administrator of nds-nl to be 
able to 
1) install the basic pages and 
2) organize a vote about Adminship.

Kind regards,

Heiko Evermann

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