The Wiki Classical Dictionary, one week on

[ancientlibrary]

The Wiki Classical Dictionary is now a week old. As predicted, it's about 90% Alexander and the Successors. There are some 85 pages.So far, most of the new pages were begun by Alexander Meeus, with a few added by myself. Alexander has been tireless, making both full articles and stubs, all with excellent scholarly bibliography. A few others have made some minor edits. (I exclude the fellow who tried to paste a dozen articles from another Wiki.)If you haven't looked at it yet, check it out at http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/Main_Page .So far, no Pothos author has taken up my invitation to "give and take back later" if they don't like how it's going. I'd love to discuss what I can do to make this more attractive. Bellydancer-grams are not out of the questions.More generally, what do you think of the project? What pages do you want to see? What could make it better?

[amyntoros]

Well, as you know, I'm quite busy right now, however, I did make one "tiny" edit recently - changing Fontinus into Frontinus. Now that was easy, but adding a whole new page or substantial copy to a stub is another matter. Your help pages do have guidelines about how to do this, but it is considerably more complicated than putting a post on the Pothos forum. And any page on your Wiki also requires real evidence - source references, etc., unlike Wikipedia where anything goes. I suspect that process may be more than a little intimidating to many - I'm sure that I will find it so. If I have a long post for Pothos, I usually write offline and then copy it onto the site - a very simple matter.It will probably be just a matter of time before your site sees more participation from other people(except for small edits) - time for people to familiarize themselves with the procedure and to prepare accurate articles.Best regards,Amyntoros

[abm]

Hi Linda,adding articles to the WCD really is easier than it seems. Any minor edit you make is a good contribution and at present I think the WCD can also use someone to correct my English from time to time, and one doesn't need to check the sources for that . Moreover, you can also add something you know, without the references, and than someone else might add those.regards,abm

[ancientlibrary]

Thanks for your thoughts. I think I understand you. I also think Alexander and I may want to make it seem more friendly and open. As I see it, the guidelines are a guide to where it should end up, not a requirement for where it starts. I am very comfortable with entries that start out partial and tentative, which others make more full. I certainly do not expect every article to be a fully-formed thing, with primary and secondary sources. Indeed, for the most part, I don't see myself writing such entries. (Those still actively "in the field" will have a better grasp on the most recent article.) It is true that Alexander's non-stub entries have sprang fully-formed from Zeus' head, but even his work has seen some useful work by others. As I see it, the real fun of the thing lies in creating something better than any of us could. As such, adding primary source citations, adding literature, adding web links, correcting spelling and grammar, suggesting new pages, writing very minimal stubsGÇöall are very useful and very welcome.Tim

[ancientlibrary]

GǪ is better than most American college students'. This is a little sad, but it's true.Alexander, do you write more in English or in Dutch? I'm interested to hear it.

[marcus]

I have to agree with Tim. I was very tentative at first, partly because I don't really have time to go spending loads of it on learning how to create new sections, etc.So I started off with a couple of minor edits and, emboldened by those, finally took the plunge. As Tim says, even if you start off with just a couple of sentences as a 'stub', these will get fleshed out in time. I have to say that, on the whole, the Wiki user interface is somewhat counter-intuitive; but once you *do* work out what you're supposed to be doing, it isn't that hard - so that's one of my concerns dealt with! :-)ATBMarcus

[ancientlibrary]

Yes, it's odd. Of course, once you know it, you dream in it. I find myself adding Wiki markup into HTML, which is crazy.Of course it takes time. But if you don't get everything right away, someone will correct your code.

[abm]

I only write in English at pothos and in the WCD, otherwise I always write in Dutch.

[ancientlibrary]

Well, that's pretty remarkable. Such proficiency in another language is quite alien to most Americans, and indeed to Alexander and his Greek and Macedonian contemporaries. Certainly I never achieved that much in French, not to speak of Greek and Latin. How Dutch "works" in Dutch lives, and how its role has changed must be very interesting topic. Holland is--correct me if I'm wrong--remarkably cultured and its language has seen great literature. But unlike French and German, Dutch has never been much of an international language. Dutch cannot imagine their language is still necessary in diplomacy or at the center of a community, as the French. Apart from a minority of Belgians, and their possessions in Curacao, what else is there? As I understand it, Dutch speakers do not conceive of themselves as being in a common community with Afrikaans speakers. I presume it's pretty much dead in Indonesia. So, very few people speak Dutch, and most Dutch speakers know other languages--I presume actual bilingualism is quite high. And Dutch speakers could never imagine the language was going to see major expansion, leaving Dutch a tiny island in an increasingly cosmopolitan Europe, and an increasingly enormous world. How does this effect Dutch literature and scholarship? Is the atmosphere one of worry and nostalgia? Does Dutch have vehement defenders, fighting against the intrusion of English into life and lierature? Or are Dutch speakers apathetic, or reconciled to where Dutch is, and where it is going?

[abm]

Hi Tim,these are a lot of questions; IGÇÖll try to give a short answer.I don't know what you mean with a minority of Belgians. If you mean it's a small group you're right, but actually the majority of Belgians speak Dutch: about 6 million out of 10 million. Except for the former Caribbean possessions of the Netherlands, there is indeed no other place where Dutch is spoken. In Indonesia Dutch was indeed wiped out as soon as the Dutchmen were gone. While Dutch speakers are all well aware of the relationship between Dutch and Afrikaans, it is indeed not really considered as one language community, although some organizations try to stimulate this, but that's a quite small phenomenon, I think.Again, it depends on what you mean by actual bilingualism. In Belgium everyone has to learn French in school from the age of the ten and I think almost everyone has English from the age of 13, but this goes only for people under about 35, as many older people didn't go to school until 18 and the system was different back than. Moreover this knowledge fades quite quickly once one leaves school and hardly ever speaks the languages anymore as I've experienced with my French. So I guess many people have some to moderate knowledge of French and English, but I don't think many people reach anything like a near native competence or even high proficiency unless the y study languages at University.As to influence on literature, I don't think I can give a good answer, so I'll have to disappoint you on that. Generally of course, the influence of American culture seems quite large, and certainly for children's books the most popular thing around are the Harry Potter translations and maybe for adults the Da vinci code is quite similar. This is of course a question of media hype too. Dutch literature flourishes nonetheless. As for scholarship, outside the area of Dutch language and literature not much is published in Dutch, except for texts aimed at a more general public, since hardly anyone outside Belgium and the Netherlands reads Dutch. Only a small minority of courses at university are taught in English and special rules I apply to that. There is not really an atmosphere of worry neither nostalgia, although of course most people agree the language should be protected. I don't think there's much danger at present.As for vehement defenders: there are. I don't know about the situation in the Netherlands, but in Belgium certain people are very vehement about this. The

[me]

The reason for that is mostly the historical "oppression" of Dutch. Especially before World War II (more or less) Dutch did not have the same status in Belgium as French, the only language of most part of the administration back then. This led to Dutch speaking people who did not understand their own trial at court etc. Of course since then a lot has changed and the problem is gone, but many elder people have quite strong feelings about this, but most people under the age of about 30 don't really care about it much. Mostly for that reason some people defend Dutch very vehemently now, but as I said, I don't think it's really in danger, since almost everyone agrees that it should be maintained.I hope I have somewhat answered your questions now.Regards,Abm

[ancientlibrary]

Thanks for that long response. It was very interesting to me. My apologies for being so ignorant about it.For starters, thank you for disabusing me of the notion that Dutch was a minority language in Belgium. I thought it was something like 60/40 French, but I gather it's 60/40 Dutch. This ignorance fired me up for a bout of reading. I suppose the Wikipedia entry on Belgium has all sorts of dumb errors--now equally part of my knowledge.My impression of Dutch and Belgian peopleGÇötourists and archaeologists I worked with in Turkey, mostlyGÇöwas no doubt skewed. A number simply did not read novels in their own language any more, but only in English. I suppose this is not true in general.One thing I have noticed, and I think has some validity. As you know, my site IOS brings together thousands of links. I make an effort to find foreign-language links, both French (which I read), and others I cannot. It gives me a strange but deep picture of the global web. Anyway, I'm constantly amazed by Dutch and Dutch-language web culture. It seemsGÇöpardon the notionGÇövery *American*. In America everyone has a web page and is busy retailing their ideas to whomever will listen. The French and Germans seem to do this much less. There are official pages, but not the same bubbling hyperactive web culture. (Compare Google "Alexander the Great" with "Alexander der Grosse") In this scheme, I find the Dutch very much on the American side of things, either in English or in their own language. On a more personal note, I find myself *surrounded* by Dutch people! Three of the four big-time WCD contributors are Dutch. I host a Dutch Byzantinist periodical on my site (Golden Horn) and provide space for another (theoi.com, although he's only living in Holland). It strikes me that Dutch and Dutch-language web culture is very vital and exciting.

[abm]

I don't know about the about the web, but in general it's certainly true that we are much more open to American influences than the French and possibly also the Germans, and consequently we probably are influenced to a higher extent.regards,abm