The issue [of enlightement] is not limited to the language itself alone. It's important to take care about the scientific foundations and knowledge of our people, because it's indeed those that will pave our way forward.[1]
"The paradox related to preservation of language and culture is that they can only stay active by welcoming changes. Only dead languages and cultures can be fully preserved against change."[2]
Wikipedias as language speakers community cultural transformation catalyst
Wikipedia Article Viewership Stats in specific language is an important tool for understanding the speakers' community interest for a while now.[3]
At the same time, long-term sustainability of the communities themselves is better described by information on what's missing in the language and what's there, the degree to which it's described, what topics are seeing active article creation currently and how intensively, what and how is being enriched, and which topics are not getting much attention — this kind of analysis, and respective tools are much less popular.[4]
2017 Randomized Controlled Study has shown how concept appearance on Wikipedia speeds up knowledge creation on the topic in general.[5]
With definition of culture used by evolutionary biologists and paleontologists,[6] data on scientific topics can be safely extrapolated on the whole spectrum of specific language Wikipedia materials, as well as its further influence on raising the minimum encyclopedic knowledge threshold among the language speakers in general.
Accelerating complication (enrichment) of the socio-cultural environment using the language increases its comparative attractiveness,[7] as well as economic productivity and then quality of life of the language users.
Preserving local language speakers' communities at the times of international data exchange, global knowledge production chains, trans-boundary distribution of business models and trade in various goods&services will require assuring their ongoing cultural and economic transformation to stay collectively competitive. As parallel language environments keep developing, it would be important to establish a mechanism that would continue lowering individually required efforts to keep own economic value for the rest of global human society.[8]
The Matreshka of Multilingual Wikipedia with its inter- and intra-language wiki-links, as well as various analytics on existing and missing articles, allows using it as a proxy for estimating current economic utility of respective language (a multifunction soft tool for assuring long-term viability of its users' community), as well as a lever for increasing its value.[9]
Wiki-volunteers from among language activists can use different strategies for increasing the practical value of the language environment — creating missing materials on topics in demand, enriching existing ones, increasing value per unit of time invested by readers, intra- and inter-article thematic thematic connectedness etc.[10]
Any momentous snapshot of a specific phenomena in some linguo-cultural corner of humanity[11] is not valuable per se. Understanding this lowers conflict level within editors' community, raises their cultural productivity and the value of the resulting co-creation.
↑(рус.) "Парадокс сохранения культуры и языка заключается в том, что они сохраняются исключительно путем изменения. Только мертвые языки и культуры можно полностью обезопасить от перемен", from Замятин К., Пасанен А., Саарикиви Я. "Как и зачем сохранять языки России"./ Часть I. Многоязычное общество и многоязычный индивид. Глава "Изменяющаяся роль языков", 35 с. ("How to and why keep languages of Russia". / Part I. "Multilingual society and multilingual individual", Chapter "Evolving role of languages", p.35)
↑this will otherwise lead to cultural migration, i.e. switching to more attractive (competitive) linguo-cultural platforms, see Linguistic-cultural identity
↑Digital Language Death by András Kornai et al., 2013: "Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today ... less than 5% ... can still ascend to the digital realm. ... To summarize a key result of this study in advance: No wikipedia, no ascent."
