RE: Call for contributions to new 1,000 Language Online Archive

From: Marco Cimarosti (marco.cimarosti@essetre.it)
Date: Tue May 22 2001 - 06:46:40 EDT


James Partridge wrote:
> I thought unicoders might be interested in the following announcement
> [...]
> > Announcing the launch of The Rosetta Project 1,000 Language Online
> > Archive at http://www.RosettaProject.org

Interesting, thanks for the pointer!

However, it is a real pity that such a nice project is impaired by the
inclusion of a confessional text, such as the incipit of the "Holy Bible".

People who don't believe in creation myths, or believe in a different one,
won't find it very appealing to contribute their time and knowledge to
persuade the posterity that we all were followers of the same religion(s).

I agree with people who commented that a more secular text, such as the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, would have been a better choice.

And, if a fairy tale it had to be, the myth of the confusion of the
languages at Babel (from the same book, BTW) would certainly have been a
much more appropriate text for the kind of project.

OK... To demonstrate that there is no limit to being off-topic, I also take
the occasion to ask: what is the Swadesh 100 Word List? Who is (was)
Swadesh? What is the purpose of that List?

_ Marco.



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