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Hi. I'm not sure what you are asking here, Mark.
As far as Latgalian goes, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latgalian_language),
"Sometimes it is referred to as a distinct separate language, while others consider it to be a dialect of Latvian."
See also:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Latgalian
???Latgalians consider it to be a language in its own right whereas other Latvians perhaps consider it to be a dialect of Latvian--thus some Latgalian content may be tagged Latvian although I too suspect most content tagged Latvian is standard Latvian.
It looks like there is Latvian content at Wikipedia--that content is so far standard Latvian.
However, there are a number of internet sites in Latgalian according to the requester
(see http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2009-048_ltg.pdf):
"a number of Internet sites are dedicated to Latgalian: online Latgalian culture newspaper
Lakuga www.lakuga.lv, online Latgalian-Latvian dictionary
(http://latgola.lv/voluda/vuordineicys/), online collection of Latgalian folklore
http://jiltd.realm.lv/sites/folklora/, weekly newspaper "Mōras zeme" (now as spplement of
the Rezekne newspaper "Rēzeknes Vēstis",
http://lat.rv.lv/index.php?do=cat&category=moras_zeme), monthly supplement "Latgalīšu
Gazeta" of the newspaper "Latgales Laiks" (http://www.latgaleslaiks.lv, accessible also
online at http://www.latgale.lv/lg/biblio), religious and public magazine "Katōļu dzeive"
(http://www.latgale.lv/lv/prese/kat_dzeive), online religious magazine "Aglyunas zvaneņš"
(http://aglona.ekstra.lv/) radio broadcasting station "Latgolys radeja" (www.lr.lv),
considerable amount of literature (around 1,000 books, mostly printed during 1920-940),
functioning publishing house "Latgolas Kulturas centra izdevnīceiba", (LKC publishing
house, http://www.lkcizdevnieciba.lv/).
Besides, some modern music groups use Latgalian as the language of performance
(Borowa MC (http://www.borowa.lv/), BezPVN (http://www.bezpvn.lv/), Dabasu durovys,
Laimas muzykanti(http://laimas-muzykanti.lv/));,"
I viewed the source of two of thes sites but could not locate language tags </PRE><PRE>(although I could see the character set declared). </PRE><PRE>(I will view more of the sites' source code shortly and report back when I do.)
</PRE><PRE>My hunch is that Wikipedia simply rejected a request for a page in Latgalian since there was no existing language subtag </PRE><PRE>and thus I believe that the requestor's goal here--judging from what I read at Wikipedia--</PRE><PRE>may be to get Latgalian content at Wikipedia.</PRE><PRE>(Someone correct me if the above assumption is wrong.)</PRE><PRE>
My first question in this case would be to the requestors of the subtag:
(1), Is written content in Latgalian distinct (meaning that there is more than a small section of vocabulary that is different) from written content in Standard Latvian?
</PRE><PRE>I think this may be so for the case of Latgalian judging from what I saw.
(If not, then I would worry that any language subtag could later go the way of Moldavian--that is, be deprecated.)
</PRE><PRE>My second question now is directed to Wikipedia:
for the case of Latgalian (and similarly for Walliser German though I do not see any indication online that the requester of the Walliser German subtag has getting a page at Wikipedia an object): </PRE><PRE>(2), Is a distinct language subtag necessary for content to be posted at Wikipedia in a particular language,</PRE><PRE>or would a variant subtag work? (apparently a variant subtag worked for Belarussian).
Best,
C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar@hotmail.com
Mark Davis ☕ mark at macchiato.com
Mon Nov 23 16:58:44 CET 2009
Previous message: Criteria for languages?
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Was German documented as excluding Swiss German and Low German, before those
were split off?
> Was Swiss German documented as including or excluding Walliserdeutsch before
> the current proposal? (I can't find any such documentation.)
> How about Latvian? Was it documented as including or excluding Latgalian
> before the current proposal? (I can't find any such documentation.)
> Mark
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