Esperanto-Asocio de Skotlando

Sekretariejo

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Volapük surge

Volapük has never quite died; in fact, its literature is bigger than most people imagine. However, it has recently made an unexpected impact on Wikipedia. In a few months, the number of articles in Volapük has increased from 5000 to 110,000.

What lies behind this unexpected phenomenon? The use of a bot which has grabbed information from existing articles about towns in Europe and the United States and subjected them to machine-translation. The articles are all stumps (fragments); and I cannot really comment concerning the quality of the Volapük.

All this has caused a minor stir. The initiator of this project has indicated that his aim has been to raise awareness. He has probably succeeded; but whether Volapük will benefit is problematical.

However, even for historical reasons, all those who are interested in planned languages should learn at least a little about Volapük; Wikipedia, as always, can prove of assistance!

And if you want to read about Volapuko in Esperanto click that link!

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