A dedicated net of editors ( bothbotsand humans ) help keep Wikipedia actual , but certain error are hard to espy . This includes misunderstanding in articles spell in more obscure languages . A recentReddit postrevealed that Scots Wikipedia is filled with not just misprint , but blatant mistranslation — most of which can be trace back to the same stripling editor program .
AsGizmodoreports , Reddit user u / Ultach shared the write up behind Scots Wikipedia on the subreddit r / Scotland on Tuesday , August 25 . Of the 60,000 Wikipedia article indite in the Scots language , approximately a third seem to be written and edited by an American teenager who Ultach claims does n’t speak Scots .
Scotsman — not to be confound with Scottish Gaelic — is an autochthonous language of Scotland . According to a 2011 UK census , there are roughly90,000native speakers and 1.6 million people who find out it as a 2nd speech . In their post , Ultach call up Scots Wikipedia " legendarily bad " and characterise the article as " poorly spelled English with the odd Scots word thrown in haphazardly . " They wrote that every Scots article from the editor is nearly identical to its English voice communication twin with some alter spelling , suggesting the editor program referenced the Online Scots Dictionary and render English articles word - by - word of honor .
An case paragraph from Scots Wikipedia present the issue of this coming . Even if they ’re unfamiliar with the Scots linguistic process , English speaker system may notice that something is off .
Wikipedia articles are written and edited by volunteers , and not every spoken language has a large team behind it . Only 10 to 20 administrator and editor program in entire contribute to Scots Wikipedia . For comparing , there are roughly1136 administratorsfor English - language Wikipedia . That does n’t intend that nobody is reading Wikipedia articles in Scots : For some readers , Wikipedia may be their only germ of vulnerability to a new language , and mistranslations like the one above can do irreparable price to its reputation .
Ultach wrote , " People embroiled in linguistic debates about Scots often practice it as evidence that Scots is n’t a language , and if it was an accurate representation , they ’d belike be right . "
[ h / tGizmodo ]
