Дозволені мови / Allowed languages

Question

_{Цей текст є спробою донести інформацію до користувачів, а не питанням — тим не менш ви можете висловлювати ваші думки, пропозиції, ідеї у коментарях/відповідях.}

Ставити запитання і писати відповіді можна однією з двох мов: українська й англійська (звісно, зміст питання/відповіді має стосуватися української мови).

Трішки відрізняється політики щодо «ме́ти» (секції для технічних/організаційних обговорень — Ukrainian Language meta):

• Рекомендується запитання/відповіді в ме́ті писати чи дублювати (відразу чи через деякий час) англійською. Особливо це стосується запитів щодо підтримки ззовні (наприклад, питань з тегами «support», «bug», «feature-request»). Особливо це стосується періоду, коли в нас немає внутрішніх модераторів. Також від себе хочу додати, що в нас є учасники спільноти, що не володіють українською, але активно нам допомагають (недубльовані обговорення вони можуть не зрозуміти).
• Тим не менш, це не обов'язково^{[підтв.]}.

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_{This text is a try to convey information to users, not a question — still you are allowed to express your thoughts, propositions, ideas within comments/answers.}

It's allowed to ask questions and write answers in one of two languages: Ukrainian and English (of course, content of question/answer has to relate to the Ukrainian language).

The policies about “meta” (a section for technical/organizational discussions — Ukrainian Language meta) are a bit different:

• It's recommended to write or dub (immediately or in some time) questions/answers within the meta in(to) English. Especially it relates to requests for support from outside (for example, questions with “support”, “bug”, “feature-request”). Especially it relates to a period we don't have internal moderators. Also I want to add from myself, that we have community members that don't know Ukrainian, but actively help us (they may be unable to participate in non-dubbed discussions).
• Never-the-less, it isn't obligatory^{[підтв.]}.

Answer 1

I'll share some experience from French Language. I don't speak Ukrainian, feel free to translate this post.

French Language was started mostly by French speakers and most regulars are more interested in questions by natives than in questions by learners. However, a majority of questions are currently in English. We accept questions in both languages, and accept answers in both languages. We encourage learners to try to write their question in French, but it is not compulsory. We encourage answerers to answer in the same language as the question, but only if they're familiar enough with the language; some answerers can decipher a question in English but not really write an answer in English, and it's fine if they answer in English.

French Meta is more bilingual than the main site: we translate the most important posts. Note that Ukrainian is allowed on meta (meta.ukrainian — on meta.french, French is allowed). This used to be officially forbidden, but French Meta has always allowed French. Nowadays the site language is allowed on meta. An English translation is encouraged, but it is only compulsory on posts that Stack Exchange staff must understand (e.g. bug reports). Meta should allow posts in either language, and someone should translate if necessary.

Whether Russian is allowed here is a topic for the Ukrainian SE community to decide. There is no real precedent of having a site with a lot of learners who share a language other than English. On French, this was debated and the conclusion is that it's up to the asker to make themselves understood. But apart from one test question in the early beta, the case of a question that is neither in French nor in English never came up on French.SE... For Ukrainian.SE, it might be best to see how many people prefer asking (and getting answers?) in Russian over the course of the next few months.

Answer 2

I would like to suggest that Russian be allowed (albeit deprecated) on the Ukrainian.SE. As suggested by Sasha, I was planning to post the following on the main Meta.SE. If anyone would like to edit it to make it sound more well-presented, you are welcome.

I believe Ukrainian language is in a unique position. Ukraine used to be a part of the Soviet Union, and everyone in Ukraine learned Russian. Ukrainian was considered the language of the village people. A lot of people living in Ukraine and learning Ukrainian can only speak Russian. There is also a large group of people who actually speak a mix of Ukrainian and Russian when they try to speak Ukrainian. For example, they replace the soft sounds with hard sounds, "e" with "i", and substitute the few words which they do know.

I am among those in that position; however, I am fortunate enough that I also know English, and can ask my questions in it. My parents don't-- they only speak Russian well. Anyone who took German as a second language is also in that position. And most people my parents' age who lived in cities only had Ukrainian as a "second language"-- and consequently don't know it well enough to ask questions in it. This is quite a large fraction of the Ukrainian people.

For people in such circumstances, I suggest allowing asking questions in Russian. I don't mind this being a deprecated language, but it's better than to simply throw such questions out. When the official StackExchange policy was formulated, no other languages were in the same circumstance-- and hence the policy.

If the main Meta.SE decides to allow using Russian as a deprecated language, then we can vote on whether to allow it on these boards, and when [you can see an example disagreement in comments below]. We can also consider what being a deprecated language would entail. For example, the answers could be encouraged to be given in Ukrainian. Since Ukrainian is similar to Russian, most people my parents' age can understand answers given in Ukrainian-- just not speak it well themselves. Or, the asker could tag it with "needs to be translated to Ukrainian".