if what I put out might have mistakes, it's still better than having absolutely nothing
Exactly this. We're talking about Greenlandic, a language that only has about 55,000 speakers on an island with only 56,000 people. I can't imagine there's much overlap between "people who are fluent in Greenlandic", "people who are proficient/fluent in English", and "people who want to write resources for the Greenlandic language and publish them for English speakers to use".
Can you imagine if only native/fluent speakers were allowed to make dictionaries, grammar guides, translation aids, etc.? There wouldn't be very many resources available for any language. And even if the dictionary ends up flawed or incorrect, making mistakes and being corrected on those mistakes by more fluent speakers is how you get better at understanding and speaking a language.
There are so many languages that don't exist anymore because nobody outside of the native speakers cared enough to learn them, pass them on, etc. There are languages on the planet now that we could lose forever if nobody makes an effort to teach/learn them! An example: the Ainu language. It's extremely rare and there's only about fifteen people left in the world who are considered native speakers. What about the Sami languages? What about the Haida language? Maori? Should we just not learn these because they are all spoken by marginalized peoples and we shouldn't co-opt their languages?
I guess my point is, I honestly see this dictionary project as "hey I'm a novice and this is what I've learned and how I learned it, hopefully it'll help other novices improve too," and not "hey my knowledge of Greenlandic is superior, screw actual Greenlanders, I know their language better than them." I think it's better to have some kind of resource for languages like these, even if they're flawed. Languages die when we lose native speakers, and non-native speakers can't or won't learn them. So a non-fluent person trying to help others learn a vulnerable language is only a good thing, in my opinion.
no subject
if what I put out might have mistakes, it's still better than having absolutely nothing
Exactly this. We're talking about Greenlandic, a language that only has about 55,000 speakers on an island with only 56,000 people. I can't imagine there's much overlap between "people who are fluent in Greenlandic", "people who are proficient/fluent in English", and "people who want to write resources for the Greenlandic language and publish them for English speakers to use".
Can you imagine if only native/fluent speakers were allowed to make dictionaries, grammar guides, translation aids, etc.? There wouldn't be very many resources available for any language. And even if the dictionary ends up flawed or incorrect, making mistakes and being corrected on those mistakes by more fluent speakers is how you get better at understanding and speaking a language.
There are so many languages that don't exist anymore because nobody outside of the native speakers cared enough to learn them, pass them on, etc. There are languages on the planet now that we could lose forever if nobody makes an effort to teach/learn them! An example: the Ainu language. It's extremely rare and there's only about fifteen people left in the world who are considered native speakers. What about the Sami languages? What about the Haida language? Maori? Should we just not learn these because they are all spoken by marginalized peoples and we shouldn't co-opt their languages?
I guess my point is, I honestly see this dictionary project as "hey I'm a novice and this is what I've learned and how I learned it, hopefully it'll help other novices improve too," and not "hey my knowledge of Greenlandic is superior, screw actual Greenlanders, I know their language better than them." I think it's better to have some kind of resource for languages like these, even if they're flawed. Languages die when we lose native speakers, and non-native speakers can't or won't learn them. So a non-fluent person trying to help others learn a vulnerable language is only a good thing, in my opinion.