mrephabricator added a comment.
This is not a good idea. Each language has its own semantic framework and as such two senses which are even glossed the same way in at least one language do not necessarily mean exactly the same thing. An example: - English makes a semantic distinction between a rock and a stone. A rock in English is a naturally occurring feature, whereas a stone can broadly include man made objects such as milestones, gemstones, headstones and so on. - Most languages do not have the rock/stone distinction, and speakers of those languages would likely find it intuitive to gloss both English words the same way. - German makes a completely different semantic distinction that most English speakers would never consider. The word fels is used for rocks, unless the rock is a glacial erratic specifically, in which case it is a findling. Findlings are not instances of fels in German. - A German speaker unaware of this may gloss the English word simply as "fels," not knowing that the English word for rock is not semantically equivalent to any German word. A rock in English means fels *and* findling. Now it may sound ridiculous out of context to say that Germans don't have a word for rocks, but this is technically correct. Senses exist to describe rocks in every language, but those senses are rarely exact matches to each other. In this example of apples, how would we know if one language treats apples and pears as the same fruit? (If this sounds odd, consider how odd "pineapple" looks to non-English speakers.) Senses are ultimately language-specific and should be treated as such. A sense doesn't need glosses in every language. Any sense with "item for this sense" linking to the same "apple" item can be linked to any of the numerous interlingual labels on the item itself. TASK DETAIL https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T290858 EMAIL PREFERENCES https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/settings/panel/emailpreferences/ To: mrephabricator Cc: mrephabricator, So9q, Ivi104, Astuthiodit_1, karapayneWMDE, Invadibot, maantietaja, ItamarWMDE, Akuckartz, Nandana, Lahi, Gq86, GoranSMilovanovic, Mahir256, QZanden, LawExplorer, _jensen, rosalieper, Scott_WUaS, Wikidata-bugs, aude, Mbch331
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