Re: [Wikimedia-l] Which script oral language will use anyway? - Wikimedia-l

4 Sep 2019

Most of the Wikis in the Wikimedia family are organised by language, not
just script. If you load something that is in the wrong language for a
particular wiki it is liable to be deleted as out of scope. That's before
people get into discussions as to whether this is oral history or something
someone has just made up.

I would suggest Wikibooks is your best bet, it already exists in 120
languages, and unlike  Wikisource it allows for original publications.

If we don't yet have that language supported and you have a small team that
wants to work in that language  you can request a new language be added.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages If the request
is approved, the WMF has an internationalization team who can do things
like create new scripts, though I suspect one of your first tasks will be
to translate the various user messages etc for mediawiki.

Alternatively you could look at the incubator
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Incubator

More broadly, the 2019 Strategy recommendations are still being consulted
with the community, there is an assumption by some and a fear by others
that the whole lot, or at least the ideas that have previously been
rejected by the community, will be adopted by acclamation /imposed on the
community. At the least, I would suggest not jumping the gun, particularly
on something that is liable to be deleted under current policy.

At present it isn't even clear that the Foundation is committed to upping
language support from the current 300 or so languages to potentially
several thousand, and if they do adopt that as an aspiration, it may take
some time for the staff to make that a reality.

Regards

WSC

...

 Message: 2
 Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2019 11:58:26 +0100
 From: Jeff Hawke &lt;geoffey.hawke(a)gmail.com&gt;
 To: Wikimedia Mailing List &lt;wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Which script oral language will use anyway?
 Message-ID:
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 CAAVg7aKphtTkbR85BDWefKyyLNB6FAJssBGVgh4qtkB62XAbkA(a)mail.gmail.com&gt;
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

 Suhashih

 You are right that this could be a controversial choice -- indeed it is
 inherently political and there is no way of avoiding that fact.  So where
 will the decision be taken, on what grounds and by what athority?

 Jeff

 On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 8:26 PM Subhashish Panigrahi <
 psubhashish(a)gmail.com&gt;
 wrote:

  Dear Wikimedians,

 Some of you might be recovering from the Wikimania fatigue. Those of you
 who have already recovered, I wanted to pick your brain about something
 that came up multiple times during discussions but none really seem to  have
  a clear answer.

 Which script (writing system) an oral language speaker would use for
 creating an entry on (gateway [1]) projects like Wiktionary or Wikibooks  or
  even uploading a list of words on Commons using a
tool like Lingua Libre?
 Will it be the script used for the official language of the region where
 the former language is from?[2] This is a bit controversial as native
 speakers of many indigenous languages would see this as a form of
 colonization. Will it be the w:International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?  This
  is probably the least controversial but a common
and average user might  not
  be able to read IPA as the latter was created by
linguists and was  created
  for linguistic and scholarly studies rather than
for everyday use.

 Wikimedians who are native speakers of languages with less  written/recorded
  documentation and individuals who work on such
languages are more
 encouraged to share their inputs based on past experience.

 1. Gateway project: This is a made-up term to define the Wikimedia  projects
  that are more welcoming to newbies and do not
require stringent citation  as
  almost all oral languages would lack that. It was
fascinating to see Amir
 challenging that it only takes about 30 seconds to add an entry to
 Wiktionary (

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amir_Aharoni_demonstrating_how_to_a…
  )

 Subhashish
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 Message: 3
 Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2019 13:42:02 +0200
 From: "Peter Southwood" &lt;peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net&gt;
 To: "'Wikimedia Mailing List'" &lt;wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Which script oral language will use anyway?
 Message-ID: &lt;005301d56315$c7c0c4e0$57424ea0$(a)telkomsa.net&gt;
 Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="utf-8"

 Perhaps this is something that should be left as the choice of the
 volunteers who contribute the content? Whatever they feel comfortable with
 and are competent in. It may vary between contributors for the same
 language.
 Once content is published, anyone with the skills and desire can
 transliterate to any other script system of their choice. Others can
 translate to any other language of their choice. This is the wiki way of
 doing things. If we have support for a script system it can be used, if not
 that becomes a technical problem.
 Cheers,
 Peter

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On
 Behalf Of Jeff Hawke
 Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2019 12:58 PM
 To: Wikimedia Mailing List
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Which script oral language will use anyway?

 Suhashih

 You are right that this could be a controversial choice -- indeed it is
 inherently political and there is no way of avoiding that fact.  So where
 will the decision be taken, on what grounds and by what athority?

 Jeff

 On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 8:26 PM Subhashish Panigrahi <
 psubhashish(a)gmail.com&gt;
 wrote:

  Dear Wikimedians,

 Some of you might be recovering from the Wikimania fatigue. Those of you
 who have already recovered, I wanted to pick your brain about something
 that came up multiple times during discussions but none really seem to  have
  a clear answer.

 Which script (writing system) an oral language speaker would use for
 creating an entry on (gateway [1]) projects like Wiktionary or Wikibooks  or
  even uploading a list of words on Commons using a
tool like Lingua Libre?
 Will it be the script used for the official language of the region where
 the former language is from?[2] This is a bit controversial as native
 speakers of many indigenous languages would see this as a form of
 colonization. Will it be the w:International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?  This
  is probably the least controversial but a common
and average user might  not
  be able to read IPA as the latter was created by
linguists and was  created
  for linguistic and scholarly studies rather than
for everyday use.

 Wikimedians who are native speakers of languages with less  written/recorded
  documentation and individuals who work on such
languages are more
 encouraged to share their inputs based on past experience.

 1. Gateway project: This is a made-up term to define the Wikimedia  projects
  that are more welcoming to newbies and do not
require stringent citation  as
  almost all oral languages would lack that. It was
fascinating to see Amir
 challenging that it only takes about 30 seconds to add an entry to
 Wiktionary (

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amir_Aharoni_demonstrating_how_to_a…
  )

 Subhashish
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