Dear Wikimedians,
The Wikimedians of Twi Language is a community of Ghanaian editors. The team seeks to increase and improve content in the Twi language about Akan and Ghanaian culture on English Wikipedia, WikiCommons and Wikidata. The community is currently running a project dubbed the African Fabric Project.
The aim is to create individual articles for each design on English Wikipedia, Wikidata items on WikiData also for each design, WikiCommons entries of images of the designs as well as the pronunciation of the Ghanaian given name and a translation for each article on Twi Wikipedia. We realized there was a rich heritage behind the naming of the fabrics most of which portrayed Akan proverbs metaphorically. As the research developed, we observed that these designs held multiple names notable across other African countries.
Examples of such designs are Leaf Trail - known in Ghana as Ahwenepa Nkasa and the Ivory Coast as Feuile-Feuile; and Fish Scales - known in Ghana as Abɛ, in Nigeria as Akpirikpa azu and in South Africa as Bijenkorfje.
Thus, I write on behalf of the Wikimedians of Twi Language to call for your help to make this project a success. We would appreciate it if you can help with credible references you have on the individual fabric designs and uploads of the pictures of the designs unto WikiCommons or uploads of usage of the designs by notable personalities or in notable scenarios either in Africa or anywhere else in the world. These would help give weight to these articles and credence to their notability in our African Heritage.
We look forward to your support and assistance.
Regards,
Naa2Darkoa
(Wikimedia username)
PS: Did you know the Fabric design known by name as Akyikyidie akyi in Ghana translates into Tortoise back - metaphorically saying one is resilient and tough as the shell of a tortoise. It is known in other African countries as Masque and Grand Bassam. Did you know this fabric was used as the exercise wear of Semmi in the movie *Coming to America, 1988*. It was used in the scene where Semmi was training with Eddie Murphy, the Prince Akeem.
Hi Naa2Darkoa,
Is there a persistent homepage for the project? I would love to see your documentation and work in progress?
Cheers,
Alex
On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 6:45 PM Yvonne Darko yvonne.darkoa@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Wikimedians,
The Wikimedians of Twi Language is a community of Ghanaian editors. The team seeks to increase and improve content in the Twi language about Akan and Ghanaian culture on English Wikipedia, WikiCommons and Wikidata. The community is currently running a project dubbed the African Fabric Project .
The aim is to create individual articles for each design on English Wikipedia, Wikidata items on WikiData also for each design, WikiCommons entries of images of the designs as well as the pronunciation of the Ghanaian given name and a translation for each article on Twi Wikipedia. We realized there was a rich heritage behind the naming of the fabrics most of which portrayed Akan proverbs metaphorically. As the research developed, we observed that these designs held multiple names notable across other African countries.
Examples of such designs are Leaf Trail - known in Ghana as Ahwenepa Nkasa and the Ivory Coast as Feuile-Feuile; and Fish Scales - known in Ghana as Abɛ, in Nigeria as Akpirikpa azu and in South Africa as Bijenkorfje.
Thus, I write on behalf of the Wikimedians of Twi Language to call for your help to make this project a success. We would appreciate it if you can help with credible references you have on the individual fabric designs and uploads of the pictures of the designs unto WikiCommons or uploads of usage of the designs by notable personalities or in notable scenarios either in Africa or anywhere else in the world. These would help give weight to these articles and credence to their notability in our African Heritage.
We look forward to your support and assistance.
Regards,
Naa2Darkoa
(Wikimedia username)
PS: Did you know the Fabric design known by name as Akyikyidie akyi in Ghana translates into Tortoise back - metaphorically saying one is resilient and tough as the shell of a tortoise. It is known in other African countries as Masque and Grand Bassam. Did you know this fabric was used as the exercise wear of Semmi in the movie *Coming to America, 1988*. It was used in the scene where Semmi was training with Eddie Murphy, the Prince Akeem.
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Hi Naa2Darkoa,
What a cool project! I'm also interested in looking at your homepage :) Plus, last week I downloaded this e-book (https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Open-University-ebook/dp/B01CQ92OB0) which accompanies the "Textiles in Ghana" free course (https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/visual-art/textiles-ghana)! Perhaps a good source? I have found very valuable information in the largest platform of African-published scholarly journals (AJOL): https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajol/Gsearch/google?q=ghana%20textiles It might also make sense to collaborate with librarians to get valuable sources. You can find many here (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Libraries_Nigeria) and here (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/AfLIA/Wikipedia_in_African_Li...)
Forgot to sign my post! But my name is Silvia Gutiérrez (Senior Program Officer for Libraries in the Culture & Team of the Wikimedia Foundation) More, here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SEgt-WMF
Hi all, Thank you Alex and Silvia for showing interest in our project.
By means of clarification the project is focusing on wax print designs. The documentation of kente designs is a second documentation project we hope to undertake after this first one.
Kindly find below the link to our template page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ghana/Folklore_in_Fashio...
It's a work in progress :)
There are also references found for each fabric design. Hopefully, we can populate the table with more from the African-published scholarly journals (AJOL) database. :) More references are very welcome.
The list after the table is a list of designs according to their Ghanaian Akan given names whose images are yet to be uploaded to Commons. They would be put in the table with the name when the wikicommons image of the design has been uploaded.
I hope the page explains our work so far and helps you see the areas you can help with.
We are very grateful for any assistance you can give.
Regards, Yvonne Darko Wikidata Project Lead Wikimedians of Twi Language, Ghana Wiki Username : Naa2Darkoa
On Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 6:35 PM silviaegt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Forgot to sign my post! But my name is Silvia Gutiérrez (Senior Program Officer for Libraries in the Culture & Team of the Wikimedia Foundation) More, here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SEgt-WMF _______________________________________________ African-Wikimedians mailing list -- african-wikimedians@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to african-wikimedians-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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