languages of Mozambique - African-Wikimedians

Bobby Shabangu

21 Mar 21 Mar

9:01 p.m.

In South Africa we have the distance advantage plus we share the Tsonga language with these people. So, I'll speak to the Wikimedia South African chapter and find out if our mission aligned partners in South Africa can't connect us with communities over there to run edit workshops. Our partners with branches in Mozambique include the Goethe Institut and the Swedish embassy. We can also contact Edwardo Mondlane University to find out if we can't run an edit workshop with their library department. There's no formula for making a Wikipedian but it would be worth a try to actually go there and see if we can't spread the word about Wikipedia. Regards, Bobby Shabangu On Thu, 21 Mar 2019 9:08 PM Amir E. Aharoni, <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

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Hello, Following the terrible news of the natural disasters in Mozambique, I looked at which languages are spoken there. As in many other African countries, the official language is a European one, Portuguese. There's a large Wikipedia in it, but less than half of the people in Mozambique actually know it (according to Ethnologue, https://www.ethnologue.com/country/MZ/languages ). I could find only one native languages of Mozambique in which there is a Wikipedia: Tsonga. This Wikipedia is very small, but it has a small group of dedicated editors. All the other languages of Mozambique don't have any Wikipedia at all: Makhuwa, Lomwe, Tswa, Mwera, and others. They don't even have an Incubator. So, this is a very long shot, but I'll mention this anyway: If, in the wake of this catastrophe, or at any other point and for whatever reason, someone raises the idea of writing Wikipedia articles in any of these languages, please remember that the fact that there is no Wikipedia or incubator in them *now* is not an excuse for not doing it. Anyone who can write in them can be the first person to do it. An Incubator can be created at any point in any language, and I'll be happy to assist anyone who is interested in doing this. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬ _______________________________________________ African-Wikimedians mailing list African-Wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/african-wikimedians

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Paulo Santos Perneta

11:16 p.m.

Hello, We don't even have a Portuguese speaking Mozambican community (not even a single editor, AFAIK) at the Portuguese Wikipedia. All my efforts on FB and other social media to reach out to people of Mozambique went unanswered. When we are having a tremendous difficulty in building even a community that should be fairly easy to build (at least in Maputo, which has been quite developed in last years), I've not any hope on even going into subjects that are even quite difficult for us here in Europe with all the possibilities we have (small languages like Mirandese come to mind). Anyway, if there is some way I personally, as well as Wikimedia Portugal, can help on that quest, or in anything else related to community building in Mozambique, please tell. We would really like to see a Wikimedia community starting in Mozambique, should they speak Tsonga, Portuguese, or any other language people may have. Cheers, Paulo Cornelius Kibelka <cornelius.kibelka(a)wikimedia.de> escreveu no dia quinta, 21/03/2019 à(s) 22:56:

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Having lived in Mozambique for a while I can just say that it will be really, really hard to create any community besides one working on the Portuguese-speaking projects. Most of the Mozambican languages are rarely written, some of them (especially the Northern ones) are not even alphabetized or even lexicalized, and none is taught in school or used by authorities (contrary to anything that is happening in South Africa). (sorry for my saddening comment) Cheers Cornelius -- Cornelius Kibelka Internationale Beziehungen | International Relations Vorstandsteam | Office of the ED Bobby Shabangu <bobbyshabangu(a)gmail.com> schrieb am Do., 21. März 2019, 22:00:

In South Africa we have the distance advantage plus we share the Tsonga language with these people. So, I'll speak to the Wikimedia South African chapter and find out if our mission aligned partners in South Africa can't connect us with communities over there to run edit workshops. Our partners with branches in Mozambique include the Goethe Institut and the Swedish embassy. We can also contact Edwardo Mondlane University to find out if we can't run an edit workshop with their library department. There's no formula for making a Wikipedian but it would be worth a try to actually go there and see if we can't spread the word about Wikipedia. Regards, Bobby Shabangu On Thu, 21 Mar 2019 9:08 PM Amir E. Aharoni, < amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

Hello, Following the terrible news of the natural disasters in Mozambique, I looked at which languages are spoken there. As in many other African countries, the official language is a European one, Portuguese. There's a large Wikipedia in it, but less than half of the people in Mozambique actually know it (according to Ethnologue, https://www.ethnologue.com/country/MZ/languages ). I could find only one native languages of Mozambique in which there is a Wikipedia: Tsonga. This Wikipedia is very small, but it has a small group of dedicated editors. All the other languages of Mozambique don't have any Wikipedia at all: Makhuwa, Lomwe, Tswa, Mwera, and others. They don't even have an Incubator. So, this is a very long shot, but I'll mention this anyway: If, in the wake of this catastrophe, or at any other point and for whatever reason, someone raises the idea of writing Wikipedia articles in any of these languages, please remember that the fact that there is no Wikipedia or incubator in them *now* is not an excuse for not doing it. Anyone who can write in them can be the first person to do it. An Incubator can be created at any point in any language, and I'll be happy to assist anyone who is interested in doing this. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬ _______________________________________________ African-Wikimedians mailing list African-Wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/african-wikimedians

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Amir E. Aharoni

7:32 a.m.

I know, and that's why I wrote that it's a "very long shot". All I'm saying is that if you ever hear of any possibility that this will happen, do encourage people to do it, and tell them that if no-one had done it earlier, it doesn't mean they can't be the first ones. In fact someone will *have* to be the first one :) -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬ ‫בתאריך יום ו׳, 22 במרץ 2019 ב-0:56 מאת ‪Cornelius Kibelka‬‏ <‪ cornelius.kibelka@wikimedia.de‬‏>:‬

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Having lived in Mozambique for a while I can just say that it will be really, really hard to create any community besides one working on the Portuguese-speaking projects. Most of the Mozambican languages are rarely written, some of them (especially the Northern ones) are not even alphabetized or even lexicalized, and none is taught in school or used by authorities (contrary to anything that is happening in South Africa). (sorry for my saddening comment) Cheers Cornelius -- Cornelius Kibelka Internationale Beziehungen | International Relations Vorstandsteam | Office of the ED Bobby Shabangu <bobbyshabangu(a)gmail.com> schrieb am Do., 21. März 2019, 22:00:

In South Africa we have the distance advantage plus we share the Tsonga language with these people. So, I'll speak to the Wikimedia South African chapter and find out if our mission aligned partners in South Africa can't connect us with communities over there to run edit workshops. Our partners with branches in Mozambique include the Goethe Institut and the Swedish embassy. We can also contact Edwardo Mondlane University to find out if we can't run an edit workshop with their library department. There's no formula for making a Wikipedian but it would be worth a try to actually go there and see if we can't spread the word about Wikipedia. Regards, Bobby Shabangu On Thu, 21 Mar 2019 9:08 PM Amir E. Aharoni, < amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

Hello, Following the terrible news of the natural disasters in Mozambique, I looked at which languages are spoken there. As in many other African countries, the official language is a European one, Portuguese. There's a large Wikipedia in it, but less than half of the people in Mozambique actually know it (according to Ethnologue, https://www.ethnologue.com/country/MZ/languages ). I could find only one native languages of Mozambique in which there is a Wikipedia: Tsonga. This Wikipedia is very small, but it has a small group of dedicated editors. All the other languages of Mozambique don't have any Wikipedia at all: Makhuwa, Lomwe, Tswa, Mwera, and others. They don't even have an Incubator. So, this is a very long shot, but I'll mention this anyway: If, in the wake of this catastrophe, or at any other point and for whatever reason, someone raises the idea of writing Wikipedia articles in any of these languages, please remember that the fact that there is no Wikipedia or incubator in them *now* is not an excuse for not doing it. Anyone who can write in them can be the first person to do it. An Incubator can be created at any point in any language, and I'll be happy to assist anyone who is interested in doing this. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬ _______________________________________________ African-Wikimedians mailing list African-Wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/african-wikimedians

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