You requested comments, so here is mine:

I don't know about the technicalities of creating separate namespaces but in principle, that sounds like a good solution to me. I understand that it means any visitor to the Noongar wikipedia will first see Noongar only, and for translations into English, there would be something like a separate tab or so (like the different dialects at als:wp).

If that's the case, i.e. if I've understood correctly, then I'm fine with that solution.

Cheers,
Oliver

User:OosWesThoesBes, who is a sysop and active contributor on Incubator and Multilingual Wikisource, has been collaborating with User:Gnangarra of the Noongar project.  They make the following comment and suggestion:

The main issue here seems to lie in two things: 1. the desire to spread/record knowledge of the local culture; 2. the inability of many tribal people (no offense meant, I'm not from Australia, nor am I a native English speaker, so please do correct my terminology [I'd use "aboriginal"–SJW]) to speak or understand the Nyungar language fluently. A simple solution to this would be the creation of a separate namespace in which English translations are provided, while the pages themselves are written in Nyungar. This will keep the main namespace free of English, while the knowledge to the culture is still available to those interested, who are not able to understand or have difficulty understanding the language itself. This way, the Wikipedia can be used both to spread the knowledge of the Nyungar culture, as well as providing a base for a broad encyclopedia written in the Nyungar language about all subjects. 

In response to a question from MF-Warburg, Gnangarra promises that all articles will be completely written in Nyungar as well as in English. And OosWesThoesBes has committed to help with the implementation.

It seems to me that this solution would satisfy LangCom's requirement that the project be written in Nyungar, as well as the community's desire that there also be English available to support wider dissemination of information. 

I'd request the Committee's comments/opinions on this idea.

Steven

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