Hoi,
We have a situation where it makes sense to provide a platform for the Noongar
language and culture. As you will read in the thread, Wikipedia is not the
platform for this because of the hostility against subjects that lack
"sources". The Noongar language is largely oral so much of the content will
be in English..
So the question for you and the Wikimedia board is: can we provide room for
them probably under a different platform name?
Thanks,
GerardM
On 19 December 2017 at 10:26, Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)wikimedia.org.au> wrote:
Kaya
I did raise my concerns about the use of english when in Berlin and was
told that it was ok, I'll focus on getting more of it translated though I
hope this doesnt hold the project.
One of our key issues is that Noongar is an oral language and written form
is the result of european records, those records have created a situation
where the written language is different dependent on the language the
person spoke. We people like Salvado a Spanish Benedictine monk who's
spelling used a mixture of spanish and latin depending on the sounds. Then
there are various English, Welsh and Celtic settlers along with dutch,
french, and german explorers all of whom recorded it in their own
orthographies... One top of the region in which the language was spoken is
larger than UK and like the UK areas had their own unique dialects despite
speaking the same language. The beauty of this that some words can have
more than 25 different spellings.
The Noongar community came together in the early 1990's to establish a
more consistent use of spellings to enable the language to be taught in
schools, currently there are about 50 schools across the WA teaching
Noongar. The simple act of translating the 762 most important messages
has been a complex task of consultations with many groups, spread across
the regions. When it came to writing content we encouraged two things one
was localised spelling as we do for english and recording the
knowledge(Katitjin). Knowing all of this background and having
experienced many a waagnkininy about language over the last 4 years ( all
early work was hosted by WMAU) the decision was taken for inclusiveness
to allow english while the community is being built as we dont want to be
seen a preferencing any specific one of the 15-20 different regional groups.
Because of the survival of Noongar and continual use as a language despite
laws, aided by it's adoption in to South West Australian english its
probably one of the most complex living languages Wikimedia Movement will
ever see.
The value and future benefits to the movement of allowing the move now far
exceeds the cost in using a few words of english in its initial phase. As
always members are welcome to come to WA to experience firsthand a living
language and culture that has been in continual use for 50,000+ years.
Boodar
Gnangarra
On 18 December 2017 at 21:43, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Gnangarra,
I'm quite confused, because practically all the samples I looked at from
https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wp/nys are articles *in
English*, not in Nyungar. A new language edition of Wikipedia needs to
be *in that language*, not content in another language (in this case
English) *about* that language and its culture, etc. The content as it
presently stands should either be incorporated into the English Wikipedia
(although with their stringent notability criteria I'm afraid a lot, if not
most it, would be deleted) or into a separate wiki.
Is there something I'm missing?
2017-12-16 4:05 GMT+01:00 Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)wikimedia.org.au>au>:
Kaya Folks
We have completed all the tasks asked of us in berlin and continue to
expand the translations and the article content. As I see it we are ready
to go,
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/W
ikipedia_Nyungar
--
Gideon Digby
Vice President - Wikimedia Australia
M: 0434 986 852
gnangarra(a)wikimedia.org.au
http://wikimedia.org.au
Wikimedia Australia Inc. is an independent charitable organisation which
supports the efforts of the Wikimedia Foundation in Australia. Your
donations keep the Wikimedia mission alive.
*http://wikimedia.org.au/Donate <https://wikimedia.org.au/Donate>*
_______________________________________________
Langcom mailing list
Langcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
--
mvh
Jon Harald Søby
--
Gideon Digby
Vice President - Wikimedia Australia
M: 0434 986 852
gnangarra(a)wikimedia.org.au
http://wikimedia.org.au
Wikimedia Australia Inc. is an independent charitable organisation which
supports the efforts of the Wikimedia Foundation in Australia. Your
donations keep the Wikimedia mission alive.
*http://wikimedia.org.au/Donate <https://wikimedia.org.au/Donate>*
_______________________________________________
Langcom mailing list
Langcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom