Unfortunately, the analysis was pretty quick. The number of the languages of Colombia with more than 10,000 speakers is limited to few of them and the only language with good potential is Wayuu [1][2]. It's spoken in northern Colombia, which is pretty far from Bogota. However, I suppose that you'd be able to find some Wayuu speakers in Bogota, as well as Wikimedia Colombia could help you. The only other maybe reachable (and definitely closer to than Wayuu) is Catío [3][4]. This one is on the Pacific coast, ~300 kilometers from Bogota as the craw flies. All other languages are either spoken in jungle, or the number of speakers is very low, or it's about languages which primary caring country is one of the Colombia neighboring ones (it could be that the number of speakers in Colombia is significant, but there are no schools etc. in Colombia, literacy rate is significantly lower -- which means below 1% -- and standard has been already developed in Brazil, Peru, Venezuela or Panama). So, besides possibility to find Wayuu speakers (although the majority of population live in Venezuela, more than 100,000 of them live in Colombia), I would suggest you to find any group of speakers of any language (except Spanish, of course :) ) and try to work with them. Obviously, if you find a group of five literate enthusiasts who speak a language with ~1000 speakers, it could be the game changer for their language. Having a group of ~10 speakers of various languages but willing to cooperate together could be also a good idea. Useful information is also that literacy rate among those people in their native language is at the best 1-2%. Usually, they are better in Spanish, and it could be 5-25%. By the standards of the Old World, this is extremely low literacy rate anyway. Positive side is that it's likely that they have writing system developed and it's 100% Latin. Thus, if they are literate, they wouldn't have any significant issues in writing their language by computers. On the cultural side, keep in mind that it's very likely that they could have significant issues with Colombian government, as well as they could have issues with the Catholic Church (though much less). Thus, it's likely that they would have aversion toward anything which comes from the government, including the writing system (though, unlike neighboring countries, Colombia didn't do much here). So, it's fairly possible that those who are literate are willing to use their own writing system, very likely not documented at all, but likely based on Latin script. In other words, an anthropologist would be a good companion in your tour, no matter of the Wikimedian part of the work. As we don't have (yet) a body which deals with the situations like this one is, feel free to contact me for any kind of linguistic and Wikimedian logistic support. As a member of Language committee, I will for sure explain what they should do to create Wikipedia in their languages, as well as help as much as I am able to do that. I will check the languages again tomorrow to see if I missed something. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayuu_language [2] http://www.ethnologue.com/17/language/guc/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catio_language [4] http://www.ethnologue.com/17/language/cto/ On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 11:13 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

That's quite interesting approach! Maybe we should try engage more translation companies willing to volunteer... On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 4:46 AM, James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hello to all, It is good to see activity on this list ! I appreciate initiatives like this one that may help to redact wikipedia editions in indigenous languages. With some editors from the quechua wikipedia, I had began a project for a wikipedia in kichwa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kichwa_language), which is the northern variant of the quechua language, spoken by indigenous populations in northern Peru, Ecuador, and southern Colombia. This language is characterized by many ISO 639-3 language tags (see the wikipedia page), which have a large degree of interunderstandability (forgive my English which is not so good). The Ecuadorian government has proposed a unified orthography for this language, which is taught in the concerned regions of the country. The incubator is here : https://incubator.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wp/qug/Main_Page The colombian version of this language is Inga kichwa. Maybe you would be interested in checking with some native speakers in Colombia if they are interested in collaborating to this project. there are already about a thousand articles I think. I spent many hours developing this project, I also told my kichwa-speaking family members about it, analyzed their reactions, and based on this I developed some reflexions that I would like to share here. - In the case of the kichwa, the interest came more from foreigners knowing the language (not perfectly of course) than from native speakers : Me (French) and two German editors of the quechua wikipedia - The interest of wikipedia in kichwa can NOT be to bring knowledge to people who cannot have access to knowledge in, e.g., spanish. The mololinguous speakers of kichwa are in their vast majority (totality ?) iliterate. The literacy rate in their own language might be of the order of 1% as mentioned in another message. So, the people who can read can read spanish, and therefore can have access to the Spanish wikipedia which is of course much more complete (and will be in any foreseeable future). Wikimedia encourages to have the basic articles translated into these languages (History, Physics, Chemistry, etc.). I think this is a mistake because : - Kichwa (for example) lacks a word for physics, for chemistry, for particle, atom, communism, romanticism, satellite, etc. etc., or they are written using words invented by a literate minority ("academia de la lengua kichwa" in the case of Ecuador). For example, words have been invented for the days of the week, to tell internet, computer, etc., but the native speaker do not understand. They say "Internet", "Compu" etc. - To take an example, one can write an article about quantum physics in kichwa, but only the person writing it will be able to understand it. On top of that, it will be typically be "original research" because nobody so far has written about quantum physics in kichwa (or wayuu) so that wikipedia would actually **prescribe** the way to write about it (the words) which is not its role. People (like the "academia de la lengua kichwa") do invent some words (atom, particle etc.), but they do not invent all the necessary words : the wikipedia editor would be in the position of having to invent himself the words that are not yet invented (wavefunction, derivative, interference, etc. etc.). It would be, I think, useless, because it is too far from the culture that is associated to the language, and to the universe of things that can be expressed in this language. - In any case, if we are realistic, these articles (internet, quantum physics, helicopter etc.) will be a pale version of the ones existing for example in spanish. So people who can have access to Internet and read will in any case prefer the articles in spanish. Based on books, on conversations with native speakers etc., one would be able to build an encyclopedy of the local knowledge formulated on the words that are used locally with (but not restricted to) articles on the animal and plant species, traditional celebrations, on poetry. An article about "sky" would be more useful than one about astronomy because it would be easily formulated in kichwa (or, I guess, wayuu) etc. If this is done, that may awaken the interest of the bilinguous people who have an internet connection. Because it would be a way to build a "repository" of the language and the knowledge that goes along with this language. Maybe I would be clearer if I say that I think all the articles on this wikipedia shall pass a "rubber duck" test : if I read them to a native speaker (in my case, that would be my stepfather), will he undersand ? The result of the rubber duck test would be "yes" for an article about "andean edible plants", about the sky, or about the cow, "no" for the article on quantum physics or on the helicopter. Because I lack the words for this article, he lacks the words as well, for the simple reason that no appropriate words exist. To sum up what I'm trying to say : - I think wikipedia in indigenous languages are NOT useful as a substitute of major wikipedia edition for monolingual people, because these people are massively illiterate (and have no access to internet) - It is NOT useful either as a substitute of major wikipedia editions for bilingual people who have internet, because they will obtain a better information in spanish - It can be very useful in my opinion if it is used to collect the knowledge that is traditionally formulated in the indigenous language so that wikipedia does not invent this knowledge. In my opinion, these language editions should not be seen as encyclopedies, because they will never be able to compete with other language editions on this ground. They should be thought of as **repositories** of the language and knowledge. NOT substitutes of wikipedia editions in major languages, but collaborative repositories for the language and culture. I hope these few reflexions can be useful, and I also hope that at some point there is an interest to recuperate what has been done for the kichwa wikipedia incubator, working with peoples in Ecuador or Colombia. Many greetings, Sylvain Le 03/06/2015 12:05, Milos Rancic a écrit :