Dear all,
I'm pleased to announce that the efforts of Wikimedia Armenia to get
separate ISO 639-3 language code for Western Armenian [1] were finally
succeeded. SIL International, the ISO 639-3 Registration Authority, decided
to create the code element [hyw] for Western Armenian. [2]
We initiated this process three years ago when we started the collaboration
with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation [3] in order to foster and improve
free content in Western Armenian. This resulted in "Western Armenian
project" where Wikimedia Armenia through different events and activities
started to disseminate and support the creation of Western Armenian content
with the help of local and diasporan Western Armenian community members.
From the launch of the "Western Armenian
project" we were challenged with
the problem that Western Armenian has no ISO
639-3 language code which did
not allow the community to split Western Armenian content into a separate
language Wikipedia. This problem made lots of trouble for us, as hy.wiki
often had two versions of the same page.
Wikimedia Armenia with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation eventually decided to
apply for code split. [4] This was done mainly with the help of Michael
Everson. [5] Besides WM AM and Armenian Communities Department of Calouste
Gulbenkian foundation there were also other parties involved, such as the
department of Armenian Studies of the Institut National des Langues et
Civilisations Orientales, Paris and other academic institutions.
Today is a special day for Wikimedia Armenia and Western Armenian speaking
community as our proposal was accepted. Thanks all Wikimedians who
supported us in this work.
Best,
Davit Saroyan
Program Manager
Wikimedia Armenia
1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Armenian
2.
http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/PastComments/CR_Comments_2017-023.p…
3.
https://gulbenkian.pt/en/
4.
http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2017-023.pdf
5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Everson