Estimates I find on the net speak of 2 million speakers rather than 4 or 5 million. Still, that number is of course more than enough to say that a Wikipedia would be a good idea. I do see a problem with the low internet access in the region; I fear you might remain the only contributor for quite some time. Still, my opinion here is positive.
The ISO 639 code for Tumbuka is 'tum', so the location would be tum.wikipedia.org.
Andre Engels
On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 08:09:23 +0200, Mamma Mia dinnette@softhome.net wrote:
I would like to introduce a new language on Wikipedia. The language is called chiTumbuka. It is a language widely spoken in the northern and north-central regions of Malawi, eastern parts of Zambia and to a lesser extent, southern parts of Tanzania, Africa. It is estimated that chiTumbuka is spoken by between 4 and 5 million people and 'understood' by a further million or so. The main reason I want to start a section for this language is to encourage young people to speak it and at the same time enable our parents, some of whom have limited knowledge of English, have access to information via, among other media, the internet.
With the (coming?) introduction of Wikinews, it is my hope that I will have time to translate some of the news into this language. When I was young, there used to be English-Tumbuka dictionaries but I haven't seen a single one for over a decade. I want to preserve my language and hope to introduce an English-Tumbuka e-dictionary along the way. This might also help tourists from Anglophone countries like the US, the UK, Canada, Australia know a few phrases of the language before visiting the aforementioned countries in which the language is spoken.
Any suggestions as to how I can go about setting this language up will be highly appreciated. To avoid clogging other members' inboxes, please contact me privately on dinnette@softhome.net with whatever suggestions/assistance you may have. Thanks for you time.
Kind regards
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