I can confirm what Manuel is saying here. I know Dr Geoff Hull of the National Institute personally and he has told me a similar thing.
Given that East Timor is the newest nation on Earth, I really hope that something can be done for them to get a wikipedia up and running in one of their main national languages. One can't understate what such a venture would do to the self-esteem of a whole people. It will take a while to get going, given their problems with basic infrastructure, but I am certain that it would eventually succeed. There is also likely to be a thriving community of Tetum speakers in nearby Darwin, where they are likely to have better infrastructure - it's just a case of getting the message through to them. All the best! Pippu d'Angelo
wikipedia-l-request@Wikimedia.org ha scritto: Message: 7 Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 00:46:49 -0000 From: "Manuel de Sousa" Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia in Tetum To: Message-ID: 200601150046.k0F0kmoK016051@mail.tvtel.pt Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Mark, There is no problem with this. As I said, it will be Tetum, the national and official language of East Timor, with a standardised orthography established by the National Institute of Linguistics (INL) of East Timor.
The official Tetum, derives from the dialect of the capital city, Dili, known as "Tetum-Dili" or "Tetum-Praça" (or "Prasa").
As you may know, in the territory of East Timor there are another 15 languages with the status of "national language". But this Wikipedia would be in the official Tetum of East Timor.
Could anyone inform me what must be done in order to setup the Tetum Wikipedia?
Thanks & regards, Manuel de Sousa
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