Hoi Gerard,
Thanks a lot for your quick reply.
Yes, Berber consists of about 25 dialects/languages, divided across 10
North African and Saharan countries.
But most of the Berber-speakers (~90%) and Berber publications are
concentrated in Morocco and Algeria, (smaller numbers in Libya, Niger,
Mali...).
I just didn't want to go too much in detail in my e-mail. Of course, all
Berber dialects and sub-cultures are equally worthy of preservation and
development.
In fact, a lot of words and neologisms included in Standard Berber come
from or are based on words from smaller isolated Berber dialects in the
Sahara (especially Tuareg Berber), because they have been preserved there.
An important thing to understand is that "Standard Berber" is not being
created by the governments.
This is not some Esperanto-type of language.
Standard Berber is a collective effort of writers, linguists, educators,
and (since a decade ago) schools and some universities and institutes, in
which local varieties are integrated into a functioning standard language
worthy of being used in mainstream media and education.
In other words: it is not an artificial / created language. It is a
standardized form of the dialects, encompassing all dialectal synonyms and
variations while putting them in a standardized spelling and style.
Applying for an ISO 639-3 code for Standard Berber / macro-language is the
obvious solution. But it takes a huge amount of time and bureaucracy. And
those guys that regulate the codes are not great communicators.
A friend of mine (very busy with Berber) has been talking to SIL about all
this for some time now. And he tells me that it is going to take a lot of
time to get the code.
So I was hoping for the "wriggle room" you mentioned to get this through.
There is a good amount of documentation in standard Berber: dictionaries,
government school books from Morocco and Algeria, grammar studies on
standard Berber, recently published children's stories, manuals...etc. And
there are 2 Berber-language TV channels in Morocco and Algeria broadcasting
a lot of material in pretty much standrdized Berber (especially news
programs).
I am very sure that when the language committee examines the documentation,
they will be convinced of Standard Berber and of the viability of the
Wp/ber project.
Could you please tell me where (or to which persons) exactly should I send
the request and the documentation?
Thanks a lot.
Best regards,
Moubarik Belkasim
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 5:28 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
Hoi,
There are several issues at play. First off, Berber as a macro language
consists of in total 25 languages.These languages are not only spoken in
Morocco and Algeria. Having one language created by government(s) subsume
all 25 languages and cultures is a bit much.
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=57-16
The language policy does not allow for created languages and it does not
differentiate between the reasons for the creation of a language.
The language committee assesses for the Wikimedia board what the merits are
for a proposal for a new language. It has some wriggle room but typically
it chooses not to make exceptions. It would help when the language
committee is provided with some documentation that this Berber language is
taught in schools in both countries. This would offset the issue of it
being a constructed language quite a bit.
It would probably not be hard to convince ISO to add a language code for
this Berber language. Not hard because there is governmental support for
this.
Thanks,
Gerard
On 8 December 2011 16:09, Tussna . <tussna(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi iedereen / Hi all,
I've been reading your e-mails on Ahirani Wikipedia creation. And I
wanted
to raise questions about the Berber Wikipedia
project: *Wp/ber*
The proposal for a Berber Wikipedia (with the code: *ber*, *ISO 639-2 and
ISO
639-5*) was rejected a while ago because Berber doesn't have an ISO 639-3
code. Although, it does have ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-5.
The Wikipedia board argued that Berber "is not a language but is a
language
group".
The fact is: it is both.
The Wikipedia board advised to start multiple Berber Wikipedias for the
dozen of Berber dialects which do have ISO 639-3 codes (like Wp/rif,
Wp/shi, Wp/kab, and Wp/tzm). Some call them "languages" because they have
the ISO codes and thus have the status of "language".
But the motivation is low for the Berber dialects. Now the Berber
language
(in its unified standard form) is official in the
Moroccan constitution
and
is recognized as a national language in
Algeria's constitution, and is
taught in both countries' schools, there is a solid basis for considering
it a language (not just a scholarly group of languages/dialects).
So my questions are:
-How do we convince the Wikipedia board to reconsider the Wp/ber project
and approve it?
-What about the option of "macro-language"?
For example, the Arabic Wikipedia (which is written in a standard Arabic
language that nobody really speaks in daily life) is based on the
"macro-language" approach, eventhough there are tens of Arabic dialects
(Egyptian Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Saudi Arabic...), each one with its own
ISO
639-3 language code.
There is a lot of motivation and enthusiasm for the unified Berber
language
on Facebook and elsewhere.
I personally know at least 5 people who can contribute to the Wp/ber
project on a regular basis.
The only thing that hinders them is the rejection of Wp/ber
The Berber language is written using the Latin alphabet in Algeria and
the
Tifinagh (indigenous) alphabet in Morocco.
I think it could be a double-alphabet Wikipedia like the Kurdish
Wikipedia
or the Serbian Wikipedia, where the same content
is automatically and
identically available in two alphabets.
This is the link for the Wp/ber project:
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/ber/Tasna_Tamezwarut
In the following PDF link, you'll find an example of a standard
pan-Berber
specialized dictionary (published by Moroccan and
French linguistic
institutes):
http://www.ircam.ma/doc/publica/vocabulaire_grammatical.pdf
It's a Berber - English - French - Arabic dictionary of linguistics
terminology.
Best regards,
Moubarik Belkasim
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