I understand you point of view, Mark.
I'll try to get this fixed and will come back again within a month, or so. Does this seem fair to you?
Thanks & regards, Manuel de Sousa
-----Mensagem original----- De: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Março de 2006 3:50 Para: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder
I know that Portuguese is th esecond official language of East Timor.
That's not what I asked.
It doesn't inspire confidence that most of the pages in the test wiki are in Portuguese, when you are requesting a Wikipedia for Tetum.
Mark
On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa manuel.sousa@tvtel.pt wrote:
Mark, Portuguese is the second official language of East Timor and is regarded
as
a reference for Tetum. In the official Tetum, a huge amount of vocabulary comes directly from Portuguese.
Another reason is that, as far as I know, several of the supporters of
this
project are Timorese university students studying in Portugal. So, the
easy
way, would be to go to the Portuguese Wikipedia and copy a few articles,
in
order to translate them later.
Anyway, in the case of a testpage certain experiences must be tolerated. Things will be different once the Tetum Wikipedia becomes real...
Regards, Manuel de Sousa
-----Mensagem original----- De: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] Em nome de Mark Williamson Enviada: quinta-feira, 9 de Março de 2006 3:30 Para: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Assunto: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Request for Tetum language - reminder
One thing I noticed is that most of the testpages are in Portuguese. Why?
Mark
On 08/03/06, Manuel de Sousa manuel.sousa@tvtel.pt wrote:
Last January 14 and 15 I sent two msg to this group
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043424.html
and
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-January/043428.html),
asking for the creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum language, one of the two official languages of Timor-Leste (or East Timor), the youngest
independent
nation in the world (the other official language is Portuguese).
In the meantime, this project got 15 supporters, 8 of them
native-speakers
of Tetum (see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages#Tetum_.28
15_support_.5B8_native_speakers.5D.29).
Subsequently, I created a test page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/tet) that presently has a dozen articles in Tetum and a few others in the process of being translated to Tetum.
Anyway, I find it difficult to attract Tetum-speaking people to work in
a
Wikipedia that is still in a test phase. So, I wonder if any developer
can
inform me if this new language version of Wikipedia is about to the set
up
or not.
I'm absolutely convinced the Wikipedia in Tetum is viable, and that it
can
be an exceptional tool for East-Timorese to promote their national
language
internally and abroad. And I'm not alone in this feeling. Giuseppe
d'Angelo
said in a subsequent msg: "One can't understate what such a venture [the creation of a Wikipedia in Tetum] 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."
I will do my best to get the message to the East-Timorese in Australia,
in
Portugal, in Indonesia, etc. -- as well as in East Timor. But, first of
all,
you [the developers] gotta set up this new Wikipedia.
Plz let me know where are we standing of this.
Thanks & regards, Manuel de Sousa
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l