On the net, I found "Tumbuka is a Bantu language spoken in Zambia, Malawi & Tanzania. There are a total of nearly 700,000 speakers in Malawi, where it is spoken primarily in the northern part of the country. Within Zambia, about 450,000 speakers are located mostly on the eastern side of the country. The balance of the nearly 2,000,000 total speakers are in Tanzania. "
Gerard is absolutely correct. We do not *only* work to be *yet* another resource for those who already have actually too much access to information. We also work to become a resource for those who do not have much information.
Adding new languages is certainly a strain on developers. It certainly will be that this project will grow slowly (it would be wiser perhaps to work mostly on wiktionary rather than wikipedia to start with), but I do not think we should on purpose limit the existence of small projects on the motive there will be few editors to work on.
I think increasing the gap between those with information and those without is not in the spirit of what we are trying to do.
He, read this : http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=13329958&BRD=2553&...
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Anthere wrote:
Adding new languages is certainly a strain on developers. It certainly will be that this project will grow slowly (it would be wiser perhaps to work mostly on wiktionary rather than wikipedia to start with), but I do not think we should on purpose limit the existence of small projects on the motive there will be few editors to work on.
It's not that much of a strain. I actually added this to the language list as soon as I saw the post, thinking that since it has an ISO 639-2 code, it would be uncontroversial. But then I remembered this:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
The OP hasn't met the conditions outlined on that page. So I removed it from the language list pending discussion.
-- Tim Starling
On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 08:48:43 +1100, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
[snip]
It's not that much of a strain. I actually added this to the language list as soon as I saw the post, thinking that since it has an ISO 639-2 code, it would be uncontroversial. But then I remembered this:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
The OP hasn't met the conditions outlined on that page. So I removed it from the language list pending discussion.
I can appreciate the reasoning behind the requirement that there need be at least 5 persons pledged to contribute to the wiki.
However, I suspect that this number was chosen at least partly to serve as an obstacle for very obscure or extinct languages to overcome before being supported. To me this is reasonable: we should not waste resources on a Hittite wikipedia if only a couple individuals want it.
But I think the policy ought to take into account (which is does not now) the size of the current speaking population in making these choices. So I think that, whatever the minimum number of pledged users needs to be, that it should be lower for languages like Tumbuka than for, say, Hittite, because the greater size of the existing speaking population implies a greater payoff for Wikipedia in supporting the language.
Steve
Adding new languages is certainly a strain on developers. It certainly will be that this project will grow slowly (it would be wiser perhaps to work mostly on wiktionary rather than wikipedia to start with), but I do not think we should on purpose limit the existence of small projects on the motive there will be few editors to work on.
It's not that much of a strain. I actually added this to the language list as soon as I saw the post, thinking that since it has an ISO 639-2 code, it would be uncontroversial. But then I remembered this:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
The OP hasn't met the conditions outlined on that page. So I removed it from the language list pending discussion.
-- Tim Starling
Unfortunately this is now the case for all new languages with less than 5 people.
Mark
But then I remembered this: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages The OP hasn't met the conditions outlined on that page. So I removed it from the language list pending discussion.
This is only a proposed policy. If people have suggestions for adaptations to it, please make these on the talk page so the policy can be finalized and decisions made about new languages.
Angela.
Anthere wrote:
On the net, I found "Tumbuka is a Bantu language spoken in Zambia, Malawi & Tanzania. There are a total of nearly 700,000 speakers in Malawi, where it is spoken primarily in the northern part of the country. Within Zambia, about 450,000 speakers are located mostly on the eastern side of the country. The balance of the nearly 2,000,000 total speakers are in Tanzania. "
Well, Wikipedia is not an oral source, so the relevant figure is readers rather than speakers. As far as I can tell from google, there are very few readers of Tumbuka, because it is not taught in any schools in the region---even those who speak Tumbuka at home read and write in a different language. That makes the usefulness of a Tumbuka Wikipedia as an information source potentially limited. Not that we shouldn't have it, but it's not going to suddenly bring a wealth of information to millions of people, because very few people can read the language.
-Mark
I think one thing that needs to be understood about these 'minority' languages is to understand the reasons behind some of the circumstances the languages find themselves in. I'll help Dinnette by talking about the circumstances on the Malawian side of the language. During the dictatorship of Dr Hastings Banda, Tumbuka (and other Malawian languages) was suppressed because he wanted his mother tongue to be the national language. I won't bore you with Malawi politics but you get the idea. One thing that should also be understood is that, as Dinnette rightly said, Bantu languages are highly phonetic - if you can speak it, you can read/write it. You might also find it interesting that though it might not be taught in many schools it is a language of instruction in primary schools in all areas where it is spoken. When learning the alphabet, you learn it in Tumbuka. If publishers, whose main objective is making profits (with very little social responsibilities) can publish books in Tumbuka, it means there is a market, that in turn means a big number of people DO read (AND write!) the language.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Delirium" delirium@hackish.org To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 7:11 AM Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New language introduction Well, Wikipedia is not an oral source, so the relevant figure is readers rather than speakers. As far as I can tell from google, there are very few readers of Tumbuka, because it is not taught in any schools in the region---even those who speak Tumbuka at home read and write in a different language. That makes the usefulness of a Tumbuka Wikipedia as an information source potentially limited. Not that we shouldn't have it, but it's not going to suddenly bring a wealth of information to millions of people, because very few people can read the language.
Mark
Dinnette, am in too, three and counting...
Dinganie Soko dinganie@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Dinnette, and everybody else, I am on board. Thanks to all of you for the support. Tumbuka now has...
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