Does Aliu Mamadu Jallo have regular internet access?
And if so, can he
type the special characters nessecary for writing Fulfulde?
I managed to find 3 of the 5 used phonetic characters (like on the
Bambara Wikipedia), and put them in the add-character-box that's
included in the edit page. I still need the "rounded" Y if you know what
I mean? (I don't, really :) And the 'ng', a rounded n, the one that is
also missing on the Bambara Wikipedia. This could probably be due to a
problem with the phonetic fonts on Debian, since I did found the
obviously correct place in the unicode IPA table on Wikipedia, but it's
only like a normal "n" on my screen.
Unfortunately he doesn't use a computer. It's also pretty hard for him
to use it, since he's having troubles with his eyes. I have some video
footage of us doing the work, which I'll try to upload one of these
days. It's difficult to have a nice, usable layout _and_ big characters.
This should probably be tackled by the MediaWiki devs. There should be
an easy way to access a special Mediawiki mode for people with trouble
seeing.
Also, I've just returned to the Netherlands. Fortunately I know Aliu
thanks to Bamako's free software guru, and I'll contact him to find out
a way to add more of Aliu's writing.
And how will Fulfulde be handled in terms of dialects,
namely that
some will tell you Fulfulde is a dialect of Pulaar?
Good question. I haven't figured out this one. It's probably good to
start a page in the Wikipedia namespace on ff.wp.
But yes, it's a wonderful achievement. :)
I'm especially happy that the interface is partially translated. Maybe
it's good to have a list of 20 terms to be translated in order to create
a useable Wikipedia for people who don't understand English (or French
in case a language is for the largest part spoken in francophone
countries). African languages don't really observe state borders. And
hence the borders between francophone, anglophone, lusuphone and
otherphone area's, which can make it difficult to choose the appropriate
"starting language".