I would like to introduce a new language on Wikipedia. The language is called chiTumbuka. It is a language widely spoken in the northern and north-central regions of Malawi, eastern parts of Zambia and to a lesser extent, southern parts of Tanzania, Africa. It is estimated that chiTumbuka is spoken by between 4 and 5 million people and 'understood' by a further million or so. The main reason I want to start a section for this language is to encourage young people to speak it and at the same time enable our parents, some of whom have limited knowledge of English, have access to information via, among other media, the internet.
With the (coming?) introduction of Wikinews, it is my hope that I will have time to translate some of the news into this language. When I was young, there used to be English-Tumbuka dictionaries but I haven't seen a single one for over a decade. I want to preserve my language and hope to introduce an English-Tumbuka e-dictionary along the way. This might also help tourists from Anglophone countries like the US, the UK, Canada, Australia know a few phrases of the language before visiting the aforementioned countries in which the language is spoken.
Any suggestions as to how I can go about setting this language up will be highly appreciated. To avoid clogging other members' inboxes, please contact me privately on dinnette@softhome.net with whatever suggestions/assistance you may have. Thanks for you time.
Kind regards
Dinnette
Mamma Mia wrote:
I would like to introduce a new language on Wikipedia. The language is called chiTumbuka. It is a language widely spoken in the northern and north-central regions of Malawi, eastern parts of Zambia and to a lesser extent, southern parts of Tanzania, Africa. It is estimated that chiTumbuka is spoken by between 4 and 5 million people and 'understood' by a further million or so. The main reason I want to start a section for this language is to encourage young people to speak it and at the same time enable our parents, some of whom have limited knowledge of English, have access to information via, among other media, the internet.
With the (coming?) introduction of Wikinews, it is my hope that I will have time to translate some of the news into this language. When I was young, there used to be English-Tumbuka dictionaries but I haven't seen a single one for over a decade. I want to preserve my language and hope to introduce an English-Tumbuka e-dictionary along the way. This might also help tourists from Anglophone countries like the US, the UK, Canada, Australia know a few phrases of the language before visiting the aforementioned countries in which the language is spoken.
Any suggestions as to how I can go about setting this language up will be highly appreciated. To avoid clogging other members' inboxes, please contact me privately on dinnette@softhome.net with whatever suggestions/assistance you may have. Thanks for you time.
Kind regards
Dinnette _______________________________________________
Hoi Dinette, I am from the nl:wiktionary, together with several other wiktionaries we are cooperating and hope to achieve one big wiktionary which will host content from any language. One of the drawbacks is the underrepresentation of African languages. It is not that we do not want them, it is that we do not know the language and have not found words in translations. One guy on the nl:wiktionary would be pleased to know the word "water" in Tumbuka, he has a project to find this word in ALL languages.
If you look at the word Tumbuka on en:wikipedia, it is another example of the underrepresentation of African content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbuka really can use some updating. The Italian wiktionary has a nice project for Christmas, they want to have "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" in as many languages as possible http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21.
Anyway, if you have a list of Tumbuka words with a translation to English or another language we would love to include it in the wiktionaries.
Thanks, GerardM (Meijssen)
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org