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(a)softhome.net with whatever suggestions/assistance you may have. Thanks for you
time.
Kind regards
Dinnette
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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)