On the 13th of november, the steamboat of "Sinterklaas" arrives in
Alkmaar. People in the Netherlands and particularly the kids of the
Netherlands welcome the "Sint" from his summer residence of Madrid
Spain. With his boat loaded with presents for the kids who have been
good, the kids await the nameday of the Sint and on "pakjesavond" the
evening of the 5th of december the Sint will, on his white horse and his
black helpers who are all called "Piet", bring the presents to the
waiting kids..
Sinterklaas who is actually from Mira Turkey and lies burried in Bari
Italy, is the predessesor of the Santaclaus who everybody knows comes
Finland and brings the presents on Christmas on his sledge with reindeer
.....
This year, we have started a nice Christmas project. The Italian
wiktionary who will be centre stage for this,
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21 is a
page where you find "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!" in many
languages and some have pronounciations. There is already a sizable
collection but, it is not complete, it is not always correct and as
importantly, we want to HEAR how it sounds in all these languages !!
The best place to store all these .ogg soundfiles is in our Commons
project. For the use of pronounciations, the wiktionary project has come
up with a naming convention: first the ISO 639 code and then the word or
phrase e.g. "image:it-Buon Natale e felice Anno Nuovo!.ogg" is the one
for Italian.
One way in which wiktionaries can join in is by also hosting all these
merry wishes in their wiktionary with sounds and everything. Another way
is by including other seasonal wishes as well. The wikipedia's can join
in by having article on "Celebrating Christmas" and inform us how
Christmas is celebrated in various communities, the rituals and
traditions, the festivities. In Wikibooks we could do something with
Christmas stories or songs from all over the world. One way in which we
all can join this project is by enjoying it and have a great happy
Christmas and a wonderfull new year.
Thanks,
Sabine Cretella
Gerard Meijssen