[Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native language

Milos Rancic millosh at gmail.com
Sun May 22 15:26:06 UTC 2011


On 05/22/2011 04:57 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 22 May 2011 14:08:14 +0200, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> On 05/22/2011 01:22 PM, Denny Vrandecic wrote:
>>> Can you also provide at least a rough estimate of the number of humans
>>> who don't have Wikipedia in any language they speak reasonably well
>>> (understanding very well that this is a hard problem of definition)?
>>
>> I would say that the number humans without Wikipedia in any language
>> they speak is below "statistical error": 2% of 7 billions is 140
>> millions and I don't think that there are more than let's say, 50
>> millions.
> 
> Are there any data available on the literacy? I guess illiterate people
> can hardlu use Wikipedia, and the number of literate speakers of some of
> these languages can well be below the million.

Just data (Ethnologue's "Language development" field) for the mentioned
languages (without Filipino). Comments tomorrow.

* Jin Chinese, 45M, China; Literacy rate in L2 (I suppose, Standard
Chinese): 91%.
* Haryanvi, 38M, India, incubator; Literacy rate in L2: 55% Hindi.
Dictionary. Bible portions: 2001.
* Xiang Chinese, 36, China, incubator; Literacy rate in L2: 91%.
* Maithili, 34M, India, incubator; Literacy rate in L1: 25%–50%.
Literacy rate in L2: 25%–50%. If they can read Nepali or Hindi, they can
read Maithili. The educated read Hindi, Nepali, or English books for
pleasure. Some literacy work in India. Poetry. Magazines. Newspapers.
Radio programs. Films. TV. Dictionary. Grammar.
* Nigerian Pidgin, 30M, Nigeria, incubator; Poetry. Radio programs. TV.
Dictionary. Grammar. Bible portions: 1957.
* Chhattisgarhi, 17.5M, India, incubator; Poetry. Newspapers. Radio
programs. TV. NT: 2005.
* Rangpuri, 15M, Bangladesh; Dictionary. Grammar.
* Seraiki, 13.8M, Pakistan, incubator; Literacy rate in L1: Below 1%.
Literacy rate in L2: 5%–15%. Radio programs. TV. Dictionary. Grammar.
NT: 1819.
* Madura, 13.6M, Indonesia, incubator; Literacy rate in L2: 40%.
Literacy higher among Bangkalon. Grammar. Bible: 1994.
* Haryanvi, 13M, India; Literacy rate in L2: 55% Hindi. Dictionary.
Bible portions: 2001.
* Deccan, 12.8M, India; <nothing>
* Malvi, 10.4M, India; Literacy rate in L2: 58% for rural Madhya
Pradesh. Government project discontinued due to low response. Poetry.
Radio programs. Dictionary. NT: 1826.
* Min Bei Chinese, 10.3M, China, incubator; Literacy rate in L2: 91%.
NT: 1934.
* Sylheti, 10.3M, Bangladesh; Literacy rate in L2: 35%. Educated can
read Bengali. Few women are educated. Bible portions: 1993.



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