[Wikimedia-l] Language committee report, July 2012

[MF-Warburg]

The Language Committee (Langcom) report for July 2012 was published. The
Langcom reports used to be published on this list too for some time, but
that has stopped and they were only put on Meta.
I would now like to resume putting the monthly report here.

See the wiki version on
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Reports/2012-07

===Committee===
*The Langcom has discussed to join the ''Alliance for Linguistic
Diversity'' of Google's Endangered languages project
http://www.endangeredlanguages.com . In the wish to act as a connection
between the Wikimedia community and the project, we have applied on 25
July, mentioning Wikimedia's significant resources related to preserving
languages, e.g. Wikisource, Wiktionary and Incubator.

===Requests and approvals===
*Following a question from one of the contributors, the status of the Oriya
Wikiquote[1] was discussed, but more activity and message translation work
is required there before approval can be considered.
*The request for a Wikipedia in Gorkha [2] has been withdrawn by the
proposer. It is also not eligible per our policies.
*Assamese Wikisource [3] (cf. last month's report) was brought up again:
Translations are now finished, but the activity is not high/steady enough
yet.
*The request to close Lojban Wiktionary [4] has been rejected.
*The request to close Basa Sunda Wikibooks [5] is currently undergoing
Board review and will probably be accepted.

===Other===
*It has been discussed whether it could be allowed to use another code for
the URL of the Wikipedia in Mapundungun [6] (test project [7]), for example
of the codes that is reserved for "private use" in the ISO 639-3 scheme (it
would e.g. be qmp.wikipedia.org instead of arn.wikipedia.org then); because
the ISO code "arn" derives from a word which is claimed to be seen as
offensive by the speakers of the language. No decision was taken, but
**Some members tended to accept such a thing, others tended to rule out
such a deviation from the ISO standard. The general importance of the
standard was highlighted.
**Most members would like organizations/speakers of the language to try to
get the ISO code changed first, but it was also noted that such a change
would be very unlikely to be accepted.
**The details of why/how the code is considered offensive by the speakers
were discussed. It is generally agreed that the code will not be changed
for political reasons. Currently, the president of Wikimedia Chile has been
contacted and will try to get statements from these NGOs and Universities.


[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikiquote_Oriya
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Gorkha
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikisource_Assamese
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Lojban_Wiktionary
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Basa_Sunda_Wikibooks_(2)
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639:arn
[7] https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/arn