[Wikipedia-l] Transwiki

[Ray Saintonge]

Peter Gervai wrote:

>Ec, your mails are little dissertations itself. :-)
>
I don't know if that's good or bad.  People don't like reading long 
eMails, but I like to cover many possibilities. :-)

>On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 10:45:52AM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>Peter Gervai wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 01:52:54AM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>>Although some of us would like to encourage other-language Wiktionaries, 
>>>>so far only the English version exists.  If you have somebody who likes 
>>>>writing up dictionary articles in Hungarian, maybe you can convince him 
>>>>to start a Hungarian Wiktionary. :-)
>>>>
>>>Well, not that anyone would allocate time for that, but newbies usually
>>>create dictionary entries (in Hungarian), and would be useful to keep them
>>>instead of deleting. If a hu.wiktionary doesn't require much space or
>>>resources it would be nice, even if there would be only 46 articles a
>>>year...
>>>
>>All the wikis start small. :-)   Once the opportunity is presented, some 
>>people will just naturally feel more comfortable working on a dictionary 
>>
>[...]
>
>The basic question is whether it could be started now, because there are
>already entries, and that whether there is a planned solution for the
>language-crisscrossing.
>
Of course it should.  Since the software for hu:wikipedia is already in 
place, most of it will likely remain the same for hu:wiktionary.  It 
would surprise me if more than 10% would need changing.

In practical terms the language-crisscrossing issues may be imposible to 
solve as long as Wiktionary only exists in one language.  I would 
guessed that the second wiktionary would be in a language that is more 
accessible to English readers (French, German, Spanish etc.)  Hungarian 
will be full of wonderful challenges for us; at least it uses Latin 
script. :-)

>Like, um, let me conjure some ideas, 
>
>An article:
>Dog: blah
>[[xl:en:Dog]] (xl = cross language template insert, en = use english word as
>index)
>
>Would render on english:
>Dog: blah
>* German: Hund
>* Hungarian: kutya
>...
>
>Would render on hungarian:
>Dog: blah
>* Net: Hund
>* Magyar: kutya
>...
>
This is exactly what would happen.

>where the page [[tpl:en:Dog]] would say:
>* [[de:Hound]]
>* [[hu:kutya]]
>
>(and [[tpl:hu:kutya]] is just a redirect/symlink to [[tpl:en:Dog]]). 
>
This seems to suggest a completely separate article that serves as a 
kind of server for the concept.  My guess is that it wouldn't work, and 
that it probably is not needed ... but I could be wrong.

>Just brainstorming. 
>
Let's hope there is enough (en)lightening for people to see. :-)

>>The en:wiktionary currently show a translation for "dog" into 72 other 
>>languages.  This is far more than for most words. It also gives an 
>>English meaning for the Dutch word "dog".  There is a brief entry for 
>>"kutya" showing it as the Hungarian word for "dog".  That entry also 
>>shows the translation of "kutya" into Dutch.  I personally don't believe 
>>that the Dutch rendering should be on the "kutya" article,
>>
>
>To me it looks logical to have redirect [[kutya]] to [[dog]], and [[dog]]
>informing us that "kutya" is the hungarian equivalent.
>
Redirects may only be useful in an environment of very few languages, or 
with words that have a clear one-to-one corelation.  Each language has 
complexities of its own.  That's why I recommend that the primary task 
of each language Wiktionary should be to develop itself for the benefit 
of people who speak that language.  There is a danger in being too naïve 
about the nature of translation.  That's why machine translations can so 
often make us laugh, or you can tell when somebody used a dictionary too 
much to produce a translation.

>>I see three functions for the LOCAL Wiktionary:
>>   1. Provide detailed definitions  of LOCAL words in LOCAL lang for 
>>LOCAL speakers.
>>   2. Provide translations of LOCAL words into an indefinite number 
>>of languages.
>>
>(my template thingy above helps that.)
>
>>   3. Provide entries for words in any foreign language for LOCAL
>>speakers.
>>
>(redirects help that.)
>
What makes redirects unusable is that a same word may be used in several 
languages.  Hund is also used in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian but 
without the capital letter.  Several slavic languages use "pes" (which 
would mean "foot" in Latin); several other languages use "can" which as 
a noun in English may mean a tin for storing cooked vegetables.

>I changed it to LOCAL, so, yes, basically that makes sense.
>
OK