[Wikipedia-l] it:wiktionary's Christmas project.

[Gerard Meijssen]

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