WikiLang

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This page is a proposal for a new Wikimedia Foundation Sister Project.
Status: Under discussion
Prompt Response
Project name: What is the proposed name for the project? Wikilang (can be changed)
Tagline: Proposed project tagline (if available) The free language resources project
Project description: What is the project purpose? What will be its scope?

How would it benefit to be part of Wikimedia?

 Wikilang is a project with the goal of documenting, recording, sharing and teaching all languages with a strong sub-project on languages revitalization including living dictionaries, sprachausbau and decipherment of dead languages and scripts as options.
Multilingual wiki(s): Will there be many language versions or just on one multilingual wiki? only one
Multilingual: Is the project going to be in one language or in many? The interface will be multilingual, the lingua franca is English and in some projects the particular language can be the working language.
URL: Proposed project website address wikilang.org
Logo: Proposed logo for the project (if available) not designed yet
Technical Requirements
Technical challenges: If the project requires any new features that the MediaWiki software currently doesn't have, please describe in detail. Are additional MediaWiki extensions needed for the project?
Development wiki
WikiLang/Main Page
Interested Participants:
Please list yourself here if you support the idea or would like to help build the proposal and project.
  1. Zylbath (talk) 12:49, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
  2. πr2 (t • c) 20:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
  3. Ricordisamoa 06:06, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  4. Nadine001 (talk) 16:11, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  5. Janwo (talk) 18:19, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  6. 129.247.247.238 07:18, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  7. --俺はバカ (talk) 12:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
  8. urbancenter (talk) 5:55, 01 March 2013 (UTC)
  9. Riley Huntley (talk) 07:38, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
  10. LlamaAl (talk) 03:32, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
  11. Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 10:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
  12. Kokobird (talk) 09:01, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
  13. --Texaner (talk) 08:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
  14. ✒ Bennylin is supporting this probably since joined Wikipedia
  15. Jgk (talk) 13:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
  16. yoyo (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
  17. Miguel2706 (talk) 19:20, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
  18. Ort43v (talk) 12:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
  19. Alan Lorenzo (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
  20. Mahir256 (talk) 03:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  21. M'encarta (talk) 01:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
  22. --Seonookim (talk) 05:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
  23. Илья Яковлев (talk) 13:53, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
  24. Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
  25. Sannaj (talk) 17:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  26. Mirrorhai (talk) 10:35, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  27. Amqui (talk) 21:45, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  28. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
  29. Ralgis (talk) 03:32, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  30. --Travelour Talk E - Mail 03:32, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  31. — ΛΧΣ21 04:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  32. Michawiki (talk) 07:44, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  33. Glaisher (talk) 11:22, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  34. Psychoslave (talk) 12:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  35. There are a few sites around that does something similar, but as far as I know, nothing wiki-like easy to edit. And most sites are concentrated on a particular language family. Furthermore, I think the grammar pages and vocabulary lists on Wikipedia are not encyclopedic and should be rather moved to a project like WikiLang. --Kip (talk) 11:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  36. I myself am fluent in the reading and writing of Egyptian from the "Son of Ra" Pharonic period of Egypt, and am thrilled that such a project as this is garnering approval from Meta. I would love to help where possible. TIM(Contact)/(Contribs) 23:00, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  37. రహ్మానుద్దీన్ (talk) 17:54, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  38. Hydriz (talk) 05:46, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
  39. Titopao (talk) 07:15, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
  40. -- Namayan (talk) 07:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
  41. User:Vikanksha (talk)14:00,6 May 2013(UTC)
  42. User:Pandeyasish(User talk:Pandeyasish)11:00,7 May 2013
  43. --Cameron11598 (Converse) 04:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
  44. Gott wisst (talk) 11:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC) I have the skills and interest in investing in such a project, and I would.
  45. Iketsi (talk) 14:35, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
  46. --Gloria sah (talk) 21:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
  47. Espreon (talk) 23:49, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
  48. I have some questions about what it will be like but support the idea in general --Base (talk) 20:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
  49. Definitely! FrigidNinja (talk) 14:52, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
  50. Luwii (talk) 21:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
  51. Luis Felipe Schenone (talk) 12:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
  52. Yes, oui, si, woow, io! - ʈucoxn\talk 12:28, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
  53. Qwh (talk) 20:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  54. It would be a good place to the things that are now done on incubator, but are out of the scope of it. Some languages are too small to have native speakers. Carsrac (talk) 12:06, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  55. It is a good Idea. --Hym411 (talk) 07:14, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  56. Wanted to learn some German. Ready to help in anyway possible —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AthulBiju94 (talk • contribs) 13:52, 1 June 2013‎.
  57. Yes. But can it be more explicit that this will go beyond just a collection of lexicons (dictionaries)? Grammar is far more challenging to document, but a start should be made for extinct and threatened languages. Tony (talk) 10:19, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
  58. This would be wonderful. I have hoped for years that Wikimedia would provide an environment for the conservation of both ancient and endangered contemporary languages! Dovi (talk) 08:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
  59. WikiLang could be used to not only revive dead languages, but as a resource in the classroom for teaching foreign languages. Citrusbowler (talk) 18:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
  60. Dreamism (talk) 12:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
  61. This is a fantastic and sorely-needed idea.--Alex1453 (talk)
  62. I'm interested in more details. I currently run a wiki for the Korean language at Korean Wiki Project. --Bluesoju (talk) 08:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
  63. I like to support WikiLang. --Jne12 (talk) 08:21, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
  64. Surfer43 (talk) 03:27, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
  65. Vogone talk 12:36, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  66. Nietzschux (talk) 08:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

"Many linguists predict that at least half of the world's 6,000 or so languages will be dead or dying by the year 2050. Languages are becoming extinct at twice the rate of endangered mammals and four times the rate of endangered birds. If this trend continues, the world of the future could be dominated by a dozen or fewer languages."[1]

Introduction[edit]

Languages are more interweaved with culture than almost nothing else. Losing the language is very often described as losing the identity. And as a big majority of the today's languages are endangered it is very important that we do something against that. A wiki-project is a perfect tool for that purpose. At the WikiLang page several projects would be hosted; everybody can start a project and participate. Language revitalisation is becoming a very popular topic espacially in times of globalisation (see European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages), one could consider this as a reaction to this trend.

Purposes[edit]

The main topics would be: sprachausbau, language revitalisation, language documentation, decipherment of dead languages and/or undeciphered scripts and little projects.

Language revitalisation[edit]

This field is very wide-ranging and covers most of the other topics. The users can create language courses, didactic material and other things that can help to revitalize the language. They can work out ways to normalise a language in its origin area when it is not the majority language anymore, build up new communities of speakers, work on campaigns or strategies to bring back a language into a certain community or as a subject in schools in that region and work out law texts or translate official documents (see "Little Projects"), etc. Together the user could also compile a strategy guide on how to revitalize a language that could help communities of endangered languages. Language revitalisation is more an umbrella term for the other branches.

Sprachausbau[edit]

To reverse language shift sprachausbau or language development is one of the most important steps. The main step of this is to build a lexicon that covers all domains and registers of a modern vocabulary. Many languages don't even have words for a "refrigerator" or a "hook-and-loop fastener". In linguistics it is generally accepted that every language has in theory the possibility to express everything that all the other languages do, if it had words for all of it. Another big step is to find a standard variety. That simplifies the handling of it at institutions, in school, etc. Teaching is easier if everything is based upon a standard. For building a standard many aspects are very important: determining a standard orthography, choosing a variety as standard or creating a new variety as a mix of existing varieties, etc. In order to get wide acceptance of the new standard it is very important to cover as many opinions as possible. This is why a free platform like this project would be perfect for it.

Language documentation[edit]

Some languages can not be rescued anymore or are already dead. But they can be documented. For many dead or small languages there are already little grammars or dictionaries that could be used to build detailed grammars and lexicons at this project. Both a grammar and an adequately big dictionary are the essential parts of language documentation. This site could be also seen as a language database where there are enough pieces of information on a language to make studies with it or to learn/revitalize it to a later time. That database could try to reach that size that it covers most of the languages that are or were on our planet. But in the moment particular attention should be paid to endangered languages. The hitherto existing wiki projects wouldn't fulfill these aims as Wiktionary is not laid out to cover and preserve the lexicon of dead or endangered languages because it is more intended as an interlinguistical translation project; and the other wiki projects are not meant to create and compile a growing grammar of a language. To document a language it is benificial to have both combined lexicon and grammar and to not divide this up onto different wiki projects. That wouldn't be the meaning of "database".

Decipherment of dead languages and/or undeciphered scripts[edit]

There are a lot of dead languages and scripts that are not deciphered yet. The big problem in the decipherment of scripts or languages is that the material that is needy for it is hardly available. This project's aim would be to make them free available so that everybody can work with it and all the users can try to decipher it together. The more people work on it the better the chance for a success would increase. And here aswell a documentation of all scripts could be imaginable. (But that database could be also solved by Wikipedia.)

Little projects[edit]

These are little projects like selfwritten stories, translations of books or official documents and laws or learning materials. All in all side projects that can help to achieve the upper aims.

Original research[edit]

This seems to be a tricky thing for new wiki project proposals. On most of the other wiki pages the focus lays on documentation than original research as far as I noticed. As I already said above documentation is a big part of this project, too. But on the other hand there is a creating aspect when new words, new standard varieties etc. are formed. Furthermore it could be called "research" when people are trying to decipher scripts and languages. You have to decide how far this is a positive or negative point.

Wikipedia has a policy of "No original research". However, that policy does not necessarily apply to any other Wikimedia project. It is up to each project to determine its own policies in regard to research, and there are wikis that support research as one of their chief aims.
For example, the Xenharmonic Wiki

an open resource for anyone curious about any aspect of microtonal music, xenharmonic music, alternative tuning practices, et cetera.

This wiki is a repository for information about specific tuning systems, as well as the relations between them and the theory behind them. It is added to by volunteers only when doing so is useful to them. It is a living wiki by structure, meaning anyone can add a new page or add content to an existing page. Relevant new content is most welcome.

In my opinion, original research must be an important part of any project to rescue and revitalize endangered languages. From my own experience, I know that it is, for example, necessary to discover the target language's phonology, and to determine which of its sounds (phones) together comprise "the same sound" (phoneme) in its speakers' minds, before it is possible to devise a suitable new orthography (writing and spelling system) for that language. In the seventies, I did just that for Cham language, at the request of Cham friends who wanted to keep in touch with family and friends overseas in Cambodia, Malaysia and France. And although I was 'only' an amateur linguist, I know by their response that they found my efforts useful. Whether they're still using that orthography, I can't say, since I've lost my main contacts to old age (the lucky ones) and war. But my point remains: any research – conducted with appropriate thought and sensitivity – can only help the speakers of the endangered language preserve, maintain and grow their culture. Which is what this project is mostly about, I think. yoyo (talk) 05:01, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Why this way?[edit]

A wiki-project is the perfect way to afford these aims. In the case of language revitalisation the mass is an important factor. The internet links together people from all over the world and is an easy way to interact almost barrier-freely. And for such aims as sprachausbau it is very important to find a consense in things like a new orthography or new words. Those would be better adopted if they are based on a broad consense. Many language communities of endangered languages do not have the knowledge to create such an internet project or to revitalize their language. And this is why this project is so important, to help those communities and make it so much easier for them to build up projects. And in the case of projects like the decipherment of old languages or scripts the wisdom doesn't lie in the elite but in the general public. This project would try to provide all the available information as pictures or sketches of inscriptions, particular letters or corpora of dead languages that are mostly not accessible for the public. By that manner those projects would lead much faster to success than in general.

Why it isn't solvable with the other Wiki projects[edit]

We are dealing with little languages here. Many of them don't even have a Wikipedia page and/or don't know how to set up an wiki incubator which wouldn't even be exactly what they need to revitalise or document their language. WikiLang would be the only chance for them to organise a language revitalisation. Wiktionary is not ideal to lead discussion on new words or come up with a standard variety and standard grammar etc. So are most of the other wiki derrivatives not totally suitable for these purposes. The big benefit of WikiLang is the centralisation of those projects. One can much easier overlook all of it and participate much simpler than look through all the wiki derrivatives to find something that is related to his language and for a revitalisation or documentation. Besides one does not have to switch to other wiki sites and abuse their actual functions.

What it means for Wikipedia[edit]

First of all this is a very honorable campaign. It would increase the prestige of wikipedia in the public. Furthermore it would earn a high reputation if some of the projects result in real success like the decipherment of a script or the noteworthy revitalisation of an endangered language.

How it would be composed[edit]

Every considered language would have an own main page which could or should be at least bilingual (English and the respective language). On that page the projects would be presented with links to them. The page names of the projects will probably have to have the ISO 639 forms (the short forms for languages like “en”, “ar”, “de”.) to keep different projects apart. This is an example for a page for a dictionary with new words we are trying to build on the Gothic Wikipedia: Gothic dictionary It is divided into a discussion page, where new proposals for words can be posted and discussed and if it is widely accepted the words get added to the word list on another page. This is how most of the pages could be composed like. But I guess that by time most of the communities will find a better and more fitting way to serve the purpose. (How the WikiLang would really look like at the end is not really strict yet. I'd be really reasonable for any changes, improvements or other things.)

(I hope my bad English won't result in a rejection of the proposal. If there are any questions, tipps, feedbacks or anything else, please tell me.)

Examples[edit]

FAQ[edit]

Proposed by[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Disappearing languages
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