Requests for new languages

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Projects

This page is intended for discussing the creation of new language editions of existing projects. This is not the page to propose a new project.

The Wikimedia Foundation aims to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge in many different languages. Currently, wikis have been created in almost 200 languages. If you would like to work in a language that does not yet have a wiki, you may request it here.

Procedure

There are several steps to follow if you would like to create a new language Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks or Wikiquote. The Wikimedia Commons and Wikispecies are multi-lingual projects, meaning that there are no separate editions for individual languages. The Wikisource project also has many languages within one domain, but does have a subdomain set-up for Hebrew because Hebrew is written from right-to-left instead of left-to-right, and it is not possible to mix these formats in one wiki. Current attitudes at Wikisource regarding this policy are monitored at Wikisource's Language domain requests page.

  1. Check the policy for wikis in new languages to see if your proposed language meets the policy.
  2. Peruse the complete list of Wikimedia projects. If the language you are looking for is not listed, look for very similar languages. Your proposed language must be sufficiently different, in its written form, from any other already-created language.
  3. You must have an account here on the Meta wiki.
  4. Copy and paste the template to the new proposals section.
  5. Find the ISO code or propose a code for your language.
  6. Fill in all fields in the template.
  7. If many potential contributors to your language's wiki are likely to speak a different language that already has a wiki, try and drum up support at a community discussion area on that wiki. Encourage anyone who wants to contribute to your proposed language to come to this page and add their support for your proposal.
  8. If there is a consensus to create a wiki in your proposed language, send a message to the appropriate mailing list asking a developer to set up the wiki.
  9. Be patient, as our developers are very busy volunteers. You may work on articles, interface files and help or instruction pages using an offline word processor so that you can quickly get your new wiki going. You may want to look at the List of articles all languages should have.

FAQ

What do I do if there is no ISO code for my language?

If there is no standard code (no ISO code nor IANA code) for the language you propose, don't worry. Just type "none" in the field.

How do I know if my language is sufficiently different from a language that already has a wiki?

This is an issue that is decided by consensus. Some languages that have been decided are too similar to another language include a proposed Filipino wiki (redundant with Tagalog), Basel German wiki (redundant with Alemannic), East German wiki (redundant with German).

Can there be wikis in dead languages?

Yes. There are already wikis available in Latin, Old English, Gothic and Sanskrit.

Can there be wikis in artificial languages?

Yes. There are already wikis available in Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, Lojban and Klingon. There used to be a Toki Pona wiki, but it was decided that the Toki Pona language was not used widely enough to support a wiki.

How many speakers are necessary?

No language has ever been refused solely because of an insufficient number of speakers. For natural languages, this will probably never be an issue; for artificial languages, however, a low number of speakers may be taken as evidence that the language is not widely spoken enough to deserve a wiki.

The actual number of users who know the language and work on the wiki is an important issue, but it is not known how many are necessary for a wiki to gain momentum and solid growth. The dedication of the users may be more important than the number, since a few devoted users may write more, and higher quality, articles than a larger number of casual users.

To be further discussed at a later time

These languages have been proposed in the past. If you would like to be notified when the wiki is set up, please add your preferred method of contact to this list after the name of the language you want to work on.

To see the original proposal and any discussion regarding it, see the talk page.

  • ISO code: gil - Kiribati wiki - User:Belgian man: talk page on wikimedia
  • ISO code: chm - Mari wiki
  • ISO code: udm - Udmurt wiki - User:Denis Sacharnych: talk page on wikimedia
  • ISO code: myv - Eryza wiki
  • ISO code: mdf - Moksha wiki
  • ISO code: crh - Crimean wiki
  • ISO code: bua - Buriat wiki
  • ISO code: xal - Kalmyk wiki
  • ISO code: krc - Karachay-Balkar wiki
  • ISO code: kaa - Karakalpak wiki
  • ISO code: inh - Ingush wiki
  • ISO code: tyv - Tuvinian wiki
  • ISO code: ale - Aleut wiki
  • ISO code: sah - Yakut wiki

Template

Note: Older proposals do not use this template. All new proposals, however, should.

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]:
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis:
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code
  • proposed domain:
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia:
    • App. number of speakers:
    • Location(s) spoken:
    • Closely related languages, if any:
    • External links to organizations that promote the language:
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments:

Requests

Discussion ongoing

Sinitic languages / Chinese dialects

Comment: I have a suspicion that some people believe the only motivation for separate Wikipedias in these cases is to have separate Wikipedias for Simplified and Traditional. The way people voted on a Wikipedia in "Wu in Simplified Chinese" is silly - Wu, or any other Sinitic language written with tetragraphs, can be converted between Simplified and Traditional Chinese using the Mediawiki component designed by Zhengzhu. To be sure, there are some Cantonese characters which probably don't exist in Simplified Chinese, but the availability of the conversion software should put the Simplified vs. Traditional issue to rest. More difficult, however, is the proposal to have separate Latin-script Wikipedias (as the present zh-min-nan: Wikipedia). --Node ue 03:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • Name of user requesting this language:
  • ISO code and relevant links:
  • People interested joining:
    • in favour of Mandarin
    • in favour of Wu
      • in favour of Wu in Simplified Chinese Script
        • nishishei
        • Pangguanzhe (note: I am in favor of the Hanzi-and-Latinized split editions. Nishishei, ZanheewoABC and Qinglai should be able to test their Latinization schemes here. I oppose making a Traditional Hanzi edition separate from the Simplified edition for the obvious reason that Simplified is almost universal among Wu speakers. And I am infavor of allowing the redirecting of Traditional Hanzi titles)
        • wtzdj
        • xryy
        • alaya
        • daic
        • Node ue
        • Alcimarron (There are also major Wu languages that are mutually unintelligible with Shanghainese--let Shanghainese blaze a trail on Wiki first.)
        • Felix Wan
        • Kaihsu
        • Pektiong
        • A-giâu (conditionally support if native & second-language speakers support it)
      • zh:User:MilchFlasche (No matter which kind of script, just let people write what they need!)
    • in favour of Hakka
    • in favour of Cantonese
      • in favour of Cantonese in Traditional Chinese Script
        • Cantonese
        • Pangguanzhe(note: I am in favor of the Hanzi-and-Latinized split editions. And I will be busying myself writing mainly Penkyamp articles in order to better codify standard Cantonese as a written language. I oppose making a Simplified Hanzi edition separate from the Traditional edition, for the obvious reason that Traditional Hanzi is the universal script for almost all Cantonese speakers. And I am infavor of allowing the redirecting of Simplified Hanzi titles
        • Node ue
        • Felix Wan
        • Kaihsu
        • zh:User:Hon(I am in favor of a Latinized Cantonese wikipedia, which use Penkyamp as it's standard writing system.)
        • Pektiong
        • Desmond
        • A-giâu (conditionally support if native & second-language speakers support it)
      • zh:User:MilchFlasche (No matter which kind of script, just let people write what they need!)
  • Notes/comments:
    • Should perhaps be mixed or detailed with "simplified script"/"traditional script" select (-Hans and -Hant tag).
      • zh-cn and zh-tw may be rename as "zh-Hans" and "zh-Hant". (31 jan 2005)
    • Why add more chineses wikipedia tough zh-cn and zh-tw distinction now exist and work ? (10 Aug 2004)
      • This is like asking why add more German-dialect languages like Bavarian, Luxembourgish, Alsatian, Bavarian or Low Saxon. We already have German and isn't that close enough?
        • Good comparison. It differ by the fact that theoreticaly zh is for all chinese languages (de is only for german). (15 jan 2005)
      • Chinese is a family of many languages that are related to each other. Cantonese is not intelligible for Mandarin speakers, unlike the case between Spanish and Italian speakers. What make Chinese looks to be a single language is that Chinese languages are written in the same set of ideograms, although some characters can only be found in one or several language. (since the fall of China mainland into the Commies are simplified set of characters is introduced and used. Traditional Chinese characters are still used in Hong Kong (official), Macau (official), part of China still ruled by the Republic of China, i.e. Taiwan, the former government that rule over entire China, and numerous Chinese communities in Europe, Australia and North America.)
        • Commie yourself.
          • Oppose. Can #REDIRECT zh.--Shizhao 15:43, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
            • You oppose to 'Commie yourself' insult ????
              • 'commies' is a non-neutral term.
    • Let me explain the situation. Considering Chinese as a single language is limited to linguists from PRC. In my opinion, that is politically motivated. The rest of the world consider Chinese as a collection of related languages, using the same criteria as in classifying the languages for the rest of the world: mutual intelligibility. Please notice that zh-cn and zh-tw are mutually intelligible languages. The difference is comparable to BrE and AmE. They are only written in different scripts. The zh wikipedia has done a very great job in auto translation between the scripts. Also zh-hk, zh-sg, etc. refer to the local variations of the same language: Vernacular Chinese, based on Standard Mandarin. It is OK to group zh-cn, zh-tw, zh-hk, zh-sg into zh because that is the literary standard of the day.

      However, zh-wuu and zh-yue are like zh-min-nan. All of them are not mutually intelligible to the zh group and among themselves. Each of them have their own literary tradition, although they are not as official as zh. The whole Bible was translated into those three languages in early 20th century. Yes, later zh won government support, but we should not deny the existence of those languages. We already have many Wikipedias in languages with much less speakers, even constructed, experimental ones. We already have policies to remove inactive Wikipedias. If there are enough users to support, let them start.
    • I want to see the Chinese edition having 3 independent editing groups, i.e. having 3 versions (zh-cn, zh-tw, zh-hk) editors: the editors from PRC are only being allowed to edit zh-cn edition, the editors from ROC are only being allowed to edit zh-tw edition, and the editors from Hong Kong and Macau only being allowed to edit zh-hk edition. Then the zh-min-nan edition of Wikipedia can be closed, and people from Hong Kong and Macau would likely to stop to ask for a zh-yue-Hant edition. The only thing Wikipedia has to do is linking the explanations of one term from one edition with the same term in other two editions.
      • No no no, please don't try to separate Wikipediae by nationalities. Different Wikipediae should be established by languages, not by countries. Zh can be edited by users from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, etc; zh-yue-x, zh-min-nan, zh-wuu-x, zh-hakka or everything else should also not be confined in different countries. Please stop the idea that language division is simply national separatism. Proposing zh-min-nan, zh-yue, zh-wuu etc. has nothing to do with which country/region we belong to. I'm from Taiwan, and I will still stick to zh, since Mandarin is by far my first language and mainly my thinking language; but I also support for the request for other Sinitic languages.
Cantonese (traditional characters likely)
  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: zh-yue-Hant
  • Proposer: Steve, Felix Wan, Pangguanzhe
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • A language spoken in Hong Kong, one of the two official languages, together with English. Not intelligible to speakers of other Chinese languages.
    • Proposed for the same status as Min-nan Wikipedia, but based on a Standard Chinese characters interface
    • Oppose. Can #REDIRECT zh.--Shizhao 15:43, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Oppose Shizhao's opposition. Cantonese cannot redirect to zh:. Please quit harassing people.
      • Oppose Shizhao's opposition. Cantonese vocabulary is quite different from Standard Mandarin.
    • zh is now dominated by Altered Chinese characters, a version with a Standard Chinese characters is necessary, with context written in a en:Hong Kong language style.--Steve 16:29, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I am not opposing it. However, I have to make it clear that Cantonese is not a written language that its speakers would use for educational, research, legal or most serious communication purposes. You use it to gossip. Current Cantonese publications are mostly tabloids and other less-intellectual materials. In a Cantonese publication, you may see written Cantonese and nearly standard written Chinese co-exist (sometimes within an article or a sentence). In this case, the former is usually devoted for playful subjects. You may teach physics or mathematics in Cantonese, but the textbooks are possibly all in Chinese. People in Hong Kong use Chinese in their serious writings. Actually, people all over China have their dialects and they all use the same Chinese in writing. It is a part of our education. You may use Cantonese to do business. You just don't use its colloquial form to draft a contract. You may speak Jamaican English, but you don't usually write it unless you're a Reggae singer. Now please use your common sense. -- Toytoy 05:27, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • While this may be true, all over the world the vernacular is gaining power, for example Haitian Creole is official language now in Haiti, Jamaican Creole is becoming more and more respected slowly, and the same is true with Cantonese, Wu, etc. and it wouldn't hurt to try to write a Wikipedia in it (we already have a Wikipedia in Haitian Creole)
    • Proposal: Pages in UTF-8 encoding. Interface, article titles and articls in Traditional Chinese characters initially, and a Simplified characters version can be added.
    • Details of the language: Cantonese, Standard Cantonese,
    • Over 60 million native speakers in Hong Kong, Macao, Guangdong, Southeast Asia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Mutually unintelligible with other Han Chinese languages.
    • I appreciate that Wikimedia allows setting up Wikipedias in minority languages and even constructed experimental languages. Based on that, an encyclopedia based on vernacular Cantonese should be more viable. We have sizable native speakers. Yes, Cantonese speaking people are forced to write and read in vernacular Mandarin when dealing with more serious subjects, but why can't we write what the Physics teacher says word by word in Cantonese? The whole Bible has been translated into Cantonese and there is nothing playful about it. It may still sound experimental or politically incorrect, but let's make a try. I believe we can outgrow zh-min-nan very quickly. -- Felix Wan 19:53, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Also, in the Penkyamp edition, there should be Chinese character hyperlinks leading the Chinese character notes to their Chinese character articles. Penkyamp Cantonese will be like Hangul Korean, with words explained in Chinese characters in brackets when necessary. Pangguanzhe 23:36, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Wow! Now that's quite confident of Felix Wan:P But your arguments is feasible. We should make breakthrough for vernaculars; even what Toytoy has mentioned reflects the reality, let us appreciate that Wikimedia is always encouraging in face of minority languages. And I'm willing to see the well-minded competition among different vernaculars:)-- zh:user:MilchFlasche 08:22, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • I am confident in the growth of the Cantonese version based on traditional Han script because people in Hong Kong are already writing in it in various situations. It is even gaining popularity in Guangdong province, China. This .cn site is wriiten in it.[1] I can see the advantages of a version based on Latin script, and I will support it, but I do not think there will be wide enough support to sustain it. Cantonese still does not have a Latin script that is as popular as Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin. Which romanization scheme should we use then? A site with mixed schemes simply will not work. -- Felix Wan 00:28, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • A word to Chinese speakers uncomfortable with dialect versions: I strongly support Standard Chinese (Putonghua/Guoyu) and writing in regulated Standard Vernacular Chinese. I support the zh Wikipedia, which is written in it. It is essential for the communication among speakers of unintelligible dialects of China. However, supporting the standard dialect does not mean that we must oppose literary works in other dialects. Although they are not as widely accepted as Standard Chinese, let's allow projects that may sound experimental. Will those other Wikipedias draw human resources from the Standard Chinese Wikipedia? Let's remember the motto on Chinese Wikipedia: "海納百川, 有容乃大". Wikimedia is great because it encourages diversity. Those new Wikipedias may turn out to be attractors of new editors. -- Felix Wan 00:28, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Propose : two editions 1)Chinese Character Edition (mainly Traditional, including simplified. Sometime a simple "redirect" will eliminate the inconsistencies between trad and simp) 2)more importantly, a Penkyamp edition (mainly Penkyamp, Yale, Tongwa Lomaji). Latinization is essential to the standardization of Written Cantonese---its style, grammar, tones, vocabularies. It is not that Latinized Cantonese is widely used. Quite the contrary, it is not. But still, Latinized Cantonese is THE MOST INSTRUMENTAL WAY to codify Cantonese spoken as a standard language independent from Modern Standard Chinese which is based on Colloquial Mandarin. I hope you all understand this. Pangguanzhe 23:23, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC) Please also note that "I oppose a separate Simplified Chinese edition"
    • I noticed something interesting in this discussion. First of all, someone else added me to the "proposer" list. What is the difference between a "proposer" and a "person interested joining"? Then when I re-read the comments and profiles of the supporters, I discovered that we have very different ideas about how the Cantonese Wikipedia should look like:
      1. Steve's Cantonese page suggests that he wants a Wikipedia for Hong Kong, free from the administrators from the current zh. The language can be a mixture of Standard Chinese (Mandarin vernacular), Cantonese and English. I do not agree with that. I think the spirit of multiligual Wikipedias is division by language, not by geographical location or political views. We Chinese speakers of different political background should learn to share one Wikipedia just as different English speakers do.
      2. Pangguanzhe appears to want two Wikipedias written in vernacular Cantonese, one in Han script with simplified and traditional characters mixed like the current zh, and another one in mixed Latin script. While the zh domain is doing an experiment on auto translation between the scripts, I think mixing romanization schemes will be disastrous.
      3. My idea is to have a Wikipedia written in Cantonese using traditional Han script, as the title of this section says. Quotation of other Chinese dialects/languages or foreign languages are allowed but the main text should follow the vocabulary and grammar of en:Standard Cantonese.
    • Perhaps that is why we three were put on the "proposer" list in the first place. ^_^ I am writing this because I think I need to clarify what kind of project I am supporting. -- Felix Wan 00:32, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • I oppose making a Simplified Hanzi edition separate from the Traditional edition, for the reason that many essential Cantonese characters such as 嗰 and 喺 have no Simplified Hanzi equivalents. And it is important that we should use the standard written Cantonese in writing the Cantonese Wikipedia, for example, 重有 vs 仲有. We may need to discuss and elaborate more on this in order to reach consensus. -- Desmond 06:12, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Support.Cantonese vocabulary is quite different from Chinese.We should have a Wikipedia in our own language.Traditional Chinese Script based Written Cantonese(粵語白話文) exists for quite a long time. It's been widely used by people of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong. I strongly support Cantonese wikipedia.
Wu (simplified characters likely)
  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: zh-wuu-Hans
  • Proposer: nishishei, Pangguanzhe
  • People interested in joining:
  • Relevant links: en:Wu language, en:Shanghainese, Project to Introduce and Promote Shanghainese (in English), http://www.wu-chinese.org/ (in Chinese), Sinolect Wu Language Forums(in Chinese), Introduction to Shanghainese (in Japanese)
  • Notes/comments:
    • Over 80 million native speakers, including 14 million speakers from China's largest city of Shanghai. Mutually unintelligible with other dialect groups of Chinese. Can be phonetically romanized if necessary.
    • Oppose. Wu or Shanghai dialect 都是使用汉字en:han zi来表达的, 没有什么差别--Shizhao 07:19, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • The reasons given for the above opposition are invalid. Shizhao above argues that Wu uses Chinese characters and there is not much difference when written. Counter: The core vocabulary of Wu is significantly different from Mandarin. Wu dialects share just 31.1% lexical intelligibility with Mandarin and is more polysyllabic than Mandarin. Even if Wu uses Chinese characters, the characters used would be different enough from Mandarin to warrant a separate language domain. Also there exists a formal written tradition in vernacular Wu, the most famous work being Flowers of Shanghai (Shanghai Demi-monde) written in the 19th century by Han Bangqing. This late Qing Dynasty masterpiece is practically incomprehensible to non-Wu speakers even though it was written using Chinese characters. The early 20th century Shanghai-born romantic writer Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing) had to completely translate the work from Wu to Mandarin so that Mandarin speakers could read it. --nishishei 18:35, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • There is a recent film in Shanghainese based on the novel by Han Bangqing, it's also titled Flowers of Shanghai, directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou, starring Michelle Reis, Michiko Hada, Tony Leung, Annie Shizuka Inoh.
    • Proposal plans: All pages in UTF-8 encoding. Interface, article titles and article must use the Simplified Chinese script. Romanizations for each article can be optionally added in the same page, (or better, on a specialized "romanized page" of the same article accessible by a tab in the Quickbar) -21 Jan 2005
      • Support for the second option: "Romanized pages". Romanized pages are INDISPENSIBLE in distinguishing colloquial Sinitic languages from Modern Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Mandarin, since MSC can be onyomied in the colloquial language. The consequence of this is that many colloquial language speakers, when expressing more complex ideas, resort to writing in a style little different from MSC. But this is not to say that colloquial dialects and MSC are ALWAYS that close in grammar and vocab, but only in SOME SITUATIONS.Pangguanzhe
    • I would love to see the Wu wikipedia as well as Cantonese, Hakka wikipedia. Pektiong 07:32, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Second a Hakka Wikipedia. – Kaihsu 17:31, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Shanghainese is one of the most important dialects of Chinese. It is worth of adding. I like this idea! User:Daic
      • In fact, Wu is the second most widely used Chinese language, after only Mandarin - cantonese is actually third. (Minnan is fourth)
    • Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world, Suzhou is considered one of the most cultured cities in China with a long literary history that predates Shanghai's existence, and the dialect is significantly different from Mandarin, Cantonese or Fujian dialect. Support. Fire Star 13:08, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • What Script of Shanghainese? just the same en:han zi--Shizhao 03:38, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Ok. Proposal write interface, article titles and articls in Shanghainese, no write in Chinese. haha...--Shizhao 03:44, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Hahahaha! Hahahahaha! Soo soo funny! hahaha! NOT!
    • You have to image "Han character" as a general writting system. Using Hanzi system to write a language does NOT mean that language IS Mandarin. 61.30.127.4 06:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I know moderate Shanghainese (zh-wuu) and I know that it is not mutually intelligible with zh, zh-yue or zh-min-nan. Even if all the four languages are written using the same Han script, traditional or simplified, there may be more cognates, but the written scripts are still not mutually intelligible. I think the articles should be written in vernacular Shanghainese. Quotation of Classical Chinese, other Chinese languages should be allowed, just as quotation of foreign languages should be allowed. The main body should adhere to Shanghainese vocabulary and grammar. -- Felix Wan 20:18, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Quenya

  • Link to request on mailing list: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-February/
  • ISO code: none
  • Proposer: Firsfron 05:43, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • There is enough material known in Quenya, Tolkien's Elvish language, to start a Wikipedia in Quenya. You have one for Klingon, why not Quenya? I'd like to start such a project.--Firsfron 01:54, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I concur. --Oldak Quill 18:23, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I'd enjoy working on it; but are there copyright issues? Catherine 02:45, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • That is a good question, Catherine. However, there are Tolkien fanzines which publish Quenya language materials without copyright violation. There are even some Quenya language lessons in both book and electronic format. Writing in Quenya isn't the same as copying large passages of TLOTR.--Firsfron 05:31, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • Agreed! Quenya's grammar is in any case enough to compile an encyclopedia for the things in the Middle-earth.--Bellenion 11:51, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • But Wikipedia should not be confined to Middle-earth. A-giâu 11:51, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • I am afraid I must disagree with you, Firsfron. Actually we know far too little about Quenya; its grammar isn't even complete, and there are so many empty spaces in its vocabulary... There is one fundamental difference with Kingon: the inventor of Klingon finally published the principles of his language and allowed its learnes to work freely with it. Tolkien's heirs are not likely to publish everything he wrote on Quenya, Sindarin or any other of his constructed languages within a few years. But I soppose you know all this better than I do, so if you think it is possible, there is no reason for any objection.--Caesarion 10:36, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • While there are big gaps in the vocabulary, Caesarion, I don't think these gaps are insurmountable. Creative Quenya language writers can always come up with a solution! :)--Firsfron 05:31, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • What script do you prefer for this Wikipedia? Tengwar or Latin?--Caesarion 11:46, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • I think it would be in Latin--Bellenion 05:30, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • We could use Tengwar, there's a request to include it in the Unicode specs.
        • I would prefer Latin script, despite its non-authenticity. The contributors already have to take so many steeples: learning a language that no-one speaks, learning a lot of complicated grammar they're often unfamiliar with, coping with a chronical lack of words... Tengwar rather than Latin would be just another barrier. Moreover, most users would recieve the letters as bricks on their screen. But... maybe someone can write a converting program? Caesarion 12:38, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I understand that there are only about three hundred words in Quenya. Combine this with the fact that the grammar is very incomplete, and sometimes folks ideas on Quenya clash because of Tolkien's contradictory notes.... how CAN there be a Quenya wiki? If someone shows how it is a viable option, by perhaps building on some of the work that happened for the Lord of the Rings film (where some new Quenya stuff was created), then I will vote yes. If not, I will vote no.BryanAJParry

Scots

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: sco
  • Proposer: Scott Gall 09:57, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • People interested joining:
    • Saforrest (don't speak it, but willing to learn, provided this is a general Scots encyclopedia)
    • Derek Ross -- Native speaker and willing to do admin and bureaucrat duties.
    • Lincher -- Know a little, willing to learn it throughly.
    • Cal T -- very willing to help out.
    • User:Võrok -- I support creating Wikipedia in Scots! -Võrok 15:02, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mendor -- not a native speaker, but an enthusiastic learner
    • BryanAJParry -- not a native speaker, but a learner, with a passion for language; I would be a regular contributor.
    • Trilobite -- Don't think I'll be a major contributor but I'd love to help out here and there.
  • Relevant links:
  • Temporary home
  • Notes/comments:
    • Those wishing to learn some Scots in order to contribute might consider looking for a little book called Teach yourself Doric by Douglas Kynoch, ISBN:1-898218-14-5. It's a humorous parody of the Teach Yourself X language books but it also gives a good grounding in conversational Doric (Northern Scots). Recommended.
    • Scots is certainly deviant enough to be called a language and to open a Wikipedia in. But wouldn't it be more convenient to create a Wikipedia for all Scots variants, not just Lowlands Scots (the other variants, for the uninitiated reader, are Norn Scots and Ulster Scots)?--Caesarion 11:41, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • That's a good idea. We could use the subdomains sco-ll (Lowland Scots,) sco-nr (Norn Scots,) and sco-us (Ulster Scots.) Scott Gall 08:15, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • We can't use those subdomains. (25 Feb 2005)
        • And in any case there's no need -- Derek Ross 08:21, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes, it is. (25 Feb 2005)
        • All right, if we can't use those subdomains, we could have just one subdomain and then three ways of writing it (one for Lallans, one for Norn, and one for Ullans.) They did a similar thing with the Cornish and Breton Wikipedias. Click on the links to see what happened. And speaking of languages with small WPs, contribute to the Nahuatl wiki - if you know any Nahuatl - and get it up to 100 articles. Scott Gall 04:36, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • To be sure, I was talking about Norn Scots dialect, not about the extinct language Norn. The dialect that is sometimes referred to as Norn Scots bears at least some traces of Norn, but for disambiguattion purpouses, one can use terms like Shaetlan, Shetland/Orkney Scots and the like.--Caesarion 20:22, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I am all in favour of a Scots Wikipedia. However, given the relatively small number of speakers especially with the dialects other than Lowland, I am wondering if there is some kind of unified written variant (formal or informal) of Scots that transcends all spoken dialects. That works fine already with Wikipedias like Low Saxon (nds) and Rumantsh (rm). No balkanization please! (especially when it comes to smaller languages!) Arbeo 17:08, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes, there is a unified written form which can be applied to all dialects except those of the Northern Isles. Apart from them, one Scots site can cover all dialects including Ulster since, although pronunciations, and to a lesser extent vocabulary, differ from one dialect to another, there is a standardised spelling (cf the Scottish National Dictionary) although it's not widely known owing to lack of Scots education in schools. -- Derek Ross 07:47, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • Thanks for constructing the (boring) temporary site. If you are a developer or if you know one, you could get them (when they're ready) to set up camp at sco.wikipedia.org. Scott Gall 07:37, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC) PS: Not now, but when they're ready.
          • Scott, I think you're supposed to wait until five people have given their support. I think Scots is more of a pidgin/creole - we already have a project in Tok Pisin, which is a creole. NazismIsntCool 19:45, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • It certainly isn't. It's is either a group of coherent (native!) English dialects or a sister language of English, not a bastard child. Caesarion 20:09, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • English can be considered a 14th century creole of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, and Scots came from similar roots to English but with different proportions in the mix, so I suppose that it's not unreasonable to call both languages creoles. -- Derek Ross 05:40, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Indeed. Scots is not a creole. English indeed could be considered a creole (anyone who has seen Old English will know why). Not jsut because it is a mixture, but because the typical grammatical simplification that occurs in creoles occurred in English too (it lost almsot all inflections, gender, the dual number etc). BryanAJParry 19th May
    • I do wish there was some sign that this scots wiki will get made. There has been a request to delete the "Scotland" article which I translated from English to Scots and put in the Scots test wiki; I ask ye, what is the point of these test wikis if not to make a mock version of the full-blown wiki?? BryanAJParry
      • Oh my God!! Now someone has totally destroyed the test wiki ("Aphaia"). Now, I know anyone can edit anything, but this is obscene. How dare this user delete everything we've done at the scots testwiki. He not only deleted the Scots article, but he has also deleted much of the talk we had about what the wiki should be like when made. I am extremely angry.
      • It was extremely rude but it's not as bad as it looks. I'll sort it out -- that's the good thing about a wiki ;-) I can understand your anger but I'm afraid that you'll have to develop a thick skin to work on Wikimedia projects. It's either that or burst a lot of bloodvessels, <grin>. We do have some high level support and it is just a demo which we would have to throw away anyway, so don't let it get you down. Cheers -- Derek Ross 02:48, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, it's all back to the way it was apart from the Rfd notice which will be taken down within a few days once the Rfd process has run its course. No need to worry, so let's get back to business. I recommend that we concentrate on producing the "must have" pages like "Foo tae edit a page", "Wikipedia:Aboot" or "Wikipedia:Village Pump" rather than encyclopedic content. Read Help:How to start a new Wikipedia for a list of things that need doing. Some of them only make sense once sco.wikipedia.org has been created but others can be done now, so let's do those that we can. As for spelling and grammar, I'm not too worried about it right now. Don't get me wrong -- I think that a standardised spelling and grammar is essential and should be based on the work which the wider Scots language community has already done -- but I don't think that it should be a priority for us at the moment. There are always folk like me that'll come along afterwards and copyedit spelling and grammar. For this demo, Wikipedia-related content is more important. So fa tae, chiels. -- Derek Ross 15:43, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Good idea, Derek. In the discussion part of the Scots metawiki, I'ld appreciate you posting a list of what you think needs doing. :D BryanAJParry
      • I wonder about the value of spending time translating things like "how to edit a page" instead of writing encyclopaedic content. While in an ideal world all these things - help pages, policy documents etc - would exist in Scots, you could end up with the extensive infrastructure needed to produce an encyclopaedia but very little in the way of actual articles. Since it's easy for Scots speakers to read all the relevant documents in English, if I was overseeing this project I would encourage as a priority the writing of really good quality articles on initial core subjects like "Scotland", "Scots language", "History of Scotland", some Scottish cities and all the rest of it. While you're doing this I should think the most important thing in the way of infrastructure would be to translate the interface so the wiki looks nice and professional to the casual reader, without having all English words in the sidebar etc. Community pages like the village pump will write themselves - all that's needed is a nice header or something. Putting lengthy policy guides into Scots is a labour-intensive business that won't show any immediate benefits in terms of the number of good articles available to readers. Quite some time ago now I came across the Cornish wiki, which had been set up but had sat there for months with no articles, and one of the things I recommended to get it started was to try and write an article on every village in Cornwall, so that in that specialist area coverage was better than the English Wikipedia. I still think that's good advice. If you can write featured-quality articles on Scottish towns, aspects of Scottish culture, or Scots literature, people will follow the interwiki link from basic stubs on en: and be really impressed by how much better the coverage is in Scots. I think this will get people excited about the Scots wiki in a way that behind-the-scenes instructional pages they can read in English anyway won't. Imagine also something like this: a nuclear physicist starts writing excellent content on the Scots wiki, and hence the whole thing becomes known amongst the nuclear physics people on en: and elsewhere as the place to go for good content to translate. Since the creation of a several-hundered-thousand-article general encyclopaedia from scratch is quite a challenge, concentrating on doing specialised topics really well seems a good way to get started and establish a reputation. The ones that will be of immediate interest to readers will, I suspect, relate to Scotland and the Scots language. My two pennorth on the matter! Trilobite 16:55, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You may well be right, Trilobite, and I think that what you say is good advice for any small Wikipedia. However we still haven't even got that far yet. At the moemnt we just need a small number of pages to demonstrate commitment so that we can actually get sco.wikipedia.org set up. Some of them should be content articles and some should be "how to" pages. In particular we need the "Whit wey tae edit a page" page, the "Whit Wikipaedia isnae", "Whit NPOV is", "Copyricht" and "Spellin an grammar" policy pages, so that new contributors can learn the type of writing that Wikipedia needs. Now there's little doubt that they could learn all of that apart from the spelling/grammar from the corresponding English Wikipedia pages since we can guarantee that all Scots speakers can read English even if they don't speak it but I think that these pages are the minimum requirement for a self contained Wikipedia and that it's important to include them to show that we're doing a proper job. By all means make the other 15-20 articles with particular relevance to Scots. Once we have done all that we should be in a very good position to ask when sco.wikipedia.org is going to be configured. -- Derek Ross 23:40, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another REALLY good book for learning Scots is "Scots Language Learner", L. Colin Wilson, from Luath Press (2003) ISBN: 0-946487-91-X BryanAJParry

Old Norse

Ainu

Võro

Karelian

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: none
  • Proposer:
  • Proposed websie name: fiu-krl.wikipedia.org
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Related to Finnish. Ask fi to host Karelian ? (9 jan 2005)
      • Related, but different language with own alphabet and orthography. --Untifler 16:35, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • No, "relation" does not mean "hosted". It is preposterous to suppose a Wikipedia-within-a-Wikipedia.
        • Could you explain it using some examples in other wikis?
    • No ISO code. How about fiu-kar? (fiu is the generic code for "other Finno-Ugric languages) Or maybe just fi-kar?
      • krl is listed to be a language code --Untifler 13:44, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • Where is it listed ? (9 Apr 2005)
        • "krl" is not a standard language code. (9 Apr 2005)
        • "krl" is not an ISO language code. (18 Apr 2005)

No proposed code

Mikasuki

  • Link to request on mailing list: [3]
  • Name of user requesting this language: Jeremy
  • ISO code: none; nai is a collective code for unclassified North American Indian languages
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Using a generic code like nai is frowned upon. A standard for such codes will hopefully be created. nai-mik, seems reasonable though.
    • More information needed. There should some interest from native speakers before this wikipedia can be created.

Extremaduran and Fala (Galaico-Extremaduran)

Old Tatar

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: none
  • Proposer:
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • No longer spoken, old literary language from which modern Tatar is descended.
    • No ISO code. Are there any better suggestions than tt-ske?

No supporters

Luba-Katanga

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: lu
  • Proposer:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • listed in en:ISO 639-1
    • Anonymous "bulk request" with neither sufficient information nor contact person nor committed native speakers. Should be turned down unless the proposer provides more data. Arbeo 20:33, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

South Ndebele

North Ndebele

Ojibwa

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: oj
  • Proposer:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • listed in en:ISO 639-1
    • Anonymous "bulk request" with neither sufficient information nor contact person nor committed native speakers. Should be turned down unless the proposer provides more data. Arbeo 20:36, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tigre

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: tig
  • Proposer:
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:

Ugaritic

Avestan

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: ae
  • Proposer:
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • listed in en:ISO 639-1
    • Long, long extinct language, thought to be the ancient ancestor of some of the modern Iranian languages

Old Church Slavonic

Balinese

  • ISO code: ban
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Number of speakers: 3.8 million people mostly in Indonesia

Buginese

  • ISO code: bug
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Number of speakers: 4 million people mostly in Indonesia

Gayo

  • ISO code: gay
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Number of speakers: 180,000 people
    • I've seen that gay.wikipedia.org had existed once, but now it's depreciated. --Puzzlet Chung 01:22, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tokelauan

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: tkl
  • Speakers: 4500 in Tokelau, American Samoa, New Zealand and the United States
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Please, quit requesting languages anonymously without leaving any contact information.
      • Related to Samoan. Ask sm to host Tokelauan? Scott Gall 05:27, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Would you quit it already, Scott? One Wikipedia never hosts another. They are either separate or they aren't. And English is related to German... but they have separate Wikipedias. And also, quit requesting Wikipedias for no particular reason. gosh. --Node ue 21:01, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Node, it wasn't Scott who requested the WP in Tokelauan, it was an anonymous IP. And also, if you say one WP never hosts another, the Chinese WP is hosting a simplified Chinese and a traditional Chinese WP. NazismIsntCool 08:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New proposals

Rarotongan

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: mi-ck rar
  • Proposer: Scott Gall 08:15, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • People interested joining:
  • Speakers: 43 000 in Cook Islands, French Polynesia and New Zealand
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • The two might look as if they were the same, both of them being called Maori, but they both have their differences. We could move the New Zealand Maori Wikipedia to mi-nz.wikipedia.org. Scott Gall 08:15, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Scott Gall, after a few weeks, the link you mentioned above to an article on Cook Island Maori is still idle. Could you write that article, please. I think many of us are interested in the particular differences and similarities between New Zealand Maori and Cook Island Maori.--Caesarion 15:08, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I created a redirect to the article on the Rarotongan language five minutes ago. Rarotongan and Cook Island Maori are the same as each other, but not the same as New Zealand Maori. Scott Gall 04:27, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • So "rar" is better. (16 Mar 2005)
          • OK then. rar.wikipedia.org it is. Some New Zealanders call it Cook Island Maori, possibly because it's similar to Maori and the Cook Islands are part of New Zealand. Scott Gall 00:29, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Kabyle

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: kab
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Number of speakers: ~ 3 million


Unserdeutsch

  • Proposer: Scott Gall 08:23, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • ISO code: none; crp for creoles languages
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes and comments:
    • It is a language spoken primarily in Papua New Guinea and the northeast of Australia and almost extinct. It was formed among the New Guinean children residing in a German-run orphanage. Only a few native speakers are still alive.
      • In what does it differ from German "proper"? Is it a creole language?--Caesarion 19:54, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • de:Unserdeutsch also says that all speakers have a fluent command of at least two other languages. Apart from the fact of being nearly exinct, it seems that Unserdeutsch was practically never written and presumably nobody's native language. So who is supposed to write that Wikipedia? Arbeo 16:49, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • de:Unserdeutsch had an example of Unserdeutsch somewhere in it, so the language was written down. However, it looked like it was German with words that were never seen in that language. Scott Gall
        • Possibly redundant with German? (I know for sure that a Transylvanian dialect wiki would be redundant with Romanian.) NazismIsntCool 01:17, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think so, yes. But creole languages are considered seperate languages, mainly for their grammatical deviances. There is a Haitian Wikipedia as well, for example. But Haitian is spoken by almost all of the population, while this language has assumingly no native speakers and is on the edge of extinction. This request is moribund, I am afraid. Caesarion 13:24, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • On top of that, if it doesn't have any native speakers (which seems to be the case here) it isn't really a creole but rather a pidgin language. While a number of creole languages certainly qualify for a Wikipedia (having a fairly standardized written form and sometimes even serving as national/majority languages), pidgin languages are generally volatile ad-hoc creations with a limited capacity of expression and therefore not suitable for an encyclopedia. I think it would be cool if people could investigate such basic facts themselves _before_ requesting any languages they've heard of. Arbeo 12:49, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Saterlandic

  • Proposer: Caesarion 19:54, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • ISO code: none
  • proposed domain: (gem-)slt ?
  • Alternate names: Seeltersk, East Frisian
  • Relevant link:
  • People interested joining:
    • [8] (proposer)
    • Pyt Kramer (personal announcement to proposer)
  • Notes and comments:
    • It is an offshoot of Old Frisian and distinct from Westlauwer Frisian. Today it is only spoken by some 2,000 people in the German community of Saterland. Not to be confused with Ostfriesland Low Saxon, which is often referred to as Ostfriesisch.
    • en:Wikipedia point of view:
      • Some people say fy is for Frisian.
      • Some people say fy is for West Frisian.
      • Some people say fy is for English.
    • Do fy's users allow content in East Frisian (in fy) ? 6 Mar 2005
      • Probably not. Even an article in North Frisian on North Frisian had to be translated into Westlauwer Frisian. Probably the same policy would be held towards Saterlandic. They only accept Standard Westlauwer Frisian. It must be stressed that the three main variants are NOT mutually intelligible.--Caesarion 13:27, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • At the start of fy: I proposed including all Frisian languages, provided we could work out a way to have three Wikipedia within one framework. The advice was to use fy for the biggest of the three, western, and support the creation of other Wikipediae for the other two. So far we've followed the first part of that advice, treating a North Frisian article on North Frisian as just another language example. Now I'd like to do the second part. Though it would hardly attract the same audience, as the languages are further apart than da - no - sv, I would really like to see a Sealtersk Wikipedy. (We would have to figure out a code for it, though.) Aliter 21:14, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • I propose that we use either frs or slt. I let it depend on the preferences of people involved with this project or with creating any new wikipedia.--Caesarion 13:37, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • In my opinion slt or sfr are to be preferred above frs, because that is sometimes used as a n abbreviation for Frisian in general. So M.C.Fort in his Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch p.52 has afrs. for Old Frisian, sfrs. for Saterlandic. Pyt Kramer.


Papiamentu

  • People interested
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: Dedalus
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki: Waerth; Caesarion
  • ISO code: pap
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia: en:Papiamentu
    • App. number of speakers: 100.000
    • Location(s) spoken: Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, Netherlands
    • Closely related languages, if any: Portuguese, Dutch, English, Spanish
    • External links to organizations that promote the language:
  • Link to request on a mailing list: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-March/038625.html
  • Comments:
    • Dutch Wikimedia intitiative http://nl.wikimedia.org/
    • Creole language native to the black population of the Dutch Layward Islands, based on Spanish and Portuguese, with a heavy influence of Dutch.
    • Just 100,000 speakers? There seem to live 150,000 people on Curaçao, 100,000 on Aruba and 10,000 on Bonaire. With 80% of those speaking Papiamentu and some 150,000 more in the Netherlands, you get as many as 350,000 speakers. Caesarion 09:08, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sranang Tongo

  • People interested
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: Dedalus
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki: Waerth, Muijz
  • ISO code: none; crp for creoles languages
  • proposed domain: SRN
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia: en:Sranang Tongo
    • App. number of speakers: 700.000
    • Location(s) spoken: Surinam, Netherlands, USA
    • Closely related languages, if any: English, Jamaican Patois and Criolo
    • External links to organizations that promote the language:
  • Link to request on a mailing list: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-March/038625.html
  • Comments:

Palauan

  • People interested: Belgian man 15:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: Belgian man on Meta, S.V.E.T. on wikt fi:, it:, na: and nl:, Belgian man on w sq:, de:, en:, et:, fr:, la:, na:, no: and yo:, Cars en travel on b and w nl:, C&T on n nl:
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code: pau
  • Relevant infos: most spoken of all four language in Palau
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia: en:Palauan language
    • App. number of speakers: 14 825
    • Location(s) spoken: Palau, Guam
    • Closely related languages, if any: none, further all Malayo-Polynesian languages
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: none
  • Link to request on a mailing list: none
  • Comments:
    • Palauan has 15 000 speakers in one country and one territory (Palau and Guam). Nauruan language, for example, has only 6 000 speakers and has a wiki yet with 65 articles. I would be very active on Palauan wiki, but I must give in that I don't speak this language very well and it's very difficult to learn only with the internet (there are too less sources). Belgian man 15:21, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Belgian Man, have you found people willing to work on these Wikipedias? How many Palauan speakers even have access to the internet? Or do you plan to edit yourself, making it a small pseudowikipedia like na:? Please quit requesting languages over and over. 3 or 4 over the course of a few months is OK, but bugging in just a couple months about a few languages, especially with increased volume of requests from other users, is difficult to deal with.
      • Dear Belgian Man, I appreciate your efforts in trying to set up a Nauruan Wikipedia. But I think you shouldn't go on requesting Wikipedias for Oceanian languages you don't even speak. Furthermore, I find it a little bold to refer to those 65 substubs in na.wikipedia.org as "articles". You seem to be an amateur in those polynesian languages and that's perfectly fine. But you just can't run half a dozen of them as a "one man show". That's impossible, for it takes a whole bunch of people to make _one_ Wikipedia work. My tip: rather put some of your energy into finding some native speakers for one Polynesian WP (preferably Nauruan) and establish a productive community. That would be a much more valuable contribution and possibly more rewarding for you, too. Arbeo 12:14, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • Palauan is only my second request, after Gilbertese. The requests for Nauruan, Tokelauan and Cook Islands Maori are not mine. Belgian man 20:38, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mayan

  • Proposer: Scott Gall 05:31, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • ISO code: myn
  • Links: en:Mayan languages
  • Notes/comments:
    • The Mayan languages are a family of related languages spoken from South-Eastern Mexico through northern Central America as far south as Honduras. They go back at least some 5000 years in the Pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerica. People still speak them today. Scott Gall 05:31, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Agreed that there should be a Mayan Wikipedia, there is one in Nahuatl as well. However, as the name of the article does already indicate, there is not just one Mayan language, and including all variants within one Wikipedia leads to certain disasters. The attemp had better be pointed at either en:Classical Maya or en:Yucatec Maya, I think. Caesarion 10:25, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • How about myn-cs.wikipedia.org for Classical Mayan and myn-yc.wikipedia.org for Yucatec Maya? Scott Gall 07:06, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • Good idea, let's give priority to myn-yc then, which is more likely to gain an acceptable number of frequent users. Classical Maya and other current variants can be given a Wikipedia later. I think the situation is very similar to Sámi, except that there is no such thing as "Classical Sami". Caesarion 16:51, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • "myn-cs" ? I did not know Mayan was spoken in Serbia. (18 Apr 2005)

Simple German

  • Proposed website name: einfach.wikipedia.org
  • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: pentiumforever (Meta Wiki, German Wikipedia, German Wikinews)
  • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki: Caesarion, Waltershausen
  • App. number of speakers: Over 80 Millions Natural language
  • Location(s) spoken: Germany, Swiss, Austria - In Eastern Europe is it a Major foreign language
  • Link to request on a mailing list: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/038870.html
  • Comments:
    • I want to start a Wikipedia similar to "Simple English" but in German; the terms a generally the Same (For kids, teenagers, students, teachers and translators). The German wikipedia is the second largest after the English so it should be easy to find people to help.
    • We should have a standard form for simple language Wikipedias; currently Simple English is at "simple". Perhaps "simple.en", and "einfach.de"? James F. (talk) 18:55, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • If we have a list of simple words for einfach.wp, I would be willing to fill the pt.wikt with them. --E2m 02:12, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • You should do it on the en.wikt as well. I don't know much Portuguese (except it's related to Spanish.) Scott Gall 08:36, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't think simple.en was a great success, so I'm skeptic about a simple.de project - and there are more English-speaking persons than German-speaking. What about a Wikijunior project? Wikijunior also has to use a simple language, and it I think it would be a greater success. --Thomas G. Graf 12:53, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • You're the one who likened Parseltongue to nonsense. But on a more relevant tangent, the Simple WPs are for people from overseas who are learning to speak those languages, but Wikijunior is for small children. NazismIsntCool 01:31, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support
      • --Yonghokim 18:08, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC) personally it would be great to pick up on german that I was learning as a side access to the Deutsch wikipedia. Millions around the world learn german as the prime european language to be learned, especially as the unification becomes a possibility.
      • As long as the name is sorted out, of course. James F. (talk) 18:55, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • As long as the name is sorted out, of course. --E2m 01:28, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • I would find this valuable as a German student. I could contribute to it and read it. My only concern lies with diluting efforts from the primary German Wikipedia. I think einfach.wikipedia.org is elegant and consistant. We won't experience namespace collisions because few languages will necessitate simple versions, and "simple" is a different word for each of the top wikis. Davidstrauss 22:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • Except for English and French, of course. Caesarion 13:31, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • also spanish. but then again, you can play around with synonyms - sencillo etc --Yonghokim 05:20, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • I was accounting for synonyms or terms of equal classification value (like "easy"). I'd advocate facile.wikipedia.org for French and sencillo.wikipedia.org for Spanish. We could make this work for enough languages. It's not like we need that many simple Wikipedias. I personally wouldn't advocate one for Spanish because it's already such a simple language with a relatively small vocabulary (relative to English). A simple Wikipedia for German would be nice because many grammatic complexity issues (for the purpose of reading) can be eased with restrictions on sentence ordering (i.e. not taking advantage of the sentence structure flexibility afforded by declension). I'm not familar enough with French to offer an informed opinion about the need for a simple French Wikipedia. Davidstrauss 01:07, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am intrested with a SIMPLE GERMAN wiki. I started a while ago and I want to learn more.--68.7.199.254 02:15, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I´d also enjoy reading a simple German Wikipedia. (A german language as a second language learner) --Javier Carro 08:47, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose
      • Angela expressed reservations on Wikipedia-l, although not explicitly opposing it
      • Node ue 03:42, 10 May 2005 (UTC) I have already given an antijustification on Wikipedia-l[reply]
      • I would rather opt for creating a limited number of simplified articles (for difficult subjects) within the existing German Wikipedia, e. g. a simple [de:Astrophysik (einfach)] alongside the "regular" [de:Astrophysik] article. This could also work other langages, of course. Arbeo 12:45, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Other
      • I know what you guys should do. Close down Simple and move its content to a Simple: namespace. Create simple namespaces in the other wikis. Also, it is possible do simple Japanese pages as well, at 2 levels: one with kana but no kanji (or whatever they're called) and one in Romaji (or Romanji?) NazismIsntCool 04:53, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sindarin

  • I propose that there be an Elvish Wikipedia, based on J. R. R. Tolkien's Sindarin language. —JarlaxleArtemis 01:38, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • ISO code: none
  • Relevant links:
  • Supporters
  • Notes and comments:
    • In tLotR, Sindarin is the language actually spoken by the elves, while Quenya is a classical language. As with Quenya, there is just enough material to compile a Wikipedia, though analogies with Quenya and primitive Elvish roots in order to enhance the vocabulary may be necessary.
    • JarlaxleArtemis posted this request on the talk page. Since there is a proposal for Quenya as well, which was succesful in gaining supporters, I decided to move it to the article itself. Caesarion 11:22, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose: No fictional language should be legitimate Wikimedia language. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 08:18, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Then you disagree with the mighty guys in the project. They already granted a request for Klingon. A language is always a culture bearer, and as long as you find enough contributors and have enough potential readers it makes sense to open a wikipedia in them. Not that I think this language request has priority, but it must be considered seriously, just as any other request. Caesarion 14:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I second that. This is like saying that languages like Esperanto should have their WPs closed down - or saying that Braille or sign language should be made illegal. NazismIsntCool 01:41, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Both of you intentonally or unintentionally mistook my argument, thus state false to me. I oppose fictional languages like Sindaran, not "international auxiliary languages" like esperanto. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 02:11, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, you were only misunderstoood by NAzismIsntCool. It is very true that there are already Wikipedias in fictional languages (Klingon), and in other languages that don't claim to be international auxiliary languages (Lojban). --Node ue 03:40, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Also, there are people who speak only those languages, probably because it might be part of some weird religion (hopefully not a closed sect of Romanian Orthodox,) will be discriminated against if people like Aphaia are going to go on about not having fictional languages on Wikimedia. If Morse code was banned, transferring messages from ship to ship would be difficult. If Braille was banned, it would be hard for the blind to read. If sign language was banned, it would be hard for the deaf to communicate. If tadoma was banned, then people who are deaf AND blind would be hard-pushed to be able to guess what people are saying. If Esperanto or Klingon or Quenya or anything along these lines are banned, religions who say prayers in those languages won't be able to make do. If you don't re-open the TokiPona Wikipedia, then those guys are going to have a hard time. If T-shirts saying "ROMANIA SUCKS" are banned in schools (which I think they should be, considering I was born in Romania,) then some students will complain after they are suspended for wearing them and expressing their opinion. If Subway was banned, we'd be in for another epidemic of obesity. NazismIsntCool 04:53, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • I agree, Julia. And also, if Scribe was banned, I'd circumvent the ban at first, but there are other New Zealand rappers out there, like Savage, Fast Crew, and all that. If McDonalds was banned, there's also other fast food places, unless they were banned as well, and then I'd have to go to some gang-run joint in an alley full of graffiti. It takes one to make, but it takes the right qualifications to break - anybody can start it, but only the arch-pigs can ban it. It's just like in a Wikipedia article - anyone can create, but only an admin can delete. Scott Gall 05:08, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
              • On a topic unrelated to having a Sindarin WP but related to my last post in this section, I think there are some school districts in the Washington DC area which ban T-shirts with slogans like "DOWN WITH ROMANIA," "FUCK ROMANIA," "ROMANIA IS GAY" and "ROMANIA SUCKS," especially the "FUCK ROMANIA" one. Scott Gall 04:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                • Scott, this is irrelevant to the subject indeed. This is a page to discuss the several requests posted here. Discussions like these must be held on user talk pages, or over private e-mail. Btw, whe aren't talking about banning Sindarin from public life, just about whether or not it should be granted a Wikipedia (which I think it should, bykt). Caesarion 07:59, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                  • So should I. I wouldn't ban it from public life or deny it a wiki. It is fictional, but it should get a wiki - just to please those monolingual in Sindarin. Scott Gall 05:17, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose As far as I'm concerned I think fictional languages don't qualify for Wikipedias. While conlangs intended for serving as international auxiliary languages might have their justification, there will never be a sufficient number of people who are willing and able to create a full-scale, usable encyclopedia in a language that's completely made up solely for literary (i e. entertainment) purposes. Just think about the Klingon WP - it's an utter flop. Arbeo 12:59, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Kawi language/Old Javanese

North Frisian


Silbo Gomero

  • Proposed website name: slb.wikipedia.org
  • Information: Silbo is a "whistled language" spoken in the Canary islands, more specifically on the island of La Gomera, by a dwindling population.
  • ISO code: none
  • Proposer: NazismIsntCool
  • People interested joining
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • Silbo is a language spoken on La Gomera. NazismIsntCool 10:05, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • It is important cultural heritage, surely, but how do you want to write it down? Caesarion 10:22, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • What about en:International maritime signal flags, en:smoke signals or a Morse code Wikipedia? Come on now, this page is not for parody. Arbeo 13:12, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Arbeo, perhaps you do not know much about el silbo gomera. It is an independent language, not an alternative mode of expressing an existing language like all the examples you give. --Node ue 03:35, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • You're right Node, but still you can't write it down. Caesarion 08:12, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Just because it isn't often written down doesn't mean it's impossible. Until the 1970s most people would've said it's impossible to write signed languages. Navajo was not written very much until perhaps the 1930s, and even now most people over 30 can't read it (though those under 30 often can as it is now taught in schools). Silbo Gomera (as in, el silbo de La Gomera) has been written before in scholarly publications. If a fluent speaker so desired, it would be quite easy to write a whole book in Silbo. Materials that were handed out at the first international conference on whistled languages used different transcription systems depending on the author, but they were all quite easy to understand. The transcriptions at the conference were much preferred to audio samples because you can look at a transcription and add to it or cross parts out or analyse it for a whole hour, but with an audio sample it is more difficult to edit and if you want to analyse it you have to listen to it over and over. Whether the actual speakers of Silbo would be able to read a transcription system without first being taught it is debatable, but regardless of that it would be easy to write a program to synthesize Silbo from transcriptions (just as, say, Navajo can be converted from text-to-speech, or American Sign language, etc) --Node ue 21:22, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Why would I request one in maritime signal flags, smoke signals, or Morse code, or even sign language or Braille? You can write down Morse code or Braille, but Braille is actually read by blind people using their fingers and running them over a series of raised dots. NazismIsntCool 04:22, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Node ue, perhaps I know more about it than the user who proposed it as a language for Wikipedia. Matter of fact, he even mispelled the name (and so did you), for it should read "el silbo gomero" (Spanish masculine adjective). You're right, it is an independent language. I don`t question that. But still you can`t _write_ an encyclopedia using it. That`s what I was trying to point out by using the above examples. Then again, maybe NazismIsntCool can prove me wrong by writing down just one sample sentence in silbo (I'm sure he must have thought about that matter before requesting a new wikipedia).Arbeo 14:07, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • It depends whether it is intended as an adjective or not . I am well aware of Spanish grammatical gender, and it was not a 'mistake'. It was intended as a contraction of "el sistemo lingüístico del silbo de la isla que se llaman La Gomera". As I noted above there is no reason one cannot write Silbo. It isn't often done, but it is very possible, and you could write any sort of literature in it from a particle physics textbook to a romance novel to an e-mail to the woman who lives at the base of the mountain on top of which you yourself live. But the only reason anybody has had so far to write it is for research purposes. In ideal conditions it can be heard from more than 1km away, and if you wanted to write a newspaper or public notice it can be done in Spanish (or if you are mentally insane or historically inclined, Guanche). --Node ue 21:22, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Everyone, or nearly everyone, that uses silbo speaks Spanish as well. Scott Gall 00:27, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Nearly everyone who speaks Welsh speaks English as well. Nearly everyone who speaks Catalan speaks Castillian (ie "Spanish") as well. Everybody who speaks Haida speaks English as well. But these facts alone are no reason to not hvae Wikipedias in these languages. --Node ue 21:22, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sesquipedalian

  • People interested:
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis:
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code: none
  • proposed domain: sqp
  • Relevant info:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia: none yet
    • App. number of speakers: a few in humor
    • Location(s) spoken: anywhere
    • Closely related languages, if any: en:English language
    • External links to organizations that promote the language:
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments:
    • There is a simplified English wiki (here, so why not a complicated english one? I have a group of friends who are minor wikipedians without accounts who are enthusiastic about creating this wiki, and we are beginning to translate a few pages from the English wikipedia.
      • I don't know about using sqp as the code. I think sqp might be the 3-letter code for Albanian (the native name for Albanian being Shqip.) Scott Gall 05:26, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think the 3-letter code for Albanian is sqi, not sqp. I know a tiny bit of Albanian, having been to Albania myself as a teenager. NazismIsntCool 08:30, 20 May 2005 (UTC) PS: I am totally opposed to a Sesquipedalian wiki. Regular English was enough of a barrier for me when I came to the United States 6 years ago.[reply]
      • Yeah, right. The regular English Wikipedia is complicated enough, Clarkefreak. The only reason why the simple English wikipedia exists is that some readers (children, learners in early stages) could be unable to understand all of en:. This serves no goal, does it? And in the future, please post your proposals at the end of this page. Caesarion 09:54, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Haida

  • Proposer: NazismIsntCool 08:46, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Supporters:
  • ISO code: hai
  • Proposed domain: hai.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant links:
  • Comments:
    • Haida is a language spoken on the Queen Charlotte Islands and in south-east Alaska.
      • Which script? Latin or Canadian syllabary? Scott Gall 08:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Please, stop mass requesting languages just because you have read about them. Arbeo 13:47, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Azerbaijani written in other alphabets

  • Proposer: NazismIsntCool 05:40, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • ISO code: az-arab, az-cyrl, az-latn
  • Proposed domain: az-crl.wikipedia.org for Azerbaijani written in Cyrillic, and az-arb.wikipedia.org for Azerbaijani written in Arabic.
  • Supporters:
  • Relevant links:
  • Comments:
    • We already have a WP in Azerbaijani, but there are two other scripts widely in use: Azerbaijani speakers in Iran have always used the en:Arabic alphabet, and even in Azerbaijan, the en:Cyrillic alphabet is still used. NazismIsntCool 05:40, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is there any support for one of these, as far as you know, on the current Latin script Azerbaijani Wikipedia? Caesarion 10:42, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • We will be using separate subdomains, one WP never hosts another. Scott Gall 12:47, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • I didn't mean that. I meant: are there users on the current Latin script az: wiki who would like to contribute to any of these two proposed Wikipedias? Caesarion 11:24, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think that the people using Latin script wouldn't be familiar with a change in script, but having Arabic and Cyrillic scripts will give the Azerbaijani language (as a whole) a larger fanbase. But I think some of the people using Latin script might like to use Cyrillic script. Scott Gall 08:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • az was created for many month. It is not for Azerbaijani in all scripts? (28 May 2005)

Serbo-croatian language

  • ISO code: sh
  • Proposer: --Pokrajac 23:18, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links:
  • Notes/comments:
    • I was wondering, who closed sh Wikipedia? I am active on Serbian Wikipedia and I am talking Serbocroatian! Please, could you tell why this Wikipedia doesent exist any more? If you open sh Wiki, you will do good think for science. Sorry because my English is not good. --Pokrajac 23:18, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • It was locked by Andre Engels on February 20 because it is one of the inactive wikis. Have you spoken to anyone in the existing communities at Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian to see what their views on this joint wiki are? Is there anyone else who wants to edit there? Angela 00:17, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, I have not talked whit anybody yet. But it is not think how many momentary active people want to work on sh Wiki whit me. I believe that somebody will join me in future, because Serbo-croatian language is language who talk everybody in Bosnia, Croatia nad Serbia, and there is still people who is not nationalist and believe in one language. This is just like whit German, Spanish or English. There is no Australian, American, Austrian or Brasilian language. So, this Wikipedia (if you open it) will be absolutelly NPOV, liberal and antinationalist Wikipedia. Many liberal and antinationalist people said that they are talking Serbo-croatian despite Balkan war(s). Best regards, and I`m sure that we should have good cooperation. --Pokrajac 09:29, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've asked Jimbo to comment on this since he was recently visiting Wikipedians in Serbia and Croatia and might have some views on what should be done with this Wikipedia. Angela 13:12, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Pokrajac, I guess you're right. It is one language. But the wounds of the nineties Balkan wars are all to fresh to make everyone recognise that, or to let Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks cooperate on one Wikipedia. We must use separate Wikipedias just to keep the whole project peaceful. Caesarion 10:40, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
              • Yes, but you do not understand. I am not talking about not peaceful Wikipedia! Everybody can cooperate where ever hi/she want. We will not close those three Wikipedia... Sh Wikipedia was not closed because of war... :) --Pokrajac 12:22, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Zhengzu is working on some software to allow automated, or semi-automated, conversion between different language variants. Rather than start what would basically be a fork of the three current wikis, I would like to suggest that you wait for this software to be implemented to see what sort of difference this could make in terms of it being easier for people to collaborate on a single wiki. I feel that discussion of how to overcome the current split may be more helpful than just re-opening this wiki only to find it remains inactive, as it did previously. Angela 14:01, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I told to Pokrajac something very similar when he said to me about this idea... And to note (for Pokrajac) that I didn't say anything about that to anyone (i.e. to Angela). --Millosh 00:47, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe that this software should be imlamented soon as posible, or I should ask to open sh Wiki again. --Pokrajac 10:04, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't speak Serbo-Croatian, but I support the idea of immediately reopening this Wikipedia. It exists already, it already has some content and here we have one user willing to take care of it. And chances are good others will follow. This not against anyone who prefers Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian. But I think we should just same respect those who wish to write in a language (variant) that has been widely used for many decades. Arbeo 14:07, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Babyish

  • Proposer: Tomchiukc 07:12, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Supporters:
  • ISO code: none
  • Proposed domain: babyish.wikipedia.org or bb.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant links:
  • Comments:
    • Babyish was originally a language spoken by a certain groups of kids in en:Hong Kong. They uses Cantonese as their mother tongue, and they were taught with extensive amount of English in school as well. On the other hand, some of the kids have their grandparents speaking with another kind of language at home, and some elements were brought into their common language. When they were growing up, some of them learnt French and Japanese and they brought some elements into their common langauge. Such common language does not have a name before, and was named as "Babyish" later, for the comments by one of their parents about "Why are you talking in a tone like a baby?"

      Now, these native speakers of Babyish has spread around the world. Some of them lives in Toronto, some of them lives in en:Boston, some of them lives in en:Chicago, while most of them lives in Hong Kong, but scattered. I wish to use the portal to link these people up, and share their knowledge about the langauge. We used to have literatures and publications (handwritten or typed) in the past. I think this is quite an interesting way to see how a langauge is being developed.

      The maximum number of language population was around 100. There are much less people who can speak this language, as they have forgotten the language when they grown up and speak the "proper language" required by the society. Tomchiukc
    • I've replaced this request on the page after it was removed since I don't think it's trolling. Tomchiukc requested a Wikicity for this, but I suggested it be discussed here first, since Wikicities can not accept projects which duplicate existing Wikimedia projects, and new language versions of Wikipedia need to be explicitly rejected by the community here (for example, Toki Pona) before we will consider hosting them. Angela 11:22, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Request possibly not serious. Scott Gall 12:52, 28 May 2005 (UTC) PS: Here's one that IS serious...[reply]
      • Well... It may not seem to be serious... But we did develop our own alphabets, story books and newspapers. We first cut out old newspapers and reorganize them into a new one. Then we learnt typesetting with typewriters and computers, and thus we can make more publications, bank notes, coins and stamps when we are role-playing. ;-) --Tomchiukc 08:48, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Zero supporters. Let's just ignore it. Arbeo 13:42, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Come on, don't be harsh... We must discuss whether it has to become a Wikicity or a Wikipedia. Most people, including the proposer him/herself, seem to think the former, but, as Angela pointed out, the idea must pass this page to exclude the possibility that it can yet be a Wikipedia. Remarks like "let's ignore it" or my own "looks like trolling" may daunt the proposer, juat coming in newly with a nice idea. Caesarion 14:53, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Europanto

  • Proposer: Scott Gall 12:52, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Supporters:
  • ISO code: none
  • Proposed subdomain: ep.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant links:
  • Comments:
    • Conlang invented in 1996 by Diego Marani. A wikipedia in this language might help it gain acceptance. Scott Gall 12:52, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Europanto has had a novel and newspaper articles published in it in the last 10 years, which is more than some of the languages proposed. It's a sort of lingua franca for language geeks with a sense of humor. (And I wasn't expecting you to go ahead and propose it already, Mr. Gall...) Almafeta 23:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • LOL, but yet worth to be considered. How many speakers does this nice little language have? Caesarion 11:18, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I can't tell you, since Europanto hasn't exactly been measured on any census yet. The French Wikipedia notes one original novel (Las adventures des inspector Cabillot) and translated works of Finnegan's Wake and various classical French authors I'm not familiar with. This site has 100 Europanto texts, mostly political in nature (with one recipe, for some reason). Almafeta 02:03, 31 May 2005 (UTC) (forgot to sign nn;)[reply]
          • I think this language will be beneficial to people who speak the languages used here. I know some, if not all, of these tongues, but there should be a page which lets you know which language to use with which word. Scott Gall 08:39, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
            • A 'false cognate' page and a glossary (26 pages, one per letter) would be useful. Almafeta 18:20, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Hi, Scott Gall! Just a one question about your request: What would be the actual use of a Europanto WP? As far as I know it is a mixture of several major (western) European languages. We have flourishing Wikipedias in all of those languages already. So what would be the point of a, say, mixed English-French-German-Spanish-Italian encyclopedia? Arbeo 13:40, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • And Dutch, don't forget that one. Yes Arbeo, it is as useful or useless as the Wikipedias in minor comlangs like Volapük and Interlingue. But I can't see any principal objections as long as you find enough contributors; it is a language after all. The main question is: should this one be allowed as a wikipedia or should it be erected at Wikicities? Let's discuss about that. Caesarion 14:48, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs

  • Proposer: 66.177.138.113 01:47, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Supporters:
  • ISO code: ?
  • Proposed subdomain: how about eg.wikipedia.org?
  • Relevant links:
  • Comments:
    • I don't know ancient egyptian, but we have Latin, so I don't see why we can't have this,and this would be a very cool wiki.
    • Writing about Nuclear energy in Egyptian hyroglyphs .... would it be possible? Waerth 09:01, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes it will, albeit with some artifices. Take a look at the Old English Wikipedia and see how they solved a similar problem there: with a lot of neologism. Be creative and it will be all right! Caesarion 10:17, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • But there is another problem: I found no evidence of Unicode supporting hieroglyphs and I can hardly imagine it does, since they are so often placed above and underneath one another. And before we think of an Old Egyptian Wikipedia in hieroglyphs, we'd better consider one in Ancient Greek or in Coptic... Caesarion 10:42, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just a technical remark to the anonymus proposer: I think you should change the request to "Ancient Egyptian" or "Egyptian" (written in hieroglyphs, of course), for you don't request scripts here but languages. Since you don't know the language yourself, you should try to find some people willing and able to contribute. Arbeo 13:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Controversial requests

Any proposal that is possibly not serious will be moved down here until it is deemed serious.

See also

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