Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Appalachian English

submitted	verification	final decision

	This proposal has been rejected. This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy based on the discussion on this page. A committee member provided the following comment: This is a dialect of English and as such can't get an own wiki per the policy. It would also lack a proper ISO code. --MF-W 00:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The community needs to develop an active test project; it must remain active until approval (automated statistics, recent changes). It is generally considered active if the analysis lists at least three active, not-grayed-out editors listed in the sections for the previous few months.
The community needs to complete required MediaWiki interface translations in that language (about localization, translatewiki, check completion).
The community needs to discuss and complete the settings table below:

What	Value	Example / Explanation

Proposal
Language code	en (SIL, Glottolog)	A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name	Hillbilly / Mountain Speech	Language name in English
Language name	English	Language name in your language. This will appear in the language list on Special:Preferences, in the interwiki sidebar on other wikis, ...
Language Wikidata item		Item about the language at Wikidata. It would normally include the Wikimedia language code, name of the language, etc. Please complete at Wikidata if needed.
Directionality	no indication	Is the language written from left to right (LTR) or from right to left (RTL)?
Links		Links to previous requests, or references to external websites or documents.
Site URL	en.wikipedia.org	langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name	Wikipedia	"Wikipedia" in your language
Project namespace		usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace		"Wikipedia talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads	no	Default is "no". Preferably, files should be uploaded to Commons. If you want, you can enable local file uploading, either by any user ("yes") or by administrators only ("admin"). Notes: (1) This setting can be changed afterwards. The setting can only be "yes" or "admin" at approval if the test creates an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) first. (2) Files on Commons can be used on all Wikis. (3) Uploading fair-use images is not allowed on Commons (more info). (4) Localisation to your language may be insufficient on Commons.
Optional settings
Project logo		This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone	United states/Pennsylvania	"Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces		For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings		Anything else that should be set
Once settings are finalized, a committee member will submit a Phabricator task requesting creation of the wiki. (This will include everything automatically, except the additional namespaces/settings.) After the task is created, it should be linked to in a comment under "final decision" above.

Proposal

Until relatively recently, people from across the United states spoke in a handful of different ways, each area contained its own unique vocabulary and its own ways of expression. That being said, the Appalacian region was particularly full of 'em. Since it was originaly settled by people of diverse backgrounds, with such a lovely blend of Scots and irish, many archaic words and expressions were preserved.

Note: I will be contribute and I hope we will begin to see more english variaties on Wikipedia as it lets other languages do.

Appalachian English is not a dialect, nor a language. It's a conservative way of life.. --Eitanish (talk) 23:43, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Appalachian English is a dialect, not a language. Allixpeeke (talk) 22:54, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the question arises whether one's dealing with a dialect or language. We can't simpely add every single kind of speech on Wikipedia, can we? The exceptions here are:

It derives many of its futures from earler forms of English
It exists even before American English was standardised
It was quite isolated from the others, which gave it some time to develope independently.

The same claim here you can make about Scots or Northumbia --Eitanish (talk) 23:37, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, but Scots is a real language that diverged from modern English after the Middle English phase. Appalachian English doesn't even have an ISO code, which is a requirement for languages to get a Wikipedia. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:39, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I know it has been rejected, but Hiberno English originated in the very same fashion as Scots, and is much further from Modern English than Scots is. It contains syntax and words directly from Old Irish and Old Norse, just like Scots. The only justification for a Scots wiki is that it has an ISO code. ISO codes, regardless of whether they are a requirement or not, does not officialise a language. ISO are are a Swiss NGO who's specialises in standardisation, not linguistics. How exactly can they have the overriding authority to govern Wikipedia versions?

On top of this, in linguistics, there is no distinction between a language and a dialect. They vary depending on who you ask. It can be argued that all languages are dialects of each other, and that all dialects (and even personal/ familial vernacular) are independent little languages. I suggest you educate yourself on Anglic dialects before you go off and try to educated others, which seems to be a very common thin among the Scots debate here. Uamaol (talk) 05:27, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I already am familiar with the some of the Anglic languages and dialects (as well as English creoles/pidgins), like Scots and Yola. Whether you like it or not, having an ISO 639-3 code is a requirement for Wikipedias and I don't think that will change anytime soon. I agree that there's no consistent definition of languages and dialects. In fact, I wrote something to that effect Special:Diff/7880488. In fact I wrote this a year ago (Feb 2014): "Rather than dealing with the difference between dialect and language (which is arbitrary)..." However, there are some tools to measure the distance between language varieties, such as Ausbausprache (and mutual intelligibility, which is included in Abstandsprache). You really think to seem I'm 100% stupid about linguists, but I'm really only about 99% stupid. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:42, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Does Simple English Wikipedia have a code? --Eitanish (talk) 23:51, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, but that was created before the current language policy. PiRSquared17 (talk) 12:41, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An ISO code could be developed later, as shown by the case of the Silesian Wikipedia--84.229.12.14 14:46, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nowadays the language proposal policy requires ISO code before approval, not after. PiRSquared17 (talk) 14:48, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]