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Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Bavarian

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Bavarian Wikipdia

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submitted verification final decision
  This proposal has been approved.
The Board of Trustees and language committee have deemed that there is sufficient grounds and community to create the new language project.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

The requested project was created at bar: at an indeterminate date. Note that this request was approved before the implementation of the standardised Language proposal policy, and should not be used as a model for future requests. Shanel 05:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal summary
Please read the handbook for requesters for help using this template correctly.
  • Number of speakers: no less than 17 million
  • Locations spoken: one third of Bavaria, Most of Austria, South Tirol
  • Related languages: High Franconian (including Standard German), Alemannic
Comments
  • Bavarian is closer to standard German than Alemannic is; yet many consider it either a separate language or a coherent cluster of quite independent German dialects. It is never called "Bayrisch" in Austria and South Tirol, where it is referred to as Österreichisch and Südtirolerisch, respectively. In Bavaria and Austria, Bavarian is almost everyone's native language; even in cities and towns it is used very widely.
    • Hi Caesarion! Oiso, i woas ned... Bavaria being my adopted country I'm feeling flattered ;-) However, I'm afraid a Wikipedia covering all Bavarian dialects is not feasible. They are just to different to fit within one single encyclopedia. Moreover, they are all part of the German language and only very rarely used in non-fictional writing. Do we really need this one? Arbeo 09:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • This is definitely not true. Bavarian is 'native language' only in three of the seven administrative districts ('Regierungsbezirke') of Bavaria . North Bavaria speaks a Franconian and the south-west a Swabian dialect. -- 172.179.95.20 15:04, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • This little confusion has its origin in the fact that the English term "Bavarian" unlike the German language makes no difference between "bayrisch" in the sense of the state of Bavaria (which also includes Franconian- and Alemannic-speaking districts) and "bairisch" as the linguistic term for the dialects spoken in Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, the Upper Palatinate, most of Austria (except Vorarlberg) and South Tyrol. We are talking here about the second meaning, cf.en:Austro-Bavarian. --84.113.230.60 19:38, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Arbeo, we need it as much or little as we need the Alemannic, Limburgic and Plattdütsch Wikipedias. Any speaker can judge whether he thinks a Bavarian Wikipedia is feasible. The borders between dialect and separate language are very vague indeed and have become even more so over the past years. While Bavaria is clearly not a separate country, you can't say the same about Bavarian so easily. And while there are indeed many Bavarian dialects this should not be an unsurmountable obstacle for creating a Wikipedia, if there are only a few devoted users willing to coordinate the whole project. And finally, the fact that it is rarely used for non-fictional writing goes for many other languages; just remember for how many of them Wikipedia is the first encyclopaedia that was ever created in that language. Caesarion 12:21, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you want to create a bavarian wikipedia, go ahead. But don't tag it as "Austro-Bavarian and Südtirolerisch". There are many different dialects within Austria, with big differences between, for example, Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria and Vienna. --Tsui 17:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC) (de:Benutzer:Tsui)[reply]
    • Support. Being an Upper Austrian dialect speaker, I do not view the differences between the bavarian dialects of Austria as a huge obstacle for this project. Actually I think the differences are less to be found in written than in spoken dialect. It is the melody which makes each of them distinctive. But if you compare dialect texts from all the bavarian dialect regions of Austria, they are pretty similar, apart from a few local distinctive features which can be understood easily in general, at least from the context. Same applies to the differences between the Austrian and German Bavarian language. It is no problem for people between Weiden in the Upper Palatinate in Northern Bavaria and the Austro-Hungarian border to understand each other, both in written and spoken dialect. Again, if you compare for instance dialect songs from Bavarian and Austrian song writers like Konstantin Wecker and Wolfgang Ambros, the differences in lyrics are marginal. I assume that in contrast the differences between the Alemannic dialects in Switzerland, Vorarlberg, Liechtenstein, Alsace and Southwestern Germany are much bigger what did not deter them from building a sucessful shared Wikipedia. Of course one could also argue that each federal state of Austria deserves its own wikipedia, but I doubt this is realisable in practice. Creating one local Wikipedia for all Bavarian speakers in Bavaria and Austria (which amount to at least 12 million people) would allow for a vital local wikipedia. Given the fact that about one half of the Bavarian speakers live in Austria, I would propose to label this joint Wikipedia 'Bairisch-Österreichisch' (Bavarian-Austrian), if our Bavarian friends do not have too much troubles with this. I am well aware this is not the correct linguistic term. However, I doubt that the majority of Austrians know what the generic term for their spoken dialect in linguistics is. They usually refer to it with the name of their federal state or just Austrian. I would like to discuss this. --84.113.230.60 00:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Two problems: First is, there is no common, standardised, way to write in any of the bavarian dialects. Second: there are big differences between the dialects. Some examples: here is the, quite famous, poem "med ana schwoazzn dintn" by w:H. C. Artmann in viennese dialect and, for comparison, the lyrics of a song by tyrolean singer Zabine, "kapfinger".
        The simple sentence "Ich heiße...", is "I haas" in Vienna, but "I hoas" in Innsbruck. "Kommst du" is "kummst" in Vienna, but "kimst" in Tyrol. And I'm not even talking about Carinthia, Styria, Burgenland etc. or Bavaria, which has its own separate regions and dialects. Arbeo above writes "i woas net" (en: "I don't know"), which seems to be bavarian; in Vienna it would be "i waas net". Where Konstantin Wecker sings "oana" (en: "one"), Wolfgang Ambros sings "ana". --Tsui 04:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I concede these arguments are well-founded. On the other hand: I have no difficulties in reading all four of these texts (funny enough, the only demanding text for me is the Artmann poem although I have lived in Vienna for six years) and I find the variety interesting and would like to learn about it. Is it really necessary to have a uniform, standardised transcription? In my opinion, a dialect wikipedia should rather promote the variety of local dialects which belong to the same group (and can still be read as it seems to be the case to a large degree here, at least according to me) than having strict rules. It would be interesting to learn how the Alemannic Wikipedia deals with these questions. --84.113.230.60 10:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion it does not make sense to create a new Wikipedia for every dialect. You have to write everything again, and the only difference is the spelling of the words. But what is the use of it? People who speak bavarian or related dialects can also read texts written in standardized german. They do every day, when they read their newspaper or a cooking book. In my opinion a wikipedia in "allemannian dialect" (or how it is called correctly) is also waste of time, energy etc... because they people probably prefer reading the german (de)-wikipedia, because there the information is more professional and much more articels can be found there. Would you create an own wikipedia for "users from texas" too, just because they (probably?) talk in a special kind of dialect? Of course no. In my opinion this "wikipedia for every dialect" is only a special form of patriotism. I speak bavarian dialect too (I'm from austria), and I like the dialect, but I don't write in dialect, because there is no standard so that everyone who speaks that dialect can read it well, and in fact it is really easier to read and write in standard german, when you want to reach other people. -->With dialect-wikipedia you reach a more or less big part of the population using this dialect, but with a wikipedia in standard germand, you reach everyone who speaks german, and by the way, the de-wikip. gets better much faster when everyone concentrates his forces into this single one german language wiki, instead of divorcing the "writing-forces" into different area-dialects. If it all would run like this, we now had about 4 or 5 wikipedias for the biggest dialect groups, and everyone of it would have it's good and it's bad researched parts, so that no one of them in fact would be as complete, as it now is (it is not complete, it probably will never be, but you know what I mean - we have much more us with one big germand wikip. because everyone - doesn't matter which dialect - can read it and work on it! Sorry for my probably not very well english! -- de:Otto Normalverbraucher 11:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The comparison to dialects of Texas is patently absurd. Texan dialects are barely different at all from other North American dialects of English, seeing as it's been separated from any other dialect by less than 400 years, less than 300 years for the majority of them, and less than 200 years for most dialects west of the Mississipi River. --Node ue 04:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is not that the Bavarians, Austrians and South Tyroleans be unable to edit and understand the German Wikipedia, I just think the present dialects are separate enough to be considered a language and to be granted an encyclopaedia - just that it would be something new to create a Bavarian Wikipedia seems enough reason to some to reject it. Wikipedias in regional languages have proven workable in the past, even wehen everyone writes in his own dialect. Alemannic, Limburgic and Platt preceded this request and are solid, good (if not yet full-grown) Wikipedias. Caesarion 19:17, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is another language with millions of speakers which should have its own wikipedia. As with other regional languages in Europe, I think an Austro-Bavarian wikipedia would be likely to succeed. But there is extensive dialectal variation, and I think some "dialects" are perhaps distinct enough that they should have separate wikipedias. --Chamdarae 02:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I grew up in Rodach until 12 and then in Regensburg until I went to Italy, part of my family is in Regensburg, Munich and part in Niederösterreich so one thing should be clear: I very much appreciate this project. I took a bit of time because I was not sure if to actively participate or just support the project - at this moment there are too many things going and so I am so sorry that I am not able to do much - of course: if you need help with single things, let me know. --Sabine 14:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It would be better, to build in the especially terms of bavarian or austrian language in the standard german wikipedia. At first there are not so many forces to fill up an austro-bavarian wiki, following the most reader search in the standard german and so the complete project will die automatically again. The existing project must have so much of place (bytes and tolerance) that both variations can leave together. K@rl 198.40.90.11 05:18, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Really this is a general consideration: all these small wikipedias for minor languages or languages that have many varieties are to be seen as a very effective way to preserve that language and culture. It does not make too much difference if someone writes "I woas" or "I waas" because it is just transmitting the sound into written language. A Bavarian speaking person will know both of them. They will know where the writer comes from. So any wikipedia, no matter if Bavarian, Platt, Sicilian (who btw. do a really good job), Neapolitan etc. is mainly there to preserve a language and culture. If a language dies the culture dies with it. As for these languages it is not so important to have all articles, but have as much use of the language as possible. And having to write about scietific things, history etc. in that languages is very important since most of all you only find poems, songs etc. and over time these minor languages become more and more adapted to the stanardised language (for Bavarian this is German) unless that minor language becomes an indefinible something with a common writing, but different pronunciation according to the region where people pronounce that words ... well this means that the language is dieing and with it its unique culture. Now I already know the answers that are going to come: well, I am for preserving languages like Bavarian, Saxon, Low Saxon, Neapolitan, Venetian, Sicilian etc. --Sabine 20:29, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
as a bavarian and admin at german Wikipedia I strongly oppose this dialect wikipedia. the bavarian dialects are too different both written and spoken, the difference to the austrian dialects is even greater, especially in matters of vocabulary. I live near the border to Salzburg and can tell you that you will hear the difference a single meter behind the border. Also, you can't write 17 million speakers there, most of Munich doesn't count. -- TomK32 WR Internet 07:22, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to TomK32: most of Vienna doesn't count too ;). IMHO, This may be a nice project, but I'm not sure, if it's the right time for this to start now. -- Fleasoft 09:05, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nonsense Bavarians are going nuts. You people speak German, not Bavarian. Bavarian is a

dialect/accent of High German. Low German is a somewhat seperate language, while Bavarian is simply a dialect. Stop being cranky and start writing more in the GERMAN WIKIPEDIA. 141.53.194.251 12:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • You talk nonsense. If you really don't know the difference between accent and dialect, you're just absolutely ignorant when it comes to linguistics. And again: the main reason to call Bavarian a dialect is just a political/sociological one: the presence of a superstrate Standard Language. Start doing linguistics, then you'll notice that elsewhere in the world variants with much smaller mutual differences are considered separate languages. In the meantime: keep your shut about things you know nothing about. Caesarion Velim, non opto 17:15, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Who decides where to draw the line between dialect and language? Why is Luxembourgian a language and Bavarian a dialect? Linguistics teaches us there is a lot of politics involved in this. There is a famous quote by Noam Chomsky: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." Why should then the politicians tell us which languages are worth preserving and which not? --84.113.230.60 19:22, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • support I would support the idea of creating a bavarian wikipedia (including the bavarian dialect of Austria and South-Tyrol). But a big question is how we are going to write a word in Bavarian. There doesn't exit any rules and the pronounciation varies even within bavaria from region to region. E.g to come would be pronounced kim in Niedernbayern but kum in the Oberpfalz. Therefore we shouldn't try to imitate the pronounciation for an entry for a bavarian word as it is done (unfortunately) on the menus in some bavarian restaurants. E.g. the entry for a widely-used greeting in Bavaria should be Grüß Gott but not Griaß God or something like this. Additionally it is possible to add the regional used pronounciation in brackets using the official phonetical alphabet. To start with we should focus on articles about bavarian or austrian-concerned themes like bavarian songwriters, bavarian culture etc.We shouldn't start with an article about relativity theority in bavarian. Another important area are entries about special bavarian words like Semmel, Kren, Godl or Stenz etc.

But perhaps we need for this a bavarian wiktionary. 213.6.235.33 21:22, 5 September 2005 (UTC)(de:user:tk)[reply]

  • as a bavarian, I strongly oppose a bavarian wikipedia. dialect, not language. --Elian 02:33, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Elian, how many times must we say it? Bavarian is a dialect without an army and a navy and Standard German is one with. Just come up with one strong linguistical argument why Bavarian is a dialect and Slovak, Tuvaluan, Indonesian, Dutch, Norwegian and Karelian are not dialects of Czech, Tahitian, Malay, German, Swedish and Finnish, respectively. Just one strong argument. Then you can join this discussion. Caesarion Velim, non opto 14:39, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wos buidst du daheaglafner Lakl dia agendlich oo, mia z'sagn woin wan I mitmochn deaf in dea deppatan Diskussion hia? Mia hom a deitsche Wikipedia, dö kon a jeda depp lesn aa wen a sunst nix ko. mea brachats hoit schlichtweng ned. Hoost mi??? --Elian 08:57, 7 September 2005 (UTC) (if someone can fix my spelling? I am not so sure in bavarian orthography if there is one at all)[reply]
        • Elian, there are two things you must separate. You may know how to speak Bavarian, but do you know about its linguistic ins and outs? Unless if I'm very wrong, you have not stated one linguistic argument in the above, once again so! And of course, whether the Bavarian Wikipedia will be created bepends on whether there are enough willing contributors. No-one will stop you and other Bavarians to continue working on de:, neither will we force you to start contributing to gem-bai:. So what's the matter with all this? Will having a Bavarian Wikipedia hurt you? No. It won't even hurt de:, since there continues to be a strong iflux of new contributors, and the German population is still big enough to recruit loads of new Wikipedians, both for the Standard German Wikipedia and for the regional ones existing and to-be-created. Caesarion Velim, non opto 10:25, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Btw I could hardly read your Bavarian though my passive comprehension of German is good - a strong argument for calling Bavarian a separate language, I daresay ;-). Caesarion Velim, non opto 10:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I am a new user and I would like to contribute to both versions. Elian, in my opinion the aim is not to replace the German Wikipedia but to create a platform for certain articles in Bavarian in order to show that our dialects (or better regional languages) are qualified for a "modern" medium and not something old-fashioned. You could compare it with the successful Asterix-versions in regional languages which do also likely promote their use. See also my comment below. Pfiat di! --84.113.230.60 11:34, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Contra I am Bavarian, I hate having to read somthing which is normal my language in some strange spelling. Use normal spelling, it is only a choice of some word left. So it is the same and They should write in the German Wikipedia.
  • oppose I am Bavarian. In contrast to Standard German, there is no standardized variant of Bavarian. All speakers of Bavarian are bilingual and have access to German language encyclopedias. Adding Bavarian content to any Wiktionary would be interesting though, but it is already possible. I also hate the idea of abandoning southern words like "Jänner" in de.wikipedia, as that is a perfectly High German word (although it is an Austrian regionalism). Of course, if there are enough people who really want to work on a Bavarian Wikipedia, go ahead ... --zeno 23:25, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think a misunderstanding of many opponents here is they believe this new Wikipedia would somehow replace the German Wikipedia (for much of Bavaria and Austria) and all articles from the German Wikipedia would have to be translated into the new Wikipedia, with all creative forces directed toward the new Wikipedia exclusively. This would certainly be a misconception. In my opinion the Bavarian Wikipedia should not strive for building a complete new Wikipedia with the same number of articles and an overall spectrum like the German Wikipedia. It should rather focus on certain interesting articles which could be longer and might be centered around local topics concerning Bavaria, Austria and Südtirol, like regional culture, artists, songwriters, popular personalities, but also science and history. As Sabine has put it: "Having to write about scientific things, history etc. in that languages is very important since most of all you only find poems, songs etc." According to me, the main intention should be to show that our daily language is a vital language which is also convenient for an encyclopedia. By using it in this "modern" medium it could be shown that our regional languages are everything but outfashioned; that they are valuable and preservable parts of our culture and a heritage which is worth to be preserved. At least this is my opinion... Concerning regional vocabulary, which is only used in parts of the Bavarian language area, I think everybody should use it as he uses it in everyday language. We could just add links to the Wiktionary explaining it - I think this is almost an advantage because it allows mutual learning of sometimes "endangered" words and promotes their daily use and preservation. --84.113.230.60 23:55, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does not Standard, or TV German, relate to the other German Platts and Allemmanic langs (from Italy over Poland, Romania, Ceckoslovakia and Nederland/Begium/Luxemburg to entire Scandinavia) the same way as worldwide use of englisch relates to all languages on earth?--84.60.215.33 10:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • support: I like the idea, although I don't know whether I would take part. One thing isn't said yet: The Bavarian wikipedia will not be built for being read in first place; there is no Bavarian that can't read the German one. The Bavarian wikipedia will be built for writing in Bavarian, such as the Low German or the Alemannic, I don't think they are built to give their readers an alternative to the German one. Elian, you are right when you say we don't need it. But do we need everything in the wikipedia? Do we need the Alemannic or Platt one?Why should they have what we, Freistaat (I know this only means republic), don't have? But please, use an honest spelling, such as in de:Bairische Umschrift. It's not "Kinda" but "Kinder"! It's not "heanoch" but "hern°ach" (where's that letter?)! And I don't think there would be a big problem with the different Bavarians. Once we have an honest spelling, a big part of the problems are away (but the text is still Bavarian, it's not a choice of some word left, dear who-said-that.) For the rest, we simply tolerate the different Bavarians. --84.154.111.68 09:34, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am not entire sure if Kinder is to be preferred over Kinda. As a matter of facts, there are more ways of spelling Bavarian, and the -er ending is actually pronounced "-a". But we should deal with that later, I think. Most important of all is that the supporters of a Bavarian Wikipedia unite and start creating something worth reading. Caesarion Velim, non opto 13:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I wrote that because someone above me was worried about "having to read somthing which is normal my language in some strange spelling." And the -er ending is pronounced "-a", but so is it if a Bavarian reads a High German text. --84.154.100.86 12:52, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • NONSENSE I oppose this motion to create an Austro-Bavarian Wikipedia. There is not one Austro-Bavarian dialect there is a number of different dialects. --EricPoehlsen 13:41, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. As a native speaker of Lower Bavarian, I don't even see the possibility to create a Wikipedia with the dialect of my home district, as there are so many differences. It's even more impossible when you think of all the Bavarian dialects. There is no such thing as "High Bavarian", you can't really make up one dialect for Upper Palatinate, Munich and South Tyrol. -- 84.146.131.236 16:49, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • First read all of what is said above. We don't want to write in one unified dialect on that Wikipedia. Your dialect is excluded since it does not belong to the Bavarian language but to High Franconian, i.e. German in the narrowest sense. Of all of the dialects that remain, any speaker may write in their own variety: someone from München writes Münchnerdeutsch, someone from Vienna Viennese, someone from Bolzano South Tyrolean. We are confident that this will work, just because it works on nds:, als: and li:! And finally: Wikipedias are not prevented from being created when most people oppose it on this page, though some of you seem to think that.
      • Caesarion, as a supporter I would like to ask you: please do not write in this aggressive tone. We should have a fair debate, in which everyone might express his opposition or support. If there are enough supporters and a test works, we'll see what will be possible. Btw, Lower Bavarian does belong to the Bavarian language, not to High Franconian. --80.121.28.56 (I am former user 84.113.230.60) 05:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well. 84.133, sorry about that, but the matter is that we are debating the question and then opposers come in with comments that betray them not to have read most of the discussion. Besides, I am under the impression that someone at de: or possibly on a forum or irl is convoking as many people as possible to oppose this project, thinking that stating an objection here is a vote against (quod non, Wikipedias are not voted for to be created, they are created when there is just enough support for them, when there are no linguistic objections and most of all when there are innuf contibutors). By the way, I am not sure what is meant with Lower Bavarian: if this constitutes all of the dialects of North Bavaria it is not Bavarian. Caesarion Velim, non opto 08:17, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Lower Bavaria is deeply Bavarian ;-) Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Bavaria --80.123.13.208 10:54, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Caesarion, the fact that you think Lower Bavarian is some sort of High Franconian makes me doubt that you know what you're talking about. And I'm sure it won't work that everybody writes how he wants or thinks in one Wikipedia. -- Yesterday's 84 ip, 84.146.133.235 12:01, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, in fact I did not know what Lower Bavarian constituted, but once they disambiguated its meaning I am convinced. Of course I withdraw the above statement on Lower Bavarian. And indeed, I am not really an expert about Bavarian, but what little I know about it firmly constitutes my opinion that it is a separate language. I would, under this conditions, never have opened this entry if not someone else proposed a Wikipedia in South Tyrolian. I opposed that idea but thought a Bavarian Wikipedia was feasible, and quite the only way yet to give South Tyrolean a chance. I could not possibly have known that I would be dragged in such a discussion. Yet, as I opened this entry I feel bound to continue contributing to the discussion as well as I can. And since I feel bound to correct someone else's views, you may feel free to correct mine. Caesarion Velim, non opto 22:30, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I just added the ISO-Code for Bavarian - it exists. It is also in the Unesco red book of endangered languages (for now it is categorised as "not endangered" it is grouped as well with Austrian there). Just for info - so it is already considered a language and not a dialect like many suppose. --Sabine 16:59, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sabine, you are mistaken when writing; considered a language and not a dialect - a dialect is a variant or a variety of a language. Since a variety of something is also a something, so is each and every dialect a language. The entire discussion when it comes to dialect is not 'language or dialect' but of deviation and need:
          1. Does proposed new language deviate enough from already existing language when written?
          2. Is there a need among potential readers to find proposed new language? E.g. because they preceive already existing language hard/impossible to read, or they hate reading it, or maybe just for fun and/or minority pride.
          3. Is there a sufficient base of writers and supporters who feel the urge to express encyclopedic knowledge in proposed new language rather than already existing language? Will it enrich the world? Will there be contributions that warrant translation? ... that probably were not made in another language?--84.60.195.122 01:26, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I second what most of the other supporters already stated: On the one hand, there's no great sense in pointing out the diversity of the language, as Allemanic is just diversified as Bavarian. On the other hand, such Wikipedias serve the interest of propagating a language as cultural assets, rather then being merely an encyclopedia anymore. No one has to read it, if they just want to look up a certain piece of information, but you can look at it in order to perceive the feeling of the language - I really did enjoy looking over Allemanic and Letzeburgish Wikipedias just for interest (trying to understand as much as possible). I further agree that it might serve the purpose of keeping the High German Wikipedia free from dialectal influence, as people become more and more aware of the differences between their spoken dialect and the standardized language. --Monad 21:19, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have corrected Locations spoken: from most of Bavaria to one third of Bavaria. South Western Bavaria (roughly cut Region "Schwaben" inside Bavaria) speaks an Allemannic variety; Northern half speaks several Frankonian varieties belonging to the Middle German language group whilst Bavarian, Austrian, etc. belong to the Upper German language group; the utmost North-West has a Palatinian Rhine-Franconian language. So only less than 1/4 of the area of federal state Bavaria is populated by Bavarian speaking inhabitants, who probably contribute 1/3 or so to overall non-immigrant population. -- 84.60.195.122 01:59, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just found out that there is also an iso 639-2 code for Bavarian and that it is present also in Hungary and the Czech Republic. Knowing that usually iso 639-2 codes are used, therefore I changed it. Furthermore I added the link to Ethnologue where a detailed description of where it is spoken can be found. 84.60.195.122 could you please tell us who you are? Thank you! --Sabine 09:40, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Language code gem is inappropriate. It denotes a language group (bad but tolerable) yet it's an 'other' group (intolerable) and in fact includes such diverse languages as Achterhoeks (Nederland), Afrikaans, Swiss-Allemannian, Amerdish (USA), English Romani (United Kingsdom, Ireland), Bayerisch/Ost-Oberdeutsch (Group code: gem-bar), Cimbrian (Cayman Islands), Dalska/Dalmaan (Sweden), Franconian Noort Drents and Zuid Drents (Nederland), Fränkish (Germany), Old Frankish (Germany), Eastern Frisian (incl. dialects: Eastfresean, Saterlandic, ...), North Frisian Languages (Group Code gem-frs-*) (with Dialects: Sölreng, Helgolands, Ferring, Mooring, ...), Alemán Coloneiro (Venzuela, Colonia Tovar), German Hutterite (Canada), Pennsylvania-German (USA), Gronings (Nederland), Jamska (Sweden), Jysk/Western Danish (Danmark), Kölsch (Germany), Mainfrankish language Group (Germany), M´cheno (Italy), Norn (United Kingdom), Pfälzisch (Germany), Plautdietsch (Canada, et al.), Sallands (Netherlands), Upper Saxon (Germany), Lower Silesian (Poland, [Germany]), Skånsk language group (Sweden, Bornholm, ...) (with several dialects), Stellingwerfs (Nederland), Swabian (Germany), Tavringer Romani (Sweden), Traveller Danish (aka Rodi, Rotwelsch) (Denmark), Traveller Norwegian (aka Rodi) (Norway), Twents (Netherland), Veenkolonials (Netherland), East Veluws (Netherland), North Veluws (Netherland), Vlaams Group of Languages (Belgium), Walser Swiss, Westerwolds Low Saxon (Netherland), Westphalien (Germany), Western Yiddish (Germany), Yinglish (USA), plus few more less known plus expected future additions. -- Purodha Blissenbach 11:53, 2005 September 11 (UTC)
  • I am a native Bavarian speaker and opposite to a bavarian wikipedia. The written language in Bavaria is high German. There is no stardardized way to write Bavarian, and its dialects differ a lot. I do not believe that there is a person in Bavarian who would prefer reading a text in non-standardized Bavarian over reading it in High German.--84.146.162.44 13:28, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • support I would support the idea of creating a bavarian wikipedia (including the bavarian dialect of Austria and South-Tyrol). But a big question is how we are going to write a word in Bavarian. There doesn't exit any rules and the pronounciation varies even within bavaria from region to region. E.g to come would be pronounced kim in Niedernbayern but kum in the Oberpfalz. Therefore we shouldn't try to imitate the pronounciation for an entry for a bavarian word as it is done (unfortunately) on the menus in some bavarian restaurants. E.g. the entry for a widely-used greeting in Bavaria should be Grüß Gott but not Griaß God or something like this. Additionally it is possible to add the regional used pronounciation in brackets using the official phonetical alphabet. To start with we should focus on articles about bavarian or austrian-concerned themes like bavarian songwriters, bavarian culture etc.We shouldn't start with an article about relativity theority in bavarian. Another important area are entries about special bavarian words like Semmel, Kren, Godl or Stenz etc.

But perhaps we need for this a bavarian wiktionary. 213.6.235.33 21:22, 5 September 2005 (UTC)(de:user:tk)

  • Support: Bavarian is seen as a language by SIL International (ethnologue.com) and UNESCO for example! Furthermore there are many poems, essays, etc. and thus some writing rules (that maybe have to be improved; but I do not think so, see www.bayerische-sprache.de)! Another reason for supporting a gem-bar.wikipedia is, that the other "dialect Wikipedias" are active ones and in top 100 of all 200 Wikipedias (when comparing the article number); near the Hindi Wikipedia! @Anonymous users: Your oppositions only conditionally can be counted when you are anonymous (some IP numbers do change every day)! Furthermore (see point seven; at the top) we just want to know, if there are people interested in starting this Wikipedia. And because there are some users (and the other dialect group Wikipedias "do their job" pretty well), I would say there is nothing that would speak against the creation. @Caesarion: Unfortunately I was this unwise person who has told some users with a "I speak Bavarian" babel on their user pages, that there is a discussion about a Bavarian Wikipedia. But I didn't think that so much of them would strrongly oppose (due to personal reasons, I think). But nevertheless this is better than the case in which nobody would know about this proposal. So we have pretty much supporters, too. --- Conclusion: just create it, wait, and see (and be astonished ;-); see my user page for more comments on this, Melancholie 03:35, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just one announcement, useful for non-fluent speakers who want to offer their help: besides the links given above, there is a site especially created for those who want to learn it: Bayrisch-lernen.de (I regret the y-spelling in its title, of course :)). Also quite useful if you speak it fluently but can't write it. They cocnentrate on the Munich dialect, which is an advantage for external learners since otherwise your Bavarian would be likely to become a Mischmasch. Caesarion Velim, non opto 07:56, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support. As a native speaker of "Upper Bavaria" I love all bavarian dialects (doesn't matter from Lower Bavaria, Austria ... South Tyrol) and its beautiful sound. Of course there are differences but I think that make it even more interesting. I think the small differences like "Sunntag" (Lower and Upper Barvaria) or "Sunntig" (South Tyrol) or "Muich" and "Milli" ... should not be a problem for the reader. For special words there should/could be a link to Wiktionary. I'm not used in writing to Wikipedia but mabe it would be nice if each continous text or at least sentence is written by one writer to prevent too much "Mischmasch". Everybody should write his sentences the way he would speak it. I think e.g. "Kinda", "Griaß Enk God", "schiach" are quite ok but perhabs special letters can sometimes help to show the pronunciation. It's really easy to write a sentence like "Bei so an schena Dog wui ma nix doa" but at least "Dog" maybe difficult to read. I'm sure there's a solution to handle such small problems and I think the "Bairische" or austrian-bavarian Wikipedia is really an interesting project that should be supported. Maybe it can be even useful to share local words or words that are going to be unknown. --84.150.88.202 22:26, 12 September 2005 (UTC)Roland[reply]

  • Support: Unless Bairisch is more ore less a spoken language, i will support this Wikipedia. It will be interesting to find together to an austrian-bavarian Wikipedia with some "Neue Rechtschreibregeln". To my opinion it has to do with self-confidence also to use the "dialect" as a written language. Many people associate "dialect" with primitivity and dullness, but you can see it also as an additional linguistic register. Regards de:Benutzer:Lou.gruber

Support: I'm a native speaker an support starting an bavarian wiki (austria included). For the matter of spelling I recommend using the books "bairisches deutsch" (www.bayerische-sprache.de/Index/Biacher.htm amazon.de) or "bayerisches Wörterbuch" [3] from Prof. Anthony Rowley as guideline --de:Benutzer:Erd

Support: I'm also a native speaker an alredy aktiv @ de.wikipedia.org --84.146.213.245 07:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • There are quite a range of views here! Can we get some kind of consensus? Does it meet the conditions for starting a new wikipedia listed here? I notice that there are many native speakers, both for and against, but it's not clear how many are willing to work on any new wikipedia. It looks like it might be enough though. --Chamdarae 18:16, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support:I'm a native speaker and willing to contribute as well.--DusvanGud 12:46, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • with no vote - because it should be an interesting experiment, but I hope it will not lead to discussions in the german wikipedia about the 'Jänner'- and other terms. I wish you good luck if you start it -- Necrophorus 15:52, 18 September 2005 (UTC) (as a westphalian living in Berlin)[reply]

Support: I think, that a bavarian Wikipedia will be a good experiment and why shouldn't have the bavarian people have there own wikipedia? We have a wikipedia in Low-German and in Allemannic. I think also, that this wikipedia schould named "Bairisch-Österreichisch" or in Bavarian "Boarisch-Österreichisch", becaus also austrian people schould know, that bavarian is also thair dialect. --193.170.42.1 13:49, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong support for more different Wikipedias: I support a (South) Tyrolean Wikipedia Skafa 7 October
  • Support No argument against a bavarian wikipedia really convinced me, so: Let's give it a try. (Pack' ma's) Benson.by 16.oct.05
  • Support - being not very optmistic, i think we should give it a try. looking forward to all the spelling diskussions between viennese and bavarian native speakers ;o) flame99 14:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Gugganij 21:08, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Belgian man 15:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC) Spoken by eight million people in five countries!!![reply]
  • Oppose Dialect. Raetius 01:53, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Raetius, you're stating this everywhere on this page. But clearly you haven't read a single word of the discussion. Who is telling us which variety is a langauge and which is a dialect? Do you oppose separate Swedish, Danish, Dano-Norvegian, and Neo-Norvegian Wikipedias as well? Come on now, those are much, much closer to each other than Bavarian to German. Caesarion Velim, non opto 11:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Not needed. Every German can read it, everone frm Bavarya/Austria/STyrol reads German. -- 84.60.193.173 02:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is no point in opposing, admitting Wikipedias like these is simply the policy. There are Limburgic, Luxemburgic and Alemannic Wikipedias, even though all of the speakers can read Dutch, German, and French. And if we don't need a Bavarian Wikipedia you could as well say we don't need a Dutch Wikipedia: I can read all of en: and most articles are much longer and much better. Caesarion Velim, non opto 11:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The most frequent opposition seems to be "it's a dialect, not a language", but this distinction is irrelevant in linguistics. An alemanic wikipedia already exists... why not a bavarian one? I don't think this is a danger for the german wikipedia because most of the contributors will still participate in the german wikipedia and the translations between this two languages are easy. I don't speak german very well but a little and I like sometimes to try reading the alemanic wikipedia, although i don't speak it. imho it would be a good idea to make more wikipedia in "dialects" because they are part of the linguistic diversity. Polletfa 23:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I don't see any good argument, why there should'nt be a Bavarian-Austrian Wikipedia, while having an alemannic and even a limburgian Wikipedia. The differences between alemannic dialects for example are much bigger than between the bavarian dialects. And asking people from northern Germany, if they think bavarian is a german dialect or an own language, most people may say it's a language because they don't understand it. By the way, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences is working on an official bavarian language dictionary, (see http://www.bwb.badw.de/). de:Benutzer:TillF 22:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support It will be an interesting experiment to come to an agreement on spelling rules for the highly differentiated phonetic system of vowels. However, if Alemannic speaking people manage to work on an own wikipedia, this certainly will be possible also for Bavarian. Differences within Bavarian are less strong compared to the differences within Alemannic. Probably the project soon will show, how big the differences to Standard German really are. I suppose that most of the users which voted against a Bavarian wikipedia are not fully aware of these difference. de:Benutzer:Franz Xaver 00:04, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support I understand German, Luxemburgisch etc. quite well but I realy don't understand Bavarian, it's not that close to German or the spelling is just really distant...
  • Support I'm not a specialist, but as I can conclude from examples given in English article, there is quite a difference between Bavarian and standard German. If so, I see no reasons why Bavarian should not have own Wikipedia alongside with Low Saxon and Allemanic Kneiphof 21:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Hégésippe | ±Θ± 04:17, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - The aim of Wikipedia is that people can get every encyclopedic information in their language. But in fact, every speaker of Bavarian or Ripuarian or another German dialect can read and write Standard German. And there is not THE Bavarian languages but a big pool of dialects which belong to the Auatro-Bavarian group. So in fact, I would support new wikipedias in DIALECTS (not languages which are clearly different from the main language in that country like Lower and Upper Sorbian) if there is a regulated grammar and orhography or if there are speakers who cannot understand the Wikipedia in the Standard languages. --Steffen Löwe Gera 16:18, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I thank any speaker of one of the different "bairisch" dialects can understand articles written in an other variety. The similarities are much more important than the differences, which obviously exist. I think this project could be an interesting social experiment, focussed on regional - and obviously universal - knowledge. I am sure I could and would participate without lowering my work on the german version of wikipedia. The potential (number of users, writers, readers etc.) is enormous and a chance should be given to it. 88.0.69.154 15:28, 26 November 2005 (UTC) (registered as Pérvasion in german Wikipedia; from Südtirol)[reply]
  • Neutral While definetly not opposed to the creation, I would like to know more about the feasibility first. How is this proposed to be named: Austro-Bavarian? does not exist as a single entity in my opinion, because alone in Austria and Bavaria you have dozens of dialects (Fränkisch, Steierisch, Tirolerisch, Vorarlbergerisch, Wienerisch....etc.) even within Vienna you have different dialects, so I don't know... and someone from Vienna will not understand someone who is speaking in Vorarlbergerisch, I'm sure same goes for many tongues in Südtirol, as each valley has a different dialect, sometimes completely incoherrent from each other. theoretically then we need a Swizzerdütsch version as well. and what standard is supposed to be used, when there are so many different ones? Gryffindor 01:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This needs some explaination: As I understand the proposal, it aims to create a Wikipedia for Bavarian in linguistic terms and not in political terms. In German there is a distinction between "bayerisch" and "bairisch". "Bayerisch" ist connected to the political territory of en:Bavaria/de:Bayern, whereas "bairisch" means anything connected to the people that derived from the historical Germanic tribe of en:Bavarii/de:Bajuwaren. The latter term also includes most of Austrian dialects. As in Englisch both "bayerisch" and "bairisch" are translated as "bavarian", this is a permanent cause of misunderstandings.
    So this proposal would not include Swabian or Franconian dialects in Bavaria nor Vorarlbergisch in Austria. Vorarlbergisch is part of the Alemannic group of dialects which already have got their own Wikipedia - also including Schwyzerdütsch and Alsatian. Anyway, the differences between Vienna dialect and dialects from Südtirol/en:South Tyrol are less strong than between Swabian dialects from Stuttgart and dialects from Valais. --Franz Xaver 00:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - there are wikipedias of several German dialects, why not Bavarian? --Noriker 15:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe the number of speakers indicated above ("no less than 17 million") is incorrect. To me, that looks more like the total number of inhabitants who live in areas where Bavarian/Austrian is spoken. I'd roughly estimate the number of people who actually know the language to be not much higher than 10 M. Arbeo 22:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - let's get this thing on going. --Michael 22:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose (N) why do this? just to "save the dialect" - you can't save a dialect or culture with a wikipedia... And by the way: Which dialect should be saved there? As we read already a few times, there are a lot of differences between a tirolean native speaker and an viennese native speaker for example. What we would have in the "bavarian wikipedia" would be chaos and trouble, when two people "fight" about a few words....this would be silly.... And if not to "save the dialect" (I read this a few times here), what for then? As I already wrote, we can contribute much more, when we write in the de-wikipedia. Why splitting forces? I think in the same way of the swiss (alemannian) wikipedia. The few people who write there, do this only for fun. And people who want reach information, don't go to a "dialect-wikipedia" - all the information comes together in de-wikipedia. Dialect-Wikipedias only split the writing forces. -- de:Otto Normalverbraucher 02:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • There are people who want to have a bavarian Wikipedia and want to contribute to it (for fun, for saving the dialects or for what ever...)! So let them have their WP; where is the problem? The only point is: Will there be users contributing to that WP?! And the answer is -YES-. Furthermore it is not at all true, that nobody would read those articles, just ask on lb, als or nds what their feebacks are and you will see that you are wrong. --84.156.119.159 05:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am from Lower Bavaria and opposite to a Bavarian Wikipedia. There are just too many differences within the Bavarian dialects. There is no uniform Bavarian language, and also no standard for writing in Bavarian, which means that an article written in Bavarian is always a bit hard to read and always represents a small spot in Bavaria or Austria or South Tyrol where the author is from. This might be a desirable thing for certain monographs, but definitely not for a project like a Bavarian wikipedia with hundreds of writers. Furthermore, I do not believe that there are people who seriously prefer reading an encyclopedic text in non-standard Bavarian over one written in High German. In my opinion, the effort should better be spent on articles about Bavarian, but not in Bavarian. The profit for the Bavarian language would be much higher, because many more people would be able to read such articles and therefore to learn about Bavarian.--de:MKI 13:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support if alamannisch has a working Wiki, why can't bavarian have one? --Ecelan 14:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Why happens this discussion in English? Because we are not able any more to protect our cultural heritage, part of which is our language. Even if our Bavarian will disappear from the planet, it is worth to try to give it some more years to live. The Wikipedia is one of the arms we have. So, lets go ahead.
  • Oppose. I consider a Bairisch Wikipedia a major waste of time and manpower, seeing as all Bairisch speakers can just as well contribute to the German Wikipedia. After all, the idea of Wikipedia is to make knowledge accessible to everybody (in a language they command at a native speaker's level), it's not about cultivating every possible quasi-language on this planet. – Jondor 13:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT then why should we have a german Wiki at all? We all speak decent english, 99% of the tech info is in english in anyway, nobody needs another language for him/her to find a job... and we all can work on the english version. Let's forbid using german altoghether and solve the problem once and for all. We only have to call our euro "dollars" and the job will be finished :) Come on... bertodsera 20:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Jondor: all Bairisch speakers can just as well contribute to the German Wikipedia - Probably every contributor to Catalan wikipedia could just as well contribute also to Spanish (Castellano) wikipedia. I also could have used wikipedias in Breton, Welsh and many more as an example. You would not consider all of these wikipedias as a waste of time? --Franz Xaver 15:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Support If only to parallel the accomplishments of the folks working on the Plattduutsch and Allemannisch pages, would some generous native speakers PLEASE be just as kind and give of yourselves to those of us interested in dialects. No, it's not needed. None of these German dialect sites are really needed. But they are wonderful. And if you don't like the page, or don't want it, IGNORE IT, but don't vote it down for those of us who do want it. Wenn Ihr's nicht haben wollt, dann bitte, lasst uns, die es doch gern sehen moechten in Ruh'. Stop pissing on our parade, so to speak. If you consider a waste of manpower, go work on something else. -User:ByronDB

Let's Support it while there are still native speakers around. (N)--62.47.183.106 07:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support (N) --de:Marcadore 16:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Support Because there are always debates between Standard German and official austrian/bavarian standard terms and expressions, most of the official austrian/bavarian standard terms are just deleted although an austrian/bavarian author has written the article; that's profound impertinence! I'm sorry but there are a lot of dialects in the German language and if they aren't accepted why does this Wikipedia call itself a German Wikipedia, I had to read several other German dialect's terms or words too, and still every time I was able to understand them AUSTRO/BAVARIAN WIKIPEDIA !!!! --Häsk 14:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support against the discrimination of bavarian and austrian terms--de:Mihály 15:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - Bavarian is such a lovely language and it definetly deserves its place here. However, I can't see the proposed "austrian-bavarian" thing working. The differences are too apparent. Therefore we need a "High Bavarian" orintated on the regional interpretation of the area's capital Munich. "Pack ma's o!"
  • Support - There are many books and literature writen in Bavarian language. A state-commission is collecting the language and is editing an dictionary. And there are also translations of books in this language on public market. So I'm in favor for this new Wikipedia and I'm willing to work on it. A problem might be that there is no standardized writen bavarian language, especially in scientific language. This would be one of the first big projects, wich this wikipedia has to work on. --Frantisek 09:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support (N) - I don't perceive the differences between our regional dialects as a major problem. You can take enwiki as proof that spellings as different as British English and US English can get along quite nicely - not always, but most of the time. Could someone please alert me at en: when this edition gets started? TIA, HAND. --Nikai 14:37, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I want to distribute in my mother tongue. --€
  • Support - every single difference that may be saved and improved in Europe's languages is a treasure, go for it. We already have a lingua franca, which is called english, there is no need anymore for us to compress local cultures. I also like the idea of a linguistic multistandard. It works very well with occitan, too. Whenever the number of living speakers is very small it may be a good way to pump some fresh blood in the languages --bertodsera 21 march 2006
  • Support - I like this idea very much and would be willing to translate e.g. "my" marked "exzellent" or "lesenswert" de:Articles into my Bairisch mother tongue, although I'd of course as well continue to contribute to German wikipedia. I see no problems in sharing one language edition with our Austrian friends, even if in other times of history we haven't been actually friends, but that's been a matter of politics, not of linguistic differences and a common project could help to heal those wounds, build a desirable feeling of togetherness and prevent our beautiful language from being overrolled by aseptic TV-German! Strongly pro --Dominik Hundhammer 21:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very Strong Support - Bavarians and especially Bavrian as a dialect / languange has been surpressed and dilluted for decades. Particulary "prusssian" immigrants from nothern Germany have come to Bavaria, but have consitently refused to verbally assimilate into the existing culture. A Bavarian Wikipedia is thus certainly at least as necessary as a the Plattdeusch-Wiki.
  • Andreas - very strong support for the bayrisch nad südtirolerisch Wiki
  • Support, but a very strong one - I was just discussing this subjet in the last few weeks with some fiends. Now I see there is already a big discussion going on. So let´s get started and as we say in bavaria: 'Wia a Brez´n samma do dabei!' I really support the efforts of the web comunity to open a bavarian wikipedia. --Da Hermaneder 00:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: I want to support the bavarian wikipedia, because it's also good to protect that dialect, and not only the allemanic, and the plattdüütsch one. Even the Limburgs have a own Wikipedia. It's also notebal, that the bavarian dialect has approximately 12 million native speakers, and the allemanic speakers only 10 millionand the limburgish ones 1,5 million!!, this dialect isn't even so different than dutch. I'll help,of course, to establish the bavarian Wikipedia and i'll also help with writing the articles. It's not the nationalst view which makes me doing that, it's the fun of writing in my dialect, and to keep up the dialect up.

Can we ehm..contact each other, to work together with the bavarian wikipedia?And there are two bavarian sites, which is the right one? (tommy331@gmx.at) Thomas Huemer, 9.Juni 2006

  • Oppose (after talking as well with some outspoken bavarian people that oppose too). Do you know the huge difference between w:Südtirol and w:Oberpfalz (I know both regions) which you count as one dialect? This is patented nonsense. It has nothing to do with cultural ignorance of "high standard German" (whatever you call it) towards dialects. Creating a new standard Bavarian would be in contrast a cultural ingorance towards all the diverse people that call themselves bavarians. German has unlinke other languages so many variants (american English and british English are extemely close compared to German dialects) it is impossible creating a common bavarian dialect (every village has its own). And a short side notice: Standard German is not the language of the capital (unlike most other languages). Standard German is the common mixture out of all German dialects. Standard German did only replace existing languages/dialects in some regions (around w:Hanover for example). Arnomane 10:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support: I like Bavarian accent. The differences in allemanian Languages are much higher (compare sytzerdütsch and allgäuerisch). It's easy: the one who writes an Article uses his dialect, others could read it without problems
  • Support - There is also another reason for a bavarian Wikipedia. Why do we have problems with writing and even reading Bavarian? Because we are not used to it. It is very important that there are a lot of written texts in a language (or dialect). Of course there are bavarian poems, stories and other books, but not that many. To have a broad platform on the internet, which covers all kinds of texts is very important. I believe, it is important to have also not only narrative, but also informative texts, as it would be with the wikipedia. And of course I would help to write texts and contribute to do this. (But what happened to the Test Wiki? Weren't there pages online before?)
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