Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Punjabi (Arabic)

Punjabi Shahmukhi Wikipedia

submitted	verification	final decision

	This proposal has been closed as part of a reform of the request process. This request has not necessarily been rejected, and new requests are welcome. This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy. The closing committee member provided the following comment: This discussion was created before the implementation of the Language proposal policy, and it is incompatible with the policy. Please open a new proposal in the format this page has been converted to (see the instructions). Do not copy discussion wholesale, although you are free to link to it or summarise it (feel free to copy your own comments over). —{admin} Pathoschild 22:02:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal summary
Language details: Punjabi (gurumukhi is it's origin[invented]) Editing community: Sikh (P) List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your name if you are a native speaker of this language. Relevant pages: - External links: —
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Number of speakers: 300 million
Locations spoken: United Punjab

A wiki for Punjabi already exists, however this is predominantly in the en:Gurmukhi script. Can we have a separate Wikipedia for the Arabic script? This enables easy interwiki linking and stops the current wiki from getting cluttered with multiple scripts. Sukh 00:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question:I'm not entirely sure I agree with this request. Also, why should Gurmukhi get the pa: domain while Shahmukhi gets the pa-pk: domain??

Answer:Locale data on the CLDR [1] lists only Gurmukhi for pa. Unfortunately , the Pakistan government does not support Punjabi and so it has had no official push in the Shahmukhi (arabic) script. The Indian state of Punjab uses it as an official language in the Gurmukhi script.

There is no greater reason to have Gurmukhi under 'pa' other than it's already in use there, with a partially translated interface. Indeed, more people speak Punjabi in Pakistan than in India (although few are literate in the language in Pakistan, no matter what script because Urdu is the official language). Pakistan has made it its aim to exterminate all of the native languages in the country in favour of Urdu, which incidentally is not native to the country :) Sukh 17:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Can the scripts be converted automatically, similar to what's done on sr and zh? Speakhits 21:16, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Answer: No, they can't, since the Arabic script is very shorthand-like and leaves all vowels out. Superficially, Devanagari script has a similar approach but it is better suited for the Indian languages than Arabic script is. They're pretty incompatible. Caesarion 09:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Answer: Caesarion is correct. Indic abugidas (like Gurmukhi, Devanagari) can be converted to one another (Devanagari to Gurmukhi and back without loss of information), but not so easily to Arabic script. In actual fact, converting from Gurmukhi to Shahmukhi may not be too difficult, but doing it the other way round would cause problems. There is ways of doing it using dictionary look-ups I suppose, but no reliable method exists at the moment.

I think crucially, there is not a one-to-one mapping of characters and in several circumstances it would be impossible to detect which character to use without analysing the context (in terms of the word) it is used in. Sukh 17:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support nl:user:Boudewijn Idema, 14:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support bertodsera 00:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support, though I think it's quite unfair to relegate it to pa-PK. Both Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi are scripts used by millions and millions of Punjabi people. Neither is less important. --Node ue 06:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly wish that were the case. But Punjabi is neither encouraged or extensively used in text form in Pakistan (be it Shahmukhi, Gurmukhi or Latin). I suppose a different code could be "pa-arab" or something similar? Maybe Gurmukhi could move to "pa-guru" aswell? Sukh 21:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I support in principle as I know a number of Punjabi people, but there are so few contributors as it is, that I suggest waiting until a technical solution is developed. There are workings in place like Wikidata that could solve the multiple script problem. I don't see the value in splitting a project with so few contributors, though if you could recruit 30 or so contributors I'd be listening. I recommend just getting by in the meantime with articles in both scripts on the same wiki for now. And no, I haven't had any luck myself so far encouraging those people I know to contribute. - Taxman 15:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately there will be no reliable automatic transliteration that is possible. However, if there is a reliable mechanism for dual scripts in the Wikis, then that's definately a plus - although I'm unsure about the consequences of interwiki linking.

I'm against the idea of waiting for enough people to contribute. There is one user in particular who wishes to start writing Shahmukhi articles and that should be enough. It'll always be more hassle to transfer at a later date. Sukh 21:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't assuming automatic transliteration, just good facilities for multiple scripts, and that is beeing worked on. Having two scripts on the same language isn't that big a problem, just set up a convention to link to the other version of the article, either through a link in the same spot on every article or use a template or a mediawiki message. The right to left and left to right sounds like more of a problem, try filing bug report for that. - Taxman 14:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Oppose; the Punjabi Wikipedia barely has over 40 articles—what are the odds that this would do any better, if even as well? I recommend that articles written in Shahmukhi be included in the Punjabi Wikipedia, if at all possible (we deal with dialects in other Wikipedias, like Normand and Cornish, and the Romani Wikipedia even uses dual orthographies—perhaps it could be used as a model for Punjabi). The Jade Knight 09:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are problems with having it on the same Wiki, because the software does not provide adequate facilities for both scripts. For example, unless the user signs up and changes their preferences, page layout will still be left-to-right for Arabic readers. Also, there is a complication in terms of interwiki linking - how can you specify two script translations for articles in one wiki? Finally, there is the fact that we will end up with two communities of contributors who will be very unlikely to be able to communicate with each other, unless they resort to romanisation (wow, script number three) or English. Personally I think the excuse of there only being forty articles has nothing to do with the matter. It's a language spoken by nearly 100 million people... as more of them get online you'll get more contributors. Sukh 18:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by two script translations for articles in one wiki. If you mean interwiki linking from another wikipedia, just do [[pa:Shahmukhi title]] and [[pa:Gurmucki title]]. And two communities of editors that both speak the same language is no worse to be on the same project than it is for them to be on separate projects and not communicate at all. And the short answer being if you can get more contributors, you'd get a ton of support votes. I and many others don't see the value of creating projects with few contributors. - Taxman 14:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose get both scripts working on the same Wikipedia. It can be done. - FrancisTyers 19:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Oppose: Even if scripts can't be automaticly transliterated, it is still better to find a solution along the lines of zh and sh Wikipedia. Dual-script WPs can be done. --Mkill 12:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Punjab wiki already in existion -- Raghav 14:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support I as a speaker of Punjabi in Pakistan as a mother tongue strongly recommend that a Punjabi wikipedia in arabic script should be started. Much of its literature has been created here. And it would be unjust not to allow this.

Khalid Mahmood 16 September 2007