Requests for new languages/Wiktionary Flemish

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:

No language code. As noted below, please try to incorporate this into the existing Dutch Wiktionary. For LangCom: StevenJ81 (talk) 15:52, 3 July 2018 (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 nl-BE (SILGlottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name Flemish Language name in English
Language name Vlaams (Vloams) 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 Q34147 - item has currently the following values: 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.

Settings
Project name Vlikiwoordenboek "Wiktionary" in your language
Project namespace usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace "Wiktionary 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 Europe/Brussels "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

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Discussion

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  •   Comment @Henkevdb: Hi, it is necessary that you complete all the data that is requested correctly or otherwise the request could be rejected; for example, in "project name" you must write the name of Wikipedia in Flemish language; You must also fill in the "Default project timezone" and "Project logo" fields correctly. Regards. —Alvaro Molina ( - ) 18:26, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • ok, but i only want a Flemish wiktionary, not a wikipedia, and i'll try to get all the necessary data. Regards. Henkevdb (talk) 18:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Henkevdb: This project is presumptively ineligible because Flemish does not have an ISO 639 code. SIL/Ethnologue consider it to be "only slightly different" from the Netherlands version. Note that many Wikimedia projects do just fine with slight variants. (See for example, how English Wiktionary handles British colour and US color, and how Alemannic Wikipedia handles several varieties of language.)
Consider also that in Wiktionary projects, the language of the project defines the language in which explanations and definitions are given. The words being defined can be (and are) in just about any language you can think of. If your concern is with defining Flemish vocabulary, you can add such words to any existing Wiktionary right now. If your concern is really with the language of definition and explanation, are you really saying that the current Dutch Wiktionary cannot serve your needs?
It is within my purview as LangCom's clerk to close this on technical grounds right now. Before I do that, though, I'd like to suggest that the following steps would have to happen before LangCom is willing to mark this request as eligible:
  • Try to work with Dutch Wiktionary to work out a way to run a Flemish "section" within the project. This is going to be LangCom's by far preferred solution.
  • Apply (better, have the Dutch Language Union apply) to SIL for a language code. While current rules allow for the possibility of projects using BCP 47 language subtags, LangCom still does not prefer them. It is highly unlikely that LangCom would be willing to approve such a project unless there has been a failed attempt to get a language code first.
  • If the two items above both fail, you can try to get a project approved.
For the moment, I won't close this yet. And I will add the project timezone, which would be "Europe/Brussels". (There is no other Belgian city designator in the tz database, so even if you'd like "Europe/Antwerpen", that just doesn't exist.) StevenJ81 (talk) 15:00, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Postscript

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To my knowledge, Henkevdb has not contacted the Dutch Wiktionary. Flemish contributors have always been integral part of nl.wiktionary. As Flanders shares a language authority with The Netherlands and Surinam, nl.wiktionary follows its guidelines for "Flemish" words too. Looking at a longer time period - the code "nl(d)" covers Dutch starting from around 1600 - there are no clear language boundaries between "standard languages". Dutch wiktionary has explicitly chosen not to label words that are nowadays less known in the western part of the Netherlands as consequently belonging to some dialect. Instead it sought co-operation with Gent University to inform readers about differences in prevalence between Flanders and the Netherlands of (presently) over 40.000 Dutch words. Words that specifically refer to subjects only existing in The Netherlands, Belgium of Surinam can get a geographical label. If a particular meaning or usage is confined to a particular time or region, this can be noted as well. --MarcoSwart (talk) 08:18, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]