Talk:Language committee/2024

Latest comment: 29 days ago by MF-Warburg in topic Indonesian Wikivoyage

Approval for Shan Wikinews

Hello, Language Committee! It has been more than a year that Shan Wikinews test project has been active. We would like to request to review the project for the final approval. Wish you all the best, Happy New Year.Saimawnkham (talk) 13:13, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll review it next week. I will contact you if necessary. Thanks for your contribution! --Sotiale (talk) 15:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. Saimawnkham (talk) 00:01, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 04:37, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

About request for Cebuano Wikitionary

Hi, I'm currently restarting the Cebuano Wikitionary project, see here. This project has existed for 10 years (since 2014) and has not yet gone into operation, currently this project has 4 active members (taken from Check Wiki activity). I'm maintaining creating posts about Cebuano words, at least 3 posts every day. We are in dire need of the official appearance of Wikitionary Cebuano. We hope Language Committee consider and create this project! Halley luv Filipino ❤ 09:37, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@Như Gây Mê 4 active members? It looks like you're the only one user that is still contributing, where the rest 3 that were active years ago, are inactive for several years, that looks like far from a potential approval. (It should also be noted, that one past "active user", Leonardo José Raimundo, is now global banned.) Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 05:02, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 04:32, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Mandaic

Add Mandaic to wikipedia

ISO 639-3 of Mandaic: mid Assyfarsaraq (talk) 19:48, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

See Language committee/Handbook (requesters) for instructions. However, Neo-Mandaic says the spoken modern language only has a few hundred native speakers left, and Mandaic wikipage mentions 5,000. That makes a successful project unlikely.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:27, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
I read multiple wikipedia pages about how to request a language but it still isn't clear to me. Yes you are right, it is very unlikely, but atleast i can try it. I would definitely translate some pages to mandaic. hopefully it also helps other people mandeans and people intressted in the mandaic language understand how the language works. Assyfarsaraq (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
@Assyfarsaraq Probably you can just create the 2nd request? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:37, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
@Assyfarsaraq You may check these pages in the Wikimedia Incubator: Wp/mid (Info Page), Main_Page, few pages in Mandaic and also start a discussion with other Mandaic Wikipedians. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 06:04, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 10:28, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Betawi Wikipedia

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T357866

Hi. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Betawi. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --Sotiale (talk) 09:13, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

3 Weeks past, any updates available for this? As I don't see any reasons to against approval. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 11:34, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 12:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Request for verification of Komering Wikipedia

Hello Language Committee, Since last November we have submitted a request and it has not been verified whether it meets the requirements or not. We hope that there is certainty about this so that we know what we have to do to meet the requirements and can be verified. Thank you EWDGahan (talk) 04:47, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

If the verification you're talking about is probably eligibility, I just changed it to eligible. --Sotiale (talk) 15:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the verification, we hope this project will soon follow Betawi Wikipedia. EWDGahan (talk) 23:15, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 02:44, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Approval Request for Kusaal Wikipedia

Hello,

I submitted this request in July 2023 and I am following up to know if there is any updates or if there is something the community should do at this time. Many thanks for all the support! Shahadusadik (talk) 13:23, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@Shahadusadik: Hi, I am very positive about the approval. Can you recommend me an expert or linguist regarding this language? Please email me their names, affiliations, and email addresses (not here and any public wiki pages)! --Sotiale (talk) 15:23, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Sure. Many thanks! Shahadusadik (talk) 17:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 00:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Kusaal Wikipedia

Hi. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Kusaal. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --Sotiale (talk) 03:27, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Shahadusadik: Please consult with your community to ensure that the 'Settings' of this proposal are all correctly stated. For example, in the proposal, 'Project name' and 'Project namespace' are mismatched, and 'Project logo' appears to be an SVG file in a different language. --Sotiale (talk) 03:27, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks so much for the pointers, @Sotiale. I have fixed them. Warmly, Shahadusadik (talk) 17:07, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Changing incorrect settings can take a lot of time and effort, so I'd like to ask you to double-check everything in advance. Thanks! --Sotiale (talk) 03:53, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale I think everything is correct. Kindly check if ‘additional namespaces’ and ‘additional settings’ require some information. Warmly, Shahadusadik (talk) 20:29, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
Hello. If the project name and namespace should be "Wikipiidia", should the project_talk namespace really be "Wikipedia Pian'am"? --MF-W 14:31, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
No. The project namespace should be Wikipiidia Pian'am. I have just fixed that on the request table. I hope this helps. Cheers! @MF-Warburg Shahadusadik (talk) 20:02, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. I have created phabricator:T359757. --MF-W 00:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Great. Thanks! Shahadusadik (talk) 10:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 00:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for Sylheti Wikipedia Approval

We may continue discussion about Wikipedia project here instead of Wiktionary. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 20:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Closing the discussion to make way for other requests.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 17:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 17:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for verification for the Mesopotamian Arabic Page

Hi, Language Committee this Language request caught my attention since i know the language and can speak it but there is one thing its been a while since they haven't been actually checked on,can the Language Committee team please check on it to check if its eligible like its sister projects Egyptian Arabic and Standard Moroccan or not? If yes,thank you. Kirkukturk3 (talk) 21:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I just added my strong support to the request. Has the language committee reached a decision yet regarding eligibility? TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 01:07, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale: This language has an ISO code, and it is even included in Meta's No Language Left Behind project. It is a real language with a number of Wikipedians who are native speakers, as we see in the support section. Is there anything needed before it could be marked as "eligible"? I think eligibility would encourage the community to look for more volunteers. CC: @Kirkukturk3 TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 02:41, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
As a result of internal discussion, langcom marks this as eligible. Although this is a fundamental position, it is distinct from approval and several factors will be taken into consideration for approval. --Sotiale (talk) 11:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 09:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Request approval of Burmese Wikisource

Dear Language Committee, may I kindly request to review the Burmese Wikisource test project for the approval? The project is marked as eligible since 2017 and has about over 3000 pages for now. Thanks! NinjaStrikers «» 13:08, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The committee began discussions. --Sotiale (talk) 03:38, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale Hi, is there any update? NinjaStrikers «» 17:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I think the only answer I can give is that it is a very positive opinion and that there will be positive results soon. --Sotiale (talk) 11:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 09:38, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Burmese Wikisource

The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikisource Burmese. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 09:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 09:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Central Dusun (Kadazandusun) Wikipedia

Hello Language Committee, as of January, (Wp/dtp) has been active for 5 months. We would like to request approval for this project. If you need a notable person from the community to verify the content and language, feel free to let us know so we can provide you with the necessary contact details to speed up the approval process. Thank you. Rombituon (talk) 05:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I believe you will be the same next month. I'm positive about sustainability, but I haven't finished the other reviews, so I'll review them when I have time to start the discussion. I appreciate your effort. --Sotiale (talk) 15:28, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Hello, are there any updates on this? The project has met the conditions and the community is waiting eagerly for approval. Ultron90 (talk) 02:59, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
@Ultron90: Hello, discussions for approval have started. I believe it will be approved if there are no language issues. Regarding this language, can you recommend any linguists or experts who are not involved in your incubator project? Please send me an email with their affiliation, email address, and name; not here or public wiki pages. Thanks! --Sotiale (talk) 14:52, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Hello, I have sent you the email with the language expert's contact information that you have requested. Ultron90 (talk) 05:55, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Igala Wikipedia

Hi. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Igala. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --Sotiale (talk) 10:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@AgnesAbah: Please consult with your community to ensure that the 'Settings' of this proposal are all correctly stated. Project namespace is required, and for local uploads, should be 'no', especially if EDP is not approved. --Sotiale (talk) 11:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the message I will consult with my community members and get back in a very short time AgnesAbah (talk) 22:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Hello all the changes have been made AgnesAbah (talk) 07:49, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
AgnesAbah, we still need to know the translation for the "Wikipedia talk" namespace and the desired logo. -- MF-W 09:52, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
MF-W We have now completed the translations and added the logo AgnesAbah (talk) 20:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
I have answered on the request page. -- MF-W 22:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Hello MF-W Apologies for the delayed response; I haven't been feeling too well lately. I've made adjustments. Could you please check if the logo is satisfactory now? Also, I'm sorry for any errors in my translations; I didn't follow the instructions properly. AgnesAbah (talk) 04:06, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 20:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

About approval of full version of Karakalpak Wiktionary

Dear Language Committee members.
I'm a local administrator of Karakalpak Wikipedia project (since December 2022).
Karakalpak Wikipedia community submitted a request here to create Karakalpak Wiktionary in October 2022. And from the middle of 2023 we started to work hard on Karakalpak Wiktionary beta version (in incubator) based on Karakalpak Language Explanatory Dictionary. So now there are more than 3000 words with explanations. And during last months there are about 5-10 permanent editors are working on it. So maybe it's time to open full version of the project? It will encourage us to accelerate our working activities on the project. Because we would like to use all functions of full project. For example, to select separate (from Karakalpak Wikipedia) administrator and moderators for Wiktionary project. Please support us with this issue. Qaraqalpaqpan (talk) 02:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I am very positive about the approval of this. I hope you'll be the same for another 2 months. --Sotiale (talk) 15:21, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Dear @Sotiale, thank you for your reply in positive mood. Of course, we will continue working on it, as we have a clear plan about how to develop Karakalpak Wiktionary. Qaraqalpaqpan (talk) 08:33, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes, thank you for your efforts. Can you contact me in March to have me consider approving this project? --Sotiale (talk) 14:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Dear @Sotiale. Sorry for my late reply again, I don't know why, but I'm not receiving any notice, when you are replying to my messages here.
Anyway it's already March, so you meant to contact to you here or in your user talk page? It would be very good news for our community, if you find time and consider approving the project in March or April.
We will wait for it with hope.
Best regards.
Qaraqalpaqpan (talk) 17:49, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 20:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Karakalpak Wiktionary

Hi. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wiktionary Karakalpak. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --Sotiale (talk) 12:21, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@Qaraqalpaqpan: Please consult with your community to ensure that the 'Settings' of this proposal are all correctly stated. This takes time to change once set, so I would recommend checking again carefully within 7 days to make sure nothing is wrong. Thank you! --Sotiale (talk) 12:21, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Good day @Sotiale, we have checked the settings table in the request page carefully. It seems to us that everything is OK. - Qaraqalpaqpan (talk) 18:20, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
The entry for the Project_talk namespace does not look like a translation of "Wiktionary talk". --MF-W 20:27, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment @MF-Warburg, during checking I hesitated on this row (as the request had been created by the previous admin), but I accepted it as the tag name for Page talk. Now I see, that it means project talk page, so I changed it (ns_project_talk row in the template) recently as the below :
Talqılaw ---> Wikisózlik talqılawı
You can see this page for comparing, before we worked on namespaces for kaawiki with Amire80. Just for information.
Qaraqalpaqpan (talk) 02:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 06:36, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Request for continuation of approval Wikisource Malay

Dear Language Committee, it has been five months that the community has been actively engaging in proofreading on Wikisource Malay. We kindly request your review of this project and hope that the Committee can approve it soon cause i don't got any news after my las request Agus Damanik (talk) 07:06, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello Agus Damanik, good news! See now the section #Notification_about_proposed_approval_of_Malay_Wikisource. Especially the translations of the namespaces into Malay would be needed. --MF-W 09:46, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for Sylheti Wiktionary Approval

Dear Language Committee members, requesting approval of Incubator:Wt/syl (Sylheti Wiktionary) as our first project (as we have discussed here). It was active from May 2023 but unfortunately, no action was taken to approve it. Instead of Incubating and testing, this active project became permanent in the Wikimedia Incubator due to inactions. I hope the Language Committee will guide us on the journey to https://syl.wiktionary.org. We would also like to request the Wikimedia Language Committee and the Board of Trustees to review the process of the Wikimedia language approval for efficiency.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 00:15, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately all I can tell you is that this is still under discussion. Could you please provide me with data again that would convince me that the nagri script issue you mentioned earlier has been sufficiently addressed? What I can do is pass on information to other committee members about this. --Sotiale (talk) 15:26, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
There was a discussion in the Wp/syl project about a converter proposed by members of a different language community, which, in my view, has been rejected by our community members. Installing a gadget that is not deemed necessary or is disliked by our community can hinder the progress of the Wikipedia project. This type of assistance through gadgets may be perceived as mockery and is not appreciated by many long-term community members. If there is a genuine need for a converter gadget, it should be installed based on community support and consensus. Forcing the installation of a gadget without clear consensus is not recommended. If the proposal comes from a different community intending to delay or suppress our project, it is a cause for concern.
In contrast, the Wiktionary project operates differently. Sylheti entries are already established in global Wiktionary projects, and various converter templates and modules exist in other language projects for Sylheti. I propose that the language committee open a separate proposal for Sylheti Wiktionary in Langcom, as we aim for this to be our first project. The Wiktionary mechanism is different. Local Sylheti Wiktionary users and global Sylheti language contributors come from diverse backgrounds. Any discussions about different projects should not imply issues for this Wiktionary project. If there is anything specific related to Wt/syl project, that can be raised in the Sylheti Wiktionary Village Pump to discuss with the associated community. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 23:03, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
Regarding Wp/syl, your answer raises some concerns. The point made in the langcom discussion at the time was that there were reports that most sylheti used the Bengali alphabet, and that the current script may not be accessible to the majority. Either there must be evidence to prove this is not true, or there must be a solution to solve the accessibility issue. Your response simply shows that your community has rejected the solution. --Sotiale (talk) 03:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion: Public API, keyboards, and converters are available, so it is not inaccessible. For community opinion: you may discuss it with Wp/syl project and associated community at Sylheti Wikipedia Village Pump. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 07:27, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
For Wiktionary, a converter module is available Module:syl-translit (Q47459744) in Wikimedia, developed by different users for different projects.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 07:46, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
The answer I need is a proper response to 'most sylheti used the Bengali alphabet'. If they can't read the current script, and any converter isn't provided onwiki anyway(by default, it should be a script used by the majority of speakers of the language, if exceptions are made to this), then it's not accessible. What is needed is not a discussion with me, but for you to persuade langcom with a convincing explanation and provide langcom with persuasive data. This may be something that can be proven or confirmed with data without discussion. --Sotiale (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
It is an exaggerated claim, doesn't based on any reliable source. I can leave it with Langcom to verify the claim with reliable sources. I can not verify that claim from Ethnologue. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 20:04, 28 February 2024 (UTC). In respect to the Test project users, this is not the case. A user (User:Monz~incubatorwiki) initially started with Latin script in 2014, but later the community moved on to their native writing.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 20:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
Please provide reliable sources. That will help the discussion. If they had tried the Latin script, which is not really used by most sylheti, the situation would have been the same as it is now. --Sotiale (talk) 02:18, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
They didn't try the non-Sylheti systems; here is their proposal. Perhaps unintended, Latin is 'arguably the most used script,' but it is mostly informally used. May be this article explain it better. You may find examples of Sylheti transliterated texts in Brahmic scripts (Deva., Beng.) here. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 19:27, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, so.. I would like to ask you again. Please give me a proper answer to 'most sylheti used the Bengali alphabet'. I do not believe that historical accounts of whether it first began or was attempted in Latin script are of adequate assistance in resolving the current question of approval. As you probably know, the questions I've been asking so far have been designed to help you eliminate obstacles to getting your project approved. If you don't provide me with a reliable source for this, I will let other members of langcom review the results so far. --Sotiale (talk) 11:07, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts. But the question is not reliable. However you should ask this question to the emailer to give reliable sources for his query. As far as Wikimedia Incubator test projects are concern I do not have any sample. It would be better if the Langcom runs a test project at incubator:Wp/syl-beng and if any community of users forms than go for verification. Than if any linguist verify that the non Sylheti alphabet satisfy the orthographic requirement than you can say something. Otherwise it seems like out of our project scope. I can not give any feedback without sample, test project, reliable sources, nothing is attached with the query of the emailer. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 01:23, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
It seems like there is some misunderstanding in this conversation. It does not seems to me that Sylheti Wiktionary project is under discussion in Langcom. I regularly raise this proposal based on activities in the Wikimedia Incubator. Sylheti Wiktionary project is (active) now for the 10th month. Langcom may compare this project with other project of this language group: Wt/as (inactive), Wt/ctg (inactive). --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 08:20, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Malay Wikisource

The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikisource Malay . If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 09:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I have some consideration about the language code. Back when ms.wikipedia was made (26 October 2002), the language code ms (639-1) was different from the language code ms (639-3:msa) today. At that time, ms was considered single language, but now, it has been designated as macro language. In the request page (permalink), the link provided is SIL:msa, while the Glottolog link msa is incorrect and should have been stan1306. If this ms.wikisource is created, then it means all documents from thirty-six individual language in 3 different countries are eligible to be hosted there, including Indonesian language documents, which has already own its own Wikisource (s:id:), and several projects that wishes their own Wikisource, such as min, and several Malay-macrolanguage projects with their own code, such as Minang and Banjar (min: and bjn:). If this is what the community wanted, then I think it's fine to proceed.
But if they only want to host documents in en:Standard Malay, or Malaysian Malay, then I don't agree that we continue using "ms", but rather "zsm" for Standard Malay (SIL:zsm, Glottolog:zsm/stan1306), or "zlm" for Malay (individual language) (SIL:zlm, Glottolog:zlm/mala1479).
Also see other projects that fall under Category:Malay, which includes many individual languages (and language codes) Bennylin 11:35, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for raising this issue. I think for consistency's sake, we would continue to use "ms" for the subdomain, even though it's intended to be a project for "zsm", just like mswiki is a zsm project. See Special_language_codes#Other_distinctions. When (if) project domain renaming finally becomes available, a rename should be considered. --MF-W 11:49, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Yup. I was looking for that section that I wrote previously. If consistency is what's being sought for instead of doing the correct thing, then I rest my case. Bennylin 11:58, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
@Bennylin Actually, there are also some users (e.g. C933103, see here) who treat Indonesian and Malay are same language but separately named due to political issues. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:35, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
If this project is approved under ms.ws language code, would that means other languages in this macrolanguage (such as min.ws, and future bjn.ws) doesn't have a chance to be approved in the future? I don't want to see this to become the reason that the Minang and Banjar communities could not have their own Wikisources in the future. Bennylin 13:53, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
I see no reason why this would prevent those projects. -- MF-W 13:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I object approving the Malay Wikisource using ms, for reasons explained by Bennylin above. The committee has the opportunity now to set a correct standard for Wikimedia projects that are using Malaysian Malay, and not just following consistency for consistency's sake. There is no reason we should stick with the outdated convention and pass the buck into the future while project renaming is still technically not possible; it would be much better to do it now, when we have a chance. I would support its creation under zsm subdomain. Best, dwadieff 12:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bennylin and David Wadie Fisher-Freberg: (and MF-Warburg),
Thanks a lot for this comment. It raises interesting questions. Since Wikisources mainly transcribe old document as they were (ie. in the orthograph of the time), so I'm guessing a wider code is a good thing (for instance French Wikisource, includes "modern" French but also Middle and Old French, frm and fro as well as dialects and other close languages ; like Walloon or Occitan before they were moved to their own domains ; same for all other Wikisources).
Looking at the incubation, there is a lot of various document ranging from 1371 to 1987 and in various scripts, I'm not sure what exactly is covered by the code "zsm" (or "zlm") but it doesn't really feel appropriate. And it doesn't look like « they only want to host documents in en:Standard Malay ». The best way to know what the community want is to ask them, so I'm pinging top-editors @Helang putih, Hadithfajri, Aviator, Lim Natee, and PeaceSeekers: for clarification.
The situation is also very different from a Wikipedia, which means that consistency with Wikipedia doesn't really make sense (which goes either way about taking the same code or not).
Cheers, VIGNERON * discut. 13:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
This particular macrolanguage is used in multiple countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, among others). Then my question for the founding fathers of this project is: does the documents from other countries other than the apparent Malaysia (Malaysian Malay) should/could be included there. For example: documents in Singaporean Malay and Brunei Malay (which has close historical ties with Malaysia). Exclusive for Malaysian Malay (which then, I propose to rename it to zsm), or all-inclusive Malay (which then, probably ms is fine)? For now we can assume that the Malay documents used in what-is-now-Indonesia could be transcribed into Indonesian Wikisource, and Minang documents written in Malay into Minang Wikisource in Incubator.
FWIW, for context, the current scheme of language code ms (WP, WB, Wikt) is not without friction. The fact that many non-Malaysian Malay speakers are unable to contribute there due to the restriction of using Standard (Malaysian) Malay, made the project name incorrect and ought to be revised. But that's for another discussion.
Also, I'm in support of the creation of "Malay Wikisource". I'm only discussing the correct language code. Bennylin 13:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
I'll discuss this based on my observation in the mswiki community. In the last few years, awareness of the inclusion of Bruneian and Singaporean Malay versions within our system (mswiki) has increased and become more accepted, whilst the policy of "Indonesian variants go to idwiki" pretty much holds; this thing is pretty much a drama in its own few years ago, and I'm not into this too much, but this is as far as what I can say.
For me, it's good to just stick to "ms" code. Whilst many of our works and the community is indeed from Malaysia, the idea of using "Malaysian" Malay (zsm) [and especially in reference to the modern standard version] seems quite restrictive. In fact, as we're starting to look upon to communities outside Malaysia today (e.g., Singapore during Wikimania 2023, and recently, in Medan), it's good for us to reflect our visions on that. PeaceSeekers (talk) 14:50, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
As one of the proposer to hatch the incubator, i will agree to make it as ms cause most of the document is spread from different kind of era and i think this will be wise for now. Not like Malay Wikipedia that needs to follow the strict guideline for standard Malay, i don't think that malay wikisource will have that problem. On another side, we also have precedent for French wikisource that include all document in france from different era and i think doesn't have a big conflict. The concern also about the fear that minangkabau won't have their own wikisource will be negated cause i think that they already have enough text to be let out from their incubator if they have enough contributor, but it's in another discussion. Agus Damanik (talk) 18:53, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
But, if it's the worst case that we use three letter's code. I will prefere ZLM, rather than ZSM to maintain clarity that it's malay not standard malay Agus Damanik (talk) 18:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
As one of the proposer to hatch the incubator and contributors to Malay Wikisource. I want to convey that the manuscripts in Malay Wikisource are not only from Malaysia but also from Indonesia, Singapore, and Brunei. This is because we know that Malay manuscripts are not like manuscripts from other regions, which can be easily classified. Examples of Malay manuscripts in Indonesia written in Roman script will be included in id.wikisource.org, while those in Malay Arabic script will be considered to belong to Malay Wikisource. Is this difference also a problem? Because Malay manuscripts are quite widespread in the Nusantara (Southeast Asia). And we know that many Malay manuscripts also come from Indonesia. As an Indonesian who speaks Malay, I disagree with the notion that it is difficult for us to contribute to mswiki. In fact, with this standardization, we can better understand each other. But, can't we use our own dialect of Malay in the mswiki project? Of course, we can. But, for me, there is actually no problem with which language code to use. However, the problem arises: can we include manuscripts that should be in Malay Wikisource as well (Can manuscripts in Malay language above the year 1945 be included in Malay Wikisource? (especially those that are clearly Malay manuscript) "Both in Roman and Arabic Malay script")
Here are some lists of the manuscripts.
Indonesia
https://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=File:Boekoe_Liatkok,_hikaijat_radjah_Negrie_Tjinah.pdf&page=6
https://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=File:Bustan_al-Katibin_li_as-Shibyan_al-Mutaallimin.pdf&page=7
https://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ikhtisar_Ceritera_Daripada_Raja-raja_di_Negeri_Siam_Or._2011.pdf&page=3
https://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=File:Turjuman_al-Mustafid.pdf&page=5
Brunei
https://wikisource.org/wiki/Pemashhoran_Kemerdekaan_Negara_Brunei_Darussalam
Singapura
https://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sesuatu_yang_disebutkan_di_dalam_Quran_darihal_kitab_Injil_dan_Taurat.pdf&page=25
So, for me, any language code used is fine. However, if choosing one language code could hinder us. For me, it's good to just stick to "ms" code.
But, if it's the worst case that we use three letter's code. I agree with Agus Damanik prefer ZLM, rather than ZSM to maintain clarity that it's malay not standard malay.

Lim Natee (talk) 19:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


As far as I see it, it seems like test-wiki contributors agree that a project with the language codems.wikisource would be inclusive of all Malay variants, so that the code can be used both in order to be more inclusive and to stay consistent with existing projects. Am I understanding this correctly? --MF-W 12:01, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I think most of them agree like that. Agus Damanik (talk) 19:03, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Given this, I will go ahead and request the creation of the wiki. -- MF-W 07:41, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 07:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Georgian Wikisource

The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikisource Georgian. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Amir! – Mehman 21:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
Users just verified themselves as eligible here, atleast one of the member of the community raised this concern here. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
That was in 2009, it has no relevance for this. -- MF-W 07:40, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 09:35, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Approval Request for Arbëresh Wikipedia (Wp/aae)

Dear Language committee,

As the Arbëresh Wikipedia administrator, I kindly request an approval of our project. We contributed regularly since March 2022 and at the moment we have 325 articles (including the 100 most important ones).

These last 10 months we were simultaneously occupied with a Wikitongues project for which we received a grant. We created a card game with 50 word cards for children, which we linked via QR codes to their respective Wikipedia articles using this link type: aae.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARTICLE_NAME. But since our project is not live yet, the links do not work. So in order to distribute the cards and promote the Arbëresh Wikipedia in the villages, we need an approved project (or at least working links).

I am happy to discuss details and questions. Best! Ftillimi (talk) 15:17, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for your efforts. I have looked into your project and there is not enough activity yet, and I have doubts about the sustainability of the community. For example, in January, you are the only one who has had enough activity. Therefore, I hope that your community shows enough activity and sustainability. Thanks! --Sotiale (talk) 03:34, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
@Ftillimi and Sotiale: Anyway, the eligibility of Arbëresh is also a question to be resolved, as it is one member of macrolanguage Albanian (check here if doubt). Is there any reason a separate project shall be created instead of directly contributing at sq.wikipedia? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
@Liuxinyu970226 Albanian and Arbëresh have a low degree of mutual intelligibility. Arbëresh has a language code and the community wants a Wikipedia. There is no "question" to be resolved.
@Sotiale Can you give us please a quantity of articles that would satisfy the condition to call us active? We spent a lot of time aswell to translate the interface to Arbëresh, that's why on the statistics we show up as less active. Ftillimi (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Although it is not possible to speak about any fixed standards, the standard generally considered is that sustainability can be proven by having 3 or more editors working for more than a few months, and the amount of pages can also be considered along with sustainability. Currently, your project is almost entirely yours alone and sometimes disconnected. For this reason, it was evaluated as having low sustainability. Recently approved projects involve 3 or more people working for nearly 6 months, or even in those situations, they exceed 1000 pages. This would be a very sufficient standard for approval, exceeding the minimum standard. --Sotiale (talk) 06:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
@Ftillimi And, how do you explain Fenikals' objection on your RFL page that "Albanian diaspora dialect, not a separate language"? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:49, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Does it need an explanation? Arbëresh is included in the Albanian macrolanguage. Surely the assumption is that the separation at the language level is correct unless there's real evidence otherwise.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:35, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes If this is true, then why are you supporting Arabic dialects for having their own Wikipedias? Why can't they just contribute just one Arabic Wikipedia? And at same time, why are you opposing Low German dialects for having too? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Huh? Arbëresh is considered an independent language in ISO-639, just like the various Arabic languages. You'd have to link to the request for the Low German dialect in question but apparently I thought there was enough evidence it wasn't distinct. In Arbëresh's case, the fact that there was separation starting 500 years ago (as per the Wikipedia page) makes a claim that it's a separate language seem very reasonable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes Then what's the purpose of ar:? A fake website just typed some Arabic letters? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
@Liuxinyu970226 The project ar.wikipedia.org is actually using the language with the 3-letter code 'arb', which is known as Modern Standard Arabic, or Fusha. 'ar' is a macro language, covering a group of languages including 'arb' as well as all the other variants such as 'apc' (Levantine Arabic) and 'arz' (Egyptian Arabic), etc... I think it was a mistake to allow the projects use macro-language codes, but it is too late to fix it. TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 02:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for Wikipedia Mandailing

Hello, I'm requesting approval for Wikipedia Mandailing. The project already has close to 2000 pages, and has been the past 7+ months. Thank you. Bennylin 11:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bennylin: Hi, Bennylin. There is something I would like to ask of you to facilitate the approval processes. Regarding this language, can you recommend any linguists or experts who are not involved in Mandailing incubator project? Please send me an email with their affiliation, email address, and name; not here or public wiki pages. --Sotiale (talk) 12:27, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
what for? didn't you guys already contacted linguist or something for Wiktionary Mandailing's approval? This is not the first Wikimedia project in Mandailing Bennylin 13:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
I will ask someone first. He's considered an expert on Mandailing, and afaik he's not a contributor yet. What's the process to recommend someone? Do I send you an email or something? Bennylin 03:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
@Bennylin: Ah, I was mistaken. I didn't remember if this wikt was approved first. Then there is no need for a separate recommendation process. --Sotiale (talk) 10:44, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
So many things came at me at once that I mistook it for another project. I appreciate your efforts for finding the expert. --Sotiale (talk) 10:48, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Approval Request for Mooré Wikipedia

Hello,

I wish to follow up on the approval request for Mooré Wikipedia, which was submitted on July 12, 2023. Here is the request page:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mooré. Please let me know if you have questions. Shahadusadik (talk) 12:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello Shahadusadik, I believe it will be approved if there are no language issues. Regarding this language, can you recommend any linguists or experts who are not involved in your incubator project? Please send me an email with their affiliation, email address, and name; not here or public wiki pages. Thanks! --MF-W 09:49, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Email sent! Thanks Shahadusadik (talk) 23:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
If Langcom approves this, please do take note of my comments at Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mooré#Comments about the interwiki conflicting with a pseudo-namespace on the English Wikipedia. * Pppery * it has begun 02:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes. I saw that. What will be the way forward? Should spark a discussion about this on telegram? Shahadusadik (talk) 21:57, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
I think this is a problem for developers/sysadmins to solve. We (Langcom) will simply request the wiki to be created. Pseudo-namespaces have been "removed" in the past when they conflicted with a new language code. --MF-W 22:23, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
None as popular as this one, though. Whatever. I'll make my case on Phabricator when the wiki actually is about to be approved. * Pppery * it has begun 23:21, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Request for Chinook Jargon (chinuk wawa) Wikipedia

On the Chinook Jargon Wikipedia (incubator:Wp/chn) We have three active users, 216 articles that are overall bigger and beefier than the articles on most other incubating wikis (a little over a kilobyte on average). Chinook Jargon Wikipedia also has hundreds of edits per month, functional location map templates, a fancy main page, a partially translated interface, a user guide, a degree of quality control, and a fair amount of recognition on Facebook. Chinook Jargon Wikipedia was previously listed as an eligible test wiki, back in 2018.

A decently-sized community of people are trying to bring this 19th-century trade language of the Pacific Northwest back to life, and I'm here to do my part! (See the language's official MetaWiki request page.) POSSUM chowg File:POSSUMCHOWG.png (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@POSSUM chowg I'm afraid that your post isn't actual seriously, before March, you seems like one of the only two active users for just two months (the another is Jon Gua as I've checked) (fully inactive before this year, for about 2 years), also as per Ethnologue:
Do we have ideas why such language status can also get eligibile status? Maybe this issue above also affects this request? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:01, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
I never knew that a wiki had to have at least three active users for a certain period of time. Yes, we have only had three active users for the past month, I had thought that that was enough...
So anyway, as a pidgin, even in its heyday back in the 1800's, there were very few L1 speakers... | See this discussion on the chinookjargon.com website, including a word or two from Haruo, the very first editor of CJ Wikipedia POSSUM chowg File:POSSUMCHOWG.png (talk) 02:05, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Request for verification of Sylheti Wikibooks

Dear Language Committee members, requesting verification of Wb/syl (Sylheti Wikibooks). I believe there should be a basic verification process after each proposal. This would demonstrate Langcom’s acknowledgment of the proposal’s validity and provide an avenue for feedback. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of Langcom members performing these verification checks since User:StevenJ81. Additionally, a project has been featured in the Wikimedia Incubator for over six months, meeting both basic verification requirements and the criteria for its own domain. Out of numerous Wikibook projects, this is the sole active project here. I kindly request verification and initiation of a Langcom discussion for consideration of the project. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 01:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Consider revoking the "verified as eligible" status for these two requests?

By reviewing their deletion requests, there are probably some good reasons that the eligibility of both requests are being contested, both are having scowiki-like faux articles before deleted, having fake grammars and cited with unreliable sources, of which some sources are from fraud sites. There are also off-wiki points that both eligibility status are granted by bribes, although I can't see if there are enough evidences to support. Based on the above situations, I'm afraid that both eligibilities shall be re-contested as both are re-controversial now. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:39, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

"verified as eligible" means that the language is theoretically eligible to get a project if the test wiki is developed enough. It has nothing to do with the content of the test wiki. And at least for Ter Sami the bribery accusation is clearly bogus - looking at SJ81's edits and mails on the langcom list from around that time reveals they were going through all old requests and processing them. Votic is long enough ago that the records aren't publicly available, but I suspect its bogus too. * Pppery * it has begun 04:15, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
@Pppery Let @Yupik: tell you why that status is in wrong position:
Ter Sami has only 2 L1 speakers as per Ethnologue's survey, and many Incubator contributors confirmed that Tamara Ustinova, one of the former "active contributors" of both projects, isn't one, but rather another pro-scowiki behavior maker. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 04:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't really matter if the eligibility is removed or not. I asked Yupik on that Incubator deletion request about maybe starting a Langcom discussion (for one of the languages), but she hasn't done so. With page creation on Incubator being prevented, the risk of a new Wikipedia with questionable content being created is zero. And what's this nonsense about "granted by bribes"? Do you really think my comment on the Votic request "The language is eligible; for the approval it will be necessary to prove that the content on Incubator is written in true Votic, of course." was bought? It seems like the cheque never arrived. I hope you can badger the bribers for me about it. --MF-W 09:37, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
It still meet the basic criteria for project verification. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 14:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
@ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ Even in cases they don't have enough native speakers? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 04:20, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
In this case, you make a valid point; the projects may remain in the Incubator indefinitely.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 05:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Central Dusun Wikipedia

Hi. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Central Dusun. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --Sotiale (talk) 13:10, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello. It has been 7 days since the notification and there are no objections. I hope we can move forward to the approval and launching of the project. Thank you. Rombituon (talk) 03:27, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
See phab:T365220. --Sotiale (talk) 05:41, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. Rombituon (talk) 07:26, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale And how about that RFL page? Shouldn't its "status" parameter be also updated? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 04:55, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
I do have something to say about the name of the project in Kadazandusun. At the time of writing the proposal page still uses "Wikipedia" as opposed to "Wikipidia" which is a somewhat more natural pronunciation. Further, the Sama language spoken in the same region as Kadazandusun similarly uses Wikipidia in its proposal. I suggest that the langcom looks further into this and I also ask for input from other incubator editors. AnderGapoh (talk) 18:18, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
Contact members of your community first. I was told they would contact you. --Sotiale (talk) 13:01, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
Hello, myself and a few others have discussed about this issue previously early in year with experts of the Kadazandusun language at the Kent Campus of the Institute of Teacher Education (IPG Kent). They have advised us to use the term "Wikipedia" following the use of "ensiklopedia" in formal cases. At the moment, we are in the agreement to use the recommended term to keep in line with standardization of the Kadazandusun language. If in any case the authorities of the Kadazandusun language changes the term for "encyclopedia" to a different spelling or a new word altogether, we will try to open a discussion again. For now, we hope for your understanding and for the creation of dtp.wikipedia.org to occur smoothly without issues. Jjurieee (talk) 01:30, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes, we concur with the usage of “Wikipedia” as the term for “ensiklopedia” in Kadazandusun. Blusjai (talk) 01:43, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Nga' asaga kou nangku do rumamit ngai id saralom do toilalaan ku (domain of expertise), i doho pinadalin? Ugu hogot integral, derivative, frequency domain, & suai po.
Okon do mingada oku nopo i sogu di bolungkitas dikoyu nga' iti no kopio i kosiwatan tokou do popoingkawas boros tokou lobi po id gana' kipinonsol tadau baino bo. Lobi po gana' STEM i tikid tadau gumumu' nodi o hogot om oliudan moti tangkob boros tokou do boros noolos noindamaan ginumu'. AnderGapoh (talk) 04:35, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Siou, no objections to the decisions. Central Dusun Wikipedia will proceed to be known as "Wikipedia". AnderGapoh (talk) 04:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Ponsikou.Yoho nga osokodung kopio oku goos-goos popoingkawas diti boros tokou. Ounsikou oku nogi tu haro i kikabaalan kopio montok manakadai toilaan loolobi id gana STEM..Miagal di noilaan, Wikipedia nopo diti nga kikoulalaho ilmiah om haro o sukuon. Istilah nopo nga toririmo kotoguang tantaman doid aspek sukuon di nokohimagon om milo tumboyoon. Kapamansayan nopo istilah wagu id BKD nga milo tokou do poindalanon maya do piilangan pomusarahan, pitimbungakan om undian. Nga koimagon po daa iti Wikipedia BKD om milo tokou nogi mogititimbungak miampai pengguna suai mantad komuniti BKD om nogi kotinanan di kikapansalan montok popotounda dasar-dasar toi ko panduan loolobi montok kopomilian istilah/hogot montok mongolon di hogot-hogot noolos. Rombituon (talk) 05:18, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Bah pounsikou kopio. Potilombuso tokou pitimbungakan diti hilo no id natad kosoguan kino. AnderGapoh (talk) 07:54, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 14:16, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Request for Wikipedia Mandailing

Since last time was ignored. Bennylin 14:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the discussion on this is not progressing even though I started it in April. It's not as ignored as you might think, but I think there's nothing I can do about the slow progress. I will discuss this again soon to resolve the matter, so please be patient. --Sotiale (talk) 12:56, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
And although May isn't over yet, the sudden drop in activity has me concerned. Please encourage them, thanks. --Sotiale (talk) 12:59, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
Probably it's related to the slowness of the response. Not good for the morale. The original request was from 18 March, two months ago. Bennylin 05:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm happy to report the project is now close to approval. See the Notification section at the top of this page. --MF-W 14:20, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 14:20, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Approval request for Czech Wikivoyage

Dear Language Committee, I'm requesting approval for Czech Wikivoyage. Czech Wikivoyage is the last missing Wikimedia project in the Czech language, so the Czech language and the Czech community is generally very active. In the past year, a stable active Wikivoyage community has formed. Now it is active every month. We kindly request your review of this project and hope that the Committee can approve it soon. LiMr (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I am positive about the activity of your project, and I plan to monitor the activity until this month and then proceed with the review for approval process. --Sotiale (talk) 05:44, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Approval request for Shan Wikinews

Dear Language Committee, please review our progress for approval. Thanks.Saimawnkham (talk) 15:09, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

  Note: @Saimawnkham This question was once discussed on their mailing list [1], but there's a negative problem blocks the process, that there are too many recent changes entries are only about creating multiple templates? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:38, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
@Liuxinyu970226 Only about creating multiple templates? Please check the recent changes again. You can check published articles here. Please let us know if we still missed something. Thanks. Saimawnkham (talk) 07:10, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Request for Komering Wikipedia

Hi Langcom, I would like to ask for approval forWikipedia Komering. This is our seventh month, and we hope to get it approved, so we can move forward with other projects like Wiktionary and Wikiquote. Es Krim 5 juta Rasa (talk) 07:56, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello, there is something I would like to ask of you before we start reviewing your project approval. Your language must be verified by a linguist or expert because no other projects have ever been created in it. In this regard, I would like to ask if you could recommend to us a neutral expert or linguist from your community who is not affiliated with your project. They must have never edited your project and must be able to perform their role in a neutral manner. Could you please let me know their name, email address, affiliation and position via email? This is personal information, so please do not post it here or on talkpage. Thanks! --Sotiale (talk) 05:48, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale I have sent it to your email Es Krim 5 juta Rasa (talk) 11:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
@Es Krim 5 juta Rasa: I don't think it was sent as a feature via Wikimedia. No email has arrived for me, so could you please check again? --Sotiale (talk) 12:52, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale: Sorry, I don't know your email. It's my fault I didn't ask first before sending it and I was too enthusiastic for that. Es Krim 5 juta Rasa (talk) 22:07, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
Use this function. Thanks. --Sotiale (talk) 13:00, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
Ok, thank you for the new experience and I have sent the message you requested there. Es Krim 5 juta Rasa (talk) 21:16, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Request for verification of Sylheti Wikivoyage

Dear Language Committee members, requesting verification of Incubator:Wy/syl (Sylheti Wikivoyage). There is a common misunderstanding among those unfamiliar with the process who mistakenly believe that this project is not open for contributions. It is one of the most active Wikivoyage project of the Wikimedia Incubator, currently featured on the main page. Requesting verification and we hope soon we will see the project on its own domain (https://syl.wikivoyage.org) based on its own merit.--ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 04:24, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello! Could you explain who is of the mistaken belief "that this project is not open for contributions"? --MF-W 09:44, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
In Wikimedia, there are many users who are not familiar with the Incubator. A few months ago, one of our community members asked where to start a new Wiki project in a different project. The process is not very smooth. In the Sylheti Wikivoyage's history, we have many registered users but not many unregistered users. Generally, if the verification step is unnecessary and Langcom members are reluctant to perform it, I propose its removal from the proposal template. If it remains, it's better to clarify it so that users unfamiliar with Wikimedia Incubator, LPP, and new language projects do not become confused. —ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 02:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
Bump to prevent archival. * Pppery * it has begun 20:02, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
@Pppery: Is this really beneficial from bumping? All of what I can see is that, for all eight RFLs of Sylheti, the key problem [2], about the script these Sylheti test projects are using is still pending resolve ways by either ways, the requestor said "we have consensus to reject implementation of language conversion", but other langcom members (than MF-W, I think) don't believe it. That said, really unless, and really until, this script matter can be resolved in a win-win way, none (believe that, no one) of the Sylheti test projects may have dawns for approval. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 04:02, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
Don't tell me. I added a bump comment because Special:Diff/26644931. * Pppery * it has begun 04:06, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
No Pppery, in the actual case you're the one should really be told, not "don't tell", see reasons at archive. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:38, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
@Liuxinyu970226: You may address a letter to Langcom stating that this language community lacks literacy skills, but the reality is quite the opposite. The community not only sustains itself but also garners strong support for its projects. We respect their cause; if the community deems a gadget unsuitable, we won’t impose it upon them. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 21:29, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
Well, but is this thread really need to continue? If not, then I'd suggest an archive right now. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Notification about proposed approval of Mandailing Wikipedia

Hi. The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mandailing. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 14:18, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the approval. Badoel (talk) 05:32, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@MF-Warburg I am very happy to get this news and I will also convey it to my friends in Mandailing, I also say thank you very much IHLubis (talk) 03:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
No problem. Please check if the suggested project name in Mandailing (currently: "Wikipedia") and namespaces translations etc. are correct. --MF-W 06:55, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 12:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Request for Addition of Devanagari and Khudabadi ( Hatavaniki) Script on Sindhi Wikipedia

Currently the Sindhi Wikipedia is only in the Arabic Sindhi script, but in India alongwith the Arabic script, Devanagari script is also used and Khudabadi (Hatavaniki) is also used to a small extent. But since the Sindhi Wikipedia is only in the Arabic script, many Indian Sindhi users are unable to use the Sindhi Wikipedia. It would be helpful to them if the Devanagari and Khudabadi (Hatavaniki) script is added in the same way as the serbo croation Wikipedia allows to switch between Latin and Cyrillic and konkani Wikipedia gives the option of Devanagari, Roman and kannada script. How can this be done and where shall we put a request for this ? Thanking you, Siddharth Talreja Siddhu Talreja (talk) 04:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Langcom please help me with this. Siddhu Talreja (talk) 13:45, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Approval request for West Coast Bajau Wikipedia

Hello Language Committee, the West Coast Bajau Wikipedia project has been active for 6 months and the community would like the project to be approved. The request for the approval has been made here. If you need to find an expert on the language, we are ready to provide the contact details. Thank you. Zahirulnukman (talk) 12:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Since the verification process generally takes time, I plan to do it in parallel with a review for approval. If you know of a neutral expert or linguist not affiliated with your community, please email me with their name, email address, and affiliation information. This is personal information, so please do not post it here! --Sotiale (talk) 05:51, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
Hi Sotiale, I already sent it to your e-mail. Zahirulnukman (talk) 17:22, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
For the record, we received verification of the content of your wiki, but for approval of the new subdomain, we require the translation of all the most-used MediaWiki messages. Ping active users of this month: User:Syafiq.y, User:Rombituon, User:Tofeiku, User:Zahirulnukman, User:Ultron90. --MF-W 14:29, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
Understood. We will get the community to translate the messages as much as possible by this weekend. Thank you for the heads up. Ultron90 (talk) 16:56, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Approval request for Czech Wikivoyage

Dear Language Committee, I'm requesting approval for Czech Wikivoyage. Czech Wikivoyage is the last missing Wikimedia project in the Czech language, so the Czech language and the Czech community is generally very active. In the past year, a stable active Wikivoyage community has formed. Now it is active every month. We kindly request your review of this project and hope that the Committee can approve it soon. LiMr (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I am positive about the activity of your project, and I plan to monitor the activity until this month and then proceed with the review for approval process. --Sotiale (talk) 05:44, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
The activity is still high. Please check it again. I had to restore the request from the archive because it had been unchanged here for a long time. LiMr (talk) 11:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:46, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

About approval of central Kanuri Wikipedia

It's been a while since we made a request on meta, we have been active since then, creating and editing articles we have answered questions about the varieties of the kanuri, but we are yet to get any proper response from the Langcom. so what's the future of the central Kanuri Wikipedia? MohammedBama123 (talk) 22:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@MohammedBama123: Hi, I guess things haven't progressed while I've been away on a business trip for a while. I'll let you know about what's been going on so far. The main problem is your language code domain, which is a bit complicated because you are currently contributing from central kanuri but previously contributed from marcolanguage. In this regard, discussions were held in the direction of asking linguists or related experts about Kanuri. I was wondering if you could recommend a Kanuri expert or linguist, someone neutral who has never edited your project. In that case please send me an email. You can email me their affiliation, name, and email address(not here! here is public). This is selective but will facilitate quick decision making. --Sotiale (talk) 12:21, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale Alright I will do that. MohammedBama123 (talk) 21:36, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
@MohammedBama123: Hello, I would appreciate it if you could reply to my email. --Sotiale (talk) 13:22, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale ping abt central kanuri approval Umargana1 (talk) 04:47, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale Alright thanks.

@Umargana1: Perhaps you have not heard from MohammedBama123. I have now sent some inquiries to several experts and am waiting for their responses. --Sotiale (talk) 12:49, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello@Sotiale it's there any new updates about central kanuri. Best regards! Umargana1 (talk) 04:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I think I answered someone's email to me. ;) --Sotiale (talk) 10:57, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
@Sotiale yeah Muhammadbama gave me the update its a great news thank u. wish u all the best Umargana1 (talk) 13:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Request approval of Shan Wikinews

Hello, the project, Shan Wikinews is still waiting for approval. Please consider its approval. Thanks.Saimawnkham (talk) 15:13, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Question about the Chinook Jargon Wikipedia

Hey guys! I see that the CJ Wikipedia, which I edit, has appeared on the "These are active and may get their own site soon" section. Based on the toolforge statistics, we've had 4 major contributors in the past 4 months (althought it looks like one of them forgot his password and moved to another account.)
By this point I've become good pals with Jon Gua, who's really good with wikitext. ISO 369's a nice guy who makes good edits but I rarely hear from him. And the guy who forgot his password- "The Skook", I don't know that much at all about him (no offense to The Skook if he sees this.) I really hope that he sticks around.
But my actual question is, how does the approval process go? What kind of things does it take for a language to actually get approved? And would it be possible to see the discussion behind the approval of say, Central Dusun Wikipedia? That would be great :)
POSSUM chowg File:POSSUMCHOWG.png (talk) 21:58, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I oppose such an approval request due to these discussions elsewhere, which identified POSSUM chowg as a bad user with crosswiki inappropriate behaviors:
  1. c:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#POSSUM_chowg
  2. en:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:POSSUM_chowg,_malicious_templates_with_obscene_titles
Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:41, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
For the record, POSSUM has been global locked. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 05:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I just want to say that the previous problems were a massive misunderstanding, and that I have been unlocked on the majority of wikimedia projects. The thing about the malicious templates was a complete lie. See here for more information. POSSUM chowg (talk) 16:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
@POSSUM chowg You're already defined by more than one wiki as Nothere for contributions, having helps from Uncyclopedia friends can help you on painting yourself as "here to contribute"? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 08:55, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't think I deserve to be listed as "not here for contributions." I do in fact contribute here. On Incubator (my main project) I wrote a whole lot on Wp/chn, on en.wiktionary I created several entries, and on en.wikipedia I created the pages "Arroyo Verde Park" (which definitely still needs improvement) and "Help:IPA/Tlingit", and I also expanded "Driftwood fort."
Also I must ask, is there a way to upload an image without it being on Commons? Because some images on en.wikipedia.org are shown to be just Wikipedia images, not commons images. POSSUM chowg File:POSSUMCHOWG.png (talk) 09:26, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Czech Wikivoyage

The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikivoyage Czech. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 10:45, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 16:20, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Mos Wikipedia

We have learnt with deep regret that the expert we have recommended to you has since not responded to you regarding the validation of Moore language. We would want to suggest to you another expert who will also be of good help regarding the validation of Moore language and what we write in incubator. I hope you would establish a contact to him as soon as you would so that mos will go live. Best regards Hasslaebetch (talk) 11:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

West Coast Bajau Wikipedia

The language committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia West Coast Bajau. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 12:26, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello. It has been more than 7 days since your announcement. Are there any updates? The community is excited to have the project approved. Thank you - Zahirulnukman (talk) 05:06, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
It is now at phabricator:T371757. --MF-W 19:06, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 19:06, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to scrap Requests for new languages

Currently there are about 700 open requests for new languages. However, more than 90% of requests actually have nothing meaningful to discuss. So I propose:

GZWDer (talk) 12:23, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@GZWDer This should better be accounted by a RFC, however as far as I know, any proposals which like to ask langcom to re-allow (sic?) ancient, extinct, and/or historical languages are failed like this one. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 14:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
I have revised my proposal (moving ancient language part to future discussion), so the criteria for ancient languages left unchanged. (Personally I will only support the original proposal in Requests for comment/Start allowing ancient languages - each language should be discussed in their merits, not any alternative ones, especially not allowing any specific languages; In addition, I disagree with most oppose reasons in the original proposal, such as "With little to no contributors left to create or edit the wikis, creating them will be a waste of resources" - if a test wiki have little active contributors, they will not be approved even if it is a living language.)--GZWDer (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
@GZWDer It should also be noted that "All test projects are eligible by default, as long as they have native speakers." isn't really true et al, there are some reasons the Incubator test projects corresponded to the rejected requests, e.g. the Montenegrin one which was rejected for four times. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:11, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
What I mean is "presumed to be eligible, unless disputed by someone". For Montenegrin Wikipedia, if LangCom or another user disputes its eligibility, or if someone proposed to delete the test from Incubator, but no consensus can be reached in Incubator, an Eligibility RFC can be opened. Alternatively, an Approval RFC may be opened if objections are raised when Montenegrin Wikipedia is ready to be created. If no user disputes its eligibility, no RFC needs to be opened. GZWDer (talk) 11:46, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Shan Wikinews

We would like you to review our activites for final approval of Shan Wikinews. Please let us know If we're still missing the point. Thanks.Saimawnkham (talk) 10:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe Sylheti and Shan both Wikinews projects have potentials to success, comparing to dozens of Wikinews projects (mostly inactive) in the incubator and Wikinews subdomains. -- ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 21:28, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Why is the Persian Wikiuniversity not started yet?

It is ridiculous that the Persian Wikiversity has not started yet. I am ready to help this project. what is the problem? Nevisand (talk) 08:10, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nevisand By checking [3], your test project didn't have enough edits in recent 4 years, especially in this year, only @Crochet.david did 4 edits. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 09:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Wow! How should I work in the beta version? Can I do enough work to start Persian Wikiuniversity? Where should I start? Nevisand (talk) 09:46, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Get started on this project page: betawikiversity:صفحهٔ_اصلی. --Sotiale (talk) 10:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Komering Wikipedia

The Komering Wikipedia project is ready to come out of incubation. The Komering language has demonstrated a sustainable and active community, with consistent contributions and strong support from its speakers. The project has been featured on the main page, showcasing its visibility and engagement. With robust community involvement and a solid foundation in place, the Komering Wikipedia is well-positioned to transition from incubation. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 14:58, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, together with Sotiale I'm looking to get verification of the content. --MF-W 21:31, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Approval is proposed. --MF-W 10:48, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:48, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Mongolian Wikipedia in Mongolian script

The Mongolian Wikipedia in Mongolian script would be a great asset for the six million Mongolian speaker in the People's Republic of China. 2601:40D:4300:BAA0:D1C8:3ACA:6051:B69C 00:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

The test-project incubator:Wp/mvf is currently not active, so it cannot be approved. --MF-W 10:19, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
thank you MF-Warburg for the infomation 2601:40D:4300:BAA0:1E93:99F8:48E3:5300 23:18, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:48, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Wiktionary Madura

Hello Language Committee, the Madurese Wiktionary project has been active for multiple months and the community would like the project to be approved. Agus Damanik (talk) 02:52, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Agus Damanik, I proposed the approval of the project in Langcom. Would it be possible for the community to complete the missing translations of the most-used interface messages? --MF-W 10:25, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
sure. i will inform them Agus Damanik (talk) 12:27, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
Agus Damanik: thanks! See now #Madurese_Wiktionary. --MF-W 20:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 08:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Shan Wikinews

Hello MF-W, Jon Harald Søby, Sotiale, We notice The Language Committee intends to approve some request. How about our Shan Wikinews? Is there any problems? We feel embarrassed for requesting every month. Much appreciated.Saimawnkham (talk) 04:42, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll get to this by 16 September. --MF-W 20:59, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
We are moving forward with this request and will probably post the notification about approval soon. --MF-W 10:15, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Thank you very much indeed. Saimawnkham (talk) 15:28, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 08:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikinews RFL backlog clearing to April 2008

Basque Wikinews: Approve with a 12/3 vote

Lithuanian Wikinews: Approve with no opposes

Low Saxon Wikinews: Reject

Tagalog Wikinews: Approve with 3 opposes

Gilaki Wikinews: Reject with a even split

Hindi Wikinews: Approve

Javanese Wikinews: Wait for translation

(note: If any "Approve" doesn't have a translation yet, wait for it)

Another Wiki User the 3rd (talk) 18:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Hello. You may have a wrong impression about what is going on at these requests. They are all already verified as eligible. These projects can be approved if they fulfill the activity criteria. --MF-W 07:05, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Hi, we can see inconsistency, Wikinews Sylheti (meta request) "verified as eligible" in 2022 and later fulfill the activity. But there is not enough LangCom members to fulfill the remaining LangCom discussioins, such as discussing in the LangCom lists etc. We can see here d:Q5296, 342 Wikipedia projects but only 35 Wikinews projects. Many Wikinews subdomain pages are at (Proposals for closing projects) but many active projects are in the Incubator for ages. Among many other reasons, I believe forming diverse team of LangCom who are not only familiar to Wikipedia only but also familiar to other Wikimedia projects. -- ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 10:10, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Wn/syl does not fulfill the activity criteria. --MF-W 10:14, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
It was active from 2023-05 to 2024-05, more than a year. I hope this is enough time to start a LangCom discussion. Ignoring projects for such a long time is not nice either. -- ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 11:08, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Interesting, I'm also wondering why Wp/syl isn't seleted as one candidate for the 5 experiment approval of Wikipedias above. Is there any matters stucked it from candidation? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:25, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
I mean to finish these Another Wiki User the 3rd (talk) 14:16, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
What is that supposed to mean? -- MF-W 19:48, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
It means to get them closed as either approved or declined. Another Wiki User the 3rd (talk) 19:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
As I already said, that's not what is at stake here. Why would you want them to be declined? --MF-W 21:00, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
It's called consensus. Another Wiki User the 3rd (talk) 15:05, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 07:01, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Languages in Africa

Wiki have many languages but it seems like they have few because African languages are nowhere to be found... I want us to talk about languages that are not added on Wiki, especially African languages (example IsiZulu & SeSotho). If other African languages are not available on Wiki. Then people who can't read or write articles in English won't be able to use or understand Wiki. Top News SA (talk) 13:30, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

First, Zulu has a Wikipedia, zu:Ikhasi Elikhulu, as does Sesotho, st:Leqephe la pele. So do a lot of other African languages: Egyptian Arabic, Malagasy, Afrikaans, Swahili, Yorbua, Amharic, Northern Sotho, Hausa, etc. The unfortunate reality is that much of Africa doesn't have great internet, and those who do use it tend to speak English, French, or another major world language. Instead of complaining at us, if you want better Wikis for African languages, you need to get more speakers editing Wikis, or get better internet (and all the things that entails) to those speakers.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:45, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
@Top News SA! To clarify two points so we know how to help out: 1) When you refer to Wiki, are you referring only to Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects like Wikidata, Wikibooks, etc.? 2) Which African languages are you referring to besides isiZulu and SeSotho? All the languages across the continent or just those in South Africa? - Yupik (talk) 16:15, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Incubator reform proposal and LangCom decision making

In 2018 a second proposal to merge Beta Wikiversity into Incubator was rejected by LangCom. The final comment referred to the then-ongoing discussion of reforming the Incubator as grounds for effectively prohibiting any further similar attempts until a definite resolution of the proposal was achieved. However the discussion seems to have pretty much ended in late 2020 with no actual changes being made. Meanwhile, wikis closed by LangCom have been moved to Incubator regardless of the reform proposal. So my question is: what exactly is LangCom's position on moving defunct wikis to Incubator, and is making attempt #3 allowed? (To prevent presumptions: I do happen to be the dumb kid who made the extremely clumsy attempt #1, but I was not involved in #2, and despite BetaWV's having since degraded even more I have no plans to launch #3. But this could possibly be interesting for someone who does.) AtUkr(talk to me) 22:07, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I tend to say, no, making attempt #3 is not allowed, unless it is the urgent wish of the BetaWV community. Of course, "Incubator reform" has still not happened, but it continues to be thought upon. --MF-W 12:31, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
Given the situation at BetaWV, I'm inclined to argue there is no community... which normally would be a valid reason to close a project, yet according to you that would mean it stays. AtUkr(talk to me) 00:13, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The inactivity among most LangCom members, aside from Jon Harald Søby, Sotiale, and MF-Warburg, is concerning, especially given the growing backlog in the incubator where projects remain unresolved for years. A more active and engaged language committee is urgently needed to address this backlog and ensure timely decision-making. Forming a new, fully functional committee with members who can commit to regular participation may be necessary to keep the LangCom effective and responsive. --ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 06:01, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Moore Wikipedia

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mooré. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 13:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Do note that phab:T363538 is still unresolved (although it's seem some movement lately). So while langcom can complete its bookkeeping and file the creation task just fine the wiki still shouldn't be created until that happens. * Pppery * it has begun 16:18, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
In terms of the critical path, I think the main blocker is the creation of MOS as a namespace on enwiki (maybe other wikis as well, there's discussion on phab). Once that is done creating the new wiki shouldn't break any existing links, although links *to* the new moswiki will be awkward in various ways until some of the other tasks in T363538 are complete. Cscott (talk) 19:18, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
My patch to enable the MOS namespace on the first set of 10 wikis (not yet including English Wikipedia) was deployed this morning. I've got some work to do to look through the title conflicts and notify the individual wikis where there are some titles/links that need to be cleaned up, but we're on our way. Cscott (talk) 15:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
MOS namespace on English wikipedia was deployed this morning. Current technical blockers are listed at T363538#10141208 and (except for perhaps CirrusSearch) they all have patches in gerrit. CAnanian (WMF) (talk) 15:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Komering Wikipedia

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Komering. If you have any objections to that based on the language proposal policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 10:48, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Madurese Wiktionary

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wiktionary Madurese. If you have any objections to that based on the Language Proposal Policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. Thank you. --MF-W 20:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Gorontalo Wikiquote

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikiquote Gorontalo. If you have any objections to that based on the Language Proposal Policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. --MF-W 11:53, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Shan Wikinews

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikinews Shan. If you have any objections to that based on the Language Proposal Policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. --MF-W 17:03, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 10:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Yucatec maya

Good afternoon,

I'm a yucatec maya student, that has contact with several yucatec maya teachers and speakers, I was wondering if there's any possible way, we could assist with the addition of the yucatec maya translation for wikipedia, or which are the requirements we need. Suon288 (talk) 19:17, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello Suon288, a project for Wikipedia in Yucatec Maya exists at incubator:Wp/yua, though it is currently inactive. You are welcome to contribute there. If you are looking to translate the interface of the software used by Wikipedia, see translatewiki:Portal:Yua for that. Let me know if you have any further questions. --MF-W 10:18, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Iban Wikipedia

Hello Language Committee, the Iban Wikipedia project has been active for 4 months and the community would like the project to be approved. The request for the approval has been made here. If you need to find an expert on the language, we are ready to provide the contact details. Thank you.--Rombituon (talk) 15:05, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Pinging some members of LangCom @MF-Warburg @Jon Harald Søby @Sotiale @Satdeep Gill for any input on this. Thanks Ultron90 (talk) 16:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
I think if this project continues to be active for another couple of months, I'm very confident, but I'm not sure if this is a brief burst of activity. My colleagues may disagree with me. --Sotiale (talk) 10:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Hello, I'm the wiki-test administrator and also one of the contributor for Iban Wikipedia project. May I get any updates regarding on the approval? I am certain that the project has met the conditions. Song GK (talk) 06:30, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, agreed! It will be approved. --MF-W 19:30, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 14:50, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Five Wikipedias

This is an unusual notice. Langcom intends to approve incubator:wp/kri, incubator:wp/nr, incubator:wp/ann, incubator:wp/tdd and incubator:wp/rsk. The last two clearly fulfill the requirements of the Language Proposal Policy. The others are deficient in various degrees. All approvals are still conditional on verification of the content being obtained (the projects posted in this section otherwise already received it) and - certainly for the first three - the community of the test-projects agreeing. This is part of an experiment proposed by the WMF Language and Product Localization team, which you can read about here. At mw:Future of Language Incubation#Hypothesis statement, the idea behind it is summarized. User:SSethi (WMF) expressed the wish that these projects could be approved on 10 September, so if the circumstances work out, this will be a somewhat shorter notification time than the usual 7 days. --MF-W 00:29, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Update: This notification period will run the usual 7 days, so till 14 September. --MF-W 20:15, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
It is understandable to feel disappointed about seeing projects with ZERO active community being approved for their own Wikipedia subdomains while Sylheti Wikipedia remains in the incubator despite having an active community. This does seem unfair and might discourage future contributors who wants to invest time and effort into building content and community. It is crucial for us to voice our concerns constructively to the Language Committee and ensure that active community, its engagement, and its needs are recognized. Please ensure fair treatment for all deserving language communities. -- ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 17:13, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
As you can see from the other proposed approvals in this section, the approval of projects does not stop just because this experiment is being conducted. -- MF-W 11:20, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
"The others are deficient in various degrees." I will like to know in what way Wp/ann is deficient so we can see what to do to fix it. Before the notification about this experiment, the project was listed on the incubator homepage among the active wikis that will soon get their own site. Before now, this project has met the requirement twice but it was not approved. So some people lost momentum, and some contributors gave up on it. We are however glad that the project has been selected for this experiment. We hope to see it approved soon. Katelem (talk) 22:35, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
It is on the low side of the activity spectrum where we usually look for whether to approve a project. For example, in September so far you are the only editor who made more than 2 edits. I hope that the approval of the wiki can help your contributors gain the momentum again. --MF-W 12:21, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Current situation:

We now have bugs for all five projects: phabricator:T376568 for Iban. --MF-W 14:49, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 18:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Central Bikol Wikisource

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikisource Central Bikol. If you have any objections to that based on the Language Proposal Policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. @Filipinayzd: --MF-W 10:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. @MF-Warburg for notifying Langcom on our proposed project. -On behalf of the community, Filipinayzd (talk) 11:59, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 18:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Requests for closures

Lak Wikipedia 3 - 6 support, 18 oppose. Reject

Gujarati Wiktionary - Reject. Not a single support in over 8 months

Tamil Wikiquote 2 - Reject. 8 strong opposes.

Tamil Wikinews 2 - Accept (maybe soft close depending on your opinion). 1 oppose, and even then it suggests a soft close

Persian Wikinews - Accept. It's f**king blocked.

Norfolk and Pitkern Wikipedia 3 - Accept. Zero opposes

Simple English Wikipedia 4 - Needs clean-up, but Reject. (Maybe a soft close would work)

Cree Wikipedia - Move to Incubator. All opposes object because of quality, not size.

Another Wiki User the 3rd (talk) 19:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

@Another Wiki User the 3rd FWIW, 2 Gujarati-related, 3 Tamil-related and one Simple English requests are rejected. For the first Lak one, this mailing list thread suggests an approval instead in the last year, due to same situation Nauruan Wikipedia was having (no real activity, too much of one-sencense stubs), do you have reasons that the situation is fairly changed for Lak? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:03, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
I think the situation probably has changed. In any case, I thank User:Another Wiki User for bringing up the backlog and will try to close also the remaining requests soon. --MF-W 12:19, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
I wonder if the Naurun wp in the incubator should be nuked. Even the longer pages were created by someone who is not a (native) speaker of the language and is tied to the whole Kamassian debacle. - Yupik (talk) 16:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
  Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:55, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
I'll note here that this is now discussed at incubator:Incubator:Requests_for_deletions#Wp/na. --MF-W 10:35, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
Simple English Wikipedia (SEW) is a good for people who don't understand the big grammar and advanced scientific terms used in the main English Wikipedia. SEW is also good for projects translating from the list of "1000 articles every Wikipedia should have" rather than just creating random articles. SEW should not be closed, instead it should be promoted. Katelem (talk) 23:29, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
The request has been closed and arguments from it do not need to be discussed here. --MF-W 12:19, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 18:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Approval Request for Uzbek Wikisource

Hello Language Committee, a request page for work on Uzbek Wikisource was created on 10 March 2016. I think enough votes have been collected so far. I have also seen that 3,727 pages have been created, although Uzbek Wikisources has not started. I believe that the project should be approved so that the project can work more actively. Yours sincerely Alpasli (talk) 20:14, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you are currently the only active contributor. --MF-W 23:58, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 18:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Tumbuka Wiktionary

Greetings Language Committee, I would like to request for the approval of Tumbuka Wiktionary. I am one of the native contributors on the project. The request was made here almost 2 years ago, with nothing happening to it. The language is spoken in three countries, used in national media such as television, radio and newspapers, etc., and lately, it was added on Google Translate. Moreover, there is a willing community that is ready to contribute to the project. The language also has its own Wikipedia. The other challenge is that most natives do not know how to edit the wiki while still in incubator. So, if the wiki is approved and created, it will attract more natives. It will also act as a must-go-to when one stumbles a difficult word in its sister project (Wikipedia) to look it up. Thanks.--- Tumbuka Arch (talk) 20:19, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The test-project in Incubator is not active (except for your edits). --MF-W 17:05, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 18:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Bengali Wikinews

I think the Bengali Wikinews met the criteria to get approval, but the project is still waiting for approval. Requesting to Lang com to give a look. –TANBIRUZZAMAN (💬) 19:27, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

For the moment it looks to me that in many months there is only one active contributor. --MF-W 12:14, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, the main problem is that it isn't in it's own subdomain. Few editors want to contribute in the project, but because of it's in incubator, many of them doesn't actually understand the things of incubator. In person, I talked with editors (eg, @মোহাম্মদ জনি হোসেন, etc..), they also talked with others to contribute here, many of them said they'll contribute when it'll get approved. However, I know that there’s a rules to Lang-com to approve projects, so can you please suggest me that at least how much time's (or month's) activity counts to get approval, as this isn’t clear in policy. Thanks. –TANBIRUZZAMAN (💬) 00:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
The difficulty of using Incubator is unfortunate indeed. - About the months, there is no hard-and-fast rule, it is "at least several months", so at the very least three months (with preferably at least three editors). -- MF-W 19:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Tulu Wiktionary and Wikisource

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wiktionary Tulu and Requests for new languages/Wikisource Tulu. If you have any objections to any of these requests based on the Language Proposal Policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the communities of these projects are asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the settings for the future wikis as indicated on the request page. --MF-W 18:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@MF-Warburg These should be approved now, right? —Satdeep Gill (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes, do you want to create the phabricator tasks? --MF-W 22:38, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
@MF-Warburg Done. Thank you for the nudge. We need logos for the projects. I will ask the community about those. - Satdeep Gill (talk) 09:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: * Pppery * it has begun 01:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Indonesian Wikivoyage

Dear Language Committee, the Indonesian Wikivoyage project has been active for 9 months. We would like to request to review the project for final approval. Thanks -- Johnstad Wanna Talk? 03:59, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Haloo Commite, we have been trying since 2023 in February by optimizing 3 main contributors then over time various people also came to help until in August we failed this month because we lacked one active person but in September 2023 we tried again by inviting Several people kept changing, but the three of us remained active and help from various friends also helped

If we count from September 2023 until now, we have probably reached 14 months of active efforts. We know there are still articles that need to be completed, but we still haven't given up and continue to improve and complete them.IHLubis (talk)

Thank you for helping remind me IHLubis (talk) 08:22, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm just wondering what criteria Indonesian Wikivoyage still misses. Of course, we will work hard to meet the criteria @MF-Warburg:, @Sotiale:, @Jon Harald Søby: -- Johnstad Wanna Talk? 08:56, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
I haven't looked into it in detail, but at first glance it looks very positive. If the discussion is not progressing, I will start it soon. --Sotiale (talk) 13:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
The discussion has begun. Good luck. --Sotiale (talk) 13:04, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 23:10, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Madurese Wikisource

Dear Language Committee, the Madurese Wikisource project has been active for 3 months and the community would like the project to be verified before approval . The request for the verified has been made here. If you need to find an expert on the language, we are ready to provide the contact details. Thank you. Agus Damanik (talk) 04:21, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I have marked the request as eligible (on 25 Sep). A further verification of the content will not be necessary, as this isn't the first project in Madurese. --MF-W 20:17, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Is there any possibility to approved the website to be hatched from incubator? Thank you Agus Damanik (talk) 18:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I suggest developping the project further from the Multilingual Wikisource wiki, for now. --MF-W 18:49, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
We already did it for four months. Do we need more things? Agus Damanik (talk) 11:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Sufficient Number Query

Hello! The Language Proposal Policy says there must be a “sufficient number of fluent users to form a viable contributor community and an audience for the content.” Is the sufficient number decided on a case-by-case basis, or is there a specific number of fluent speakers a language must exceed (excluding Wikisource)? Oval52 (talk) 03:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

It is decided on a case-by-case basis, if doubts about it arise. --MF-W 11:57, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
Thanks! Oval52 (talk) 16:01, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ꠢꠣꠍꠘ ꠞꠣꠎꠣ (talk) 06:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Wikisource in the Philippine languages

Hello Language Committee, the Bikol Sentral Wikisource project has been active for 4 months and the community would like the project to be approved. The request for the approval has been made here. Thank you. --Filipinayzd (talk) 08:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

@MF-Warburg Filipinayzd (talk) 15:07, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
Please remind me on 12 September, if nobody gets to this before me. --MF-W 00:10, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi @MF-Warburg, aside from the Bikol Wikisource, our community is also working on the following projects as part of the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts program in the Philippinesː

  1. Ilokano Wikisource project which has been active for 4 months
  2. Cebuano Wikisource now on its 4th consecutive months 6 consecutive months
  3. Waray Wikisource is also on its 4th consecutive months of activity
--Filipinayzd (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Is there a page that informs about the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts program in the Philippines? --MF-W 11:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Please see Bikol Wikisource Training of Trainers, Wiki Rescue and Category:Wikisource Loves Manuscripts in the Philippines. -Filipinayzd (talk) 14:36, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, that is very interesting. We are moving forward and will probably post the notification about approval of Central Bikol Wikisource soon. -- MF-W 19:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
Amazing! Looking forward to it. --Filipinayzd (talk) 03:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
  Comment From some practices, I have some concerns about Cebuano and Waray tests, do we know that whether both are having contributions that were initialized by Lsjbot? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:44, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Lsjbot is only active in the local Wikipedias and not in the Wikisource project. The contributors in the local Wikisource projects are real people. --Filipinayzd (talk) 09:07, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
4. Tagalog Wikisource project has been active for 4 months now as well
5. Kapampangan Wikisource project is also on its 4th consecutive months 5th consecutive months of activity
--Filipinayzd (talk) 03:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Indonesian Wikivoyage

The Language Committee intends to approve Requests for new languages/Wikivoyage Indonesian. If you have any objections to that based on the Language Proposal Policy, please tell us here on this page in the next 7 days. Meanwhile, the community is asked to check (and if necessary, complete) the wiki settings as indicated on the request page. --MF-W 23:09, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@MF-Warburg It's been one week, and the wiki setting is already set. Does this project ready to be released? Veracious (talk) 04:24, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
hello, @MF-Warburg how about this wikivoyage, are there any problems in the process of leaving the incubator? IHLubis (talk) 19:06, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: MF-W 11:24, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Classical languages

Respected Sirs/Madams,

I would like to propose a change or rather a clarification of the current Language proposal policy. As of now, languages can be classified as “living”, “ancient”, “historical” or “artificial”. I’d like a fifth category to be made explicit, that is “classical” languages.

Indeed, classical languages are not mere historical languages: rather, they are somewhere in between historical and artificial languages, since they have continued to be used for thousands of years even after losing native speakers. Typically, classical languages serve as vehicular languages: for instance, less than 0.01% of the Latin corpus has been produced by native speakers (J. Leonhardt, Latin: Story of a World Language, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2013, p. 2). Their evolution is not completely compatible with that of natural languages, being usually slower, more measured and meditated. For instance, when Newton coined the Latin neologism “gravitātiō” (“to have weight”, “gravitation”), or when aviation pioneer Joseph Pline repurposed the Classical Greek word “ἀερόπλανος”, (āeróplanos, “wandering in the air”, “airplane”), or when inventor Philipp Reis coined the Greek neologism “τηλέφωνος” (tēléphōnos, “speaking from afar”, “telephone”), these were thoughtful processes rather than natural linguistic changes. These conventional words were created in Latin or Classical Greek to be instantly adopted by all European languages.

I propose the following definition of “classical language” (mostly based on the Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language):

“A prestigious, often ancient language. Such a language is usually learned formally, and is often a yardstick against which other languages are measured. Classical languages have traditionally provided models for successor or dependent languages. They have a body of literature, usually organized into a canon.
Generally, a classical language dominates a cultural area in which vernaculars are used. Because of this, elements of its vocabulary may be absorbed into a subordinate tongue, to form a more or less distinct ‘high’ stratum within it. Both learning the classical language and using its extension into a vernacular are often associated with prestigious systems of education in certain societies, such as Latinity in the public schools of England.
Because of centuries of standardization of literary usage, a classical language or a classicized variety of a language may split off from everyday use. It is instead perpetuated in script, print, and formal instruction.
Until the 19th century, classical languages were commonly used for the purpose of international scientific communication. Still today, they retain a high prestige because of their influence on the development of modern languages and of their employment in the creation of scientific neologisms. E.g., according to a calculation, 29% of English vocabulary has its origin in Latin and 6% of it in Ancient Greek.”

I am advancing this request because I am a contributor to the Classical Greek Wikipedia, a project which is as of now frozen, since the Language proposal policy of Wikipedia currently states:

The current policy doesn’t mention classical languages explicitly. However, Latin, Classical Greek, Sanskrit and Classical Chinese are typified as “historical languages” by SIL. This piece of information (“language type”), however, is called “non-normative” by SIL itself. Moreover, Ethnologue, a publication by SIL that provides information on the living languages of the world, classifies Latin, Classical Greek, Sanskrit and Classical Chinese as “endangered” rather than “extinct” languages. On the one hand, this clearly indicates that “classical languages” elude the simplified classification system developed by SIL. On the other hand, this is also a roundabout way used by SIL to state that Latin and Ancient Greek are classical languages, without complicating their existing, simplified classification framework.

To solve this issue, I propose that the current Language proposal policy be clarified in the following way:

I thank you very much!
Yours faithfully,
Riccardo Radici

P.S.: If I have to follow a different procedure to submit this request, please let me know! Thanks. Anaxicrates (talk) 18:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Responding on behalf of myself; this doesn't necessarily represent the whole Language committee.
According to the definition you wrote, classical languages are about canon and prestige, and not about everyday use. Prestige is impossible to measure, and it doesn't matter anyway because that is not what Wikimedia is supposed to do. Canon is pretty well-defined, and it is very useful, but the place for it is Wikisource and not Wikipedia. And Wikipedia and Wiktionary should be in a language of everyday use.
The "everyday use" argument could also be used against artificial languages. I'd support making the criteria stricter for them, too, but that would be a separate discussion. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:29, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Were this before the 20th century, I might agree. I might accept Latin if that were an issue even today. One of my problems with Ancient Greek is that I've been told the incubator is not good Ancient Greek, and that at least according to the translator for Harry Potter in Ancient Greek, it's missing words like "train" which he had to invent for his translation. But to say that anyone actually uses the Latin Wikipedia is a bit of a farce, and Ancient Greek doesn't have nearly the amount of use over a large area, nor the current use Latin does. And I'm afraid about things like Classical Chinese and Ottoman Turkish; does anyone know these languages who don't also know Mandarin or Turkish, respectively? Those seem to be a lot more about "prestige" than the theoretical potential of a bunch of classicists coming together in a common language to produce a Wikipedia.
For me, Latin, Sanskrit and Ancient Greek are the three languages that could possibly support a classical language Wikipedia. We have two of them, and I'm personally concerned about how marginal Ancient Greek is relative to Latin and that we might be releasing a Wikipedia full of bad Ancient Greek. I don't see anything else I would even think of opening the door for.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:21, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your answers, @Amire80: and @Prosfilaes: I would like to point out that "canon and prestige" are not completely impossible to measure. A criterion for this could be the one I mentioned earlier: when a language is classified as "historical" in the ISO 639-3 by SIL, yet Ethnologue by SIL acknowledges that it has not gone extinct — meaning it's false that "the language is no longer used and no one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language" — this is a clear indication that the language retains significant prestige and is canonical enough to be studied extensively.

Although any comparison has its own severe limitations, you may be helped to better grasp my point by considering one of Amir's native tongues, Hebrew, a language of extraordinary prestige and associated with ethnic identity. A century ago, Hebrew could have been considered an historical language among many others; however, people of better judgement considered it a classical language, and its potential and vitality have been demonstrated further by subsequent developments.

It's also inaccurate to say that classical languages are not in everyday use by anyone, though I acknowledge they are not used in the same way as modern languages. Many classicists engage with these languages daily, particularly through reading, but not exclusively. These are the same people who could build, and who would read this encyclopedia. There are also a few people on Wikipedia who declare Classical Greek as their native language, even if this should be verified, as it could be possible only within families who opted for an exceptionally classical education. Historically, it's famous the case of Michel de Montaigne, whose native language was not French, but Latin.

It’s also incorrect to claim that there wouldn’t be a large enough user base to sustain the project. Currently, around one million people worldwide (approximately 0.5 million in Greece and 0.27 million in Italy) study Classical Greek. The fact that the Ancient Greek Wikipedia project remains marginal is clearly due to other factors, likely a lack of visibility, limited prospects within the current Wikimedia policy, and the consequent absence of an overall project. On the other hand, it's true that some articles in the Incubator are not written in good Classical Greek. This can be fixed, however: individual mistakes can be corrected, and very bad articles can be trashed altogether. I assure you this can be done without great difficulties. Furthermore, a change in the Language proposal policy would not imply that the project in the Incubator must be approved immediately: It would be very reasonable to polish it before publication. However, adjusting the policy would send a positive signal, attracting both new contributors and those who had become disillusioned, enabling us to refine the articles in the Incubator within a reasonable time frame.

Actually, it's false that the translator of Harry Potter in Ancient Greek had to invent a word for "train" for his translation. Instead, he looked and found it on a dictionary of Katharevousa Greek, i.e. almost a dictionary of modern Classical Greek (actually, "Katharevousa" is an umbrella term, including a wide range of Greek varieties, from Demotic Greek with just a slight archaizing patina all the way to modern Classical Greek). In the same way, I don't think it necessary to invent any new word to build a Classical Greek Wikipedia. All the modern terms that might be required in some contexts are already attested in Katharevousa Greek.

I also strongly disagree with the idea that the Latin Wikipedia is "a bit of a farce", or merely "about prestige": in fact, I started contributing to the Greek Wikipedia because I found the Latin version to be genuinely useful.
Having Wikipedia projects in classical languages expands access to information, particularly because these languages contain untranslated material, and the content would be created and read by people from different linguistic backgrounds. Furthermore, a Wikipedia in Classical Greek (unlike Wikisource) could quote ancient sources, organizing them around specific themes. Furthermore, it could offer valuable and unique content on ancient topics, etymologies, and cultural interests that are often overlooked by other editions. For example, the article I wrote about the revenues of Athens quoting classical sources has no equivalents in any other language. On the other hand, had I simply translated it into my native language, a classicist from Greece, for instance, would have found it difficult to consult it.

Finally, regarding your concern about Ottoman Turkish: it would not be admitted under my proposal, as it is considered an extinct language by SIL. Additionally, any new project in Classical Greek or Latin would still have to pass a rigorous quality control process before being approved. The key difference is that these projects wouldn’t be rejected categorically or a priori, unlike under the current policy. Anaxicrates (talk) 23:11, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Hearing about prestige is a big negative for me. It makes it sound to me like you want to change the rules in a way to privilege your language over that of the common people. I'm concerned about the usefulness of a new Wikipedia, not privilege.
You compare Hebrew, but Hebrew had a literature in the 19th century. That's part of the issue I have with Ancient Greek, as lacking that literature. He took the word from Katharevousa Greek, a lect of Modern Greek, not Ancient Greek. It's quite convenient for Hebrew that we have a standardized modern language, and for Latin we at least have Vatican City publications with Latin vocabulary for the modern world, though I don't know if the Latin WP uses them.
That one million people study the language doesn't tell us much. My experience is that many people who took classes in a language gained almost no lasting knowledge. I'm guessing that the number who actually know Ancient Greek and might edit or read this Wikipedia is much smaller.
Had you translated that into English, it would have reached many more people, and likely many classicists from Greece would be able to read it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:14, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Again, thank you very much, @Prosfilaes: for your precious comments and for your openness to this exchange of ideas.
I absolutely do not want to privilege classical languages over those of the common people! Rather, I desire to avoid discrimination against Classical Greek. The debate about "prestige" essentially started because the first word used by the Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language to describe "classical languages" is "prestigious". I hope you consider the objective meaning of this word: Please don't interpret it in a "gloomy" way: That is not the meaning I want to convey! Probably, a more neutral definition could be "extensively studied".
I'd like to close this paragraph with a quotation from the newly-elected Nobel Prize in Literature, Han Kang: "The European languages of today have passed through that long process, becoming less strict, less elaborate, less complicated. When reading Plato, one is able to appreciate the beauty of an ancient language that had arrived at its acme many thousands of years ago."
Someone once said about my regional language, which by the way is represented on Wikipedia, that "lacking a word for 'republic' is a sign of irremediable misery of a language". I don't agree: my regional dialect is also precious, representing the common people's perspectives, for instance. However, no one (never mind a Nobel laureate in Literature from the antipodes of the Earth) has ever said about Lombard something similar to what Han Kang has said about Classical Greek. That's to convey that I am not privileging "my language", which is evidently Lombard rather than Classical Greek: I am defending an objective fact. How can you maintain that such a language is not admissible in principle?

Classical Greek had a literature in the 19th century too. Just to provide a significant example, Konstantinos Mousouros translated Dante's Divine Comedy in Classical Greek ("Canon Greek" – Κεκανονισμένη Ἑλληνική – in his words) verses. C. G. also has a literature now. Let's disregard more frivolous literature: In recent years, Jan Křesadlo composed Astronautilia, a science fiction poem in Homeric verses. Here you can read Book 13, also provided with an English rendition. I admit, however, that Classical Greek is used less now than in the past centuries.
However, your objection about a presumed lack of words for modern concepts in Classical Greek is due to a lack of information. Firstly, let's clarify that, of course, the Latin Wikipedia uses words attested in modern Latin literature when necessary.
Classical Greek is a very rich language: for instance, the Rocci Greek-Italian vocabulary contains 150,000 entries. Also, many modern terms have been actually created in Classical Greek (in this sense, Classical Greek is more vital than many modern languages). Furthermore, Modern Greek, which is much different from Classical Greek in many aspects of phonology, syntax and morphology, is actually very similar in new word formation. Therefore, true Katharevousa Greek vocabulary is compatible with Classical Greek. I also repeat, Katharevousa is a generic term: It is simplistic to say that it is just "a lect of Modern Greek". Here, I am referring to the most classicizing variant of Katharevousa, which is the Greek equivalent of modern Latin. The same holds true for Greek as for Latin publications from the Vatican, with the difference that Katharevousa was also sponsored by the Greek state for a long time (rather than just by the Greek-Orthodox Church). You should not interpret the division of Greek by SIL into "Ancient (to 1453)" and "Modern (1453-)" as if there were no Classical Greek literature after 1453: this is a very conventional periodization, and its meaning is that, after the 15th century, the spoken Greek language had changed enough that it could be considered a new language. Reality is more subtle: evolution was much more gradual. To be even clearer, if SIL had provided similar conventional time frames for Latin languages, e.g. "Latin (to 1000)" and "Italian (1000-)", you should not interpret that to mean that Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius was written by definition in Italian rather than Latin, of course. The Greek language experienced significant continuity, even through the Dark Ages, thanks to the persistence of the Eastern Roman Empire. Greeks in the 19th and even in the 20th century debated if a new "Modern Greek" standard should be codified (these were the advocates of Demotic) or Classical Greek should be the only standard (these were the advocates of Katharevousa): however, any representative of either faction had their individual stance on the issue, and, in fact, there were many intermediate positions, leading to multiple interpretations of Katharevousa. Consequently, the term "modern" is ambiguous in this context, as Katharevousa is modern in time, but does not necessarily fit the definition of "Modern Greek" (in other words, "Modern Greek" is both the equivalent of "Modern Latin", and the equivalent of "Italian", "Spanish", etc., leading to ambiguity).

Regarding the number of users, it's clear that not all the people who study a language retain that knowledge over time. However, at least some retain that knowledge. Please also notice that one million is the number of people who are currently studying the language. If we added the number of people who have studied the language in the past, the total would probably be between 10 and 20 million people. I agree that to assume 20 million people are able to read Classical Greek would be very optimistic. On the other hand, assuming near zero is overwhelmingly pessimistic. You often authorize languages with a much smaller potential pool of readers than Classical Greek.

Of course, I could translate that article in English, and I will probably do that when I find the time. But again, my point was another one: it is not right to assume that all people know English, or language "x". Let us assume there is a person who can write an article in Classical Greek, and another person who is interested in reading that article. You are saying: they must write and read that article in English. That could imply a bit of imperialistic mentality, and might also be considered an obstruction to freedom of speech, but let's forget that. At the very least, you are implicitly assuming that both the writer and the reader can respectively write and read an article in English. But it could be that the writer can't write properly in English, his mother tongue being e.g. Korean, or that the reader doesn't speak English, his mother tongue being e.g. Greek. It could be that the only language they share is Classical Greek. So, by assuming that, you are essentially destroying bridges. If this is your position, you should proceed to erase all Wikipedias other than the English one, with inflexible logic. However, that would lead to an impoverishment of the English Wikipedia itself, paradoxically, because many articles first written in a language, and then translated into English, could no longer exist.
You should also consider the possibility that a classicist could prefer to read the text and the quotations directly in Greek, without continuously switching between languages or suffering the inevitable losses of meaning intrinsic in any translation. Actually, that is the guiding principle I have tried to establish for the Classical Greek Wikipedia in the last year, since I have started contributing to it: An increased focus on classical themes, where a Classical Greek Wikipedia can surely excel! Anaxicrates (talk) 03:06, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
@Anaxicrates You claim "Classical Greek" more than "Ancient Greek" (39 times > 24 times), but now, even you can claim "Classical Greek" is still living, there would still be a question that whether you can just use the grc code or not, see a rejection decision from SIL: Registration Authority decision on Change Request nos. 2006-084, 2009-060, and 2009-081:
Which means that "Classical Greek" isn't having a separate code, and by SIL's logical, grc refers only to such thing before 1453. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:34, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Let me clarify:
Ancient Greek is a generic term, and refers to a multitude of dialects (especially Ionic-Attic, Doric and Aeolic). The main of these dialects is Attic (the dialect of Athens), which became the "Common Greek language" ("Koine dialektos" in Greek), and from which Modern Greek descends. "Classical Greek" refers to this variant, and indeed it is classified on Ethnologue as a "dialect of Ancient Greek". However, the other dialects (Doric, Aeolic) are somewhat minor, attested only in inscriptions and some poetry (usually fragments). In practice, Ancient Greek is often used synonymously with Classical Greek, much as "computer" typically refers to an "electronic computer" (by synecdoche), even if the term could also mean "analog computer".
I often write Classical Greek to exclude Doric and Aeolic, and to refer to the canon of Attic "classics" on which its grammar is based.

GRC doesn't refer to Ancient Greek only for texts written before 1453. To reiterate: "You should not interpret the division of Greek by SIL into "Ancient (to 1453)" and "Modern (1453-)" as if there were no GRC literature after 1453: this is a very conventional periodization, and its meaning is that, after the 15th century, the spoken Greek language had changed enough that it could be considered a new language. To be even clearer, if SIL had provided similar conventional time frames for Latin languages, e.g. "Latin (to 1000)" and "Italian (1000-)", you should not interpret that as meaning that Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius was written by definition in Italian rather than Latin, of course."

SIL refused to detach Medieval, Ecclesiastical and Katharevousa Greek (the three Change Requests mentioned by SIL) from Ancient Greek. Those requests were problematic, e.g. because Katharevousa is not one single variety of Greek. I am okay with using GRC as a language code, rather than requesting a new, more specific "Classical Greek"/"Attic Greek" one, because there is no reason to fear that someone is going to write articles in Doric or Aeolic Greek (no one of the current 2,000 articles is in Doric or Aeolic), and I also want to avoid hyperclassicism ("any term that was not used by Xenophon, Plato or Demosthenes must be rejected"). On the other hand, sometimes it happens that someone writes articles in forms of Katharevousa not suitable for a GRC Wikipedia (I mean forms of Katharevousa contaminated with Modern Greek grammar). So, it is a task of the GRC language community to prevent the proliferation of such articles. Anaxicrates (talk) 08:22, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Sadly, I'm   Opposeing without any kind of prejudices, whether you're demonstrating its benefits from your practices, it's the WMF's policy, not only langcom's policy, to not allow any kinds of non-living languages anymore, not allow for ancient, not allow for extinct, and not allow for historical. Unless for the very lower possibility, the WMF as a whole entity changes their situations on this question, such proposals are not going to be successful in any circumstances. For details of WMF official situation, you may want to see foundation:Contact us, for else, I don't see anyway and anyhow this can be adopted. If you don't against, then I'd love to start finding a replacement website to serve the de facto grc test project, and finally, they will eventually be deleted. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
What do you mean by "it's the WMF's policy, not only langcom's policy"? Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 02:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
@Amire80 and Anaxicrates: In [4]: Wp/grc: It is not a living language, and not eligible to have a wiki. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
That is not a policy. That is a page that is based on Language committee policy. Please try to be more precise when you talk about policy. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 02:46, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
@Amire80: Thank you very much for explaining! I was astounded by @Liuxinyu970226:'s reply, and I was already sketching an e-mail to be sent to Wikimedia. Thanks for clarifying I am speaking with the only people entrusted with determining the language policy.
If the criterion is to be a "living language", Classical Greek should not be excluded, even if it is classical. Why shouldn't all living languages listed on Ethnologue be admissible? Classical Greek is clearly considered as "living". If you download LanguageCodes.tab from their website, "Greek, Ancient" is classified as L (living) rather than X (extinct). It is also counted by them among the 7,164 living languages of the world. Anaxicrates (talk) 04:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
The Language committee doesn't use that file to make decisions.
That file also classifies Ancient Hebrew (hbo) as "living", which is obviously not true. Ancient Hebrew is widely studied, but if you consider it separately from (modern) Hebrew (he/heb), then it's easy to see that one of them is living in speech and writing, both casual and professionally-edited, and the other is not. It's quite strange that Ethnologue classify grc and hbo like that, and it's even stranger that they didn't include Ottoman Turkish (ota) in the same list at all, even though it is also widely-studied. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Indeed, there are standardization different regarding a random language is living or not, that file looks just like the code itself is "living", means that that file can claim Middle English (enm) is also "living" (the historical language with not only RFLs rejected for five times, but also Incubator test project migrated). Believe me, that's why I started incubator:Talk:Wp/grc/Κυρία Δέλτος#Consider a new website for serving these contents? rather than RFD it, as I also believe that there are very well contents. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 14:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
@Amire80: and @Liuxinyu970226:: Firstly, that file does NOT claim that Middle English is also "living". That file was created by the same people responsible for the ISO. On what basis do you affirm that Classical Greek is not "living"? If your answer is: "ISO by SIL classifies GRC as historic", I'd like to point out that the definition of "historic" does not imply "not living": SIL states clearly that "a language is listed as historic when it is considered to be distinct from any modern languages that are descended from it". This can be true even for a language that is still living, and they classify Classical Greek as living.
They also classify in this way Sanskrit, Classical Chinese and Ancient Hebrew, other classical languages. Obviously, these languages are described as "endangered" rather than "institutional": this is an important difference.
I do not know Hebrew. If Modern Hebrew were to follow the same grammar standard of Ancient Hebrew, and to simply include more words and meanings, then it would make sense that no modern text is written in Ancient Hebrew (in the same way as all new Latin texts are written in Modern Latin rather than Ancient Latin). This is not the case for Ancient Greek, where the grammar standard is different, and it is possible to write a modern text in this archaizing and classical version of Greek. Anaxicrates (talk) 15:45, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
@Liuxinyu970226: I want to clarify, since I have just noticed your speculation that "living" might refer to the code rather than the language itself. That is not correct: The word you are looking for is "active" (referred to the code). "Living" is referred to the language itself: SIL lists classical languages as "living". Anaxicrates (talk) 02:57, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
@Amire80: When you say that you do not use that file, do you mean that you use this file instead, or that you make your own choice, regardless of the standard set by SIL? Anaxicrates (talk) 20:19, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
The relevant information is generally available on the usual web pages of Ethnologue and ISO 639, and those complicated data files are simply not necessary, especially given that they have some strange and obviously misleading information about some languages.
Now that we have Wikipedia in more than 300 languages and MediaWiki localization in more than 400, we're getting into languages getting information about which is becoming difficult because they are less well documented. For example, it's hard to decide whether Hijazi Arabic or Makassar Malay are unique enough according to the Language Proposal Policy just based on Ethnologue, so we'll probably have to consult experts about them. It's not the case with Ancient Greek, though. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:34, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't understand why you contrast the official data files, presumably containing "misleading information", with the corresponding web pages, presumably containing "the relevant information". The information is in fact the same: Ancient Greek is classified on the "usual web page" as "endangered" and as "only used by non-native speakers", and in the file it is classified as "living", because "endangered" falls under "living". SIL classifies languages as "extinct" only if they have no speakers. Anaxicrates (talk) 00:38, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Both are misleading. Ancient Greek is neither living nor endangered in any way. Its status is completely different from Udmurt, for example, but both are identically marked as "endangered". I haven't even noticed this till today because it's so obvious that Ancient Greek is extinct and not living (and no, the fact that it's studied by many people who want to read ancient texts doesn't make it living). I've written to Ethnologue about this and I hope that they clarify this. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:26, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
It's true that the status of Ancient Greek and Udmurt is very different. I also agree that the "endangered" label is misleading. The problem arises from the simplified classification system developed by SIL. They mean "not extinct", with "endangered" being the closest available label. So, why don't they consider Ancient Greek as "extinct"? Because it falls under the category of "classical" and "dormant" languages rather than "extinct" ones: indeed, it is false that "the language is no longer used and no one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language" (SIL's definition of "extinct language").
It is also reductive to claim that Ancient Greek is studied solely "to read ancient texts". While this is certainly one motivation, the language is also studied to create scientific neologisms and for reasons of cultural identity. Even when the goal is only to read ancient texts, using the language actively is necessary to acquire fluency, which in turn inspires its use in both writing and speech. This active engagement has led to a body of creative works, enabling classicists today to read Ancient Greek newspapers (even online), to attend conferences conducted in the language (even online), and to enjoy modern Classical Greek poetry, for instance. Anaxicrates (talk) 01:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
What I will propose is "Projects in any language with no native speaker (including constructed languages other than Esperanto, most classical languages and extinct/ancient languages) must require explicit consensus to create this specific project before creation". I will oppose any proposal to include or exclude any predetermined lists of languages.--GZWDer (talk) 07:39, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for your contribution, @GZWDer: That's also a sensible proposal: I appreciate that it is not rigid, and it doesn't force reality into a Procrustean bed. The current deterministic policy prevents people from thinking, leading to paradoxes like approving Kotava while rejecting Ancient Greek. On the other hand, yours encourages reasoning. Anaxicrates (talk) 19:49, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Should this On hold request be eligible or not?

Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Hainanese 2, after several years of lacking ISO code, in 9 Sep a code hnm has granted following 2021-045 (partially adopted), are there any remain problems on its eligibility? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:32, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Hausa Wikiquote

Hello, The Hausa Wikiquote was created for the past 2 years (since August 2022) and we have up to hundred native speakers whom have made significant contributions of more 2,200 articles.

Kindly review and approve Hausa Wikiquote as a Project. https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wq/ha/Babban_shafi

Best, Uncle Bash007 (talk) 09:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Find request page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikiquote_Hausa Uncle Bash007 (talk) 09:40, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Request for Approval of Bikol Wikibooks

Hello Language Committee, the Bikol Sentral Wikibooks project has been active for 5 months and the community would be grateful if the project is approved. --Filipinayzd (talk) 22:25, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Return to "Language committee/2024" page.