African languages

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This is a page to gather useful information about African languages in Wikimedia projects, in order to increase the number of writers on the continent itself. Specifically African languages with many speakers, but not many writers, so excluding French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic and Afrikaans, which have fairly active Wikipedias already.

Si tu veux tu peux écrire en français ici, soit on traduira les phrases en anglais, soit on créera une traduction en français.

The term African languages refers to the approximately 1800 languages spoken in Africa. Some African languages, such as Swahili, Hausa, and Yoruba, are spoken by millions of people. Others, such as Laal, Shabo, and Dahalo, are spoken by a few hundred or fewer.

Generally, books are expensive in Africa. Many languages have a purely oral tradition. Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects are an excellent way to improve the situation of African languages.

Would you be willing to help develop the presence of African languages on Wikipedia and Wiktionary? That is, to help set up Wikipedias in African languages, and to accelerate the process of adding words to the Wiktionaries.

[edit] Your knowledge

In which languages are you able to write? Also, since you're studying, you might know more people who are interested in a project like this.

• Guaka:
  • basic knowledge of Bambara
  • in possession of Bambara-French, French-Bambara dictionary
  • English, German, French, Dutch, little Spanish
  • currently in Mali

• moyogo:
  • learning Lingala
  • in possession of French-Bangala-Lingala dictionary, three Lingala teaching books and a Lingala dictionary
  • French, English, little Dutch, intermediary Spanish
  • currently in the Netherlands

• Inisheer:
  • learning kinyarwanda
  • english-kinyarwanda (tiny) dictionnary, one teaching book
  • French, English, German, little Spanish
  • currently in Switzerland

• A12n 14:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Fula, Bambara
  • Have a bunch of materials in storage; published a lexicon of Fula (focusing on Maasinankoore
  • French, lesser knowledge of various other languages
  • Coordinating PanAfriL10n project; co-founder of Afrophonewikis group

• your name, alias
  • your knowledge of African languages
  • your African languages dictionaries
  • your knowledge of other languages
  • other useful information

[edit] Wikipedias set up

[edit] Active

• Afrikaans, 5500/7400 articles (may 2007) [8000+ dec. 2007]
• Akan, 17/24 articles (alternatif/officiel; may 2007) from 1 contributor
• Amharic 617/2900 (alternatif/officiel; may 2007) [3000+ dec. 2007]
• Bamanankan, 185 (June 2008) [+50 since May 2007]
• Chi Chewa 21/28 articles (may 2007)
• ChiShona 13/17 articles (may 2007) [down from 37 articles in aug. 2006]
• ChiTumbuka 15 articles (aug. 2006)
• Ɛʋɛ 6/13 articles (jan. 2007)
• Fulfulde 32 articles (June 2008) [+17 since January 2007]
• Gĩkũyũ or Kikuyu 8/15 articles (jan 2007)
• Haussa 12/17 articles (alternatif/officiel; may 2007) [+2/-2 since july 2006]
• Igbo 186 articles (june 2007)
• isiZulu 25/81 articles (jan. 2007)
• Kikongo 111/169 articles (alternatif/officiel; jan. 2007)
• Kinyarwanda 4/36 articles (jan. 2007)
• Kirundi 6/12 articles (jan. 2007)
• Kiswahili 2600/3800 articles (may 2007), interface translated, modest activity [6000+ dec. 2007]
• Lingala 157/506 articles (alternatif/officiel; march 2007) [1000+ dec. 2007]
• Malagasy 118/228 articles (may 2007) [from 198 in aug. 2006]
• Malti 1483 articles (march 2007)
• Sesotho 5/38 articles (jan. 2007)
• Setswana 17/22 articles (may 2007) [from 18 articles in aug. 2006]
• Soomaali, 53/106 articles (jan. 2007), struggling along precariously on a combination of transwikied content and non-native speakers
• Tigrinya 4/10 articles (jan. 2007)
• Twi 14/17 articles (alternatif/officiel; jan 2007)
• Wolof 709 articles (June 2008) [+450 since July 2006]
• Xhosa 14/31 articles (alternatif/officiel; jan 2007)
• Xitsonga 3/4 articles (alternatif/officiel; may 2007) [+1/-2 since july 2006]
• Yoruba 1700/1800 articles (alternatif/officiel; may 2007)

• alternatif means: minimum 200 letters
• officiel means: minimum one internal link (see http://stats.wikimedia.org)

[edit] Closed (and in incubator)

• Kanuri

[edit] Deleted

[edit] Words in Wiktionary

[edit] Bamanankan

• Mots bambaras dans Wiktionnaire, >1000
• Mots français avec une traduction en bambara

[edit] Dogon

• Mots dogons dans Wiktionnaire
• Mots français avec une traduction en dogon

[edit] Kinyarwanda

• Mots kinyarwanda dans le Wiktionnaire
• Mots français avec une traduction en kinyarwanda

[edit] Lingala

• Mots lingalas dans Wiktionnaire >100
• Mots français avec une traduction en lingala

[edit] Swahili

• Mots swahilis dans Wiktionnaire >500
• Mots français avec une traduction en swahili
• English words with a Swahili translation

[edit] Hausa

[edit] Yoruba

[edit] Soŋoy

[edit] Number of speakers

List of major African languages (by total number of speakers)

Total number in chart = 538 million Total number of people in Africa 900 million

[edit] See also

• Wikipedia statistics
• List of languages by total speakers
• Afrophonewikis
• PanAfriL10n wiki - a resource for localization and other work on African languages & ICT
  • PanAfriL10n list of "Major languages" of Africa (includes discussion of category and links to alternative lists)
  • PanAfriL10n page for other languages of Africa not in the "Major languages" section