Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Ter Sami

Ter Sami Wikipedia

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Requests for new languages (Wikipedia Ter Sami)

submitted verification final decision Discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Votes will be ignored when judging the proposal. Please provide arguments or reasons and be prepared to defend them (see the Language proposal policy). (See an unofficial analysis of this request.)

Proposal summary
Language details: Ter Sami (Saa´mekiill, sjt ISO 639-3) Editing community: Tamara Ustinova (P) List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your name if you are a native speaker of this language. Relevant pages: development wiki project External links: * Sami Vocabulary Some information in English
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I know that it is very hard to make a Wikiproject in a moribund language, but I request to give it just a little chance.

Ter Sami language spoken in Russia; it is one of 9 Sami languages. The exact number of native speakers is unknown in fact - from 2 to 20. Creation of encyclopedia in Ter Sami is the only way to save it. Regards,--Tamara Ustinova 14:29, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Arguments in favour

• Support per above--Tamara Ustinova 14:29, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
• Support, but I think that it will never be opened.--U.Steele 02:39, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Probably not a lot of native speakers, but what about the scholars? Anyway, saving small languages and/or their heritage, at least in written form if not in spoken form, is our mission as Wikipedians and obligation as humans. Kubura 03:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
  • It isn't. That's what wiktionary is for. Seb az86556 04:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Wiktionary and Wikisource aren't popular in Russia.--Tamara Ustinova 11:21, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Wiktionary and Wikisource are not able to play a role of a Wikipedia project. Wiktionary is, compared to Wikipedia, like closing a culture in the limits of a folklore society that appears annually on folklore festival or parade. Wikipedia is forcing the author to write more, to use the language, to search and develop the features of the language. Makes him/her to live and think the language. Kubura 03:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Ontoi 12:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Arguments against

• 2 speakers? Where are they? Even if, it says they're illiterate. They could probably die at any moment, and there's no grammatical description available. It's impossible to revive something under these circumstances. Seb az86556 18:28, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The exact number of native speakers is unknown. Oficial statistics: 6 speakers - 1995, 10 - 2004, 2 - 2010. Don't you think it's strange?--Tamara Ustinova 02:50, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Whatever it might be, it's clear that it is insufficient. Seb az86556 04:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
      • I believe you only think so. --Tamara Ustinova 11:24, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
• Sorry, but <20 speakers is practically zero and therefore no viable editing community would emerge even if the project were created. Ruslik 18:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
  • OK with that, but how many scholars and scientists know that language? It's the matter of the vividness of the contributor(s) that are willing to work on Wikipedia. Kubura 03:41, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Unfortunate for you, it has already been decided that there will not be wikipedias in dead languages. Seb az86556 05:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Is it dead language? O_O --Tamara Ustinova 07:54, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
        • Yes, a language known only by scholars, scientists, and a handful of aging and dying individuals is dead. Provide some links to a newspaper, literature, a radio or TV show, contemporary music (be it rock, pop, rap or whatever), a government or institution which uses the language. Seb az86556 10:24, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
          • It's just funny to read...))) how old are you? Well, your opinion is adopted. I wish you good luck next year. --Tamara Ustinova 10:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
            • In other words, you don't have an answer. Seb az86556 18:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
              • Trolling?--Tamara Ustinova 20:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
                • Seb is a well respected member of the Wikimedia community. You on the other hand I have never heard of... I happen to agree with Seb also. A language with a couple of elderly speakers is not a good candidate for a Wikipedia. As interesting and valuable as the language might be, Wikipedia is simply not the right project for this kind of language. Vibrant small languages (maybe even with as few as 100 speakers), or moribund medium-sized languages (perhaps with over 500 speakers, at the very least) could have potential but would present unique challenges. For a language that will probably cease to be spoken natively within the next decade, the challenges are simply insurmountable. --Node ue 22:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
                  • I see this request as open (category), so here's my comment. Latin and Old English are then "living languages". About the "elder speakers": consider the situation of the Basque language during Franco's era, that was until 37 years ago. Mostly elder speakers spoke it, so now the grandparents and their grandchildren speak know Basque better then the parents' generation. About the size and challenge: some wikipedia projects will obviously remain very small and will not cross the 10,000 articles, not even in 10 years. Many existing projects have pumped their articlenumber with the bot (cities, villages...); the true vividness of these projects is much smaller. It's reasonable to expect that Ter Sami will have articles about oand related to hunting tools, animal-powered vehicles, forest, meadow, swamp and tundra animals and plants, various bodies of water, animal bodyparts and processing, clothes, some celestial features, weather conditions, family terminology, food, common medicine problems and traditional medicines... Hey, these are the topics to be filled. The world of such tribes have their 1000 "must have" articles that does not have to coincide with "our" "must have" articles. Kubura (talk) 01:20, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Neutral arguments

• none

Other discussion

I know that Wikipedia is the most well-known of the Wikimedia-projects, so there seems to be a certain prestige attached to having one in a language. But have you considered some of the other projects such as Wiktionary or Wikibooks? For a moribund language with only a few speakers and I'm assuming not very many written materials or dictionaries, one of these projects might accomplish more. Wiktionary could be used simply to collect vocabulary before it is lost as the last fluent speakers pass away and Wikibooks could be useful for creating things like teaching materials, culture-specific instructions etc. I think that for a language like Ter Sami, that might be more useful than having encyclopedia articles. Or these could all be integrated into one project as different name spaces, as has been done on the Alemannic Wikipedia. --Terfili (talk) 16:28, 28 March 2012 (UTC)