Requests for new languages

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Projects

This page is intended for discussing the creation of new language editions of existing projects. This is not the page to propose a new project.

The Wikimedia Foundation aims to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge in many different languages. Currently, wikis have been created in over 200 languages. If you would like to work in a language that does not yet have a wiki, you may request it here.

Procedure

There are several steps to follow if you would like to create a new language Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks or Wikiquote. The Wikimedia Commons and Wikispecies are multi-lingual projects, meaning that there are no separate editions for individual languages. The Wikisource project also has many languages within one domain, but does have a subdomain set-up for Hebrew and decided to have more language domains created. Current attitudes at Wikisource regarding this policy are monitored at Wikisource's Language domain requests page.

  1. Peruse the complete list of Wikimedia projects. If the language you are looking for is not listed, look for very similar languages. Your proposed language must be sufficiently different, in its written form, from any other already-created language.
  2. You must have an account here on the Meta wiki.
  3. Copy and paste the template to the new proposals section.
  4. Find the ISO code or propose a code for your language.
  5. Fill in all fields in the template.
  6. If many potential contributors to your language's wiki are likely to speak a different language that already has a wiki, try and drum up support at a community discussion area on that wiki. Encourage anyone who wants to contribute to your proposed language to come to this page and add their support for your proposal.
  7. If there is a consensus to create a wiki in your proposed language, send a message to the appropriate mailing list asking a developer to set up the wiki.
  8. Be patient, as our developers are very busy volunteers. You may work on articles, interface files and help or instruction pages using an offline word processor so that you can quickly get your new wiki going. You may want to look at the List of articles all languages should have.

FAQ

What do I do if there is no ISO code for my language?

If there is no standard code (no ISO code nor IANA code) for the language you propose, don't worry. Just type "none" in the field.

How do I know if my language is sufficiently different from a language that already has a wiki?

This is an issue that is decided by consensus.

Can there be wikis in ancient languages?

Yes. There are already wikis available in Latin, Old English, Gothic and Pali.
Please add new requests for wikis in ancient languages to Requests for new languages/Ancient.

Can there be wikis in artificial languages?

Yes. There are already wikis available in Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, Lojban There used to be a Toki Pona wiki, but it was decided that the Toki Pona language was not used widely enough to support a wiki.

However, it is quite possible that a fictional language will get little favor. Many consider the existence of the Klingon Wikipedia to be unacceptable. There is currently a proposal to shut it down (See also Talk page).

Please place all new requests for Wikipedias in artificial languages at Requests for new languages/Non-natural.

How many speakers are necessary?

No language has ever been refused solely because of an insufficient number of speakers. For natural languages, this will probably never be an issue; for artificial languages, however, a low number of speakers may be taken as evidence that the language is not widely spoken enough to deserve a wiki.
The actual number of users who know the language and work on the wiki is an important issue, but it is not known how many are necessary for a wiki to gain momentum and solid growth. The dedication of the users may be more important than the number, since a few devoted users may write more, and higher quality, articles than a larger number of casual users.


Template

Template:New-language-template

Requests for new Wikipedia languages

Discussion ongoing

Moved requests


Udmurt (4)

Wikipedia is created

  • Notes/comments:
  • Test-Wikipedia: Test-WP/udm
    • I'm interested to develop Udmurt wikipedia but there are some strong technical problems still not resolved: namely, the problem concerning presentation/mispresentation of specifical Udmurt Unicode characters from Extended Cyrillic (they are omitted in such popular fonts as Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana and so on... then I don't know how to solve this problem... Can anybody give me some related advices? Denis Sacharnych 14:11, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • ATTENTION! The most of Cyrillic languages of Russia has no font support! The best variant is used in Chuvash Wikipedia: cv:MediaWiki:Monobook.css Could this code be loaded to all listed wikis (exclude Crimean Tatar)? Also about the interface files. For the most of listed files Russian files should be loaded. They are also should be loaded to Kyrghyz, Kazakh, Komi, Avar, Kumyk, Chechen, Mari, Chuvash, Bashkir, Abkhazian wikis, as it was done for Ossetic, Turkish file for Crimean Tatar. --Untifler 15:23, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • It's probably, that Udmurt keyboard is't created yet, or it is not popular. Something like cv:MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning could be used.
        • Thanks for the links, they seems to be very useful! About keyboard drivers: I use an Udmurt keyboard driver (with Unicode-support) made by myself, but the most preferred variant for wiki-developers would be IMHO an on-line keyboard emulator (written in JavaScript).--Denis Sacharnych 04:53, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • If the technical issues can be solved and a couple more native speakers are willing to participate I'll be in favor of an Udmurt WP. Arbeo 12:56, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Requests for new languages/Ainu

East Frisian Wikipedia

submitted verification final decision
This proposal has been closed as part of a reform of the request process.
This request has not necessarily been rejected, and new requests are welcome. This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

This discussion was created before the implementation of the Language proposal policy, and it is incompatible with the policy. Please open a new proposal in the format this page has been converted to (see the instructions). Do not copy discussion wholesale, although you are free to link to it or summarise it (feel free to copy your own comments over). —{admin} Pathoschild 23:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Proposal summary
  • Language details: East Frisian (Seeltersk, stq ISO 639-3)
  • Editing community: Caesarion (P), Pyt Kramer
    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: mailing list request
  • External links:
    —
Please read the handbook for requesters for help using this template correctly.
  • Notes and comments:
    • It is an offshoot of Old Frisian and distinct from Westlauwer Frisian. Today it is only spoken by some 2,000 people in the German community of Saterland. Not to be confused with Ostfriesland Low Saxon, which is often referred to as Ostfriesisch.
    • en:Wikipedia point of view:
      • Some people say fy is for Frisian.
      • Some people say fy is for West Frisian.
      • Some people say fy is for English.
    • Do fy's users allow content in East Frisian (in fy) ? 6 Mar 2005
      • Probably not. Even an article in North Frisian on North Frisian had to be translated into Westlauwer Frisian. Probably the same policy would be held towards Saterlandic. They only accept Standard Westlauwer Frisian. It must be stressed that the three main variants are NOT mutually intelligible.--Caesarion 13:27, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • At the start of fy: I proposed including all Frisian languages, provided we could work out a way to have three Wikipedia within one framework. The advice was to use fy for the biggest of the three, western, and support the creation of other Wikipediae for the other two. So far we've followed the first part of that advice, treating a North Frisian article on North Frisian as just another language example. Now I'd like to do the second part. Though it would hardly attract the same audience, as the languages are further apart than da - no - sv, I would really like to see a Sealtersk Wikipedy. (We would have to figure out a code for it, though.) Aliter 21:14, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • I propose that we use either frs or slt. I let it depend on the preferences of people involved with this project or with creating any new wikipedia.--Caesarion 13:37, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • In my opinion slt or sfr are to be preferred above frs, because that is sometimes used as a n abbreviation for Frisian in general. So M.C.Fort in his Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch p.52 has afrs. for Old Frisian, sfrs. for Saterlandic. Pyt Kramer.
  • Support. I think it will be valuable having a wikipedia in each of the main varieties of Frisian, even though the community is always likely to be small. But perhaps North Frisian should wait until Saterlandic is set up and growing. (Unless there is strong native speaker support for both.) -Chamdarae 23:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. (Although I have no relation to the language except as an occasional hollidayer) --Purodha Blissenbach 15:51, 2005 September 5 (UTC)
  • Oppose Saterlandic is to similar to Frisian, to create an own Wikipedia, you would have to start a metamorphosis on that language! -- Abzt 16:39, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Perhaps the Frisian community of Saterland will be interested in it. --Hottentot
  • "Eastern Frisian" now has the ISO code "frs". --Chamdarae 19:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The proposal should be changed to stq. Indeed, frs is now used for en:East Frisian Low Saxon. --User:Benne 20:49, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support - Servien 19:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - JFTR, the language codes were modified in early 2006. Now fy is clearly West, the new code frs is for Saterland (the standard says "East"), and the new frr is North. There's also an alpha3 for West, but the IANA 3066bis registry continues to use the shorter alpha2 fy. -- Omniplex (w:t) 22:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Papiamentu (8)

Sranang Tongo (7)

North Frisian Wikipedia

See also the third request (approved).
submitted verification final decision
This proposal has been closed as part of a reform of the request process.
This request has not necessarily been rejected, and new requests are welcome. This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

This discussion was created before the implementation of the Language proposal policy, and it is incompatible with the policy. Please open a new proposal in the format this page has been converted to (see the instructions). Do not copy discussion wholesale, although you are free to link to it or summarise it (feel free to copy your own comments over). —{admin} Pathoschild 23:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Proposal summary
  • Language details: North Frisian (Frasch, frr ISO 639-3)
  • Editing community: Caesarion (P), Waerth
    List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your
    name if you are a native speaker of this language.
  • Relevant pages: —
  • External links:
    —
Please read the handbook for requesters for help using this template correctly.
  • Comments:
    • One of the three Frisian languages, very unlike both Westlauwer and Saterland Frisian.
    • After my request for a Saterlandic Wikipedia, which is currently being developed, I would like to request a wikipedia in the last remaining Frisian language without one. This request is supported by the existing and flourishing Westlauwer Frisian Wikipedia. Caesarion 11:31, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Proposed code: gem-nfr
    • Wikipedia point of view:
      • Some people say fy is for Frisian language. (11 May 2005)
      • Some people say fy is for West Frisian language. (11 May 2005)
      • Some people say fy is for English language. (11 May 2005)
    • fy does not refer to any specific variety of Frisian, it applies to North Frisian languages as well as Westerlauwerspsdlfls Frisian. Node ue 10 May 2005
    • fy is sometimes said to refer to all Frisian languages, but the letter y (form "Frysk") suggests it is intended for Westlauwer Frisian only. Caesarion 28 May 2005
      • It doesn't matter how "fy" was formed. Bottom line: FY is for Frisian. Not just Westlauwer Frisian. Any list of ISO codes will tell you this, in both English and French. --Node ue 16:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • You know jolly well that it is ridiculous to consider it one language. By the way, I did not leave the information on the iso codes above. And PLEASE don't use obscene words on any Wikimedia project! Caesarion 15:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not disputing whether or not they are one language. That is obvious, they are multiple languages. But they share a single ISO code nonetheless. FY is not assigned specifically to Westlauwers Frisian, but rather to "Frisian". And definitely NOT to English...! --Node ue 20:55, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • Of course not. It must have been a mistake. But please no f-words here on this page! Caesarion 08:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • In nl.wikipedia anything to do with Frisia is considered an f*** word ;) Waerth 09:06, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Generally speaking, I think we should have a North Frisian Wikipedia. But before any further steps can be taken we need some native speakers that are willing to contribute. Especially with a "small language" like this one, that's a conditio sine qua non. Arbeo 10:06, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. The Frisian languages are very important. --Hottentot
    • I added the ISO code, which was approved last month. --Chamdarae 19:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I would like to support the North Frisian wikipedia. The Sorbs (I work on the sorbian wikipedia) have good contact to the Northern Frisians. Ik ban een Frasche :-)--nepl 13:44, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Frisian languages are especially important since they are similar to the original English language

Sorbian (7)

  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • ISO code: hsb (Upper), dsb (Lower)
  • People interested joining:
  • Relevant links: en:Sorbian languages de:Sorbische Sprache
  • Notes/comments: In fact, there are two very similar sorbic laguages, see article in Wikipedia.
  • Number of speakers: 60 thousand in Germany + an unquantified number in a part of Texas, USA
    • First: sign your posts, please. Second: both Upper and Lower Sorbian are standardised languages. We should not create one Wikipedia for both of them. Better point this request at Upper Sorbian, having much more speakers, particularly among the young (Lower Sorbian is seriously endangered), or consider requesting two Wikipedias, for both languages. Caesarion 10:15, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • If sorbian wikipedias should be created (an idea which I strongly support) then it should have BOTH as a lower-sorbian wikipedia could stop the endangerous situation of the language! Tiontai 20:07, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • A Wikipedia is not enough to stop a language being endangered, but it can be very useful. However, contributors must be found for both of them, and I think it will be quite difficult to find enough willing contributors for both Upper and Lower Sorbian. Upper Sorbian has the priority, imo, because it is more likely to generate a real encyclopaedia than Lower Sorbian. In other words: if the Upper Sorbian Wikipedia succeeds we can think of creating a Lower Sorbian one. Caesarion 23:21, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) you are right. --Dundak 09:56, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • So I will ask some sorbians to create a wikipedia or to push the idea of an wikipedia like this.

Tiontai 05:44, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Comments: There were some attempts to translate the UI LanguageHsb.php, the file seems to be outdated, so I worked on User:Dundak/LanguageHsb.php, but the interest in this project seems to be rather low-level. I mean, let's have some people together first, then think about setting up a new WP. --Dundak 09:03, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I tried to update Language Hsb for Upper Sorbian based upon Mediawiki 1.5 beta3. --Michawiki (formerly mwjelk) 20 Jul 2005
    • I support the creation of Sorbian Wikipedia. This culture and languages are endangered and Wikipedia might help preserving it. Kpjas 07:56, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. --Millosh 09:13, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • One comment: Is it possible to find some rules between hsb and dsb orthographies? If it is possible, then we can make one Sorbian Wikipedia with hsb and dsb interface! This can be very important because there are no a lot of Sorbians and it would be reasonable that they work together. If it is not possible, then we need two Wikipedias: hsb and dsb! --Millosh 12:57, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong support. As a matter of fact, I am puzzled by the fact that there is no Wikipedia in either Upper or Lower Sorbian by now. There shouldn't be any major problems with finding contributors in Upper Sorbian. There are functioning (and developing) Wikipedias in languages that have a much smaller speaker base. Furthermore, the majority of Sorbians receive education in Sorbian and that is a great advantage in working on a Wikipedia when compared to some other minority languages. In my opinion, once there is a success with Wikipedia in Upper Sorbian, also a Lower Sorbian version should be created. I'm not a Sorbian speaker, but with dictionaries can understand almost everything and I would be willing to contribute to some very, very limited extent (interwiki, illustrating, etc). UCZK 19:10, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • support - but I won't be able to actively contribute in Sorbian, so I offer only technical help. / tsca ✉ 19:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. Although the community could be small, there's no reason why not. After all, I'm sure it will pass some wikipedias that have an article or two. --Dungodung 13:16, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think, that great philosopher Laibnitz would be very pleаsеd to see this development on his native Sorb language. --194.106.189.159 13:55, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. Why not --Sasa Stefanovic 18:29, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong support. Sorbian Wikipedia(s) should be created! Maybe creating of a Sorbian test Wiki will help to start. --Võrok 06:25, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. There should be wikipedias in both languages, but perhaps starting with Upper Sorbian. Wikipedias in other European regional languages seem to be quite successful, and, despite the small population, I think these would be too. --Chamdarae 23:14, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Requests for new languages/Banyumasan

New proposals

Please post any new proposal at the end of this section.

Lombard Wikipedia

submitted verification final decision
This proposal has been approved.
The Board of Trustees and language committee have deemed that there is sufficient grounds and community to create the new language project.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

The requested project was created at lmo: at an indeterminate date. Note that this request was approved before the implementation of the standardised Language proposal policy, and should not be used as a model for future requests. Shanel 00:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal summary
  • Language details: Lombard (Lumbaart, lmo ISO 639-3)
  • Editing community: Jorgengb (PN), Clamengh (N)
    List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your
    name if you are a native speaker of this language.
  • Relevant pages: —
  • External links:
    —
Please read the handbook for requesters for help using this template correctly.
Lombard is heading towards becoming a moribund language. The development of media in Lombard would be a major step to counter this tendency, and to give Lombard a better status. A common misunderstanding (that linguists will recognize from similar issues concerning other laguages) is that "you can't discuss serious matters in Lombard"). Wikipedia articles in Lombard would prove the contrary and contribute to establish a standard orthography.
  • As an example of this fact you can see e.g. a scientific short paper written down in Poschiavino, a quite conservative western Lombard dialect: http://www.ilbernina.ch/article.php3?id_article=833 Note that children still speak Poschiavino, thus this is not yet an endangered language; notwithstanding, it has a limited number of speakers. I possess also some papers appeared in 'Il Grigioni Italiano', but this is copyrighted material.--clamengh 11:30, 29 Sept 2005 (Milan)
  • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_language
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments:
    • Considering the facts you mentioned above, I'm wondering if a Wiktionary might be more beneficial in this case. While I agree with most of what you are writing I don't think an encyclopedia will prove to be helpful in establishing a generally accepted orthography and inventory of words. The lack thereof could in the worst case even hamper the goal of writing a Wikipedia (because people would spend a lot of time and energy on language instead of content issues). A dictionary however could be a useful first step towards filtering out widely accepted spellings. Thus, a Wikipedia could be set up more easily at a later stage. Arbeo 14:40, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Arbeo, you're very wrong about that. There are at least two Wikipedias operating with no single standardised orthography: Sicilian (scn:, over 1100 articles) and Breton (br:, over 400 articles). The Breton Wikipedia is in a sort of state of confusion; the Sicilian Wikipedia is an island of orthographic calm in the middle of a sea of Sicilian confusion -- everybody agreed on basic rules for writing on Wikipedia, but can't agree for anywhere else... yet --Node ue 16:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • Thank you for informing me about those cases. Maybe my assessment was a little too pessimistic. My intention was only to assure possible ostacles are paid attention to at an early stage. Arbeo 16:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree that a Wikipedia should be developed before a Wiktionary; however, I recomend we should avoid to imitate the choice of its name made by the Italian Wikipedia, which is etymologically bad. I propose some names, each one based on different motivations, which we could discuss further: Wikzionari, Wiczionari, Wicziunari and of course simply ...Wiktionary. --clamengh 11:41, 29 Sept 2005.
      • As a native speaker (among other languages) also of a Lombard variety rather close to the Western Lombard koiné, I don't think it would be a major problem to write articles in Lombard. Even if there is no established orthograhy, there are nevertheless some writing conventions accepted by all those who write in Lombard (and historically dating back at least a few centuries). Examples of such accepted conventions are: 1. that word-final [k] is written -ch while word-final [tS] is written -c, and 2. that the shortness of vowels in word-final stressed syllables is shown by doubling the following consonant in simplex codas, e.g. cass "crates", gatt "cat, cats". There is general agreement in how consonants should be written. For the vowels, the main issue might be whether to write front rounded vowels the "French" way (oeu, u) or the "German" way (ö, ü). Apart from the strong tradition for the former solution in Milanese, the latter seems to be the most widespread nowadays, cf. also the 9,5 kg heavy dictionary (LSI) published last year by CDE (Bellinzona, Tessin, Switzerland). All in all, there is probably a much larger degree of agreement than I may have given the impression of when writing this proposal.--Jorgengb 00:02, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I suggest to start with three major ortographic standards: classical, phonetic and etymological: as to the first one, things are almost clear. Nevertheless, there should be some adaptations for dialects other than Milanese: for instance, I suggest that the indeterminate article should be always written 'un/una', whilst the northern determinate one should take the form 'ul'. Etymological final /u/ should be written -u as well, e.g. libru, altru = book, other. Perhaps, even the infinittive's -r or -er should be written even if not pronounced. As far as phonetic ortography is concerned, everything is clear, but this would definitively exclude some varieties: for instance, writing 'staziun' (= eng. 'station') would not be acceptable for those dialects whose speakers pronounce /sta'tsion/ (nasal or velar n). In my knowledge, this prononciation exists at least in Gerenzano (VA), near Saronno, and in Poschiavo valley (GR-CH). At last, G.Hull's etymological solution should not be discarded (in fact it is my preferred one), even if I am afraid I must admit that it is not completely realistic by a socio-linguistic point of view. I will place here some more reference in the near future. You could see some interesting examples at http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/~leccles/. --clamengh 11:41, 01 Sept 2005. An intersting paper by G.Hull about the linguistic unity of northern Italy and Rhaetia is now reproduced on my site: this clearly concerns also Lombard tongue. Please see http://cf.geocities.com/clamengh/hull.rtf . Please note that the site is under construction.--clamengh 12:43, 24 Sept 2005; slightly modified on 27 September 2005 20:39 Milan

(Please also see below at the 'ortography' discussion)--clamengh 16:49, 14 Oct. 2005;

    • In any case it will be practically impossible to represent all varieties when defining a written standard. To some (not too large) extent some orthographic devices might help; in some other cases it will be necessary to make other kind of choices (1. choose the form represented in the majority of varieties; 2. choose the form represented in the most widespread variety(-ies); 3. choose the form represented in the most conservative variety(-ies); 4. make a choice based on etymology; 5. if the form A is less represented than the form B, but A is judged to be more acceptable by users of B than B by users of A, choose A; etc.) Cf. what has been done with Rumantsch grischun.
An issue similar to the /Sta'tsiuN/~/Sta'tsioN/ question is that of unstressed /a/ vs. /e/. Cf. me, te 'me, you (obj, unstressed)'; vündes 'eleven'; per 'for' (Milan, Lècch/Lecco, Còmm/Como, etc.) vs. ma,ta; vündas; par (Varées/Varese, Tessin). This vowel could be written with a letter of its own (ë or ə) to be pronounced [a] or [e] according to the variety spoken by the reader. A kind of "supradialectal grapheme", if you see what I mean. A couple of such graphemes are to live with, but not more (many people will find it difficult to "swallow" even an orthography with only a single such grapheme...).--Jorgengb 12:35, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • SIMPLE PAST- I propose to consider carefully the question if the disappearing of simple past is to be considered one of the signals of the incoming death of Lombard (as in Hagège, Halte à la morte des langues, éd. Odile Jacob, 21 octobre 2000) or rather a natural syntactical evolution. In both cases, I wonder about which solution should be adopted for the narrative register, and, to a lesser extent, for the scientific one. At present, I think that simple past should be reconstructed from existing documents. --clamengh 11:51, 05 Sept 2005, slightly modified 26/09/05 11:32
    • SIMPLE PAST - reply - Catalan (not Valencian) has almost completely lost its simple past (Past Simple Indicative (Pretèrit Perfet Simple de Indicatiu)), but nevertheless is by no means a dying language. Cf. http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Catalan/Grammar/Catalan-Verb-Tenses_Simple.htm#Past_Simple_Indicative
"Except for Valencian, this tense is used in the written language only. In the speech it is replaced by the periphrastic construction anar + infinitive:
vaig cantar, vas cantar, va cantar;
va(re)m cantar, va(re)u cantar, van cantar."
--Jorgengb 11:13, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Btw.: Swiss German has no simple past either.--Jorgengb 12:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • AGAIN SIMPLE PAST Yes, I was indeed posing the matter of written language: what is to be done within a novel? --clamengh 18:18, 10 October 2005 (UTC) I will try to be more precise: if we agree that simple past is needed for narrative register, then losing the former amounts to losing the latter (or maybe vice versa); and losing a register could be regarded as a signal of death. What you affirm about Catalan is de facto true about French as well: there is no simple past in spoken langauge, and, of course, French is not a dying language. Nevertheless, simple past is preserved in written documents.I think that a similar situation should be reconstructed for Lombard as well, but this is not an urgent matter to be solved to set up a Wikipedia--clamengh 18:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. A language with 9 million speakers needs a wikipedia. If there's agreement on orthography, I think a test-wikipedia should be set up in the near future. Chamdarae 09:59, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do agree with Chamdarae that this should be done in the nearest future. The issue is not so much a formal one (are we entitled to start a Lombard Wikipedia or not), but rather "how long will it take to put together a group of writers, and how many ?". --Jorgengb 19:55, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. --Node
  • Strong support. --clamengh
  • Strong support. Perhaps down the track, scn.wiki and lmo.wiki could collaborate on projects relating to the various siculo-gallic dialects to be found in Sicily, which not only exist to this day in their own right (but in ever declining numbers) but which also contributed so much in the way of vocabulary and grammatical forms to the Sicilian language. --pippudoz - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 02:21, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is a quite interisting issue: I suggest we could start by translating Fedro's 'Lupus et Agnus' in Lombard: this poses several challenging problems. For Gallo-Siculo translations see http://www.iti-itas.com/galloitalico/favola.htm --clamengh 10:25, 27 September 2005 (Milan)
  • Strong support almost native --Marco Bonavoglia 11:34, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support--Harvzsf 18:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support--Katimawan2005 03:15, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Am I correct in understanding that both Jorgenb and Clamengh are native speakers of some variety of Lombard? If that is the case then I think it meets the conditions listed here, as there is clearly general support for this wiki. --Chamdarae 17:59, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Dear Chamdarae, I am afraid not to be a native speaker of Milanese. This fact can be simply explained by my age (38). I have learnt this tongue at the age of approximately 10 years by some friends of my parents. Then I have studied it both by grammars and other written texts. Moreover, one of my friends (61 years old), a former teacher of Italian language in a high school of Milan, is Milanese mother tongue and accepts to talk with me, alas only... depending on his mood. Thus, I have a discrete ability to write in Lombard, but I am far from being spontaneous when talking, condition which native speakers generally require to be fulfilled. All in all, I could be considered something like a 'native writer', since there is not a sharp difference from the first time I encountered written Italian (6 years old) and written Milanese (about 10 years old). Finally, as to the 'N' preceeding my name, I have found it when placing my name among those of interested people, so I have leaved it unchanged. I propose these considerations to be evaluated with suitable criticism. --clamengh 11:57, 26 September 2005 (Milan)
      • As far as I'm concerned, I'm functionally plurilingual in three languages, one of which is Lombard (some kind of Ticinese/Western Lombard "koiné").--Jorgengb 10:45, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. 1) The lombard is an aggregation of different languages and dialects. Which of these will be used? 2) The Lombard spoken in Tessin is a dialect (like the english article declare), 3) the Ethnologue source is not authoritative source. --Ilario 17:20, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • A reply. Dear Ilario, as to 1) I suggest you should carefully read G. Hull's PhD thesis 'The linguistic unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia' (but Rohlf's Italian grammar should also work); or simply consider the situation of the languages which are not related to a political power, such as occitan, which is, following your words, 'an aggregation of different languages and dialects'; in this case, the most conservative dialecte (lengadocian) has been taken into account as a 'standard'; but a different dialect (Provençal) has expressed a Nobel Prize for literature. Consider HochDeutsche too: the situation of German dialects was initially quite similar, but the raise of a central political power lead to a linguistic synthesis. So, in fact, there is not yet an answer to 1), but I suggest something as above, taking into account all most conservative forms (e.g. 'libru' and not 'liber' for 'book', but Hull's 'libre' would be perhaps a better choice). As far as 2) is concerned, I hope not to be too assertive (and in this case I beg your pardon), but it seems to me that to be an irrelevant objection. It is also a little bit misleading, since we could also think that Ticinese (or Poschiavino as well) could be adopted as a standard due to its vitality, though this does not completely agree with a conservation criterion. '3)' lacks a little bit in motivations, so discussion about it seems to deserve to be postponed. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion, --clamengh 9:35, 27 September 2005, slightly modified at 20:43 (Milan) et on 29 Sept.2005 11:10
  • Also a reply. Dear Ilario: 1. that Lombard is an aggregation of different varieties is correct (linguists prefer nowadays to use the neutral term "(language) variety", since it is not easy to define univocally what is a language and what is a dialect (someone has said that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy"; a more modern and technological version is "a language is a dialect with an army, a navy and a system for speech synthesis & recognition"). The answer to the question "Which of these should be used?" is not an easy one, but since there is de facto a kind of koiné (koiné ticinese, very close to the dialects of Milan, Lecco, Varese, Brianza, etc. on the Italian side of the border), this might be the variety to be chosen. 2. The Lombard spoken in Tessin/Ticino/Tisín is not a particular dialect, but a group of dialects. The dialects of southern Tessin are much more similar to the ones of the Italian areas just across the border than -- say -- to the dialects of the Leventina in northern Tessin. 3. Ethnologue does contain errors (as is the case when Ticinese is described as a "Lombard dialect spoken in Italy"), but nevertheless it is de facto becoming more and more an authoritative source that many serious scholars (not only linguists) refer to. The language codes defined by Ethnologue are to be implemented in the ISO 639-3 standard.--Jorgengb 21:20, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you to all of you for contributing to this discussion, and special thanks to all the supporters of the Lombard Wikipedia project! If Lombard is to survive in some form into the 3rd millennium, it will have to develop some kind of written standard.--Jorgengb 21:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support--Skafa 01 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support--livmand N, Milanese native speaker 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Paulin 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Expanding the vocabulary The following two important issues will be encountered at a very early stage when and if the Lombard Wikipedia project takes off:
* orthography
* expanding the vocabulary
Orthography: more "phonetic" or more "lexical/etymological" ? Personally (after all I'm a phonetician ;-) ) I am for different reasons in favour of a more phonetic choice, but I am aware of the problems connected with this alternative and can also see the advantages of other alternatives.
Vocabulary: keeping constantly an eye on Romansh, Ladin, Friulian and Catalan will help indeed.
--Jorgengb 11:29, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again about orthography: I think that a synthesis between the two choices is not irrealistic to be pursued: for example, 'un-una', 'libru', 'altru' etc. are both phonetic and etymological choices.--clamengh 18:31, 10 October 2005 (UTC); Hull's UPO (unified Padanian Ortography) is now available in my site at http://cf.geocities.com/clamengh/upo.pdf .--clamengh 16:44, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think there would need to be more support from native speakers for a wikipedia to be approved, but since there seems to be consensus on setting one up, starting a test-wiki may help. As for orthography, I would recommend not being too innovative - it would be better to stick with the most suitable existing form than to create something new (IMO). --Chamdarae 19:31, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Getting started Since the Lombard project has been approved, the whole issue has become a practical rather then a formal one. In other words:
who is going to write?
in which variety is she/he going to write?
which orthography/orthographies are to be adopted?
My experience tells me that most speakers of 'good' (conservative, non-urban, non-italianized) Lombard in most cases neither surf on the Internet nor browse the Wikipedia...
In any case, I don't think it would be a problem -- at least to start with -- if different contributors wrote each in her/his own variety, as long as they try to normalize their most local traits in the direction of the koiné. The orthograpy, on the other hand, should be the same for all contributors.
In spite of all the issues still to be solved, I think it's high time to start a test-wikipedia. --Jorgengb 23:44, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • support ---- --Flavio05 14:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC) [N], from Angera (Varese), speaking a lombard variety similar to Milanese. I'm trying to apply myself to the orthography proposal written by jorgengb. Writing such Lombard variety is not so difficult and I'll be happy to give some kind of support (writing articles, making translations, etc...) to the Lombard project.[reply]
Now let me write some words in my Lombard variety: "sa pudaría scriif di articui ch'i a trata da infurmatega, par esempi un quai còss tipu i FAQ (Dumaant Ricureent) sü argumeent specifich, par esempi cunfigürá un prugrama da pòsta letrònica o instalá Linux evi (e via inscí). Sa na disii viaalt?


  • Which Lombard? As to the issue that there is no universally recognised standard Lombard, and that different contributors will probably speak different dialects, I think the same solution could be adopted as has been done for the Alemannic Wikipedia: The wiki about Switzerland has been written in Swiss German (= Schwyzerdytsch = Schweizerdeutsch), while the one about Germany is in the West Allgäu (= Weschtallgairisch = Westallgäuerisch=) dialect. This is shown on top of each page respectively. --Jorgengb 12:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are enough native speakers now (4 by my count, plus 2 more fluent speakers) for this to be approved and a wikipedia to be formed. There is only one opponent, and there don't seem to be any significant disagreements on how to proceed, so I'm moving it to the "approved" page. --Chamdarae 16:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Getting started-(2) I agree with the fact that ortography should be the same for everybody, unless this matter turns into a trouble, i.e. prevents the birth of the Lombard Wikipedia. I propose myself as a writer in the field of mathematics: see three recents contributions I have written down for the catalan Viquipèdia:

http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taula_de_s%C3%ADmbols_matem%C3%A0tics,

http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demostraci%C3%B3_que_e_%C3%A9s_irracional and http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%ADmit. Maybe some ancient research papers of mine could be translated too, but this has some psychological implications, so I prefer it to be momentarily avoided. As far as ortography is concerned, I propose a compromise solution, but I warn you that I have not yet read jorgengb's paper. My favourite ortographies are Hull's UPO and Milanese classical one, with modifications as above. So, I suggest Rumantsch Grischun's ortography to be adopteded, with some "marginal" modifications: stressed 'u' should represent [ü], unless followed by 'n' or 'r' while unstressed 'u' or stressed 'u' followed by 'n' or 'r' should represent [u]. Stressed [u] should be written 'o'. Unstressed [ü] should be written 'ü'. Finally, [ö], which is only stressed, should be written, at least initially œu or ö as well. I prefer the first solution, but I think that Hull's 'uo' could also work. As a neutral vowel, I propose a general use of 'e' or 'ë'. I propose that, as in Rumantsch, Final -r of the infinitive should be written. Of course this is far less than a stub...--clamengh 18/10/2005 19:48 UTC

  • As a matter of fact, the grapheme 'tsch' is extraneous to Lombard tongue, thus it should be replaced by the analogue 'tg', when so is done in Rumantsch, and by c/ci otherwise. Analogously, 'sch' should be replaced by 'sc/sci' when voiceless and'sg/sgi' when voiced. I shall propose some examples.
  • There are three types of monosillabic words 'a': I propose that ther verb 'to have' should be always be written with an etymological initial h, a simple 'a' would indicate the enclitic particle and eventually 'à' would render the analogue preposition. This latter idea would make translation from French easier. --clamengh 19/10/2005 13:38 UTC.
  • Rather skeptic towards etymological orthographies There are many reasons why I am skeptic towards etymological orthographies. These are discussed in my paper: Jørgen G. Bosoni, Una proposta di grafia unificata per le varietà linguistiche lombarde: regole per la trascrizione, in: BOLLETTINO STORICO ALTA VALTELLINA N. 6 - 2003 (BSAV 6/2003), cf. http://www.cssav.altavaltellina.org/bollettino.htm

Quoting from that paper:

Molte grafie risultano inoltre essere inadeguate perché non fondate su una sufficiente riflessione sulle caratteristiche fonetiche, fonologiche e metriche delle diverse varietà dialettali lombarde (in particolare sulla struttura della sillaba e sull’eventuale presenza di opposizioni di quantità vocalica, cioè tra vocali lunghe e brevi) . La mancanza di una grafia comune rispecchia, dopo tutto, la mancanza – a tutt’oggi – di un’indagine complessiva, approfondita e sistematica sulla fonetica e fonologia delle varietà lombarde, con particolare riguardo a cioè che le accomuna e ciò che, invece, dà origine a ulteriori suddivisioni interne all’area stessa . Capita spesso, dunque, di vedere in uso grafie che non rispondono pienamente alle esigenze delle varietà linguistiche in questione, e che non di rado lasciano spazio ad ambiguità e incertezze su quale sia la effettiva pronuncia dei parlanti nativi . Sarebbe auspicabile che un sistema ortografico soddisfi ai requisiti qui sotto elencati, e cioè:

1. Rispondere adeguatamente alle esigenze dettate dalle caratteristiche fonetiche, fonologiche e morfosintattiche delle varietà in questione. [...]

2. Essere adeguato alla capacità di ricezione da parte dei potenziali utenti. [...]

3. Contribuire a definire un’identità linguistica, non soltanto a livello locale ma anche di tutta l’area. [...]

4. Non scostarsi inutilmente dalla tradizione. [...] 5. Essere semplice dal punto di vista percettivo (visivo), ossia facilmente leggibile. [...]

6. Limitare al minimo la possibilità di pronunce sbagliate per influsso della grafia. È assodato che la grafia di una lingua ne influenza la pronuncia [...]

7. Essere implementabile dal punto di vista tecnico senza grosse difficoltà. [...] Un sistema grafico è fatto per durare negli anni per periodi molto più lunghi dei tempi estremamente brevi con cui si evolvono le tecnologie dell’informazione!

Appare chiaro come sia difficile rispondere in modo adeguato a tutte queste esigenze contemporaneamente, senza che alcuna di esse venga in parte sacrificata a favore di un’altra . Qualsiasi sistema ortografico, dal momento che si ripropone di rendere col segno scritto una realtà orale, per definizione non scritta, è per forza di cose una soluzione di compromesso. Il sistema qui descritto non fa eccezione. Non si ha quindi la pretesa di fornire le uniche risposte corrette possibili ai vari problemi relativi alla resa grafica delle varietà lombarde, quanto piuttosto di proporre delle soluzioni che siano il meno possibile imperfette, dopo aver considerato attentamente i vari pro e contro. In particolare, si ricorda che la presenza in molte varietà lombarde di quantità vocalica con valore distintivo (fenomeno sconosciuto all’italiano e tutto sommato abbastanza raro nell’ambito linguistico romanzo) richiede un’ortografia che rispecchi in modo sistematico questa caratteristica. Questo aspetto purtroppo è spesso stato trascurato. --Jorgengb 19:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion about Lombard is to define references because Lombard (but also Venetian) have at moment only speakers but not writers. If almost a grammar book and e dictionary are defined (and not only for the Lombard) that could be a nice start.
Il mio suggerimento sul Lombardo è quello di definire dei riferimenti perché il Lombardo (ma anche il Veneziano) hanno al momento soprattutto persone con una grande tradizione nella lingua parlata, ma non in quella scritta. Se aleno una grammatica e un dizionario venissero definiti (e non solo per il Lombardo) sarebbe un buon inizio. --Ilario 07:53, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There's an excelent Milanese grammar: Franco Nicoli, grammatica Milanese, Busto Arsizio, 1986 (available to be borrowed at Gallarate library, or for consultation only at 'Tibaldi' library in Milan). There is an eccelent southern Ticinese one as well, by Franco Lurà, but I don't remember details about date and publisher. I think it is available at the Ticinese library system. There's plenty of publications about Lombard, but they are often lacking in quality, except obviously the two ones above. As a dictionary, Cherubini's Milanese one is to be considered, but now a standard reference does well exist and it is clearly the very recent LSI. On the contrary, I suggest to avoid considering publications by the 'Circolo filologico Milanese'. Eventually, there are also Lombard writers, e.g. Franco Loi (Ligurian mother tongue) and many others in Switzerland, mainly producing poetry, in fact. Again, I insist on the fact that the lack of simple past prevents de facto a full literary register (mainly novels).--clamengh 21/10/05 12:40 UTC
  • Rather skeptic...-a reply Dear jorgengb, thank you for quoting from your paper, while I am waiting to get a copy. (So far, the nearest to me I have pointed out is at Lesmo library, should your friend not to reply to me) I am afraid I couldn't share your skepticism, but this is not a critical matter, since this Wikipedia has to be a Lombard -and not a Padanese- one. There is nevertheless a more serious question: as you will have already guessed, (even if in fact I don't see an urgent need of '6'...) I think that Milanese classical ortography could be suitably satisfy all of your criteria, in a special way '4' (And about this criterion, I do agree with you about the fact it is quite important). Indeed, this ortography keeps into account vowel quantity (while UPO does not, and could not). Of course some modifications, such as a neutral 'u' or writing u for [u] in diphtongs, should be needed (I have suggested some ones above). There is one more criterion to be kept into account, in my opinion, i.e. the global aesthetical validity of a written page. Even if I do appreciate the test page of the Lombard wikipedia, (but I suggest to replace 'süla' with 'sü la' or 'sü-la')I am afraid that a fully phonetic ortography would sacrifice beauty more than needed. Since I am a scientist, I try indeed to counterbalance the weight of rationality in my life...;-)--clamengh 21/10/05 12:56 UTC

Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia

submitted verification final decision
This proposal has been closed as part of a reform of the request process.
This request has not necessarily been rejected, and new requests are welcome. This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

This discussion was created before the implementation of the Language proposal policy, and it is incompatible with the policy. Please open a new proposal in the format this page has been converted to (see the instructions). Do not copy discussion wholesale, although you are free to link to it or summarise it (feel free to copy your own comments over). —{admin} Pathoschild 01:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Proposal summary
Please read the handbook for requesters for help using this template correctly.
  • Relevant infos:
    • One of the Dutch official languages just like Frisian and Limburgs
    • App. number of speakers: No estimate available except for the province of Groningen which is: 592,000. My estimate is about 1.8 million who speak Dutch-Low Saxon.
    • Location(s) spoken: East and northern Netherlands
    • Closely related languages, if any: Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian, Limburgs and German-Low Saxon
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: Streektaal.net, Lowlands-L.net
  • Summary of support:
  1. Servien
  2. Caesarion
  3. Heiko Evermann (Heiko Evermann)
  4. Waerth
  5. Quistnix
  6. ProfSjors
  7. Bart v.d. Heij
  8. Slomox
  9. Oscar
  10. Guaka
  11. Arbeo
  12. Tuf-Kat
  13. Dinsdagskind
  14. Nijman
  15. Frünn
  16. Raetius
  17. Fnorp
  18. Flyingbird
  19. Migdejong
  20. Patio
  21. Tubantia N
  22. – gpvos (talk)

In case NODE UE decides to put back the socalled "anon users" please check your sources there are clearly tons of edits so I don't know how you can't say they have 0 edits? Das seker Amerikaonse logika of soiets, of meschien gewoon 'n domme aktie van 'n gebruker die syn bronnen nie kentroleert:
-- see: Fnorp's edits
-- see: Migdejong's edits
-- see: ProfSjors' edits
-- see: Nijman's edits
-- see: Heiko's edits

  • Summary of oppose:
  1. Node ue
  2. 81.70.91.207
  3. 220.149.85.57
Comments
    • Actually redundant with nds:, but it would be very neat, just since the nds: Wikipedia uses German spelling, and articles in Dutch based spelling would be largely incompatible with it. Caesarion 14:33, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • The number of speakers might be slightly too optimistic: 1.8 million seems more likely.
    • Strong oppose. Servien is proposing to divide Low Saxon based on national boundaries and imagined differences, rather than true dialectal differences. However, if Servien limits his request to Veluws only, I will support it. --Node ue 16:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • But ADMIT that the fact that nds:, being for all Low German varieties, already has almost unbearable differences (or did you think an Apeldoorn dialect native speaker could understand West Pomerian?), and that these differences, in combination with the wide gap between Dutch and German spellings make nfs: unsuitable for any content in Dutch Low Saxon dialects. Caesarion 17:09, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Lowlands-l does not help here. After some discussions we have decided to use the German based spelling according to SASS for the nds wikipedia. The spelling proposed by Lowlands-l is no option for us. And I can understand very well, that the Dutch based spelling and our spelling do not match. In addition to that we have another problem: when Low Saxon lacks a word, we (on the German side of the border) have the tendency to borrow a German word, and on the other side of the border they would certainly prefer to borrow a dutch word. The language fell apart a long time ago. In fact most people in Germany do not even know that there is a Low Saxon language on the other side of the border. When I think about the two different versions of the Norse wikipedia that are made for one single country and when I think about the Aromunian wikipedia, I think that having a separate wikipeda for nds-nl is the best option. HeikoEvermann 11:01, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Actually we are unifying the spelling (to the spelling according to Sass) whereever we find differences. The only real exception that we list alternative spellings for the title of the article in the first paragraph and we sometimes provide redirects from alternative spellings to the main article. But the article itself should follow Sass. HeikoEvermann 10:00, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • In fact this fact has no relevance whatsoever. Being a native speaker has not been a prerequisite for working on any wikipedia. I am not a native English speaker either and yet I have made contributions to en.wikipedia.org. HeikoEvermann 21:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • For what shall we try first? I looked for a comparison in English language and I would say, that nds-de and nds-nl are as far apart in pronounciation and in spelling as modern English and the 1400 example of middle English in en:Middle English (this isn't the best comparison because one is a parallel development and the other serial, but the best example I found). If it were possible I really would like and want one Wikipedia for both. But it would be very hard to understand. Sure, if there would be a common orthography neither based singly on German nor on Dutch, this would be easier, but there is no such common orthography that is in broader use. The actual reality is, that we need two Wikipedias. --Slomox 16:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • strong support. there's nothing like unity in diversity :-) oscar 00:47, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • support. Maybe we should count the votes now? Guaka 20:49, 3 Jul 2005 (UTC)
      • 5 7 people willing to work on it, 2 3 4 5 other people's support, 1 generally support and
      • 1 2 3 4 non-DLS speakers oppose.
        • Well, if it's so relevant who is and isn't DLS speakers of OPPOSING votes, perhaps we should count the same for support votes? Out of all the massive amazing 12 supporters, a whopping 2 of them are real native speakers. 2-0 is not a good enough consensus for any WP's creation, so I suggest you don't exclude the opinions of non-speakers as it's to your disadvantage, especially since the issues we raise are very real and rather than completely denying the possibility of WPs in DLS varieties, we are merely proposing it in a different framework. --Node ue 07:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • support Arbeo 18:46, 4 Jul 2005 (UTC)
    • I generally support this proposal, but I would recommend 1) narrowing the range of dialects covered, and 2) allowing for further wikipedias at a later date in other varieties of Low Saxon in the Netherlands, such as Gronings and Stellingwerfs, if and when there is sufficient support for these. (I realise these issues have been discussed on the mailing lists, but it doesn't seem that there is a sufficient degree of consensus yet for this request to proceed any further. I don't want to rekindle any flame war here - merely find some kind of workable solution. After all, I think everyone here wants to see a wikipedia in some form(s) of Dutch Low Saxon.) --Chamdarae 17:43, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Dutch Low-Saxon is a combination of dialects without a single language combining them. As such, something written in Gronings will be as incompatible with something written in Twents or Achterhoeks as something written in Dutch or German Low Saxon would be. As far as I know, no unified orthography or even vocabulary exists. - 81.70.91.207 22:41, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. All Low Saxon dialects in the Netherlands have in common that their spelling is based on the Dutch spelling, while the spellings used in Germany are based on the German spelling. Best example is the use of capitals for nouns, almost everybody in Germany who writes in Low Saxon uses it, while in the Netherlands almost no one uses it. Dinsdagskind 18:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support - The people who keep this wikipedia back are not even Low Saxon, so please get a live! Bart v.d. Heij 12:14, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Bart van der Heij, please understand that the reason for opposing this is not that I don't think Low Saxon dialects should have Wikipedias. Rather, it is that I think it is too broad and imaginary of a grouping. I advocate for separate Wikipedias for example Veluws, Gronings, Stellingwerfs. So I do support Wikipedias in Dutch Low Saxon varieties, but not as it is sorted in this proposal. Node ue 02:05, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've moved it back. There is only one native speaker willing to work on it at this time, and there is no consensus for its creation, so this request can not be granted. Tuf-Kat 15:47, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've moved it back, there is a consenses, two native speakers. Servien 17:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hi Servien, apparently you don't know the meaning of consensus. There are currently 12 people who agree to the creation of a " Dutch-Low Saxon " Wikipedia, and 3 who think it's better to have Wikipedias for individual dialects. I imagine that if you propose to have a Veluws Wikipedia, you will have consensus very quickly. But 12-3 is not consensus. Besides, many of the supporters are users of German-Low Saxon who are just saying "oh yes there's a spelling difference" without know about dialect problems in the Netherlands, or Dutch people saying "oh yes it's a regional language" without recognising the immense issue of dialects which Servien seems to want to ignore by filling up a so-called "Dutch Low Saxon" Wikipedia with his native Veluuws. --Node ue 02:05, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree that 12-3 is not consensus. And only Servien claims here to be a native speaker -- if there are more, then those people need to notate that. Tuf-Kat 03:45, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • I now oppose, making this even less of a consensus at 12-4. I may support if someone can take the time to convince me that there is a standard method of writing that can be called "Dutch Low-Saxon". Tuf-Kat 03:49, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • I don't see a fourth objection here? There are only 3 (Node ue, Tuk-Kat and anonymous)... Node ue was already listed, besides he doesn't even speak DLS. As mentioned before Servien is (N) and Bart is (N)... two natives.... I think 12-3 is a consenses, there is a very good indication DLS is a much wanted Wiki, the people who object are not even DLS or even speak it, I don't even think they should have a say, if they know the language that's a different case, making several dialect wiki's is just too much, you'll have to create Noord-Veluws, Oost-Veluws, Grunnings, Twents, Aachterhoeks, Sallaands, Stellingwarfs, Suud-Drenths, Midden-Drents, Veenkoniaols, Westerwolds, Twents-Graofschaps, Urks etc. BTW: Samogitian (Žemaitėška), Banyumasan don't even have 5 people willing to work on it nor are they native, how does that work. Servien 08:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC) Julle koppies werkie lekkerie![reply]
              • Oops, I miscounted. It is 12-3, and now that Bart has indicated his nativeness, it has two native speakers. Banyumasan has two native speakers and no opposition, so there is clearly consensus for that. There is no consensus here. If you actually attempted to convince me that there is a method of writing called "Dutch Low-Saxon", I'm still open to supporting, but arguing over consensus won't make it so. I for one would have no qualms about a dozen or more different dialectical Low Saxon wikis. Tuf-Kat 10:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                • Hi again Tuf-Kat. It's actually 13-3, one person generally supports it, but anyway, in the procedures it states that there should be at least 5 willing to work on it, it doesn't say if the wiki should be blocked if some non-native people have doubts about it. (Some aren't even surprised about Node ue, he's kind of got a reputation *not meaning to be rude or anything, but kind of does concerning new wiki's*) The nds-wiki, already exist which covers for most of the German LS dialects, so it's proven it can work. This means that the DLS user don't have anywhere to go besides the Dutch wiki for now, different wiki's for each dialect would be kind of impossible, this way the smaller dialects don't have a place to go and the problem isn't solved yet, a common writing system for articles can be thought of by the community, these are small differences, plus each dialect having a large amount of ways to write. So that's why I wanted to create the DLS wiki. Servien 12:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                  • OK, first of all, what you said about me is VERY wrong. This is the first and so far the only request for a new Wikipedia that I have explicitly opposed. I have supported, or abstained from, all other requests for new Wikipedias, to the point that it irritates some people who would rather not have Wikipedias in languages like Gothic, Cantonese, or Ladino. Second of all. The existing NDS-WP is not working for "most of the German LS dialects". Currently, it's written in North LS of Hamburg area, including dialects like Schleswig-Holstein, East Frisian LS... but nevertheless it is difficult for speakers of other dialects, such as Westphalian, Eastphalian, Mennonite Low Saxon, LS dialects of Poland... etc. So unlike your horrid proposal, it serves based on a real linguistic boundary instead of a national boundary --Node ue 08:23, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Actually Tuf-Kat was right - the vote now stands at 12-4. Servien, please don't take my words out of context. If my meaning wasn't clear before, I'll make it clear now. I oppose don't fully support having a wikipedia covering all Low Saxon languages in the Netherlands. Before I was actually trying to find some kind of consensus where there clearly was none - although on some matters I think we can agree. Because even the supporters of this proposal agree there is no genuine linguistic basis to it. There are, of course orthographic differences between Low Saxon varieties in the Netherlands and Germany, but then there are also orthographic differences within the Netherlands too. They are often treated as separate languages, both by their speakers as well as by many linguists. Is there any evidence that speakers of Gronings, Stellingwerfs, or other varieties are interested in working on this project? No. Quite the opposite. The two languages I mentioned have both been requested separately (albeit without much support at this stage). What I recommend you do is create a wiki for Veluws. If you find speakers of other Low Saxon varieties who support your plans, include them. If speakers of all the main varieties of "DLS" become interested and there's no significant opposition from other speakers, call it "Dutch-Low Saxon" if you want. But if some of them want to have separate wikis, let them. There's no reason why there can't be successful wikis in multiple varieties of Low Saxon. I support having a Veluws wikipedia. --Chamdarae 17:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                    • I think I'm not even gonna bother anymore this is getting really irritating, people blocking the creation who don't even speak it, I'm not gonna bother creating a Veluws, Stellingwarfs or Grunnings wiki because there won't be enough support for that individually. There is a German nds wiki so why shouldn't there be a Dutch nds wiki, this is kind of discriminating. Servien 17:13, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Listen, Servien. There's a great test-wiki now written in Veluws! Keep writing articles like these and things will be fine. There are many people who will support you. I will even try to write an article (at least a stub) on Ny-Seelaand or Koreaons something. In time I'm sure there will be a large community working on this wiki. Actually calling it "Dutch-Low Saxon" won't necessarily help, because there's no clear support at this stage from speakers of other Low Saxon varieties. Maybe I was a little harsh just before, but I objected to my words being taken out of context. My intention is not to block a wiki being formed - I hope one is formed as soon as possible - but I have *never* supported one covering all Low Saxon languages used in the Netherlands. --Chamdarae 18:21, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Hi Chamdarae, there is actually a support for the DLS wiki from Twents and Grunnings etc. there's only one anonymous person who created the seperate wiki's. I don't actually feel much for only a Veluws wiki, don't think it will help much, there are not that much people speaking Veluws nowadays, there are more Grunnings and Stellingwarfs and Twents etc. Seperately the wiki's will never comprise of many articles, together they probably/hopefully will, if you'd create a seperate wiki for Veluws etc. you'll have for example about 15 articles, and together about 100/150. Servien 18:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                      • Servien, this seems to me to be an unnessecarily grim outlook. I don't know for sure how many people speak a variety of Veluws, but I think it's somewhere between 100.000 and 500.000. There are already quite a few people on the internet who can speak Veluws. You have certainly already written plenty of Test WP articles. If a "Dutch Low Saxon" WP will only ever have a total of 150 articles, I don't think it's worth creating. I think that is a grim prediction -- Wikipedias in languages like Faroese or Basque already have many more than that. With a little work, I think a Veluws-only WP would do quite nicely. --Node ue 07:37, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                        • It was just an example... but anyway, I think it's best to stick with nds-nl, which is an actual language (not a dialect). The code can be changed, no problem, it's not actually called Dutch-Low Saxon, just Low Saxon (Nedersaksisch) but since there are two completely different versions of Low Saxon (Dutch and German; in German it's actually called Plattduutsch only the official ISO-code is nds)... the prefix nds (Nedersaksisch) is more often used in The NL. But anyway this wiki has the least objections, creating seperate dialect wiki's is not a good thing if you ask me. Servien
    • Seperate dialect wiki's are no option this will be too much and everyone will want one. Sticking to the original situation is kind of pointless. Like to know what the best solution would be. Servien 16:00, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm a bit late, but I also do support Nijman N (of course as a native speaker).
    • I still don't think having a wiki in Nedersaksisch is the ideal option, but if native speakers support it, I won't block it. I hope that it can help all the Low Saxon dialects / languages in the Netherlands. --Chamdarae 13:39, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support The "Nedersaksisch" dialects of the Netherlands maybe cover 1/10 of the area of the Low Saxon dialects in Germany - there is no reason why they not should not fit into a common Wikipedia. I am willing to contribute. I hate it when people from other continents (15-year old schoolboys) are pretending they know better. Frünn 21:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • And how would you know better than me, seeing as you're not a native speaker? Does being from the Netherlands or Germany somehow make you an infinitely deep well of Lowlands Saxon knowledge? Or are you the one who's pretending to know better? --Node ue 05:26, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If this Wikipedia is created, how do you plan to solve the problem of dialects? --Node ue 06:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Articles written should be categorised as "Grunnings artikel" etc. as Arbeo suggested, the interface will be translated in more than one dialect and there should be links like e.g. "taol" will also have a "spraok" redirect depends on what the article is written in. BTW thanks for all the support so far. Servien 08:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This does not seem a satisfactory solution. As I noted elsewhere, it is likely that one dialect will come to dominate. Dialects with more speakers, will have more articles. Thus, dialects like Stellingwerfs will come out under-represented. Already, you have done a disservice to the NDSNL WP before its creation by replacing all uses of the word "sproak" (and "streektersproak") with the word "toal" (and "streektoal"), even though the article is still labled as written in Grunegers. With regards to support. If all issues like this are clearly resolved, I will change my vote to support. I will only do it begrudgingly, though, because your attitude has been one that you want to ignore all opposition and shove your request through the door without answering to the concerns people have, and such an attitude is clearly a bad thing on ANY Wikipedia, let alone a brand-new one. --Node ue 10:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, and you have totally ignored the fact that "nedersaksisch"/"nedersassich" is also used in Germany to a certain extent. To rename your request "nedersaksisch" is to make it totally ambiguous. The response to it is "We already have a Nedersassisch Wikipedia". Even the linguistically inaccurate "Dutch Low Saxon" is better to distinguish it from the existing ndswp. --Node ue 10:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It seems you have ALSO ignored the fact that in Tweants, it's called Neersassies. Again that raises the HUGE issue of dialect disunity. --Node ue 01:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The term Plattduutsch is actually used in Germany, the term Nedersaksisch is almost never used in Germany, the makers of the nds wiki reportedly named it Nedersassisch because of Dutch speakers. I can't remember changing articles with sproak/taol... but anyway... this was not my intension and certainly won't happen agains. Just for info sakes... there are more Stellingwarfs speakers than Veluws or Sallands so don't think there will be less in that dialect... but we get your point you're against it, but most are not, you know how a democracy works non, majority rule accepted. If you're so against this wiki I'd like to invite you to request all the dialect wiki's seperately, you won't find very much support for it. (which is actually an understatement) - Servien 'n Goeje naom veur joe sol Seurpiet wesen, jy kan beheurlik krimmenere op s'n Stellingwarfs!
Servien (or maybe I'll call you Seurpiet -- I'm not totally illiterate, you know, I can read LS to at least that degree), I thought you were in the NEtherlands? How do you know anything about Germany? I thought I can't know anything about your language, so how can you know anything about theirs? The fact of the matter is, "Neddersassisch" in Platt can refer to the language, and I have seen it used that way more than a few times. Platt is more common, yes, but "Neddersassisch" occurs as well. You did change "sproak" to "taol", just see the history in your test-wp article about Zeeuws. Wikimedia is not a complete democracy. Consensus, not just a majority, is required. Currently there is no consensus. 15-3 is not consensus. 15-0, 15-1, or _maybe_ 20-2 is consensus. The intention is that a group cannot push their wish through when there is significant opposition. Currently, the opposition is still relatively significant. This is not counting the people who voted "support" for the existing dialect proposals but did not vote here, such as Gerard M. or the two other anon users. --Node ue 01:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, when you say "neddersassisch" in Germany that means "coming from Niedersachsen", but nobody will think of the language Plattdüütsch. Överklook is slimmer as tumpig (Plattdeutsches Sprichwort) Arbeo 16:57, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Arbeo, I'm talking about in Platt, not in German. If you think that nobody ever uses "neddersassisch" to refer to the language, you must not read about it very much as I have seen it occur quite a bit in literature from Germany. Specifically, Platt refers to Lowlands Saxon and East Low German; thus when one wishes to exclude East Low German they should use the term "Neddersassisch". --Node ue 01:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Moin Node ue, du snackst nich op Platt sünnern op Engelsch (un ik glööv dat du blauts dat richtig kunns). Over dat is ok egool. Ik hebb dat nich in't Internet leesen, sünnern twinnich joohr in Noorddüütschland leevt un düsse Spraak snackt. Worum glöövst du blauts jümmers dat du aans beter weet as de Lüüd de dor leeven wo de Sprook snackt woord, ok wenn du in'n heelen annern deel vunn de Welt leevt? Wenn de Lüüd seggt dat dat so löpen waard, worum mutt du denn noch jümmers seggen dat du liekers aans beter weet ? Blauts eene Froog noch: wat 'ne "Literatur" hest all leesen? Vertell mi mol de naam vunn düsse Bökers un denn künnt wi wieder snacken! Arbeo 23:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the first time somebody said something to me in Platt (or fernsehplatt, as in your case) expecting me to not understand. I will not dignify the first part of your message with a reply (up to ~liekers aans beter weet) because in my opinion, it is totally irrelevant, though I will make the comment that just because you have lived for a long time in a minority language area, does not mean you know every single word of it. Now, as to your question. http://dot.kde.org/1053201681/1053212548/1053212857/ Kenneth Christiansen says "Ik kom ut Denemark un ik snaak ok Neddersassisch. Het is 'n spraak un het is tou vergelyken mit Nedderlands." To be totally fair, he is Danish rather than German. You should also try searching the Lowlands-l archive. Quotes from it include "wi hebbt "klöven" orrer "opklöven" in Neddersassisch , wat nipp un nau datsülvige bedüden deit", "Man- ick weyt ouk ne recht, wat 'n opp Neddersassisch 'Karvdeer' seggen schull; mi dycht, wat dat nyms begriepen deyt", etc. Note that these are both from Germans. And as I noted before, "platt" is imprecise and includes East Low German as well as Lowlands Saxon, while "neddersassisch" is more precise, referring exclusively to Lowlands Saxon. --Node ue 21:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I added a choice for the ISO code... and put it in bold... does anyone know any better ones? Serv
No unofficial ISO codes are acceptable because of the possibility of future conflicts with real ISO codes. So, it can't be a two or three letter code. Tuf-Kat 04:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Tuf-Kat... I've e-mailed the ISO code "commission", asking the official code for Low Saxon spoken in the Netherlands. So I don't know if they'll reply but anyway, I've removed the other 2- and 3-letter codes and again added nds-nl. Serv
ISO codes are only for languages, they don't make any distinction at all about writting; so ther will never be a different code for "dutch" and "german" spellings of Low Saxon (there are languages with much bigger differences, like different scripts (eg; latin/arabic, etc) that just have to use the same iso code for all writting variants.
  • Support Low Saxon is clearly a distinct language. Its speakers in the Netherlands must be given the same treatment as Low Saxon speakers in Germany. Raetius 13:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Raetius, nobody is arguing that it's not distinct. The problems here are: 1) Whether its "dialects" are too distinct; and 2) Whether or not the Low Saxon of the Netherlands is a different language from the Low Saxon in Germany. Rather than provide detailed explanations or discussions about either, the unscrupulous proposers of this new Wikipedia choose instead to only answer "yes" or "no" and to tell the people asking these questions that their opinions are irrelevant, and have done so from the beginning. When you request a Wikipedia that is quite obviously divided directly along national borders, you should expect some opposition and be ready to answer people's questions in detail rather than blowing them off.--Node ue 09:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
VOTING ON ISO CODE: Please vote on which ISO-code to use for Nedersaksisch (NL).
a) nds-nl; b) qnds; c) ndsn; d) gem-nds; e) other... (voting closes Saterday, 22nd of October at ±18:00 (CEST)) - Servien 16:04, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
b and c are both unusable. Developers will not create new Wikipedias without using an ISO-sanctioned code. Since there is no such thing as a Dutch Low Saxon language, there is no ISO code nor Ethnologue code. Usually, when no ISO code exists, an Ethnologue code is used in the format "roa-rup" or "mis-ain". Realistically, though, the only option is "nds-nl" as "gem-nds" includes Germany, and the other options are not real ISO codes. --Node ue 21:16, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
each of b, c, d are not options. None of them is backed by RFC 3066 - no ISO 639 code AND not published by iana. (Both gem and nds are correct codes, yet inappropriate each, plus you cannot combine them in the way indicated, as per RFC 3066). That → leaves nds-NL which is both correctly built and apropriate.
• Btw. if nds-NL should be further subdivided by dialect, those ones being spoken most predominatly in areas coinciding closely enough with any of the Dutch provinces, could be coded as nds-NL-DR (Drente), nds-NL-FR (Friesland), nds-NL-GE <;small>(Gelderland), nds-NL-GR (Groningen), … etc. with the standard abbreviations commonly used in Netherlands since these have been registered with the ISO as regional subdivisions under country code NL. I cannot tell wether or not dialect use borders do match province borders.
• Note also that, with nds-DE, only nds-DE-HB (Bremen), and nds-DE-HH (Hamburg) are usable, because nds dialect borders elsewhere in Germany almost allways do not at all coincide with federal state borders; there is no point in using these two. German government unfortunately failed to register a set of region codes of finer granularity, though they have a suitable system (being used on car license plates) that is published, and well known to the public --Purodha Blissenbach 23:54, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hi PB, ISO/DIS 639-3 codes can be used, f.ex vel.
Since there isn't much to vote on anymore, the current nds-NL is the only choice, unless someone has a better code. Servien
As I noted before, "neddersaksisch" is imprecise. Just because you are the proposer does not give you licence to change the most important details of the request after people have already voted. How do you know that people who voted "support" will maybe support a Wikipedia called "Dutch Low Saxon" but not one called "Neddersaksisch", or vice-versa? No matter how you try to skew it, this proposal is for a Wikipedia for the Lowlands Saxon dialects of the Netherlands, and the title should reflect that directly in the title of the request, clearly and unambiguously.
Also, somebody keeps insisting on changing the number of oppose votes to "1 or 2" instead of 3. Now, there are 3 solid oppose votes: Chamadrae, Node, and the anonymous user. Please do not vandalise this page.
Nedersaksisch isn't imprecise, there are various ways of pronouncing them (I don't know of ones with "Nedder-" most are "Neder" or "Neer"... like you mentioned Twents uses Neersassies... this phenomenon occures in many Nds dialects, "leem'm" instead of "leven", most of the time it's written as "leev'n" or just "leven", the same goes for Twents Nî'e'-sâ'sisch there will probably be differences in Twents even, one writes it as Neersassisch other Neersassies yet another Nedersaksisch etc.
"Also, somebody keeps insisting on changing the number of oppose votes to "1 or 2" instead of 3. Now, there are 3 solid oppose votes: Chamadrae, Node, and the anonymous user. Please do not vandalise this page."
Are you insisting I changed the votes :o? (I only changed it from 1/2 to: oppose 1 or 2 like I did to all outstanding requests since it was noted as such). OFF TOPIC: 3 solid votes, Chamdarae doesn't oppose nor support he is quoted as saying: doesn't fully support.
I'd opt for nds-nl Arbeo 17:36, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

TITLE: The title has to be changed anyway because "Netherlands Low Saxon" is English which is not an official language in the Netherlands. As explained above Nedersaksisch would do just fine, but just in case someone decides to change it back to the most incorrect form besides Dutch-Low Saxon. (In case there are too many different forms; of which I'm unaware at the moment, the Dutch spelling is used not the English since it's spoken in a Dutch speaking country) Servien

Chamdarae mentioned his should can be count as neutral, see: User talk:Servien. (recount let to 17 support [not including Chamdarae of course]) Servien 10:12, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

CONCLUSION: seperate Nedersaksisch dialect wiki's have just as much/or even more oppose-votes and have lesser support-votes. De kreaotie van disse wiki duurt noe al ongeveer 'n halv jaor, hoelang motten de minsen nog waachten ±een jaor, meschien...? Meschien wel nog laanger, de procedure is so reer hier, 'n nye anvraog wurdt drek eaksepteerd en 'n anvraog van 'n halv jaor geleden staot nog steeds in de waacht... hmmm. Servien 15:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • Uhh... remind me how long this request was around to garner 17 support votes? And how long has the Veluws req been around? These things don't happen instantly. I think also that Belgian Man may reconsider. --Node ue 14:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes you may... it's been around about 1 week longer than "Grunningers" etc, but Veluws has been around for a short time and has already had 3 against votes, 1 vote against for a very silly reason if you ask me, after excluding Sallaands Belgian Man didn't vote for the wiki either. Veluws has just as much "against votes" (which will only get more) than this wiki, only you and one anonymous user against this wiki, I don't think this is a good reason to not approve it. (besides who decides what goes through and what doesn't? If more people have moved this page to approved and only Node moves it back then obviously there is something wrong, shouldn't there be a proper "approval commission"?) Besides 2 votes, one voted for orthography this can be easily solved. You like to see dialect wikis, well the truth is you can't always have your way monsieur, c'est la vie, most people don't want dialect wikis (since this isn't a dialect atlas). Servien 11:24, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • 1) Veluws has 2 against votes. 2) "which will only get more" -- that's awfully pessimistic of you, you have no way of knowing that. 3) Two oppose votes vs. 17 support votes is a very good reason to not put it on the "approved requests" page. So far, only requests with 1 or fewer oppose votes have been moved there. For anything else, you'd need a much bigger ratio, like 30-2. And I don't apply a double standard -- I moved Riparian back here too, even though I support that request. 4) "Most people don't want dialect wikis" -- then why did 7 people vote in favour of a so-called "dialect wiki"?? --Node ue 22:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • 1) Actually 3 oppose votes (Raetius is against aswell), it's been around for a short time, this wiki has 2 and has been around for almost half a year. 2) It is pessimistic, but it's the truth, a Veluws wiki doesn't solve our initial problem and doesn't have much support. Besides you won't find many native speakers since it's a small dialect, and most people speak Dutch nowadays (check out "VELUWE" in your atlas), these people are mostly elderly people or Dutch neo-Veluws level 2/3 speakers. (someone mentioned Aachterhoeks in the stats, this is not even close to the Veluwe, Salland could be counted since Sallaand it's close. I'm curious to which website this is...) 3) It gets more and more with you, first it was 20 now it 30 next week 40, ammehoela! Most requests haven't even had so much support so I think this is a unique case 4) Because you're blocking this wiki, and most people are getting really annoyed with you just like I am getting now, when you know more about Nedersaksisch/Veluws let me know! Houje: Servien 12:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC) à propos... do anonymous users with 6 edits even count? :s[reply]
            • I agree that there is a consensus that this wiki should be created. There is 90% support if the anon voter is counted, which should be plenty. That's well more than is required for any other decision on the wiki. Tuf-Kat 19:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Fnorp
Node has been praising dialect wikis to such an extent that he keeps on blocking the nds-NL wiki which most people actually want. Node doesn't seem to get that these languages are so different that it's just not possible to combine them it's like English and Middle English as said earlier, also a majority of its members are not very keen on the idea of Dutch members contributing to the German-nds wikipedia, as it is later again "Germanised" (but I'm not going to continue about this, it has been discussed!) On the nds-wiki it also states it's only for Low Saxon-Germany (and East-Germany as well which doesn't even fall under nds.) I think everything which should have been discussed has been discussed, and most agree that the wiki should be created soon, Arbeo has asked on the wikitech-l mailing list for its creation, Node keeps on removing the request from the approved page, this is nonsense, it's been approved and just confirms to me your immaturity. Servien 11:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(also see comments at: Veluws) Oppose dialect, no langage -220.149.85.57

You can't vote once it is approved (duh) the explaination is also incorrect Bart v.d. Heij 09:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
1) There is no rule stating this. It is my contention that users should be able to vote on any request at any time before the creation of the Wikipedia. After its creation though, they'd have to start a proposal to lock it. 2) What is a language, and what is a dialect, is a subjective matter. Some people would say Asturian is a dialect of Spanish, others would say it's a separate language. Currently, the European charter for minority languages specifies "Low Saxon", spoken in both Germany and the Netherlands -- not as separate languages. --Node ue 22:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Node I can garanty you on behalf of me and Bart, that Low Saxon spoken in the Netherlands and Germany are definately not regarded as one and the same language by either its speakers or by linguists, this is due to the fact the both hang onto the major language in their own countries, thus Low Saxon in Germany is mostly heavily influenced by German, in the Netherlands it is influenced by Dutch, comparing these languages is like comparing Dutch and German, to you Dutch and German might also look alike but this is definately not the case for the speakers, most of the time Germans cannot understand Dutch eventhough they pick up some words, Dutch people tend to understand German easier because they've learned the language. The European charter also doesn't state Low Saxon is a minority language, it states the Low Saxon variaties as spoken in the Netherlands are a language, in Germany the language has no official status, the effect being that a German variaty which doesn't have an official status has a wikipedia and the Low Saxon language in the Netherlands, with an official status, doesn't. The German variaty and the Dutch variaty are mostly not mutually comprehensible with exeptions allong the border, the problem is that the main dialect used is way more inland "Hamburg" dialect I believe, trying to combine these variaties is like combining the Dutch and German wikipedia, sure we would have a lot of articles but the point of an encyclopedia is that the articles are actually understood, this is not the case with nds-wiki where the average Low Saxon user in the Netherlands will not understand 80% of its articles. The Low Saxon dialects in the Netherlands are also relatively close to one another, I've personaly communicated with a Twents speakers in Veluws and there were no communication problems at all. Please explain to me why you're so against this wiki, you have not yet come up with a point which is an actual problem, I know you like the dialect wikis but as you've seen with the requests for the seperate dialects, most other users do not. Groetnis: Servien 16:39, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
1) Well, if they're regarded as separate languages, what are they called? I could only find references to "Lowlands Saxon", "Low Saxon", referring to both countries. Even searching common German and Dutch words (Plattdeutsch, Niedersachsisch, Nedersaksisch...), all of the websites said it was _a language_ (not two languages) spoken in Germany and the Netherlands.
2) Comparing your so-called "dutch low saxon" with so-called "german low saxon" is most definitely not like comparing German with Dutch. There are some very minor differences, namely spelling and influence (especially in vocabulary) from German or Dutch, but this is largely limited to the technical domain.
3) Dutch and German don't look the same to me. Do French and Spanish look the same to you? There are some very obvious differences between the two, and this is compounded by the fact that as an educated speaker of English, I can accurately guess the meanings of perhaps 30% of Dutch and German vocabulary. Dutch and German are obviously quite different languages -- "ik" in Dutch, "ich" in German; "dag" = "tag", and that's only the beginning, there are lots more. But there are no similar differences between "Dutch Low Saxon" and "German Low Saxon" -- "ik" = "ik". There are no grammatical or morphological differences, only differences in spelling and to a small degree in vocabulary aswell.
4) I think you'd better check again. Regardless of whether or not a language is recognised by a country, it can be recognised at the level of Europe.
5) You claim that having, say, Hamboergsch and Gronings in the same Wikipedia is like combining Dutch and German. That's a ridiculous claim. There are, according to nearly all sources I can find, 4 main dialect groups of LS: Northern LS, Westphalian, Eastphalian, and Schleswigian. Northern LS is shared between Hamburg and much of the rest of N. Germany, and the Netherlands. Can you give me a single isogloss that goes along the national border?
6) If you can't understand "German Low Saxon", you're not trying at all. Every single day, speakers of LS from both countries exchange e-mails in the language on lowlands-l with little difficulty. Other than some spelling differences, and "et" and "en" vs "de" and "und", there aren't really any huge differences. This point is PROVEN by the fact that you posted a message to the talkpage of nds.wiki in "Dutch Low Saxon", which was understood perfectly by the Germans, who responded with messages in "German Low Saxon", which was understood perfectly by you (and ultimately led to this request). You claiming that they can't be understood is an outright lie.
7) I've come up with quite a few reasons why this WP should not be created. You have been rude from the very beginning, and have ignored or rebuked my attempts at compromise. --Node ue 00:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Shortly... they're called Plattdüütsch and Nedersaksisch, under Dutch influence sometimes called Nedersachsisch, secondly read your charter all your info is in there. Thirdly, as an expert and native speaker you should know all about the language haah, you make me laugh, you're so funny *NOT*! Fourth, you better check your sources again, on the Dutch and German wiki they are are divided by Dutch and German variaties, there might be four dialect groups which they've been divided in in the year 1601, but hey what do you know it's 2005! May be the word "ik" is the same but that's about it, I've talked to mit-Nedersaksen in NL and they see the wiki the same way we Dutch do, like a foreign language which is definately not own, most don't even understand the introduction on the main page. You know I'm get really gatvol of your stupid unmeaningful comments, every day... hmm well you have to speak German to understand, mine isn't that good, monsieur excuse me, but I'm not going to study another language to communicate in my own, think of it you'll have to speak French first to be able to read in English! Secondly when I wrote my comments everyone told me they did not understand a word I said, Dutch users get this more often the once (most likely Veluws, Drents, Sallands, Stellingwerfs, Zuid-Gelders, Overijssels, Achterhoeks en gao so mer deur!) Everytime I read your comments I read "blablabla" no new stuff, jy haolt ouwe koeien uut de sloot. Please get a life and learn some Veluws or Drents or whatever. Besides aren't people only allowed to vote when they're 18?! Servien 08:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
We've been over this before. 1) Any sites or books talking about either "Plattdüütsch" or "Nedersaksisch" say that this language is spoken in 2 countries. Many German sources call it "Nedersaksisch" or "Nedersassisch", especially books. In Hochdeutsch, it's sometimes called "Niedersächsisch". 2) Why don't you read the charter? 3) What? 4) Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source even by itself. I used a number of books, not Wikipedia, including the widely praised Das neue Duden-Lexikon which was published in 1999. 5) Well, you want I should make an entire swadesh list? The only real difference is orthography. For example, the GLS "vör" is written "veur" in DLS, "hööft" -> "heufd", "nedersaksisch"/"nedersassisch" -> "nedersaksisch", "köninkriek" -> "keuninkryk", "tesaom'n" -> "tesaamen", "schriefwiese" -> "schryvwyse". 6) I'm tired of your personal attacks. If you want to tell me you don't like what I have to say, or you think I don't know what I'm talking about, go ahead and say it. But don't call me names. --Node ue 21:05, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we have been over this and I'm going to ignore your nonsense comments from now on, first of all it's not called Nedersaksisch anywhere in Germany, second of all please leave the judging over to people who have knowledge about this (no not your book-knowledge, but REAL LIFE)! ...again CHARTER, it's an official language Plattduutsch isn't.
1) I have given you proof that it is in fact called Nedersaksisch in Germany, which you have all but ignored. Just because you read somewhere that "It's called Plattdüütsch in Germany" doesn't mean that's 100% true. "Plattdüütsch" (sometimes shortened to "platt") refers to LS + "East Low German", and is definitely the predominant name in Germany. There are plenty of websites (including lowlands-l.net) written in "GLS" which call it "Nedersaksisch" or "Nedersassisch". 2) The only people who have voted here who have "real knowledge" about it are yourself and Bart van der Heij, who I actually think might be your sockpuppet. 3) The charter doesn't just mention official languages; besides LS in Germany has certain areas where it is given treatment as a minority language.


"vör" is written "veur" in DLS, "hööft" -> "heufd", "PLATTDUUTSCH"/"nedersassisch" (dutchism) -> "Nedersaksisch" (capital), "köninkriek" -> "keuninkryk", "tesaom'n" -> "SAOMEN", "schriefwiese" -> "schryvwyse". 6) I'm tired of your personal attacks.

Yes that is correct, these are a FEW words, but you can't build on this, just except it from a native speaker I don't understand **** from that socalled wikipedia, this is not the intention of a wiki, that is why the wiki has so little Dutch people in its community!! Ik wur' so esteurd van al die onsinnige troep die'j loopt rond te verspreiden, jy kump nie ees uut Europa en jy dink drek da'j alles van onse taol en kultuur en alles afweet! I have never called you names, which I should but I don't! I'm sure you're a nice person (when you're asleep?) but your VERY annoying, I'm not the only one who seems to think that! Groetnis van 'n Nederlaandse gebruker die gien sin heet um op 'n Duutse wikipedie syn bydraogen te leveren an iets waor niemand wat an heet, umdat sy der gien ene hol van begrypen. Servien 09:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, then, why not give a few examples of words that are truly different? If you don't understand "****", there are other solutions to that problem besides making a new Wiki -- two pages for each topic, a spelling converter, using an in-between spelling... the list goes on. No other WP was created just because somebody spells a few words differently. And let's see, "Ik wurrt zo estörrd vun al die onzinnige trup die'j loopt rond te verspreiden, de kump nie ees uut Europa en de dink drek da'j alles vun onze spraak un kultur un alles afweet!", and then "Grütens vun 'n Nedderlandsche gebrüker die gien zin heet um op 'n Düütsche Wikipedia sien biedraagn te leveren an its waar nimand wat an heet, umdat sie der gin ene hol vun begriepen"... don't think I don't understand you sörpit. --Node ue 10:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

strong support It looks like there is consensus that this wikipedia should be created, if I am not mistaken,only one person is very actively trying to block it. The NL-nedersaksische variants (I use the dutch spelling) are influenced by dutch spelling and vocabulary, and the DE-Platt variants are influenced by the German spelling and vocabulary, enough reason for a separate nds-nl wikipedia, IMHO. If a certain variant, like Gronings or Veluws, will be over-represented in the nds-nl wikipedia, we could split it off at a later point if desired. Hence strong support for an nds-nl wikipedia. Flyingbird 13:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • support As a native Twents speaker, I think there should be an NDS-NL Wikipedia covering all Dutch Low Saxon dialects at a minimum. I can understand the current Plattdüütsche Wikipedia, but that is only a consequence of having German in high school. It has been written over here that German Low Saxon and Dutch Low-Saxon are comparable (people from Hamburg able to understand people from Groningen and vice versa). This is true, although there may always be some differences which could led to understanding problems. The biggest issue however, is that Wikipedia is mainly a WRITTEN medium, not a SPOKEN one. The Dutch Low Saxon has been written for centuries with help of grammar and spelling normally used for the Dutch language, leading to big differences between written Dutch and German Low Saxon. Twents for example has been proven to resemble closer to Middle Dutch than Middle Low German. There are even quite some differences between for example Twents and Veluws, mainly in spelling, but not as big as between the Dutch and German Low Saxon. Creating a NDS-NL Wikipedia would be a good start to satisfy all native speakers of Dutch Low Saxon dialects. Tubantia 13:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Newsflash: the article Node ue was so proud of, being about the only easily understandable article for Dutch users Noord-Veluws has been changed to Plattdüütsch, it is that I wrote it myself but otherwise wouldn't be able to understand most likely.)

Did you know that in some parts of the Netherlands, they call their dialect "Plat" or "Platduits"?? Anyhow that interesting factoid aside, please see this page. Sure, it was changed to German spellingg, but nobody altered the grammar. Word order is identical, and everything. Just words were respelled. You were trying to say that these languages have different words and grammar... if that's the case, why didn't they make more changes than just spelling??????????? --Node ue 20:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Developers may judge the differences for themselves, see: Wordlist in "Netherlands Low Saxon" dialect, Gronings and Corresponding wordlist in "German Low Saxon" dialect, Hamborgsch.

This list has been composed by a acquaintance of mine to show the few resemblances the languages all together have. As one can see most words are the same in all languages, then lets combine Dutch, Low Saxon, German and English and make it one wikipedia. Ooit eheurd van et woord "absurd"?
Not in English, they're not the same. Nor in German nor Dutch. --Node ue 20:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ligurian (5)

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]: Mark Williamson
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: Node
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code: none (roa-lij; ISO 639-3/DIS code is LIJ)
  • proposed domain: roa-lij.wikipedia.org OR lij.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia:
    • App. number of speakers: 2 million
    • Location(s) spoken: Ligurian region of Italy, whole nation of Monaco, and in the town of Bonifacio in Corsica
    • Closely related languages, if any: Tabarchino, the language of the island of San Pietro and part of the island of Sant'Antioco, is said to be a Ligurian dialect. Also related to Lombard, Venet, Piedmontese, and Emilian.
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: [1]

[2] [3] [4] [5]

  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments: There are already at least 15 Ligurian-speaking Wikipedians.
  • Requested as a part of Wikiproject Fratellanza. Venet, Piedmontese, Emilian, Neapolitan, and Griko Salentino might be requested in the near future.
Support --pippudoz - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 02:30, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Sabine 03:25, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support Arbeo 16:46, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Harvzsf 18:03, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Waray-Waray (Samar-Leyte Visayan) (10)

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]:
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: Harvzsf (N) 07:01, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki (Mga kasangkayan, aton na ini higayon, ¡alayon pag-pirma!):
  • ISO code : war (ISO 639-2)
  • proposed domain: http://war.wikipedia.org or if it's not possible then http://wry.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia: en:Waray-Waray
    • Link to Test-wp: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/war/
    • App. number of speakers: 3 million
    • Location(s) spoken: Samar, northern and eastern Leyte, eastern Biliran
    • Closely related languages, if any: Hiligaynon, Cebuano, and other Visayan languages
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: DILA or Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago, a group that specifically was formed to advocate for equal linguistic rights for the indigenous languages of the Philippines which includes Waray-Waray.
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments:
  • Support: --222.126.60.107 10:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support~! Another philippines language! Yay! --Node ue 22:19, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - Yes, some more Philippine languages please. --Christopher Sundita 01:00, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - Ditto with Chris' comments. -- --Bentong 03:25, 3 Jul 2005 (UTC) (proposer of the Cebuano wiki)
  • Support--Lean lb (N) 00:16, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Sure, why not? --443 16:03, 08 Aug 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The test-wp looks like it's going well! We need more Philippine languages. --Chamdarae 00:52, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Samogitian (3)

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]:
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: -- User:zordsdavini (N)
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code : none, but could be: smg
  • proposed domain: http://smg.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant infos:
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments:
    • Support. Samogitian Wikipedia would be probably the only lesser used language Wiki in Lithuania! By no means Samogitian needs its own Wiki. Creating of a test Wiki in Samogitian would help to start. --Võrok 06:37, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. The test wiki is here. Are there other speakers at the Lithuanian wp? It looks like there is a movement to promote Samogitian, so I think a Samogitian wikipedia would have good chances of finding supporters. Codes could be a problem though - bat-smg? bat-zem?. --Chamdarae 01:31, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Triestin (10)

(see Requests for new languages/Triestin)

Venetian

Template:Requests for new languages/Ladino

Template:Requests for new languages/Stellingwerfs

Gronings (2)

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]:
  • ISO code : gos
  • proposed domain: http://gos.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant infos: Gronings is spoke in Groningen Province of the netherlands.
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia:
    • App. number of speakers: 600.000
    • Location(s) spoken: Groningen province and adjacent Ostfriesland area
    • Closely related languages: Drents, Overijssels, Stellingwerfs, some neighbouring dialects in germany
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: Stichting Grunneger Toal
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments:this page is written in Gronings
    • Roughly the same objection as above, although Gronings is spoken more widely and is more different from other Low Saxon dialect groups than Stellingwervish is. If really a lot of people support this request we can think (mind: think) of opening a Gronings-Ostfrisisch Wikipedia. Caesarion 07:58, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Doubt - Too little knowledge about Gronings, but I doubt the Low Saxon langauge should be split into tens of Wikipedia's, however how hard it is to cope with the regional variations. DanielM 07:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose (see Stellingwerfs) Arbeo 08:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I must admit, however, that Gronings is among the more idiosyncratic and deviant subdivisions of Low Saxon; yet I am convinced that one Wikipedia for Plattdütsch and one for Dutch Low Saxon variants will do. Caesarion 17:55, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Zealandic (3)

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]: Caesarion; Brittannicus 09:33, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Proposed domain: http://gem-zws.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant information:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia: en:Zealandic; nl:Zeeuws
    • App. number of speakers: 250.000
    • Locations spoken: Roughly the Zeeland province of the Netherlands, and the former island of Goeree-Overflakkee. Depends on the defintion.
    • Closely related languages: Dutch proper, Hollandic dialect, West Flemish. Some include Zealandic in the latter. Anyway Zealandic transites into both West Flemish and Hollandic by means of a dialect continuum.
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: De Zeêuwse taelsite
  • Link to request on mailing list:
  • Comments:
    • Some Dutch nationalists say Zealandic is a dialect of Dutch. Caesarion 07:58, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It isn't really, but if people show their interest I will be willing to do a lot of work for it. Caesarion 07:58, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. Do you speak Zeêuws, Caesarion? If you do, I hope you will create a Test Wikipedia immediately and we might search for support from others. If you don't, I think we should wait for some people who do. --Node ue
      • Yes Node, I can speak Zeêuws and since my parents live in Zeeland I will probably find some native speakers willing to contribute. I know of no current Wikipedians who speak it however; some might prefer a combined Zeelandic-West Flemish Wikipedia. Caesarion 19:57, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • De Test-Wikipedia, of iets wat-a d'rop trekt, staet ier.
    • Oppose - Not standard spelling, a lot of regional variation in the small territory where it is spoken. No literature history. The few texts in Zealandic on the internet are basically Dutch with modified spelling to make it sound more Zealandic. Too little for a succesfull Wikipedia, and unnecessary, since since most people in Zealand are perfectly happy with standard Dutch. DanielM 07:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Daniel, there are a lot of points I must disagree on with you. First of all: there a two widely accepted spellings: the dictionary-orthography and the Noe-orthography, and the mutual differences are so small that I hardly expect any problems. The regional variation is often vastly exaggerated by the native speakers; on the contrary, most of Zeeland is remarkably cohaerent in a linguistic point of view (except for Zeeuws-Vlaanderen); much more so than North Holland, Groningen and Drenthe, not to mention Limburg. And that there is hardly any literature may not bar the creation of a Wikipedia. This is the classical chicken-and-egg-theorema: somewhere the tradition of writing Zealandic or any language has to start. Finally, I don't think most Zeelandic speakers are perfectly happy with Dutch: they might be content, but one has to stay content until a more satisfying offer is made. It is always beneficial when you can read and write your own language, for Zeêuwen not less so than for anyone else. Caesarion 17:52, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • If there is no literature, it either means the language has been opressed, or it is just silly to write literature in it, because it might just be a simple dialect that doesn't differ significantly from the cultural language. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to start a new language, and especially not to turn dialects into a language. Read this [6] why turning dialects into a language is a bad idea (also, check out the page "taalafstand" there), and this one [7] why Zealandic is not considered a language. DanielM 18:01, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • You seem to doubt my seriousness and to think I am absolutely ignorant about Zealandic! Man, I red quite a lot about the pros and contras of recognising Zealandic. And your remark about literature is just too stupid for words! In a way, Zealandic is oppressed, Standard Dutch being taught in schools exclusively and being the only accepted language in any official situation! Why don't you just grant 250,000 people their own Wikipedia? And tell me, was it silly to turn the low German dialects of the Netherlands into a language, namely Dutch? I can come up with dozens of internet publications that claim the contrary, but you only come up with what agrees with your point of view! Caesarion 22:05, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Let's take a look at your example Wikipedia:
        • "Jaet, j'eit 't goed gezieë, ier oort 'n afdeêlienge van Wikipedia, de vrieë encyclopedie die iedereêne kan bewarke, in 't Zeêuws opgezet.
        • Equivalent standard Dutch:
        • Ja, je hebt 't goed gezien, hier hoort 'n afdeling van Wikipedia, de vrije encyclopedie die iedereen kan bewerken, in 't Zeeuws opgezet.
        • Some of the differences we see:
          • The h is not pronounced, so removed in Zeeuws. Removal of letters is common in dialects, however, I'm not aware of another dialect that does this.
          • The ij is pronounced as ie and therefore written that way. This happens in many Dutch dialects.
          • One word(combination) that looks a bit more different, j'eit, but it is clear that this is close to "je het", which happens in more Dutch dialects.
        • We do not see any differences in grammar, and the words are standard Dutch.
        • Now German, likely far from perfect, because my German is terrible:
          • 'Ja, du hast es richtig gesehen, hier gehört eine Abteilung von Wikipedia, die freie Enzyclopädie was jeder bearbeiten kan, ins Zeeuws präpariert.
        • Apart from changes that reflect different pronounciation, it's clear that many words are completely different, i.e. je<->du het<->es werk<->arbeit opzetten<->präparieren. This example ignores the differences between German grammar and Dutch grammar, especially declensions can cause big differences in the way sentences are constructed in both languages.
        • You get similar effects if you would translate into Frysian. These things are why the case for a Zealandic language is rather weak.
        • Lastly, I think I did not deserve a personal attack. If you want to go ahead you'd better explain what direction you want to go, why, or if, Zealandic should be treated different from other dialects in Holland, like Haags and Amsterdams, and dialects in other countries. DanielM 11:22, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Come on now, Zeelandic is quite a lot further apart from Standard Dutch than the The Hague and Amsterdam dialects are. These are nearly identical with it! Your comparision with German is quite misleading. There are so many Wikipedias in language variants that are much closer to each other than Dutch and German are... And why do you actually oppose a Zealandic Wikipedia and support one in Gronings and leave the possibility for a Stellingverwish one open? Stellingwervish is as close to Dutch as Zealandic is (Jae, ie hebt 't goed ezien, hier wodt ne afdieling ...), and what is more important: on the to-be-created Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia, you are perfectly allowed to write in Stellingwervish, while on the Dutch Wikipedia any other variant than Standard Dutch is forbidden. That is a very strong argument pro, imo. The others are that it is fairly different from Dutch proper (in sharp contrast to the South Hollandic dialects you mentioned) and also quite coherent, though of course there are differences between the respective speeches of each region. Will you still oppose this project when I find enough willing native speakers? And if so, why not create a unified Zealandic-West-Flemish Wikipedia? Finally, I think your use of the word silly and your reference to a source as if it were the unmistakable truth should be taken as a personal attack, too. Caesarion 12:38, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Haags and Amsterdam are *not* equal to standard Dutch, far from it. You are mistaken by that the majority of people in these cities do talk almost perfect standard Dutch, the dialacts are almost extinct but still spoken by older people, please search some text in them on Google, and check yourself.
            • I'm going to stop this discussion, if citing sources is a personal attack, a proper discussion is not possible. I'd say its a good thing if you want to group several dialects in their own Wikipedia. DanielM 17:59, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Maybe I must explain it to you: Haags and Amsterdams are Hollandic dialects, that differ only in accent and in some minor, very minor lexical features. I don't need to google it up, I know enough about it. The differences between Amsterdam dialect and Standard Dutch are similar to those between rural Texan and Standard English. Standard Dutch is based on the south Hollandic dialects, so it is satisfying for all those who speak these dialects. Not so for Zealandic: they have played no role in the formation of the Dutch language and are as a result further removed from Dutch. Don't forget I started the articles nl:Zeeuws, nl:Rotterdams, nl:Haags and nl:Amsterdams on the Dutch Wikipedia. So don't say I should google up some information because I'm just ignorant about the whole thing. Caesarion 21:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - Would be willing to do some work to get this wikipedia going. I don't speak Zeêuws, but reading is no problem. Cicero 22:40, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • As a native speaker of Nieuw-Zeêuws, I strongly support having a Zeêuws wikipedia. May the yoke of oppression be lifted and the banner of vrieheid be raised in Zeeland! --Chamdarae 02:04, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Slovio (2)

  • International Slavic language
  • Comments:
    • I love this language (it's refreshing to see such a complete non-Romance IAL), but would it have enough supporters with Internet access? If we can get at least five people willing to write for it, I'd support this one. Almafeta 02:01, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support a Slovio-Wiki and promoted the Idea on the german wikipedia. Tiontai 12:11, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I also love Slovio (see Slavopedia) and I can see a great potential in this auxillary language but I am against a Slovio Wikipedia in this phase of its development:
    • Kpjas 22:48, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • for the time being, anyone interested in developing a Slovio WP can do that within Slavopedia. Also, you must be aware of the copyright restrictions on Slovio (one may not modify the language and the question of whether expanding the vocabulary is considered a modification is unresolved). / tsca ✉ 22:57, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support and would work. --Millosh 21:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC) I didn't see that Kpjas and others are against it :) So, don't support. --Millosh 07:12, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Disapprove. There is simply no need for such wiki: a slavic-speaking person can use electronic translators to read other-slavic wikipedias comfortably. Slovio is quite primitive and ugly by its nature, and very few will contribute to such wiki, as it will require for them to learn it first. It was designed for non-slavic-speakers to be able to communicate with slavs, but there is no need for it when slavic people can just as easily (or as uneasily) understand each other's native speech (especially written). Ramir
      • In general, Slovio has copyright problem (such as Klingon). But, concept of Slovio is very good. For example, even I am by education slavist, it is more easy to me to read Slovio then, for example, Polish (i.e., I need a dictionary for text in Polish, but I don't need anything to read a text in Slovio). (My native language is Serbian.) If Mark Hucko in the future give Slovio in public domain, Slovio Wikipedia would have a sense. --Millosh 01:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Milosh, I am strongly convinced that you would find it easier and more enjoyable to read machine-translated Polish Wiki-articles that ones written in (poor) Slovio. Let us discuss alternative ways of inter-Slavic cooperations at Slavopedia. We should firstly gather a stable community of Wikipedians interested in inter-slavic collaboration, and only then start thinking of doing something big like a Slovio Wikipedia. Ramir (русский)
          • You are right about community. I just thought that people agreed to start Slovio Wikipedia (at Slavopedia) and I supported this idea just because of that. However, as it was not decision, I am not in favor of this idea. (I don't like copyright of Slovio and this is a big problem for me; but, I thought that there were opposite decision :) ) --Millosh 20:50, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Support. Slavic people cannot understand each other in general. I am a slavic native speaker - Czech. I can understand Slovak, but not any other Slavic language. Not even russian - and I have been learning it for 3 years in school as a child. I already forgot it (and was never able to really communicate in russian). However, I can read Slovio without any problems. --Kyknos 23:27, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hm... I do understand Czech articles when I read them slowly. Allright, it may be just me. But what you need to consider also is how many people will be contributing to a Wikipedia in Slovio. Very few, I reckon. Ramir 09:59, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Good point. I do like the idea of Slovio, it's an interesting project. But I guess practically all speakers of Slavic languages would prefer to both read and write encyclopedia articles in their native languages. Especially since we already have Wikipedias for almost every Slavic language, what would be the actual benefit of a Slovio one? <Arbeo> 14:03, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
        • "Support". That's true that Slavic people can't understand each others. Everything sounds similar, but we don't know what that is really meaning. I'm polish native speaker and I can full understand only people from Slovakia and some part of Czech (Silesia). When I have learned Slovio, I have started to understand some other slavic languages. So, thats the best way to better communications between slavic speakers. And don't forget that we have 18 slavic languages. We need one which is easy to understand for everybody.

Bartosx 22:46, 23 August 2005

Kinaray-a (5)

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]:Rhyxis (N)
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: Rhyxis (N)
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code: no ISO 639-2 code, kya proposed. In SIL Ethnologue the code for this language is krj (ISO/DIS 639-3)
  • Proposed domain: either http://krj.wikipedia.org or http://kya.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant infos: Kinaray-a is second most-spoken language in Panay Island in the Philippines. Long considered to be variant of Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a linguists are fighting to establish its own right to be called a langauge. It is distinct in many ways from Hiligaynon. It is the official language of the Province of Antique (Antike/Hantike), it is spoken by 70% of Iloilo Province's population and 75% of Capiz Province's population. There are also large numbers of Kinaray-a speakers on the islands of Mindoro, Palawan, Romblon, Masbate and Metro Manila.
  • Comments:

Murcian (8)

South Tyrolean (Südtirolerisch)(0)

  • People interested
  • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: Andreas
  • ISO code: (proposed) sty
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article on the language in an existing Wikipedia:
    • App. number of speakers: 300.000
    • Location(s) spoken: South Tyrol (Südtirol) in North Italy
    • Closely related languages, if any: bases in the Geman language with a little Italien influence
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: There exists some newspapers and a lot of books in Südtirolerisch.
  • Comments:
    • A dictionary is available at click here
    • Very skeptical: South Tyrolean is simply a German dialect like many others. Besides, I have never seen any newspapers written in that dialect. Which ones do you mean? Arbeo 11:12, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good idea, but will it be sufficient for a whole Wikipedia? I mean, I know southtyrolean, and know that it is very far from german standard but does it have words for things besides the daily-life-words? If yes, I would support, even can not really contribute. tiontai.
  • The South Tirolian dialects belong to the Bavarian group of the High German language area. I do not support the creation of a South Tirolian Wikipedia but I do support a Bavarian one - there is one for Alemannic too, which started as an Alsatian Wikipedia only. Caesarion 11:11, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bavarian (Austro-Bavarian and Südtirolerisch)

  • People interested joining: Proposer maybe, but I already have so much to do.
  • Proposer's user acount in meta: Caesarion, at least if I am to be considered the proposer.
  • Relevant information:
    • ISO code: none; proposed domain: gem-bai.wikipedia.org
    • App. number of speakers: no less than 17 million
    • Locations spoken: Most of Bavaria, Most of Austria, South Tirol
    • Closely related languages: High Franconian (including Standard German), Alemannic
    • Article in an existing Wikipedia: en:Austro-Bavarian; de:Bairische Sprache
    • External links to organizations that promote the language:
  • Comments:
    • Bavarian is closer to standard German than Alemannic is; yet many consider it either a separate language or a coherent cluster of quite independent German dialects. It is never called "Bayrisch" in Austria and South Tirol, where it is referred to as Österreichisch and Südtirolerisch, respectively. In Bavaria and Austria, Bavarian is almost everyone's native language; even in cities and towns it is used very widely.
      • Hi Caesarion! Oiso, i woas ned... Bavaria being my adopted country I'm feeling flattered ;-) However, I'm afraid a Wikipedia covering all Bavarian dialects is not feasible. They are just to different to fit within one single encyclopedia. Moreover, they are all part of the German language and only very rarely used in non-fictional writing. Do we really need this one? Arbeo 09:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Arbeo, we need it as much or little as we need the Alemannic, Limburgic and Plattdütsch Wikipedias. Any speaker can judge whether he thinks a Bavarian Wikipedia is feasible. The borders between dialect and separate language are very vague indeed and have become even more so over the past years. While Bavaria is clearly not a separate country, you can't say the same about Bavarian so easily. And while there are indeed many Bavarian dialects this should not be an unsurmountable obstacle for creating a Wikipedia, if there are only a few devoted users willing to coordinate the whole project. And finally, the fact that it is rarely used for non-fictional writing goes for many other languages; just remember for how many of them Wikipedia is the first encyclopaedia that was ever created in that language. Caesarion 12:21, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you want to create a bavarian wikipedia, go ahead. But don't tag it as "Austro-Bavarian and Südtirolerisch". There are many different dialects within Austria, with big differences between, for example, Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria and Vienna. --Tsui 17:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC) (de:Benutzer:Tsui)[reply]
    • Support. Being an Upper Austrian dialect speaker, I do not view the differences between the bavarian dialects of Austria as a huge obstacle for this project. Actually I think the differences are less to be found in written than in spoken dialect. It is the melody which makes each of them distinctive. But if you compare dialect texts from all the bavarian dialect regions of Austria, they are pretty similar, apart from a few local distinctive features which can be understood easily in general, at least from the context. Same applies to the differences between the Austrian and German Bavarian language. It is no problem for people between Weiden in the Upper Palatinate in Northern Bavaria and the Austro-Hungarian border to understand each other, both in written and spoken dialect. Again, if you compare for instance dialect songs from Bavarian and Austrian song writers like Konstantin Wecker and Wolfgang Ambros, the differences in lyrics are marginal. I assume that in contrast the differences between the Alemannic dialects in Switzerland, Vorarlberg, Liechtenstein, Alsace and Southwestern Germany are much bigger what did not deter them from building a sucessful shared Wikipedia. Of course one could also argue that each federal state of Austria deserves its own wikipedia, but I doubt this is realisable in practice. Creating one local Wikipedia for all Bavarian speakers in Bavaria and Austria (which amount to at least 12 million people) would allow for a vital local wikipedia. Given the fact that about one half of the Bavarian speakers live in Austria, I would propose to label this joint Wikipedia 'Bairisch-Österreichisch' (Bavarian-Austrian), if our Bavarian friends do not have too much troubles with this. I am well aware this is not the correct linguistic term. However, I doubt that the majority of Austrians know what the generic term for their spoken dialect in linguistics is. They usually refer to it with the name of their federal state or just Austrian. I would like to discuss this. --84.113.230.60 00:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Two problems: First is, there is no common, standardised, way to write in any of the bavarian dialects. Second: there are big differences between the dialects. Some examples: here is the, quite famous, poem "med ana schwoazzn dintn" by w:H. C. Artmann in viennese dialect and, for comparison, the lyrics of a song by tyrolean singer Zabine, "kapfinger".
        The simple sentence "Ich heiße...", is "I haas" in Vienna, but "I hoas" in Innsbruck. "Kommst du" is "kummst" in Vienna, but "kimst" in Tyrol. And I'm not even talking about Carinthia, Styria, Burgenland etc. or Bavaria, which has its own separate regions and dialects. Arbeo above writes "i woas net" (en: "I don't know"), which seems to be bavarian; in Vienna it would be "i waas net". Where Konstantin Wecker sings "oana" (en: "one"), Wolfgang Ambros sings "ana". --Tsui 04:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I concede these arguments are well-founded. On the other hand: I have no difficulties in reading all four of these texts (funny enough, the only demanding text for me is the Artmann poem although I have lived in Vienna for six years) and I find the variety interesting and would like to learn about it. Is it really necessary to have a uniform, standardised transcription? In my opinion, a dialect wikipedia should rather promote the variety of local dialects which belong to the same group (and can still be read as it seems to be the case to a large degree here, at least according to me) than having strict rules. It would be interesting to learn how the Alemannic Wikipedia deals with these questions. --84.113.230.60 10:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion it does not make sense to create a new Wikipedia for every dialect. You have to write everything again, and the only difference is the spelling of the words. But what is the use of it? People who speak bavarian or related dialects can also read texts written in standardized german. They do every day, when they read their newspaper or a cooking book. In my opinion a wikipedia in "allemannian dialect" (or how it is called correctly) is also waste of time, energy etc... because they people probably prefer reading the german (de)-wikipedia, because there the information is more professional and much more articels can be found there. Would you create an own wikipedia for "users from texas" too, just because they (probably?) talk in a special kind of dialect? Of course no. In my opinion this "wikipedia for every dialect" is only a special form of patriotism. I speak bavarian dialect too (I'm from austria), and I like the dialect, but I don't write in dialect, because there is no standard so that everyone who speaks that dialect can read it well, and in fact it is really easier to read and write in standard german, when you want to reach other people. -->With dialect-wikipedia you reach a more or less big part of the population using this dialect, but with a wikipedia in standard germand, you reach everyone who speaks german, and by the way, the de-wikip. gets better much faster when everyone concentrates his forces into this single one german language wiki, instead of divorcing the "writing-forces" into different area-dialects. If it all would run like this, we now had about 4 or 5 wikipedias for the biggest dialect groups, and everyone of it would have it's good and it's bad researched parts, so that no one of them in fact would be as complete, as it now is (it is not complete, it probably will never be, but you know what I mean - we have much more us with one big germand wikip. because everyone - doesn't matter which dialect - can read it and work on it! Sorry for my probably not very well english! -- de:Otto Normalverbraucher 11:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The comparison to dialects of Texas is patently absurd. Texan dialects are barely different at all from other North American dialects of English, seeing as it's been separated from any other dialect by less than 400 years, less than 300 years for the majority of them, and less than 200 years for most dialects west of the Mississipi River. --Node ue 04:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is not that the Bavarians, Austrians and South Tyroleans be unable to edit and understand the German Wikipedia, I just think the present dialects are separate enough to be considered a language and to be granted an encyclopaedia - just that it would be something new to create a Bavarian Wikipedia seems enough reason to some to reject it. Wikipedias in regional languages have proven workable in the past, even wehen everyone writes in his own dialect. Alemannic, Limburgic and Platt preceded this request and are solid, good (if not yet full-grown) Wikipedias. Caesarion 19:17, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is another language with millions of speakers which should have its own wikipedia. As with other regional languages in Europe, I think an Austro-Bavarian wikipedia would be likely to succeed. But there is extensive dialectal variation, and I think some "dialects" are perhaps distinct enough that they should have separate wikipedias. --Chamdarae 02:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I grew up in Rodach until 12 and then in Regensburg until I went to Italy, part of my family is in Regensburg, Munich and part in Niederösterreich so one thing should be clear: I very much appreciate this project. I took a bit of time because I was not sure if to actively participate or just support the project - at this moment there are too many things going and so I am so sorry that I am not able to do much - of course: if you need help with single things, let me know. --Sabine 14:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It would be better, to build in the especially terms of bavarian or austrian language in the standard german wikipedia. At first there are not so many forces to fill up an austro-bavarian wiki, following the most reader search in the standard german and so the complete project will die automatically again. The existing project must have so much of place (bytes and tolerance) that both variations can leave together. K@rl 198.40.90.11 05:18, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bahasa Riau (0)

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]: mother tongue
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: id: ghobro User: ghobro
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code:
  • Proposed domain: ri
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article(s) on the language in an existing Wikipedia:
    • Approximate number of speakers: 6,000,000
    • Location(s) spoken: Sumatera Island (Indonesia,Asia)
    • Closely related languages, if any:Melayu, Indonesia
    • External links to organizations that promote the language:
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Comments:

Riau has many dialects. It's can be divided into 2 major group : Riau Pesisir and Riau Daratan. Riau Pesisir very similar with Bahasa Melayu. Bahasa Riau Daratan same as Bahasa Palembang/Jambi and Minangkabau/Bengkulu whereis ended with o, as example kita (Indonesia) -> kite (Melayu) -> kito (Sumatera :Riau,Palembang,Minang). Bahasa Riau similar with Bahasa Minang in change of at to be ek, in ex : tepat (Indonesia) -> topek(Riau) -> tapek (Minang). However Bahasa-bahasa Riau has many word different from Minangkabau, Melayu and Indonesia.

Kokborok

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]:
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: bdebbarma
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code: none; SIL: trp
  • Proposed domain:
  • Relevant infos:
  • External links to organizations that promote the language:
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Link to Test Wikipedia (optional):
  • Comments
    • This is just one out of many languages in India and the surrounding countries. Even many of the biggest Indian languages have trouble with finding contributors to its Wikipedia. Can you find some other contributors than you, bdebbarma? Caesarion 08:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The point is not of unavalability of contributors, there are many willing to contribute to the language wiki once it starts, there is a language momentum going on in this language and as the wiki guide says even a few dedicated contributors can carry forward a wiki. anyways thanks for your concern, please guide me how to start it soon. bdebbarma
      • First of all: let people know about your idea of this new Wikipedia and make them subscribe under "User accounts of others who are willing etc..." (above). Then you can create a Test Wikipedia (for example at Test-wp/sit-trp/), which is optional but beneficial, since people immediately have the opportunity to write articles. In the mean time, you can also translate the interface files into your language. If the developers judge that there are enough willing contributors they will create the new Wikipedia. Then you transmit the Test wiki articles and there it is: a Wikipedia in Kokborok. Caesarion 09:19, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • thanks, have already started working on the test wikipedia, will contact some more people and gather the support for the new wikipedia creation in kokborok. bdebbarma


Neapolitan (11)

in Neapolitan: Nnapulitano

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]:

SabineCretella (Spoken Neapolitan: yes, reading: yes, writing: only up to a certain extend with the help of tools.

    • Carmine Colacino (N) (Spoken Neapolitan: yes, reading: yes, writing: yes.)
    • Retaggio (N) (Spoken Neapolitan: yes, reading: yes, writing: yes.)
    • Finizio (Spoken Neapolitan: yes, reading: yes, writing: yes.)
    • VingenzoTM (Spoken Neapolitan: limited, reading: yes, writing: limited.)
    • Square87 (N) (Spoken Neapolitan: yes, reading: yes, writing: yes.)
    • CRYptex (N) (Spoken Neapolitan: yes, reading: yes, writing: no.)
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis: SabineCretella
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki: Carmine Colacino Retaggio Finizio Square87 CRYptex
  • ISO code: nap
  • Proposed domain: nap.wikipedia.org
  • Relevant infos:
    • Link to article(s) on the language in an existing Wikipedia:
    • Approximate number of speakers: 7,8 millions
    • Location(s) spoken: in southern Italy in several varieties (from Abruzzi & southern Latium to northern Calabria and Northern Apulia); centered in Campania, Italy, and due to immigration in many parts of the world.
    • Closely related languages, if any: Sicilian. Also Italian, Corsican, Sardinian, etc. Romance language with influences from Greek, Spanish, French, and Arabic languages due to southern Italian history (Oscan substratum, pre-Latin language spoken in the same area as modern Neapolitan).
    • External links to organizations that promote the language: http://www.ac-na.org/
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Link to Test Wikipedia (optional):
  • Comments:
Only an unsigned opinion; ISO code tells a different truth. --Massimo Finizio 09:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There is always somebody who believes to know better, as usual, and with no signature moreover...--Carmine Colacino 11:54, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
So many contributors at this moment already... I daresay, create a test wiki now! Or, if just a few others join in, let a developer create the new Wikipedia soon! I think it is safe to say it will be successful. Caesarion Velim, non opto 12:38, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Arpitan/Francoprovençal

  • People interested [if native speaker, please mark (N)]: N
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis:
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • ISO code: ISO-639-3: frp
  • Proposed domain: [8]
  • Relevant infos:
  • Link to request on a mailing list:
  • Link to Test Wikipedia (optional):
  • Comments:
    • You're mentioning Franco-Provençal as a "related language". Do you really consider them two separate languages? I always thought Arpitan is just a different name for the Franco-Provençal language. Arbeo 21:24, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, I think this request can be treated in a similar way as the Triestin and South Tyrolean requests. Dialect speakers tend to think the dialect of their region is very dissimilar to the dialect spoken just a few miles apart. So I oppose an Arpitan Wikipedia but support one in Franco-Provençal. I hope more French regional languages will be requested in the near future, like Champenois, Picard, Gallo and Normand. Caesarion Velim, non opto 07:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, Arpitan and Francoprovençal are synonym. So I support an Arpitan/Francoprovençal Wikipedia ;o) A bentout! Dahu 09:27, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Especially with regard to the small number of speakers, I think this should be a Wikipedia that serves all dialects of Franco-Provençal/Arpitan or employs a common standard (if there exists an accepted one). I'd morally support it ;-) Arbeo 11:34, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ripuarian

  • People interested [If native speaker, please mark (N)]:
    • Proposer's user account in Meta and other wikis:
    • User accounts of others who are willing to work on the proposed wiki:
  • SIL-Code(There's no ISO-Code!): ksh
  • Proposed Domain: ksh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houpsick
    • Approximate number of speakers: 32'000'000
    • Location(s) spoken: Germany - Regions: Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Niedersachsen - Netherlands - Regions: Suidweestholland, Weestholland.
    • Closely related languages, if any: de:Moselfränkisch, de:Rheinfränkisch.
  • Link to Test Wikipedia (optional): [9].
  • Comments:

See also

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