Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Saint Lucian Creole French

submitted	verification	final decision

	This language has been verified as eligible. The language is eligible for a project, which means that the subdomain can be created once there is an active community and a localized interface, as described in the language proposal policy. You can discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Once the criteria are met, the language committee can proceed with the approval and will verify the test project content with a reliable neutral source, such as a professor or expert. If you think the criteria are met, but the project is still waiting for approval, feel free to notify the committee and ask them to consider its approval. A committee member provided the following comment: There do not seem to be problems with the eligibility here. --MF-W 22:07, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The community needs to develop an active test project; it must remain active until approval (automated statistics, recent changes). It is generally considered active if the analysis lists at least three active, not-grayed-out editors listed in the sections for the previous few months.
The community needs to complete required MediaWiki interface translations in that language (about localization, translatewiki, check completion).
The community needs to discuss and complete the settings table below:

What	Value	Example / Explanation

Proposal
Language code	acf (SIL, Glottolog)	A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name	Saint Lucian Creole French	Language name in English
Language name	Kréyol Sent Lisi	Language name in your language. This will appear in the language list on Special:Preferences, in the interwiki sidebar on other wikis, ...
Language Wikidata item	Q3006285 - item has currently the following values: English label: Saint Lucian Creole native label (P1705): kweyol, patwa instance of (P31)/subclass of (P279): creole language, language, modern language / Antillean Creole Wikimedia language code (P424): acf writing system (P282): Latin script number of speakers, writers, or signers (P1098):	Item about the language at Wikidata. It would normally include the Wikimedia language code, name of the language, etc. Please complete at Wikidata if needed.
Directionality	LTR	Is the language written from left to right (LTR) or from right to left (RTL)?
Links		Links to previous requests, or references to external websites or documents.
Site URL	acf.wikipedia.org	langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name	Wikipédja	"Wikipedia" in your language
Project namespace		usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace		"Wikipedia talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads	yes	Default is "no". Preferably, files should be uploaded to Commons. If you want, you can enable local file uploading, either by any user ("yes") or by administrators only ("admin"). Notes: (1) This setting can be changed afterwards. The setting can only be "yes" or "admin" at approval if the test creates an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) first. (2) Files on Commons can be used on all Wikis. (3) Uploading fair-use images is not allowed on Commons (more info). (4) Localisation to your language may be insufficient on Commons.
Optional settings
Project logo		This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone	Carribean/Fort-de-France	"Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces		For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings		Anything else that should be set
Once settings are finalized, a committee member will submit a Phabricator task requesting creation of the wiki. (This will include everything automatically, except the additional namespaces/settings.) After the task is created, it should be linked to in a comment under "final decision" above.

Proposal

We want to build a Martiniquean Creole Wikipedia because the Martiniquean Creole is an important language for many people. Indeed, there are almost 400,000 inhabitants in Martinique, and there are many Martiniquean people who live in hexagonal France.
Martiniquean Creole is recognized by the French Ministry of Culture as a "langue de France" (language of France), alongside with Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, West Flemish, Franco-Provençal, Norman, Occitan, Picard, Tahitian, and Walloon languages, knowing that these twelve languages have their own Wikipedia.
In addition to that, since year 2008, Creole test is possible at Baccalauréat, and there are different tests for each of the four Creoles existing in France : Guadeloupean, Martiniquean, Guyanese, and Reunionese. These tests are made as "Langue Vivante Régionale" (Regionale Living Language) alongside with Breton, or Corsican again for example. This has been possible thanks to the Collectif pour le Créole au Bac dans l'Hexagone, that made several petitions, and met Ministers. All petitions have had many signatures.
There are many books written in this Creole, and about this Creole. For exemple, there is Ti-Prens Lan (The Little Prince ; ISBN : 9782917623213). The orthography is normalized by the GEREC-F (Groupe d'Études et de Recherches en Espace Créolophone et Francophone).
We make this Wikipedia with the ISO 639-3 code "acf", hoping that the definitive page could use the code "acf_MQ", to underline the specificity of Martiniquean Creole with Saint Lucian, Dominican, Grenadian and Trinidadian ones, and the specificity of each of these languages. (This follows a recommendation by Joan Spanne, working at the SIL, that you can read further).

Links :

Presentation of the Langues de France : http://www.dglf.culture.gouv.fr/lgfrance/lgfrance_presentation.htm
Collectif pour le Créole au Baccalauréat dans l'Hexagone : http://www.creoleaubacdanslhexagone.org/
Caraïbe Éditions : http://www.caraibeditions.fr/
GEREC-F : http://www1.univ-ag.fr/gerec-f/

Annex : E-Mail sent by Joan Spanne :

"Dear Maxime,

Thank you for sending the form to request a change to the code element for Guadeloupean Creole French [gcf]. There was a related request in 2009 treating these language varieties and others of the region, the documentation for which may be viewed at http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/chg_detail.asp?id=2009-069 In particular, please see the RA Comment file for the reason this request was rejected, and its relevance regarding varieties in Guadeloupe and Martinique.

In short, the Registration Authority recognizes that Guadeloupean Creole French and Martiniquean Creole French should be considered separate, and that the variety of Martinique should be more closely aligned with [acf] (known in the standard as St Lucia Creole French, but called by other names in neighboring island nations). This is not reflected in the current Ethnologue 16th edition record. The change request comment explicitly recommends that the Ethnologue should make this correction.

To be very explicit in designating all these language varieties, we recommend using both the ISO 639-3 language identifier and the appropriate Country identifier from ISO 3166, according to the scheme recommended in RFC 5646 (documentation may be found at http://www.rfc-archive.org/getrfc.php?rfc=5646 see especially page 13)

Specifically, and with no further request or application to any standards body, the following language tags may be used:

Guadeloupean Creole French (in Guadeloupe) gcf_GP

Martiniquean Creole French acf_MQ

Saint Lucian Creole French (in Saint Lucia) acf_LC

Dominican Creole French acf_DM

Grenadian Creole French acf_GD

Trinidadian Creole French acf_TT

I hope this is sufficient to make clear the distinctions required for the language varieties of concern.

Best regards,

Joan Spanne

SIL International, ISO 639-3 Registration Authority"

Discussion

Not too many contributors or articles on the test wiki. How large of a language community would this project target? Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This Wikipedia edition should be in Antillean Creole French rather than Saint Lucian Creole French which is a minor dialect of the former.--Anixx1 (talk) 17:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Anixx1, this test project should encompass all of the Antillean Creole French dialects, it would have a higher chance of building a community than to simply have this dialect alone. Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 00:01, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A comment from the language committee member. The language is eligible, as the table already says, but this request needs more clarity about a few points:
1. What is the language's own name (autonym)? First, the letter "r". According to a 2001 SIL Saint Lucian Creole dictionary (cited in the English Wikipedia), the letter "w" is used in the name of the language, and the letter "r" is only used in some loanwords. So "Kréyol Sent Lisi", which is given currently in the table, looks incorrect.
2. It's important to specify whether it's a common project for varieties of Saint Lucia, Martinica, etc., or something specific. I am currently not sure if it's possible to have them all in the same written standard. This is something that speakers and linguists who know these languages can help decide.
3. Whatever name is chosen must be unambiguous. Many languages have the word "Creole" in their name, so the name must be not just the word "Creole" with spelling adaptation, but something more specific. See a more detailed explanation in the section "Determining the autonym" on the page mw:Manual:Adding and removing languages. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:51, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]