# Non-English Wikipedias



## Lombard Beige

Hi,


 I am an English-language translator based in Italy, and I use Wikipedia regularly for my work. To be exact, I consult Wiki in every language I can understand. I am also in contact with people involved in editing Wikipedia in the various Italian regional languages.


 In that context, we were discussing why some Wikipedias are more successful than others. It was suggested, for example, that Maltese speakers, given their fluency in English, would tend to consult the English-language version more than that in their own language. But if this is true, why are the Dutch-language and the Nordic language Wikipedias so successful?  


 I think most people would agree that the Dutch and the Nordics are among the best (non-native) English speakers. So what is the explanation?


 I have my own (partial) theory, but I would like to read some other opinions before expressing it.


 Regards
 Lombard Beige


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## jess oh seven

Even though Dutch and Nordic language-speakers are generally highly fluent in English I am sure they would choose their own language over their second one whenever it is available. Not only because of their greater understanding of it, but because both Dutch and Nordic or Scandinavian languages are spoken by a relatively small amount of people concentrated in one part of the world, and I am positive that they take extra pride in their native languages and want to promote material published in those languages and not have them overrun by ever-imposing English.


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## xarruc

The proportion of users able to create a wikipedia in a language is related to [how many people speak that language] x [the proportion with suitable access to the internet (home computer, permanent connection)] x [the proportion of people who want to write].

So population, wealth and "communal sense of giving/enjoyment of teaching"

A regional language is good for regional things. Catalan for Catalan customs, Scots for Scotish customs, etc. It's written by locals for locals. However if the thing is more general, say something that happens both in the rest of Spain and Catalonia, then the higher Spanish population produces a higher probability of a better or more informed writer being from the larger language pool.

In addition writers want their work to be accessible to as many people as possible (unless their primary concern is pushing the dominance of their own language). Thus the large languages win out - standard german over the regional dialects.

Finally, English is already well established as the international language of business, science and technology and people are accustomed to reading and writing in these fields through English. Wikipedia would be expected to continue that trend rather than oppose it.


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## Etcetera

There was a thread about why there are so few articles in the Spanish-language Wikipedia. 
It is, indeed, very interesting question. I like Xarruc's suggestion that a regional language is good for regional thing. I was pleasantly surprised to find a Piedmontese Wikipedia. Of course, most articles here are devoted to Piedmont, its language, history and culture.


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## panjabigator

For some languages, it would be just painful and difficult.  It is very hard, at least for me, to drudge through a Hindi wiki article.  I would have had to of been born and raised or at least educated in India.


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## Etcetera

panjabigator said:


> For some languages, it would be just painful and difficult. It is very hard, at least for me, to drudge through a Hindi wiki article. I would have had to of been born and raised or at least educated in India.


But what about those who were born in India and live there? One would think that for them it would be easier to read articles in Hindi than in English.


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## panjabigator

No.  I honestly feel that they would choose English.  My parents would in a heart beat.


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## Etcetera

Interesting. 
I've just thought of one more reason why Wikipedia authors may prefer English, even if it isn't their native language. It's quite easy to insert links to other Wiki articles in your articles; most articles are written in English; so, if you're writing your article in English, you don't have to explain everything - you can give links to other articles!
For example, if your article is about Mozart, you can just insert a link to the article about Salzburg instead of explaining where it is!


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## Lombard Beige

xarruc said:


> The proportion of users able to create a wikipedia in a language is related to [how many people speak that language] x [the proportion with suitable access to the internet (home computer, permanent connection)] x [the proportion of people who want to write].
> 
> So population, wealth and "communal sense of giving/enjoyment of teaching"
> 
> ...
> 
> Finally, English is already well established as the international language of business, science and technology and people are accustomed to reading and writing in these fields through English. Wikipedia would be expected to continue that trend rather than oppose it.



If we consider the Wiki ranking and exclude for the moment your 3rd criterion [the proportion of people who want to write], I find the languages marked with an asterisk are “out of place”.   


 English
 German
 French
 * Polish
 Japanese
 * Dutch
 Italian
 Portuguese
 * Swedish
 * Spanish
 Russian
 Chinese


 Could your 3rd criterion possibly be linked, apart from the determination of the Dutch, Swedes, etc. to continue using their own language, also to the climate? People living in colder climates probably spend more time indoors. (I recently saw a documentary about a very well stocked library in Northern Lapland). I don't think this is the determining factor, but it may explain something, cf. the Finnish Wiki ...



 I have no easy explanation as to why Polish should outrank Russian.  


    Regards


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## Lombard Beige

In response to Etcetera.


 There are now Wikipedias in all the “regional languages” of Northern Italy, as well as in Sicilian, Sardinian, Corsican and Maltese. The South of Italy is represented by the Neapolitan Wiki, which also offers spaces for regional variants.  


 The number of articles varies from the 12 thousand plus of Neapolitan to the 100 or so for Ladin of the Dolomites ... an officially recognized language similar to Swiss Rumantsch (or Romansh as Wiki spells it.

 If you glance at these Wikis we can see the differences from and similarities to standard Italian and each other.  


 In the case of Spanish, I read elsewhere that the main reason for its relatively poor performance (but not in wordcount or number of users) was a “schism” a couple of years ago, which apparently was not too successful, but in the meantime allowed the Portuguese (language) to achieve a “sorpasso” (“overtaking” in Italian).  

Regards


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## frenchtranslater

I simply cannot understand why wikipedia has versions in dead languages. I saw Yiddish and Ladino on wiki. These are two hebrew derived languages which died about 20 years ago. And still there are articles posted in these languages. 

It simply puzzles me, why anyone would bother to wrtie articles that no one reads.


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## Jana337

frenchtranslater said:


> I simply cannot understand why wikipedia has versions in dead languages. I saw Yiddish and Ladino on wiki. These are two hebrew derived languages which died about 20 years ago. And still there are articles posted in these languages.
> 
> It simply puzzles me, why anyone would bother to wrtie articles that no one reads.


When I have too much time on my hands, I go to Wiki and skim the Yiddish articles. I am glad they exist because Yiddish resources are rare otherwise.



			
				Lombard Beige said:
			
		

> I have no easy explanation as to why Polish should outrank Russian.


I think this has to do with Internet penetration. It is substantially better in Poland, although Russia is growing fast.

Jana


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## Lombard Beige

There is also a successful Wiki in Latin (more than 10,000 articles), which is also a dead language and also in invented languages, not just Esperanto  ...

cf. Wiki art.: Britannia Spears, cantrix et saltatrix americana ...

I think it is because the Wiki provides an opportunity to use the language in all kinds of situations. I personally find it interesting to read the same article in several languages. The quality varies, and also the point of view ...

On the Internet, though not yet in Wiki, there are even invented versions of Romance languages as they would have been if, for example, Latin had not died out in Wales (Brithenig) and in Carthage (la limba carrajena). 

The author of the Welsh Romance language justifies his effort, which others say he should dedicate instead to saving the real Welsh language, by saying that it is something he enjoys doing, in other words it's his hobby ... Why not? 

If you follow the links from Wiki art. "Constructed Languages" you'll find all sorts of invented languages. 

Regards


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## Outsider

frenchtranslater said:


> I simply cannot understand why wikipedia has versions in dead languages. I saw Yiddish and Ladino on wiki. These are two hebrew derived languages which died about 20 years ago. And still there are articles posted in these languages.
> 
> It simply puzzles me, why anyone would bother to wrtie articles that no one reads.


Ladino is not a dead language... yet.

I understand perfectly. Wikipedia is written by enthusiasts. Enthusiasts often have peculiar tastes/hobbies, like writing in Latin, or Esperanto.


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## frenchtranslater

Ladino is dead, dead and buried. More people speak yiddish than Ladino (which is not very much).

It is true that writting in all these languages is a nice innitiative, and even amusing. (looking at the Somali version of wiki)


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## Lombard Beige

As a further contribution to the debate and going back to my original question, i.e. why the English Wiki is not enough even for people like the Dutch and Scandinavians who (on the whole) know English very well, I think the main reason lies in the different points of view expressed in the various languages. Of course, in natural sciences, there is probably less latitude, so English, as the most widely used language, is the obvious choice, as Latin had been for a thousand years, but in fields like history ... Consider these  examples.

Battle of Québec 

They (the British) were, however, repulsed by significant fire given by the (American) Indian and (French) Canadian Militia forces in the trees on the British flank. It was these forces that inflicted the majority of British casualties. General Wolfe was himself struck by several musket balls, one in the chest. He died as the battle was ending, the British victorious. 

English Wiki 

Durant la première charge de Montcalm, Wolfe fut mortellement blessé. … La retraite de l'armée française fut aidée par un groupe de 200 miliciens, dont plusieurs réfugiés Acadiens, qui était resté à l'arrière garde de l'armée française et qui opposa une forte résistance à l'armée britannique au bas de la côte Badelard. C'est le combat qui fit le plus de victimes parmi les civils lors de la bataille. L'histoire s'est faite très discrète à cet égard ; seule une plaque installée en 1997 au jardin de Saint-Roch rappelle cet évènement. French Wiki 

Independence of Texas 

In the years following the Louisiana Purchase by the United States, U.S. settlers began to move westward into Spanish territory, encouraged by Spanish land grants and the United States government. After the Mexican War of Independence, Mexico inherited ownership of the provinces of Alta California, La Mesilla, Nuevo Mexico and Tejas, from Spain, and the westward migration of U.S. settlers continued. Since the times of New Spain, the Spanish Crown gave permission to U. S. settlers to obtain land in Texas provided they declared themselves to be Catholic and manifested their obedience to the king. 

English Wiki 

Los mexicanos consideraban una injusticia que los colonos estadounidenses hubieran recibido tierras gratis en Texas con condiciones generosas. Y los estadounidenses no cumplieron dichas condiciones: entraron en México aceptando cumplir con las leyes del país, incluyendo la ley de no tener esclavos (era ilegal en México) y convertirse en católicos. Pero cuando se terminó el período de importación libre que les había concedido el gobierno mexicano se negaron a pagar impuestos y apoyaron el contrabando de productos mucho más baratos que traían naves estadounidenses a través del golfo de México. 

Spanish Wiki 

“San Patricios” [I'm half Irish so this concerns me directly]

The Saint Patrick's Battalion (San Patricios), was a group of several hundred, the majority Irish immigrant soldiers who deserted the U.S. Army and joined the Mexican army. Most were killed in the Battle of Churubusco; about 100 were captured and hanged as deserters. 

English Wiki 


Un grupo notable de combatientes que es recordado controversialmente, fue el Batallón de San Patricio, un grupo de varios centenares de soldados inmigrantes (la mayoría de Irlanda) que desertaron de la armada estadounidense en favor del lado mexicano.
De acuerdo a la versión mexicana, el batallón desertó después de haber percibido lo injusta que era la guerra que había forzado Estados Unidos y así se fraternizó con el pueblo de México. La mayoría murió en el conflicto. Algunos fueron capturados y colgados. Los generales dieron instrucciones para que se asegurara de que lo último que vieran fuese la bajada de la bandera mexicana y el alzado de la bandera estadounidense. Los mexicanos consideran que estos irlandeses fueron verdaderos hombres de honor que se fraternizaron con la causa mexicana. Se construyeron varios monumentos que se mantienen en la actualidad en México. 

Spanish Wiki 


 And on a lighter note ...

Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is a Grammy Award-winning American pop singer, dancer, actress, author and songwriter. In 2004, she married dancer and aspiring rap artist Kevin Federline and the following year she gave birth to their son, Sean Preston. Their second son, Jayden James, was born in 2006. 

English Wiki 

Britannia Spears est cantrix et saltatrix Americana. Nata est 2 Decembris 1981 in Silva Cantii (Anglice: Kentwood) in Ludoviciana. Musicam popularem canit. Anno 2004, Coemgeno Federline nupsit, et duos filios habent. 

Latin Wiki  


Concluding, I don't know Dutch, but I assume that articles on the naval wars between England and Holland are rather different in tone in the English and Dutch Wikis, cf. the English expression "Dutch courage" ...
Similarly, I assume that Nordic articles on the foundation of Russia or the wars between Sweden and Peter the Great read rather differently from Russian ones and that both differ from those in English ...



Regards


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## TRG

It would seem to me that there is much in wikipedia that has a cultural bent and perhaps can only be preserved or appreciated in the native language. Thus, the Norwegians and Swedes and others can preserve their own cultural heritage while also enjoying the benefits of the English language versions. Why not have both?


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## xarruc

That's an interesting observation. Apart from the differing point of view, the articles share different writers and different editors. An obvious point, but remember that Wikipedia is user-regulated. If one or both 'sides' do not have access to the other's because of a language barrier, Wiki's authors are free to write as they wish without contrary comments.

It's easy to say that someone would object, that there would be a historian to point out an error or someone to object to a tone, but there may not. We have deep-rooted myths and beliefs. If these are taught at school or at home they become gospel-truth. In addition we might point out an error or a biased comment, but are unlikely to demand that a complimentary comment is removed.

For examples of deeply rooted myths. I have seen on the Wiki catalan language page (If I recall correctly) that cul-de-sac and alioli are Catalan-derived words in English. There is no evidence provided for this assertation. Provençal also claim to have invented alioli. Cul de sac seems far more likely to have been borrowed from French. Unless Catherine of Aragon managed to start a trend for dead-end roads.... I was recently proudly informed that I was humming a well-known Catalan tune. Actually I was humming Auld-Lang-Zyme.


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## gaer

Lombard Beige said:


> I think most people would agree that the Dutch and the Nordics are among the best (non-native) English speakers. So what is the explanation?


Let's look at the number of articles from another point of view. If we assume that the number of articles written in a language other than English might indicates a "weakness" in English, then we would have to conclude that "native German speakers" must be very weak in English.

After all, there are more than 500,000 articles in German, about 1/3 of the total in English. 

Obviously this is not leading us anywhere, and I'm stumped.

I'd like to hear your theory!

Gaer


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## jmx

I think that proficiency in English by speakers of the X language helps the X wikipedia expand... because you can simply translate the articles from the English wikipedia.


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## boardslide315

Government restrictions also seem to be a factor in some countries. China, for instance, has the second largest number of internet users in the world next to the United States, as well as the world's most widely spoken language, but wikipedia.com is blocked for the entire PRC as being "politically sensitive."


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## gaer

jmartins said:


> I think that proficiency in English by speakers of the X language helps the X wikipedia expand... because you can simply translate the articles from the English wikipedia.


Then why do we see this:

English 1 582 000+ articles
Deutsch 527 000+ Artikel
Français 427 000+ articles
Polski 336 000+ haseł
日本語フリー百科事典 (Japan) 313 000+ 記事 (articles)
Nederlands 264 000+ artikelen
Italiano 233 000+ voci
Português 230 000+ artigos
Svenska 204 000+ artiklar
*Español 190 000+ artículos*

Why are there so few articles in Spanish?

If this is accurate:

link

425 million people speak Spanish
123 million people speak German

Unless I am very wrong, there are a great many people in the world who are very strong in both Spanish and English!

Gaer


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## jmx

gaer said:


> Unless I am very wrong, there are a great many people in the world who are very strong in both Spanish and English!


Yes but, in my understanding, of all that people :

- a majority lives in the USA.
- they often have low income and do menial jobs.
- they haven't often had much access to education.
- for those with higher income and better education, their Spanish is often shaky.

I can tell you that people with a good command of English is not common in Spain.


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## Lombard Beige

Re Spanish Wiki, etc.


 The Spanish case is rather peculiar for a number of reasons. Etcetera includes a link to a thread in which this specific case is discussed.  
 I added that a few years ago there was a “schism” that led to the formation in Spanish of an “Enciclopedia Libre” based in Seville. Apparently, this project in its first year drained off a lot of energy from the Spanish Wiki, but then ran out of steam, after reaching about 50'000 articles. If these are added to the existing 190'000 articles, Spanish would be in 8th place, with 240'000 articles, achieving its “sorpasso” (overtaking) of Italian, Portuguese and Swedish, but not yet of the Polish and Dutch Stakhanovists ...
 Another factor to be taken into consideration is that the Spanish co-official languages (Catalan, Galician, Basque) total about 50'000, 20'000 and 15'000 = 85'000 articles !!! (The situation of these languages is clearly different from that of other European “regional languages”: the best of which is Neapolitan, with just 12 thousand plus.)  
 Presumably, most of these articles were written in Spain, so the total number of articles for Spanish (Wiki and Enciclopedia Libre) and the co-official languages of Spain is 240 + 85 = 325'000, which puts them in 5th place, before the Japanese and the Dutch, but still behind the Poles ... (The degree of Internet penetration explains why the Poles beat the Russians, but not their absolute ranking in 4th place. I assume that the Wikipedia in Polish must have filled an information gap.).


 Lastly, re Spanish, in terms of users, it comes in 3rd position, after English and German, but before French. Also, for the “density” of the text Spanish fares better than it does in terms of articles:  

Inglés (2.700 megabytes)  	
Alemán (1.100 megabytes)  	
Francés (785 megabytes)  	
Japonés (752 megabytes)  	
Holandés (441 megabytes)  	
Polaco (430 megabytes)  	
Italiano (402 megabytes)  	
Español (355 megabytes)  	
Ruso (280 megabytes)  	
Portugués (266 megabytes)  	
Sueco (203 megabytes)  	
Chino (186 megabytes)  	
Hebreo (165 megabytes)  	
Finlandés (134 megabytes)
Noruego (109 megabytes)
   It was also mentioned that the Spanish Wiki was inspired more by the German model than by the US model, so the articles tend to be longer and more detailed than those of the Portuguese and Italian Wikis, which instead contain a lot of short articles, hopefully to be completed. This is certainly true of the Wikis in the Italian regional languages, but I know that this was done on purpose to create a framework and to gain visibility for the languages so that people would be attracted and encouraged to contribute.  


 I think that covers Spanish and I think we are beginning to understand the Polish case (better Internet penetration and possibly filling a previously unfilled gap), but the Dutch and Scandinavian/Nordic cases still remain to be explained. Dutch (NL+B) is equal to 50% of the German Wiki, whereas in terms of population (D+A+CH) it should represent 1/6! And look at the megabytes ... 1/3



 The Nordics (including the Finns) can probably count on positive competitive rivalry (“anything you can do, I can do better”), and possibly they do a lot of inter-Nordic translation.


 Regards


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## Etcetera

frenchtranslater said:


> I simply cannot understand why wikipedia has versions in dead languages. I saw Yiddish and Ladino on wiki. These are two hebrew derived languages which died about 20 years ago. And still there are articles posted in these languages.
> 
> It simply puzzles me, why anyone would bother to wrtie articles that no one reads.


Why are you so sure that no one reads these articles?
Many people study dead languages, and reading such articles can be a good practice.



> I think this has to do with Internet penetration. It is substantially better in Poland, although Russia is growing fast.


I think Jana's right. Russia's much bigger than Poland, but Internet penetration isn't that good here. The vast majority of Russian Internet users live in big cities; most of them know English well enough to read and understand Wiki articles in English.


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## gaer

jmartins said:


> Yes but, in my understanding, of all that people :
> 
> - a majority lives in the USA.
> - they often have low income and do menial jobs.
> - they haven't often had much access to education.
> - for those with higher income and better education, their Spanish is often shaky.
> 
> I can tell you that people with a good command of English is not common in Spain.


I'm not sure that the majority of people whose first language is Spanish and who are fluent in English are living in the US. Certainly there are many such people here.

I've met people from around the world whose first language is Spanish who write English very well. However, I may be meeting an "elite" group. Perhaps the majority, those who are unable to read English, do not have Internet access.

However, Lombard Beige mentioned many other factors. The "density" of the Spanish articles is an important factor. The articles in German tend to be rather scholarly and thorough, and there are a suprising number of articles about subjects that are not in English or that present a very different view from their English counterparts.

Perhaps the Spanish articles are similar. It also sounds to me as though Spanish went in two directions as described by the "schism" that Lombard Beige mentioned.

Gaer


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## Lombard Beige

For completeness, I forgot the Spanish "regional languages" - Asturian (7'500) and Aragonese (5'000) - comparable to other European "regional languages", but not to the 3 co-official languages. If we add these to the total, Spain, etc. overtakes Poland by 1'600 articles and comes up to 4th place, which is not bad in combination with their 3rd place in terms of users and 8th place in terms of megabytes.

Regards

Regards


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## Vladislav

As for me I love wikipedia and use it in as many languages I can.
Usually, if it's a general topic, I first go to the English wikipedia. If there's not enough information (or too much soemtimes) or I don't understand it I go to Russian or Spanish. If I'm looking for something specific, I could first search in Russian (ex: Stalin, T -34, Kazakhstan) or Spanish (ex: Venezuela, La Armada Invencible, Franco) and then check it out in English.


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## panjabigator

I thought of another reason to why the Indian language wikis may not be quite popular: fonts.  And also, Hindi is only spoken by 30% of the population, and so more publications are in Hindi.  I have seen few things in Gujarati and even fewer in Panjabi.


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## Lombard Beige

A curiosity. The Romani Wiki is written in both Latin and Devanagari scripts. This is because Romani, the language of the Roma people, is of Northern Indian origin. The language used is an Eastern European variant.  Also, a new Wiki has been created in Konkani, the native language of Goa, written in Latin script and presumably with some Portuguese influence.  I think both of these Wikis fall into the "regional languages" category.  Regards


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## panjabigator

Very interesting on the Konkani version.  There are several standards for Konkani:  the Konkani of Kerala, the Konkani of Karnatika, and the Konkani of Goa.  Though the Goan is probably the most widely spoken, it is not understandable to my Kerala Konkani speaking friend.  I wonder which Konkani they use...


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## Riccardino

I find wikipedia to be a great foreign language learning tool. I read Italian wikipedia fairly often, and I find I get a better feel for how correct Italian should sound. I also find the Italian history articles more interesting, as they should be.


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## Lombard Beige

As mentioned before in this thread, if you are interested in topics related to specific areas of Italy, you may also be interested in the Wikis in "regional languages" spoken in Italy and nearby areas.

In approximate order of closeness to standard Italian they are:

Sicilian
Corsican (France) (the Corsican Wiki explicitly suggests that people translate from Italian and Sicilian)
Neapolitan (all of Southern Italy, with sections for local variants)
Venetian (also Slovenia and Croatia)
Ligurian (also Monaco)
Lombard (with Western - also "Italian Switzerland" - and Eastern varieties)
Emilian (with 8 variants !) (also Republic of San Marino)
Piedmontese
Friulan
Ladin
Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun - Switzerland)

and, last but not least, Latin (State of the Vatican City) ...

The quality and size of the Wikis vary, but this depends more on the people working on them than on their potential size and readership. For example, Emilian should be larger than Ligurian, but the Wiki started later and they still have problems in managing the local variants.

regards


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## Vladislav

Oh, very interesting indeed. I've always been asking myself the closiness of those "languages-dialects" to the standard Italian. And which ones are really spoken? (I mean, not only drawn in the linguistic maps)


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## Lombard Beige

Concerning these "linguistic entities" (this is apparently the current Wiki terminology to avoid disputes as to whether they are languages or dialects), they are all spoken by a high percentage of the population. 
The highest percentage in Northern Italy, where I live, is around 50% for Venetian, i.e. 2.5 million people! Just go to Verona, for instance, and listen ... 
In Southern Italy, the regional languages are very healthy.
Of course, today most people are bilingual with Italian, but many older people still speak Italian with difficulty, if at all. My daughter's in-laws, for example, speak Bergamasco, which is completely incomprehensible to other Italians, including people from Western Lombardy (look at the Lombard Wiki, which gives both versions).
As written languages, the figures drop dramatically (well under 5%), as  these languages are not usually taught in schools (with exceptions). 
Until recently, the Italian government recognised no languages except Italian (plus French, German and Slovene in some border areas). Ladin was also recognised, but only in the Province of Bolzano-Bozen (Alto Adige-Sud Tirol), in the provinces of Trento and Belluno, it suddenly became an ordinary Italian dialect ...
Recently, however, the Italian government has extended official recognition to all areas where Ladin is spoken and also to Friulan, Sardinian, Occitan and Franco-Provençal, which is curious, because it's not recognized in Switzerland and France ...  
Greek, Albanian and Croatian, spoken in parts of Southern Italy, are also recognized.
Recognition in Italy is on a much lower level than Spain and is even lower than the support given to Asturian by the Principado de Asturias.

Corsican is recognized by France as a "regional language", so it is taught in schools, etc., but about half of the population of Corsica is non Corsican, so French is the generally used language. 
Ligurian, in the form of Monegasque , has been recognized as a "national language" of Monaco, but I think this will just mean support for small groups of enthusiasts. 
 Rumantsch Grischun is now the 4th official language of Switzerland. It was formerly (since 1938) a "national language", but now it used as widely as possible by the Swiss federal government (on money, passports, official forms, TV, newspapers, etc.). The number of speakers is limited (about 50'000), like Ladin in Italy, but Switzerland is richer than Italy (proportionally) so the language is better supported.
Latin is still used in the State of the Vatican City and in the Roman Catholic Church.

As I said before, you can see examples of all these "linguistic entities" in the Wikis.

Regards


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## Etcetera

Lombard Beige has forgotten about Piedmontese.
I am not sure if it has an official status in Italy (the answer seems to be negative), but there are several sites devoted to this language on the Net, and there's a Piedmontese Wikipedia.


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## Lombard Beige

I didn't mean to forget Piedmontese in my last message and I think I've mentioned it several times before. Piedmontese in fact is the best "equipped" of all the Northern Italian "regional languages" , as it has a full set of dictionaries, grammar books, courses, etc., and also a regional standard, although of course there are people who insist on writing in their local dialects. As you say, the Wikipedia is active and there are a few sites. The total population of Piedmont is 4.3 million. Possibly 1/3 know some Piedmontese, but there are no reliable figures. Piedmontese does have some local recognition, but less than Asturian in Spain, about the same as Byelorussian in Belarus ... 

The Lombard Wiki is also active and has more articles than the Piedmontese Wiki, but unlike Piedmontese there is no recognized regional standard. The Wiki group have remedied this by using two variants: Western and Eastern, as though the Catalans had one version for Lleida (and Valencia) and another for Girona (and Barcelona). The total population of Lombardy is close to 10 million, and a good percentage of people still speak the local dialects (of Lombard) as well as the regional variety of standard Italian (which are not the same thing, like Catalan and Barcelona Castillian). The Swiss dialects of Lombard enjoy some measure of support from the Swiss Cantons and the Swiss Broadcasting System. 

Emilia-Romagna is even worse off than Lombardy, in the sense that each province uses its own variant, say Lleida, Girona, Tarragona and Barcelona. They need a Pompeu Fabra! 
Emilian is very different from standard Italian, for example "slèr" = "sellaio" = "saddle maker". Because of the lack of unity, the Emilian Wiki was the last to take off. There is a good site for the dialect of Bologna. Total pop. about 4 million.

Veneto, as I mentioned, is the variety that is still most widely spoken and they too have a de facto regional koiné, as they all understand each other quite easily, like the Galicians in Spain. Veneto is or should be easier for other Italian speakers to understand. Tot. pop. 5 million.

Ligurian is a very "strange" language, but of course interesting.  The total population is just over 1.5 million.

These are the five unrecognized regional languages in Northern Italy. Then there are the 3 Rheto-Romance languages: Friulan and Ladin in Italy and Romansh in Switzerland, but as they are better known and officially recognized, you can find more details about them through their Wikis. (Ladin is still in the incubator stage). 

The Southern Italian languages are in good shape, except for Sardinian, which is recognized and very different from Italian, but they too have difficulty in defining a regional standard.

regards


----------



## Etcetera

Lombard Beige said:


> Piedmontese does have some local recognition, but less than Asturian in Spain, about the same as Byelorussian in Belarus ...


Belarusian/Byelorussian is the official language in Belarus, along with Russian, and I believe it has more recognition in the country than Piedmontese in Piedmont.


----------



## Qcumber

It is a good thing Wikipedia articles are written in many languages. One should beware of the idiosyncracies of a single language. I also think it natural that people should prefer to read in their native language. The contrary would be surprising, but does exist in former colonies where it was the language of the colonizer that channelled the modern world into ancient minds.


----------



## Etcetera

Qcumber said:


> It is a good thing Wikipedia articles are written in many languages. One should beware of the idiosyncracies of a single language. I also think it natural that people should prefer to read in their native language. The contrary would be surprising, but does exist in former colonies where it was the language of the colonizer that channelled the modern world into ancient minds.


I read mostly articles in English, although Russia has never been a British colony.
The point is that I usually look for information connected with English history and culture, languages, more rarely movies and music. Articles on these subjects are better in English than in Russian.


----------



## Vladislav

That's the point. Probably it would be better to make fewer articles in Russian, but a better ones, of a higher or, al least, even quality than the English ones.


----------



## Vladislav

I mean, if you don't find it in Russian you go to English. But if you find it in Russian you switch into Russian, being sure that the information provided would be at least at the same quality than in Engish.

 Otherwise, even if you find a Russian version of many subjects you usually don't look at them.


----------



## Etcetera

Vladislav said:


> I mean, if you don't find it in Russian you go to English. But if you find it in Russian you switch into Russian, being sure that the information provided would be at least at the same quality than in Engish.
> 
> Otherwise, even if you find a Russian version of many subjects you usually don't look at them.


Well, you know, if I have enough time, I would rather read different versions and compare them. The results can be really interesting!
I assume that most articles in Wikipedia started as a mere paragraph, with a short description, which was then expanded by other people. 
And one more thing - I usually start with looking for English articles. Unless it's something really specific for Russia.


----------



## Lombard Beige

Etcetera said:


> Belarusian/Byelorussian is the official language in Belarus, along with Russian, and I believe it has more recognition in the country than Piedmontese in Piedmont.



I was, of course, joking ... But not too much, as my daughter hosts a child from Belarus every year (one of the Cheronobyl - right? - victims) and we noticed that these children are all very pro Russian. When I asked about Belarusian, the girl - Marina, same name as my daughter - said: "I prefer Russian; Belarusian is too funny ..." and she was very pleased to see Euronews in Russian on Sky TV ... I know she is ehtnically Belarusian and not Russian, but she does have Russian relatives.

I believe the attitude to the national language is more positive in the Ukraine, but even there I understand that the eastern regions and Crimea are more inclined to use Russian than Ukranian, right?

In Piedmont, as in Italy in general, everything is conditioned by politics, so support for the local language may be viewed by some as "right wing" or "conservative", although back in the 70's it was "left wing" and "progressive" ... This rule is not infallible, of course. 

My personal position is that all small languages deserve a minimum of support, as they preserve certain elements of our cultural heritage. For example, the Rumantsch language still uses some Latin words they have died out in other Romance languages, e.g. "cudesch" = "book" from  Latin "codex". Or "crus alva"  = "white cross" = "the Swiss flag".

Regardless of all political considerations, it would be a true loss for everyone if Basque were to disappear.

That is why I think what people are doing in the Wikis is very important. Obviously nobody is going to consult the Lombard Wiki for articles on mathematics, but one of the contributors is a mathematician and I think he writes in Lombard as a break from his work. Another contributor to the Lombard Wiki is a language professor in Norway and so on.  

regards


----------



## Etcetera

Lombard Beige said:


> I was, of course, joking ... But not too much, as my daughter hosts a child from Belarus every year (one of the Cheronobyl - right? - victims)


In Russian, it's Чернобыль - Chernobyl. I'm not sure about the Ukrainian name, but it's something like Chornobil. 



> and we noticed that these children are all very pro Russian. When I asked about Belarusian, the girl - Marina, same name as my daughter - said: "I prefer Russian; Belarusian is too funny ..." and she was very pleased to see Euronews in Russian on Sky TV ... I know she is ehtnically Belarusian and not Russian, but she does have Russian relatives.


I have a number of friends who live in Belarus. They all prefer to speak Russian. 
As for Belarusian sounding funny for natives of Russian - frankly speaking, it does for me. But all Slavic language sound very curiously. I wonder if a Polish native would consider Russian sounding funny!



> I believe the attitude to the national language is more positive in the Ukraine, but even there I understand that the eastern regions and Crimea are more inclined to use Russian than Ukranian, right?


Yes; about three years ago I spent a fortnight in Odessa, and (believe it or not!) I didn't hear a single word in Ukrainian! Everyone was speaking Russian!



> In Piedmont, as in Italy in general, everything is conditioned by politics, so support for the local language may be viewed by some as "right wing" or "conservative", although back in the 70's it was "left wing" and "progressive" ... This rule is not infallible, of course.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From what I read in this thread, Piedmontese isn't popular among Italian forer@s. But my friend who lives in Moncalieri, near Turin, says that all her neighbours speak the language. (I my, I want to live there! It must be a paradise on Earth!)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My personal position is that all small languages deserve a minimum of support, as they preserve certain elements of our cultural heritage.
> 
> 
> 
> I can't but agree!
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## Lugubert

frenchtranslater said:


> I simply cannot understand why wikipedia has versions in dead languages. I saw Yiddish and Ladino on wiki. These are two hebrew derived languages which died about 20 years ago. And still there are articles posted in these languages.
> 
> It simply puzzles me, why anyone would bother to wrtie articles that no one reads.


According to Wiki, Ethnologue estimates that in 2005 there were 3 million speakers of Eastern Yiddish (which seems to be a high estimate). In Sweden, Yiddish rather recently was granted the status of officially recognized minority language. If not thriving, the language is at least sufficiently far from dead. If you read some modern US authors, like Philip Roth, you'll find quite a few Yiddish words, which probably the vast majority of US citizens understand, like goy, schmo, chutzpa, tushy.

A very entertaining book, which explains several Yiddish words and tells you a lot on the culture associated with the langauge, is Leo Rosten: _The Joys of Yiddish_.


----------



## Lombard Beige

Hello Lugubert:

I see you are writing from Sweden, perhaps you can give a more precise answer to my original question at the beginning of the thread.

Given that Scandinavians/Nordics and Dutch are among the best non-native English speakers, what is the secret of the phenomenal success of the Wikis in these languages?

We have discussed the other major languages (in terms of Wiki) and it would seem that the Polish Wiki has filled a gap ...  The Finnish Wiki is also positively disproportionate to the population and economic ranking of the country, but the Finns are Nordics, although my father, who was a seaman, told me that other Scandinavians perferred not to sail with them, as they were thought to bring bad luck.

Regards


----------



## Vladislav

Etcetera said:


> Well, you know, if I have enough time, I would rather read different versions and compare them. The results can be really interesting!
> I assume that most articles in Wikipedia started as a mere paragraph, with a short description, which was then expanded by other people.


 
Don't you think most part of them just repeat the English version? (and besides, they are shorter and worse)


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## Lombard Beige

Hi Etcera et al.:

Well I read through the thread you mentioned and what the people said applies more or less to the local language situation in the whole of Northern Italy. As I mentioned, the local language is most healthy in Veneto, and I think this is because venetian is the most similar to Italian, so people can use the language without fear of being misunderstood.
Elsewhere, the situation is as described for Piedmont, some places more, some less.
As you are interested in Italian history, it will be easier for you to understand why in Italy "linguistic entities" that elsewhere would be called languages are called dialects. 
There are in fact true Italian dialects - those of Tuscany, Rome and nowadays the "Regional Italian" spoken in the various regions of Italy -, but the so-called "Italian dialects" are really Romance dialects, i.e. Piedmontese derives from Vugar Latin not from Tuscan (Italian). The Italian spoken in Turin derives from Florentine Italian (the language of Dante, etc.). 
As for "paradise on Earth!", I think Italy, like everywhere, has its good points and its bad points. 
The attitude to local languages derives from the Italian Nationalist ideology that accompanied the formation of modern Italy. Before unification everyone used their own local language and wrote , if at all, in Italian or another language. 
I assume the attitude towards Belarusian and Ukranian was similar in Russia in the time of the Tsars: OK to use locally, but for public purposes the language of Pushkin is better. 
I have read that under the USSR the situation changed, initially for the better, with all languages being recognized and alphabets invented, etc., and then for the worse, because of the war, etc. 
I think Ukranian went through a process similar to Breton and Flemish, as they were accused of being collaborators of the Nazis ...

Zdravo Druga Etcera (Serbo-Croatian but still Slavic)


----------



## natasha2000

Lombard Beige said:


> Zdravo Druga Etcera (Serbo-Croatian but still Slavic)


 
Drugarice Etcetera.


----------



## Lombard Beige

For Vladislav:

All the Wikis are smaller than the English Wiki, but it's not true to say that the articles are all "shorter and worse". 
In one of my earlier messages, I quoted some examples on historical subjects in which the articles in French and Spanish are not shorter and worse, but simply different and in many cases more detailed than the articles in English. 
For example, I assume an article on Stalingrad reads differently in Russian and German, as would an article on Dunkirk, or Mers El Kebir (where the British sunk the French fleet) in English and French. For the British a painful necessity, for the French ... 
Similarly, for articles on Irish history. I assume that the Irish Wiki reads very differently from the English Wiki on things like the Great Famine (Ireland exported grain while people died of hunger, etc.), the Battle of the Boyne, etc.
Also, as I think Xarruc pointed out, in the smaller Wikis, like those in the regional languages, you can find information about things of local interest that is not included in the national or international Wikis, e.g. the Galician Wiki with about 80 articles on Petroglyphs.

regards


----------



## Lombard Beige

Hvala Natasha


----------



## natasha2000

Lombard Beige said:


> For Vladislav:
> 
> All the Wikis are smaller than the English Wiki, but it's not true to say that the articles are all "shorter and worse".
> In one of my earlier messages, I quoted some examples on historical subjects in which the articles in French and Spanish are not shorter and worse, but simply different and in many cases more detailed than the articles in English.
> For example, I assume an article on Stalingrad reads differently in Russian and German, as would an article on Dunkirk, or Mers El Kebir (where the British sunk the French fleet) in English and French. For the British a painful necessity, for the French ...
> Similarly, for articles on Irish history. I assume that the Irish Wiki reads very differently from the English Wiki on things like the Great Famine (Ireland exported grain while people died of hunger, etc.), the Battle of the Boyne, etc.
> Also, as I think Xarruc pointed out, in the smaller Wikis, like those in the regional languages, you can find information about things of local interest that is not included in the national or international Wikis, e.g. the Galician Wiki with about 80 articles on Petroglyphs.
> 
> regards


 
Or just read two different versions on recent Balkan civil war on Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian Wiki... 

Maybe, this is not such a bad thing. In this way, a foreigner has the opportunity to read all sides' versions, and if he has brains, he can draw his own conclusions on the subject...

-----------------
You're welcome, Lombard Baige...


----------



## Vladislav

Natasha2000 and Lombard Baige, I'm not saying that every single article in other languages is worse than in English. What I say is that in many cases it is, unless it's about something quite specific: Stalingrad, Mers el Kebir (or T -34, Franco, Stalin, etc I've mentioned all thsese before). 

 And the different versions just repeat one another in so many cases ...


----------



## Lombard Beige

Hello again:

It would be interesting to hear from the Dutch, Scandinavians, Poles, etc. 
They must find something in their local Wikis that is better than the English Wiki.

A question for Natasha, how many ex Jugoslav Wikis are there? 

There is a Wiki in Aromanian (in Latin characters) and they are accused of being too filo-Romanian. The Greeks would like them to write in Greek characters.

Lastly, going back to the English Wiki, has anybody noticed that written English has two de-facto standards - US and UK - and the UK (see the article on International English) now has two standards with -ize (Oxford, ect.) and with -ise. 

Personally, I use written Canadian English, as I worked for a long time in Canada/USA, but by birth and education (England) and mother's family (Cork, Ireland), I should use British English.

Written Canadian English is the most flexible of all ... The spelling checker accepts both British and US forms ... and for the French there is the Wiki "Portail de la Nouvelle France" ...

Zdravo


----------



## natasha2000

Vladislav:
I wasn't answering to anything you wrote, sorry if it seemed like this. I just wanted to point out the most drastic current example of different point of views to same events. I certainly agree with you that not all articles in English Wiki are at the same time the best ones. For sure, Serbs will know better about the emperor Dushan or about battle in Kosovo than English speaking people, for example.

Lombard Beige:
There are lot of unknown facts about people called Aromanians. It seems they come from various Balkanic countries, and each of those countries would like them to be of their own origin. The truth is they are people who never had their own country and were always easily adapted themselves to the country they lived in. As far as their name's explanation on English Wiki is concerned, I would just like to add that maybe in English there's only one name for those people, but in Serbian, there are many, which you can see only by clicking to Srpski/Српски on the very same link I gave you here. In Serbian, besides Arumuni, Armuni, Kucovlasi, Vlasi, Cincari, are only some of the names for those people. I have just seen this link, too. So, as far as Aromunian Wiki is concerned, it has nothing to do with ex-YU Wikis. Ex-YU Wikis would be: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Slovenian, and that's about all. I suppose that Slovenian and Macedonian Wiki tend to be more objective, since those two ex-YU republic haven't been in direct armed conflict with anyone.


----------



## Etcetera

Vladislav said:


> Don't you think most part of them just repeat the English version? (and besides, they are shorter and worse)


I noticed that some articles are indeed translations of English. 
But it's not so bad, I think. As time goes, people would expand the articles. You can't build anything big at once!


----------



## natasha2000

Vladislav said:


> Don't you think most part of them just repeat the English version? (and besides, they are shorter and worse)


 
I don't see what's wrong with that. 
Providing that the English article is a good one, of course.

Etcetera, you wanted to say:
Rome wasn't built in one day!


----------



## Etcetera

Lombard Beige said:


> The attitude to local languages derives from the Italian Nationalist ideology that accompanied the formation of modern Italy. Before unification everyone used their own local language and wrote , if at all, in Italian or another language.


I've read a lot of book on the Risorgimento, and I had the impression that Italian played its role in the unification. I can't see anything wrong with local dialects, but a common language is indeed very important for a re-united nation.



> I have read that under the USSR the situation changed, initially for the better, with all languages being recognized and alphabets invented, etc., and then for the worse, because of the war, etc.


Some languages simply adopted Cyrillic...
I don't know much about linguistic issues here, but I believe the picture has never been rosy here. Russian had been the official language of the whole USSR for more than 70 years, and over the past 15 years we've seen a lot of negative consequences of that...


----------



## Lombard Beige

Natasha: 

Ex-YU Wikis would be: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Slovenian ...

I assume the first two use the local standard. What standard do the Bosnians use? Or perhaps the Catholics use the Croatian standard, the Orthodox the Serbian standard ... and the Muslims? 
And the Montenegrans?

And what about the scripts. On the TV I see that many signs in Serbia are in Latin characters.  

Zdravo


----------



## Lombard Beige

For Etcera:

Russia is called "The Russian Federation", but I read that local autonomy is in fact very limited and what the Russians call a Republic is what others would call a Province. Right?

These terms are in fact misleading, as Canadian Provinces have more autonomy than US States ...

Cerea  [Piedmontese]


----------



## Etcetera

Lombard Beige said:


> For Etcera:


It's Etcetera.



> Russia is called "The Russian Federation", but I read that local autonomy is in fact very limited and what the Russians call a Republic is what others would call a Province. Right?


Yes. The so-called republics used to have more autonomy under Yeltsin, but now the government's control is more strict.

If you want to know more on this subject, feel free to PM me. All that doesn't have anything to do with Wikipedia, and I don't feel like distressing our Mods.


----------



## Lombard Beige

Quite right Etcetera:

I'm still waiting for answers from our Dutch, Scandinavian and Polish friends on the secret of their succesful Wikis ... Do they offer prizes? 
Perhaps, please find the mistake in this article ... 

On prizes, in Montréal, Canada, there was a joke: 
1st prize one week in Toronto, 2nd prize two weeks in Toronto. 
I assume that could be translated into all languages: 
1st prize one week in Moscow, 2nd two weeks in Moscow, etc. 

Also, to stay on track, take a look at the articles on Matemàdiga in the Lumbaart Wiki. Impressive, no? As I said yesterday, I think this person writes his articles in Lombard to clarify his ideas, and if they are useful to someone else so much the better. It also provides examples of how to use the language for uses other than poetry, theatrical productions, etc., which are the usual use of local languages here. The Neapolitan Wiki, for example, is very big, but I found very little on history. There's more in the Sicilian Wiki. There are a quite a few articles on history in the Piedmontese Wiki.

regards


----------



## natasha2000

Lombard Beige said:


> Natasha:
> 
> Ex-YU Wikis would be: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Slovenian ...
> 
> I assume the first two use the local standard. What standard do the Bosnians use? Or perhaps the Catholics use the Croatian standard, the Orthodox the Serbian standard ... and the Muslims?
> And the Montenegrans?
> 
> And what about the scripts. On the TV I see that many signs in Serbia are in Latin characters.
> 
> Zdravo


 
Bosnians would have their own version, since the most violent clashes ocurred there. As far as Montenegrins, I asasume, since they have recently voted independence, they will soon start doing their own Wiki. Who knows? You should put this question to them, perhaps ...

Serbian can be written in both cyrillic and latinic letters, so therefore there are two Wikis with the same text, it's just that one is written in Cyrillic and other is Latin letters. The content is completely the same. When you write an article, let's say, in Cyrillic letters, the Latin version is automatically generated.


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## Lombard Beige

Thank you Natasha:

I clicked on the Serbian Wiki, but where do I click to see the version in Latin characters?

The Lombard Wiki has a mechanism for switching from Eastern to Western Lombard, which possibly in the future could be used for a Serbo-Croatian Wiki, but perhaps it's not possible to put the clock back.

The Emilian Wiki is a bit like a Jugoslav Wiki with 8 local versions ... 

Zdravo


----------



## natasha2000

Lombard Beige said:


> Thank you Natasha:
> 
> I clicked on the Serbian Wiki, but where do I click to see the version in Latin characters?
> Zdravo


 
On the top of each page, where it is written edit etc... the last in the raw, where it is written LATINICA.


> The Lombard Wiki has a mechanism for switching from Eastern to Western Lombard, which possibly in the future could be used for a Serbo-Croatian Wiki, but perhaps it's not possible to put the clock back.


Even though I am ex-YU-nostalgic, I think that anything named Serbo-Croatian is doomed to failure. At least for many many years more....


----------



## Qcumber

Tagalog Wiki is a welcome addition, but a bit of a puzzle for me as so many Tagalogs assert their prefer English (probably because the Philippines is a former US colony). They doubt Tagalog could express what English says. Yet these articles prove them wrong.


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## Lombard Beige

For Natasha, moltes gracies.

I followed your instructions in the Serbian Wiki and the mechanism you described works perfectly:

Tokom prve polovine 19. veka, uz pomoć tadašnjih vrhunskih filologa, ... 

Zdravo i fins aviat


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## xarruc

I just want to say, for what it's worth, how nice it is to hear (read?) people so passioned about language, particularly minority languages.


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## Lombard Beige

Moltes gracies to you to Xarruc:

To keep the message on theme, the Celtic language Wikis are also curious, as the dead are more active than the living  
 

Breton 11'215 
Irish 4'361 
Scots Gaelic 4'228  
Cornish 1’229 
Manx 153  

Well that's not quite right as the numbers (at the beginning of the year when I copied them) show, but Cornish is a revived language and Manx was supposed to be on its last legs ...

Also Irish does not fare much better than Scots Gaelic, and this is despite the fact that it is the national language of Ireland, is an official language of the EU and is a compulsory subject in Irish schools ... But perhaps that is part of the problem, as a friend of mine once said: "It's not exactly a fun subject ..."

I think the Scots probably copy a lot of Irish material, as the two languages were once one like Galician and Portuguese, or Catalan and Valencian 

regards


----------



## Lemminkäinen

Lombard Beige said:


> I'm still waiting for answers from our Dutch, Scandinavian and Polish friends on the secret of their succesful Wikis ... Do they offer prizes?
> Perhaps, please find the mistake in this article ...



As for Scandinavia, I think it mostly has to do with the high percentage of the population who has internet access (as far as I'm aware, it's well over 90%, though I could be wrong).
We don't have the numbers of the English speakers, but some of that is perhaps made up for by the amount of people who have the spare time and interest to do this. 

As for the English vs. non-English articles, I prefer browsing Wikipedia in English. If I can't remember a word or concept, I might do a search in the Norwegian edition and go from there to the English, but otherwise I usually don't read it.
The articles seem to be generally shorter, but it seems that the same standard is held for the most part. Of course, there are probably more articles of special interest (like small islands on the west coast) than in the English version.

Most people I've talked about it with say they use the English version, but that's hardly a representative sample. However, I would wager that the contributors to the Norwegian version are interested in the concept, and want to do what they can to provide the service in the first language of Norwegians.

Oh, and of course we want to beat the Swedes too, there's no denying that 

Edit: There was also quite a discussion about whether the different versions (bokmål and nynorsk) should have the prefixes .bm and .nn or whether one of them should have the .no - in the end, it was decided that nynorsk got .nn, while bokmål could keep .no. 
Needless to say, it got pretty heated


----------



## Lombard Beige

For completeness:

Celtic language Wikipedias (05 January 2007):

 Breton 11'215
 Welsh 6'193
Irish 4'361 
Scots Gaelic 4'228  
 Cornish 1’229 
 Manx 153 

Scots 1'769 (see below)

I omitted Welsh. This is due to my unfamiliarity with the answering system, rather than to any preferences, as I think Welsh is a very interesting language, with a good spelling system, and, I believe, it is in fairly good health.  

I have also added the figures for Scots - not Scottish English, which ends up in the general English Wikipedia, but the Germanic Scots Language, or Lallans, which - albeit in a corrupt (i.e. Anglicized) form - is the native language of - I believe - a majority of the Lowland Scots. 

Of course, for many Scots, Scottish English is the native language, as Hiberno-English is the native - but not the historical - language of the majority of Irish people.   

Having said this, it's interesting to note that the Scots Gaelic Wiki is 2.5 times larger than the Scots (Lallans) Wiki. I think there are a number of explanations for this.

1) Gaelic is a recognized minority language (it's also spoken in Nova Scotia, Canada).
2) Scots Gaelic and Irish to some extent support each other, by emulation, rivalry, etc., a bit like Spanish and Portuguese. Given my Irish background, I regret that Ireland is not more active in Irish, but the reasons are complex. It is interesting to note that the part of Ireland where Irish is today studied with most enthusiasm is Northern Ireland. Guess by whom.
3) Scots (Lallans) suffers from being considered an English dialect, whereas it is in fact a parallel language, with its origin in Germanic Northumbrian, while Standard English has its base in more southern forms of Anglo-Saxon (for which there is an Old English Wiki).
4) The lack of consideration of Lallans means that many of its more genuine speakers would prefer not to speak it at all. They would prefer to speak like Sean Connery  This is the phenomenon called in Spain "auto-odio" (self-hate).
5) I'm not sure about the latest developments with the Scottish Parliament, etc., but as far as I know, while everyone supports Gaelic, support for Lallans is much weaker.

regards


----------



## Lombard Beige

Scandinavia:

 
So, the reasons for the phenomenal success of your Wikis (see the figures below), in relation to the number of speakers, would seem to be:  

 
1) high percentage of the population with internet access ( 90%, wow!).
2) the amount of people with spare time and interest. 
3) quality - the same standard as the English Wiki (although perhaps with lesser depth) 
4) special interest - (“small islands on the west coast”)
5) the contributors are interested in the concept, and want to do what they can to provide the service in the local language  
6) local rivalry and emulation (“and of course we want to beat the Swedes ...”)
7) including, in Norway, different versions (bokmål and nynorsk) ...  

All this in a context where there is a high level of knowledge of English, right?


 Svenska 201'401
Norsk 92’246 (+ Nynorsk = 111'913)
Dansk 54’725  
Nynorsk 19’167 
Iceland 12'656  
Faroe Islands 2'117 

 
Finnish 93'160 (different language, but same cultural area)  

Talking about local rivalry, what about this definition of Norwegian: “Danish spoken by Swedes!”.

 
regards


----------



## Lombard Beige

As the discussion seems to be running out of steam, and I still have doubts about certain aspects of the question, i.e.


 Slavic language Wikis:


 The current situation (today) in terms of articles is:  


 Polish 337'541 Western Sl. Latin script 
 Russian 128'937 Eastern Cyrillic  
 Slovak 59'942 Western Latin  
 Czech 56'968 Western Latin  
 Ukrainian 50'347 Eastern Cyrillic  


 As you can see, Polish is disproportionately high. In addition to the higher level of Internet penetration, I read in an article in Wiki (“Polish Wikipedia”) that the Poles seem to have adopted a policy of deliberately enlarging their Wiki, for example using the “bot” system. Apparently, this is an easy way to include MASSIVE quantities of data:


 Quote
 In July 2005, a task for tsca.bot (one of the “bots” in Polish Wikipedia) was written. The bot was programmed to upload statistics from official government pages about French, Polish and Italian municipalities. In a few months, the bot uploaded more than 40,000 articles.   
 Unquote


 I searched for and found, for example, Bergamo (I) and Nimes (F), I also found Orense (E), so they must have added Spain. So, I think this technical solution explains a lot about why the Polish Wikipedia is number 1 among the Slavs and the 4th largest of all Wikipedias, while the number of speakers is indicated (in Wiki) as 44 million against 277 million for Russian.  


 For the South Slavs in the broadest sense:


 Serbian 41'149 Southern Cyrillic/Latin
 Slovenian 37'987 Southern Latin
 Bulgarian 34'290 Southern Cyrillic
 Croatian 26'805 Southern Latin
 Bosnian 12'814 Southern Latin  
 Macedonian 9'635 Southern Cyrillic  
 Serbo-Croatian 8'181 Southern Latin


 The last is particularly noteworthy. So a place still exists for supporters of a united serbo-croatian.


 For comparison purposes the figures for the languages that separate the Western and Eastern Slavs (located in the same geographical region) from the Southern Slavs are:  


 Romanian 53'075 Romance Latin
 Hungarian 48'269 Ugrian Latin


 Lastly, we have:  


 Siberian/North Russian 6'926 Eastern Cyrillic
 Belarusian 5'979 Eastern Cyrillic
 Upper Sorbian 374 Western (very, it's spoken in Germany!) Latin
 Old Church Slavonic 76 --- Cyrillic


 These languages are cultivated by what somebody described as the “enthusiasts”, like most of the western “regional languages”, but also Belarusian, which comes after Serbo-Croatian and Siberian !!!   


 regards


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## Lombard Beige

As a further contribution to this thread, the following is a comparison of the total number of web pages in various languages compared with the Wiki ranking by number of articles.     The non Wiki data come from a link contained in a short thread opened by Anatoli.    Web Pages by Language / Wikipedias by Articles  English has 214,250,996 Web Pages   - means that the Wiki ranking is worse than the web page ranking and  + that it is better, e.g. Japanese is in 2nd position in terms of Web Pages and in 5th position in terms of Wiki articles, which is worse (-); German is in 3rd position in terms of Web Pages and in 2nd position in terms of Wiki articles, which is better.     Language     Percent     Wiki position           1) English     68.39         1            2) Japanese   5.85          5 -   3) German      5.77         2 +  4) Chinese      3.87        12 -   5) French       2.96        3 +   6) Spanish      2.42        10 -   7) Russian      1.88        11 -   8) Italian       1.56          7 +   9) Portuguese  1.37        8 +   10) Korean     1.29        30 -   11) Dutch     1.01        6 +   12) Sweden    0.93        9 +   13) Danish      0.44        18 -   14) Norwegian 0.40        14 =   15) Finnish      0.38        13 +   16) Czech      0.32        17 -   17) Polish      0.27        4 +  18) Hungarian 0.16        24 -   19) Catalan     0.14        20 -   20) Turkish     0.14        25 -   21) Greek      0.09        38 -   22) Hebrew    0.06        21 +   23) Estonian     0.06        31 -   24) Romanian  0.05        19 +   25) Icelandic   0.04        47 -   26) Slovenian  0.04        27 -   27) Arabic      0.04        34 -   28) Lithuanian 0.03        28 =   29) Latvian     0.02        63 -   30) Bulgarian   0.02        29 +   31) Basque     0.01        42 -     The only aspect of this question that remains open for me is the particular situation of the Dutch Wiki. To focus on that point, should I open a new thread (Dutch Wikipedia), or should I continue this thread?    regards


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## Lombard Beige

I lost the formatting in my last message. My apologies. Each language begins 1), 2), etc. Sorry again


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## tvdxer

Lombard Beige said:


> Hi,
> 
> 
> I am an English-language translator based in Italy, and I use Wikipedia regularly for my work. To be exact, I consult Wiki in every language I can understand. I am also in contact with people involved in editing Wikipedia in the various Italian regional languages.
> 
> 
> In that context, we were discussing why some Wikipedias are more successful than others. It was suggested, for example, that Maltese speakers, given their fluency in English, would tend to consult the English-language version more than that in their own language. But if this is true, why are the Dutch-language and the Nordic language Wikipedias so successful?
> 
> 
> I think most people would agree that the Dutch and the Nordics are among the best (non-native) English speakers. So what is the explanation?
> 
> 
> I have my own (partial) theory, but I would like to read some other opinions before expressing it.
> 
> 
> Regards
> Lombard Beige



Perhaps because the Dutch and Nordic peoples have very high internet access rates, tend to be very literate (in multiple languages, which helps, especially for using English Wikipedia pages as a resource), and are interested in such things?

By the way, the most useful non-English Wikipedia seems to be the German Wiki.  I sometimes consult it, usually using Babelfish to translate the pages since my command of German is very limited.


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## natasha2000

Lombard Beige said:


> As a further contribution to this thread, the following is a comparison of the total number of web pages in various languages compared with the Wiki ranking by number of articles. The non Wiki data come from a link contained in a short thread opened by Anatoli. Web Pages by Language / Wikipedias by Articles English has 214,250,996 Web Pages - means that the Wiki ranking is worse than the web page ranking and + that it is better, e.g. Japanese is in 2nd position in terms of Web Pages and in 5th position in terms of Wiki articles, which is worse (-); German is in 3rd position in terms of Web Pages and in 2nd position in terms of Wiki articles, which is better. Language Percent Wiki position 1) English 68.39 1 2) Japanese 5.85 5 - 3) German 5.77 2 + 4) Chinese 3.87 12 - 5) French 2.96 3 + 6) Spanish 2.42 10 - 7) Russian 1.88 11 - 8) Italian 1.56 7 + 9) Portuguese 1.37 8 + 10) Korean 1.29 30 - 11) Dutch 1.01 6 + 12) Sweden 0.93 9 + 13) Danish 0.44 18 - 14) Norwegian 0.40 14 = 15) Finnish 0.38 13 + 16) Czech 0.32 17 - 17) Polish 0.27 4 + 18) Hungarian 0.16 24 - 19) Catalan 0.14 20 - 20) Turkish 0.14 25 - 21) Greek 0.09 38 - 22) Hebrew 0.06 21 + 23) Estonian 0.06 31 - 24) Romanian 0.05 19 + 25) Icelandic 0.04 47 - 26) Slovenian 0.04 27 - 27) Arabic 0.04 34 - 28) Lithuanian 0.03 28 = 29) Latvian 0.02 63 - 30) Bulgarian 0.02 29 + 31) Basque 0.01 42 - The only aspect of this question that remains open for me is the particular situation of the Dutch Wiki. To focus on that point, should I open a new thread (Dutch Wikipedia), or should I continue this thread? regards


 
What about Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian Wiki?


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## Lombard Beige

Hi Natasha and everyone:  Well the data I used is based on the data contained in the thread opened by Anatoli and Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are not included in the list. So, on those languages, I only have the data on Wiki.   A couple of messages back, I surveyed the Slavic languages in Wiki, and you'll be pleased to know that there is still a Wiki in Serbo-Croatian. You can reach it from the English-language Wiki. Go to "Complete list" and click on the name of the language. At the end of the page there is a link to the Wiki. Possibly there is a shorter to way to get there, but that's what I did.  I'd be interested in your comments, as my ideas are mine, but they're not necessarily right.  Zdravo drugatice (right?) Natasha


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## natasha2000

Lombard Beige said:


> Hi Natasha and everyone: Well the data I used is based on the data contained in the thread opened by Anatoli and Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are not included in the list. So, on those languages, I only have the data on Wiki. A couple of messages back, I surveyed the Slavic languages in Wiki, and you'll be pleased to know that there is still a Wiki in Serbo-Croatian. You can reach it from the English-language Wiki. Go to "Complete list" and click on the name of the language. At the end of the page there is a link to the Wiki. Possibly there is a shorter to way to get there, but that's what I did. I'd be interested in your comments, as my ideas are mine, but they're not necessarily right. Zdravo drugaRice (right?) Natasha


 
I have to tell you that there's no high opinion on Serbo-Croatian Wiki, since the 95% of articles are just copied articles from Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian Wiki, without even a minimum of adaptation. This means that they just copy, they don't write anything by themselves, which is NOT the original idea of Wiki. I can reach Serbo-Croatian Wiki from almost any Wiki on more important language including Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian ones.


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## Lombard Beige

Re German (hoping that my formatting is maintained)

The quality of the German Wiki has been mentioned before, but, in terms of population, the Dutch Wiki does better. Maintaining the same ratio, the German Wiki would contain 1'329'130 articles, which is close to the English -language Wiki. Also, I found the following information in the Wiki article “Dutch Wikipedia”:


 “ ... Multiscope published a report stating that one out of three Dutch people uses Wikipedia. The Dutch language Wikipedia is therefore the sixth most popular website in the Netherlands.” Pretty impressive.   


 The wiki classifications in terms of articles are:


 High German:
 German 530'543
 Alemannic 2'803
 Bavarian 457


 Dutch and Low German:
 Dutch 265'826
 Luxembourgish 12'552
 Ripuarian 5'911
 West Frisian 4'159
 Low Saxon 3'863 (Germany)

 Limburgian 2'746
 Dutch Low Saxon 2'030
 West Flemish 1'181
 Zealandic 51


 As I am interested in minority languages, the success of the Dutch-language seems to have inspired the local languages close to Dutch. See above.


 For comparison in the same area:
 Walloon 8'356 (French-speaking Belgium)


 Overseas:
 Afrikaans 6'275
 Pennsylvania German 1'187


 Regards


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## cherine

*Excuse my stupidity, but what after all the statistics and numbers ? What are we really discussing here ?*
*The last few messages are almost solely lists of numbers ! Could you please re-state the topic of this discussion ?*
*Thanks*


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## Lombard Beige

Sorry for creating confusion. Everything started with my question:

" ... we were discussing why some Wikipedias are more successful than others. It was suggested, for example, that Maltese speakers, given their fluency in English, would tend to consult the English-language version more than that in their own language. But if this is true, why are the Dutch-language and the Nordic language Wikipedias so successful? 
I think most people would agree that the Dutch and the Nordics are among the best (non-native) English speakers. So what is the explanation?"

The reason I sent the statistical data is so that we would talk in terms of facts and not impressions. The message I sent earlier on the ranking of languages by Web Pages and in terms of Wikipedias by articles was indeed a long list, but when it is set out "nicely" it does show some interesting differences. 

For example, Wiki does not seem to be popular in the Far East (Japan, China, Korea), as their Wiki ranking is much lower than their total ranking. 

Also, as we discussed in this thread, some Wikis - the Dutch and the Polish for example - are way out of proportion to the number of speakers. Similarly, the Spanish-language Wiki is smaller than the Portuguese-language Wiki and one of the explanations is that a few years ago there was a schism, which meant that 50'000 articles ended up in an alternative project. Also, the Polish Wiki is the largest Slavic Wiki, but I discovered that no less than 40'000 articles refer to municipalities of Poland, France and Italy. 

I realize, of course, that the subject doesn't interest everyone, but the discussion and the various links, etc., have enabled me to clear up my own ideas on the subject. 

Regards


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## Lombard Beige

Review to date:


So far we (a sizable number of contributors) have discussed the following main and sub-threads concerning Wikipedias: 
The 	success of Dutch (and German) and Nordic Wikipedias
Wiki 	in European regional languages, including
Regional 	languages of Italy (where I have personal contacts), and
Celtic 	languages (why some languages are stronger than others)
“Dead” 	languages (why people start Wikis in these languages)
Slavic 	languages (including the reason why the Polish Wiki is number 1)
Spanish 	language (why there are fewer articles than the number of speakers, 	etc.)
Asian 	languages (this topic was raised, but not exhausted, and it seems to 	me that the issues involved are very different from those concerning 	the European Wikis).
 I think that many points have now been covered, but for others I still have questions? What is the best way to proceed, in this thread? or open new dedicated threads, such as Slavic-language Wikis?


regards


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## Jana337

You said in post #74 that you had doubts about Slavic Wikipedias but you only presented some statistics without asking any questions. 

You penned 32 out of 85 contributions in this thread. A clear indication that people simply do not know what to discuss about.


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## Lombard Beige

Two questions on Slavic Wikipedias (for the moment):  1) If you look at the figures for Belarusian that I sent, it comes with the last group (Siberian, Old Church Slavonic, etc.). This seems to confirm that official support for language is weak, cf. Ukrainian.  2) Natasha mentioned that the ex-YU Wikis all give different points of view on the war in Yugoslavia (which is one of the reasons why I think Wikis in different languages are useful). Seeing that most people will read about this war in the English-language Wiki, how well does the Eng-lang Wiki transmit these different points of view?   Lastly, I apologise if I sent a lot of the messages in this thread, but I am genuinely interested in the subject and I want to understand the phenomenon better so as to be able to offer suggestions to the people I know who are working on Wikis in various languages, and not just in Italy where I live ...  regards


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## optimistique

Hi Lombard Beige,

At last, a Dutchman! 
You talked about the article from Multiscope, and I read the full article. It gives a possible explanation to the succes of the Dutch Wikipedia, namely the huge amount of articles, and the many links referring to them. Of course that's no explanation to why so many articles have got there in the first place. As said before, I think it's partly due to the large number of people having access to internet plus the number of people having the will and time to work on it. I think it's only normal that you prefer reading in your own language than English, provided you'd know the quality of the information was as good and trustable. 

The phenomen Wikipedia has got extensive attention in the Dutch media. I think especially that has triggered many people to use it and make articles themselves. The enthousiasm has spread to the regional languages/dialects (where pride and chauvinism certainly play a big role).

I hope to have been able to help you a least a little bit further.


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## Lombard Beige

Dank U Optimistique:

I prefer to answer in detail after examining all the available data - for example, I tried out a suggestion made by tvdxer - USA, i.e. to use Bebelfish to translate the Dutch text of the article you mentioned, and I must say I am rather impressed with the quality. 

As a translator, I realize that the quality of this translation leaves much to be desired, but, with my knowledge of other languages and a Dutch dictionary, using this translation I can get a good idea of what the article is talking about. Of course, I wouldn't like to base any conclusions on this "draft translation".

I assume that quality-wise much depends on the (relative) closeness of Dutch to English, possibly Friesian is even closer ("good butter and good cheese is good English and good Fries"), but I don't think that Babelfish does Friesian.

Lastly, I waited for some time before answering because I don't want to give the impression of monopolizing the thread. I think I have already explained that I sent in the "masses of data" so that we could discuss facts rather than impressions. One might object that the data is available elsewhere, but that is not in fact true, because I grouped the Wiki data by language and geographic groups, and the comparison between the number of Web pages and the Wiki ranking is not available elsewhere. Unfortunately, because of my lack of experience in editing, the numbers came out as a long string, and I apologize for the inconvenience caused.

regards


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## natasha2000

Lombard Beige said:


> 2) Natasha mentioned that the ex-YU Wikis all give different points of view on the war in Yugoslavia (which is one of the reasons why I think Wikis in different languages are useful). Seeing that most people will read about this war in the English-language Wiki, how well does the Eng-lang Wiki transmit these different points of view?


 
As far as I know, most of the articles about the ex-YU war are just translations from Croatian and Bosnian Wiki, done by Croatian and Bosnian Wikipedians. So, I guess that there is no neutral point of view, either. I know that memebers of Serbian Wiki had to put complaints many times about the objectivity of some articles in Engish Wiki. 

On the other hand, I would also like to add that although those three Wikis tend to have their own point of view, their members try to stay on the path of objectiveness. They discuss, sometimes they confront, but in the light of so recent and violent clash that took place in those countries, I dare to say they still do pretty good as far as objectivity is concerned.


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## ilocas2

Articles on English Wikipedia are already too long and detailed. It's an obstacle if you just want to browse Wikipedia for fun.


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## Ben Jamin

frenchtranslater said:


> I saw Yiddish and Ladino on wiki. These are two *hebrew derived* languages which died about 20 years ago. .



You really think so? Go to Wikipedia.


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## Sepia

Etcetera said:


> Interesting.
> I've just thought of one more reason why Wikipedia authors may prefer English, even if it isn't their native language. It's quite easy to insert links to other Wiki articles in your articles; most articles are written in English; so, if you're writing your article in English, you don't have to explain everything - you can give links to other articles!
> For example, if your article is about Mozart, you can just insert a link to the article about Salzburg instead of explaining where it is!



I cannot remember that I looked up anything in the Danish Wikipedia and actually found it.
If I will ever write anything in Wikipedia it will be English as my first choice, then German.


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## ilocas2

Today morning I wrote something on Czech Wikipedia. I added Ester Ledecká on the list of people who were born in 1995 in the article 1995.


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## anahiseri

frenchtranslater said:


> I simply cannot understand why wikipedia has versions in dead languages. I saw Yiddish and Ladino on wiki. These are two hebrew derived languages which died about 20 years ago. And still there are articles posted in these languages.
> 
> It simply puzzles me, why anyone would bother to wrtie articles that no one reads.



there was a time when there was a Klingon version!


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## anahiseri

as has been pointed out, it is striking that there are so few articles in Spanish when related to the number of Spanish speakers. 
In my opinion, here in Spain there aren't so many people who think it is fun to do hard intellectual work (which editing Wikis is). There was a time not so long ago where there was a very nice cultural environment in Spain, literature, philosophy, science was held in high esteem. Now the  word "culture" is applied, among others, to things that .....  well, I prefer to leave it here.


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## Penyafort

anahiseri said:


> it is striking that there are so few articles in Spanish when related to the number of Spanish speakers.
> In my opinion, here in Spain there aren't so many people who think it is fun to do hard intellectual work (which editing Wikis is).



Hmm, I don't agree at all.

First of all, size is relative. Yes, it ranks eighth or ninth in number of articles, but it has the second largest number of users, after the English Wikipedia, as well as the fourth largest number of active users and edits.

Secondly, Spain is little more than 10% of all Spanish speakers in the world. In spite of this, it is the country with more people contributing by far to the Spanish wikipedia:
_
By country of origin, by September 2017, *Spain was the main contributor to the Spanish Wikipedia (39.2% of edits*). It is followed by Argentina (10.7%), Chile (8.8%), the Netherlands (8.4%), Mexico (7.0%), Venezuela (5.1%), Peru (3.5%), the United States (3.1%), Colombia (2.7%), Uruguay (1.3%) and Germany (1.1%)_​
Thirdly, there was also a significant split little after the birth of Wikipedia, so many contributors at that time decided to do so in another free encyclopedia. See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre_Universal_en_Espa%C3%B1ol).

And regarding the rest of languages in Spain:

*All *languages natively spoken in Spain other than Spanish (i.e., Catalan, Galician, Basque, Asturian, Aragonese and Occitan) have more articles than expected regarding their number of speakers, as this list shows (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias_by_speakers_per_article).

Aragonese, in particular, is the *1st natural language* in the list.

Catalan was the third wikipedia, created minutes after the German one, so it's one of the oldest. And ranks *2nd*, right after Russian, *in the number of high-quality articles* (scored according to the extent of must-have articles), as seen here:  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias_by_sample_of_articles

Spanish is second only to French in terms of active users among the Romance-language wikipedias. Catalan is fifth, Galician seventh, Asturian ninth, Aragonese eleventh. Not bad considering there are more than 30 Romance-language wikipedias. All this can be seen here: List of Wikipedias by language group - Meta 

So, all in all, the number of contributors from Spain is not low at all, I'd say,and in many cases we're talking about high-quality contributors.


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