Wikimedia Taiwan/IncuWPTA

Taiwanese Aboriginal Language Wikipedia Project, as entrusted by Ministry of Education, Taiwan, is a cooperative project between the Center for Aboriginal Studies at National Chengchi University (ALCD-NCCU) and Wikimedia Taiwan, aiming to establish the Wikipedia editions of Taiwanese aboriginal languages for preserving languages and culture of individual aboriginal group categorized as varieties of Austronesian languages.

族語維基百科建置計畫成果

Origin Intro

When keying in the words like “Amis” or “Bunun” at Google, you may find information on these ethnic groups in Chinese Wikipedia. But since language constructs a person’s way of thinking, it is only through records in aboriginal languages that the aboriginal culture can be passed down more properly.

Between 2010 to 2011, ALCD has undertaken the establishment of aboriginal language online encyclopedia and thus gained the editing experiences of ’Amis and Truku. To incorporate the outcomes into other projects of Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Taiwan assisted ALCD in building aboriginal language incubators as well as the language communities that make the editing work continue without a time limit of the project.

Background Introduction

Introduction to Taiwan Aboriginal People

Taiwanese aborigines indicate the ethnic groups who lived in Taiwan long before a major Han immigration from mainland China began in the 17th century, and regarded as a branch of Austronesian people with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian people.

The early days of Europe and the United States are usually Fore The Mosha people call Taiwan's aborigines, meaning residents of Formosa/Holmoosa (beautiful) islands. The words in the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and other countries are related to Taiwan in specific regions. Aboriginal people, such as the Silaya people, the word comes from the Western term "Formosa", which is called Taiwan. The source is Portuguese.

Taiwanese aborigines refer to tribes that are distributed in separate areas of Taiwan with diverse languages and life styles rather than a single ethnic group. Taiwanese aborigines are currently composed of 16 ethnic groups who have been recognized officially in Taiwan. They are as follows:

1. Amis: The area of Amis distribution stretches along plains around East Rift Valley and coastal plains. They have a total population of about 201, 200.
2. The Paiwan tribe is scattered on both sides of the southern Central Mountain Range. They are close to 96,643 in population.
3. The Atayal tribe is distributed in the northern part of Taiwan’s Central Mountain areas, including the area north from Puli to Hualien. The population is approximately 86,112.
4. The Bunun tribe is scattered widely around Namasia Township of Kaohsiung County, Haiduang Township of Taitung County as well as in Nantou County. They have a total population of about 56,220.
5. The Pinuyumayan tribe inhabits the area in the south of East Rift Valley. Their population is about 13,447.
6. The Rukai tribe lives around Maulin Township of Kaohsiung County, Wutai Township of Pingtung County and Donghsing Township of Taitung County. Their population is about 12,874.
7. The Tsou tribe mostly lives in Alishan Township of Chiayi County and Sinyi Township in Nantou County. They have a total population about 6,739.
8. The Saisiyat tribe mostly live in Wufong Township, Hsinchu County, Nanjuang and Shitan Townships of Miaoli County. The population is estimated at 6,428.
9. The Yami tribe is located in the offshore Orchid Island of Taitung. It is the only tribe of oceanic culture in Taiwan. They have a population of about 4,441.
10. The Thao tribe lives in Yuchih Township and Shueili Township in Nantou County with a population of about 762 people.
11. The Kabalan tribe lives around areas of Yilan City, Luodong Township and Su’ao Township. They also inhabit in Hualien and Taitung County with a total of 1,381 people.
12. The Truku tribe lives in Nan'ao Township, Yilan County and Hualien County with about 29,847 people.
13. The Sakizaya tribe lives at Chilai plain of Hualien County. The population of Sakizaya is about 930.
14. The Sakizaya tribe inhabits in northwest Nantou County and north Hualien County. Their population is about 9,159.
15. The Hla’alua tribe is mostly distributed in the villages of Taoyuan District, Kaohsiung City with approximately 227 people.
16. The Kanakanavu tribe mostly live in Namasia District of Kaohsiung City and numbers about 191 people.

The aboriginal population of Taiwan is estimated to be about 560,000 people, which makes up around 2.38% of the total population in Taiwan.

Introduction to the Indigenous National Studies Center of the University of Political Science

The Center for Aboriginal Studies, NCCU, Taiwan is an academic team dedicated to Taiwanese aboriginal studies. It is mainly composed of a group of professors of NCCU and partly of scholars and experts from other academic institutions. Founded in 1999 and called initially as the “Center for Aboriginal Languages, Cultures and eDucation” (ALCD), the center has been promoted to the top-tier research center of NCCU since 2007 and is now headed by Dr. HUANG Chi-ping. ALCD has undertaken ethnic certification, language and cultural education, publications of aboriginal education, academic symposiums and international academic exchanges.

Job content

Wikipedia incubation

1. Set a prior list of aboriginal language incubators
2. Translate Wiki interface and important policies into aboriginal languages
3. Create fundamental articles
4. Provide results of functional testing as reference to adjustment

Community Building

1. Train aboriginal language writers
2. Train and elect members of the first management team
3. Hold gatherings or develop teaching activities
4. Connect with the aboriginal tribes

Experience Modification

1. Record working procedure and experiences
2. Hold workshops to pass down working experiences
3. Exhibit outcomes on Wikimedia platforms
4. Establish Wikipedia editions of other aboriginal languages

Cultural Reflection

1. Inspect rules on Wikipedia that should be improved based on the establishment of aboriginal language Wikipedia and the ensuing editing experiences
2. Enhance the usefulness of aboriginal language Wikipedia
3. Expand other Wikimedia projects from the aboriginal perspective

Links to Incubator

Family name	Ethnic iso code	Ethnic Wiki (or ethnic wiki incubator) link
	SaySiyat (赛夏)	xsy	Wp/xsy
Thau (Shao)	ssf	Wp/ssf
Kabalan (噶玛兰)	ckv	Wp/ckv
‘Amis	ami	Wikipitiya Done
Sakizaya	szy	Wikipitiya Done
Puyuma, Beinan	pyu	Wp/pyu
Bunun (Bunun)	bnn	Wp/bnn
Paiwan	pwn	wikipidiya Done
Cou (Zou)	tsu	Wp/tsu
Kanakanavu (Canakanafu)	xnb	Wp/xnb
Hla’alua (La Aruwa)	sxr	Wp/sxr
Rukai	dru	Wp/dru
Tayal	tay	Wikibitia Done
Truku	trv	Wikipidiya Done
Seediq (Sedek)
Yami(Tao)(雅美/达悟)	tao	Wp/tao

各南島語言在維基媒體計畫使用情形

• 在各跨語言維基媒體計畫(如：維基數據、維基共享資源等)中，只需要開通相應欄位就能填寫相應語言的內容，意即部份南島語言的維基百科尚未上線但就能在跨語言維基媒體計畫進行編寫。

語言	ISO 語言代碼	Wikidata語言分類	使用情形(條目數量)	備註
Atayal (Q715766)	tay	Tayal	42041
Amis (Q35132)	ami	ami/Pangcah	479
Seediq (Q716686)	trv	trv/Seediq/Sediq Taroko	2702	與Truku (Q11071864)共用欄位
Saisiyat (Q716695)	xsy	saysiyat	4016ˋ
Sakizaya (Q718269)	szy	sakizaya	41717

References

Incubation Engineering SOP

• Incubation Field Complete Manual, a total of seven steps, briefly described as follows:

Step 1: Confirm that the application language is accepted by the Foundation and has the ISO 639 language code. Participants must register for the incubator account

Step 2: Select the type of project to be applied, existing encyclopedia, dictionary,Textbooks , quotations, Guide Five Wikimedia projects (Wikibase and Wikidata are cross-language projects, so You don't need to apply for your own language incubation field. See Library for Creating a New Page Teaching [English Description] and Help:Multilingual/zh Wikidata for multi-language architecture [Simplified Chinese description])

Step 3: After running the content and community in the incubation field to meet the level of independent standing, you can apply for the subdomain of the new language on the meta-wiki page.

• • Step 4: Test and manage the wiki plan for the incubation field
  • 步驟5：用translatewiki.net將維基孵育場中的介面在地化
    • 在translatewiki站台開啟新語言介面進行翻譯的流程說明頁（下列段落取自Enabling a new language for localisation at translatewiki.net）——
      • If you would like to start a new localization project for language Xyz, please request this on Support. You will need to supply the following information:
        • A language code from ISO 639-3 or the Ethnologue website (for example 'de')
        • The language name in English and in its own language (for example 'German – Deutsch (de)')
        • Is the language RTL or LTR (written from right to left or left to right)
        • If the language is commonly written in more than one script, please say in which script the language should be enabled. Other variants can be enabled as and when translators for those variants volunteer.
        • (For MediaWiki) Should the language fall back to another language other than English? If so which?
      • You will also need to create a Language Portal by:
        • Starting the page Portal:Zxx for language zxx
        • Then enter the template {{Portal}} with any parameters needed for your language; see these examples: fi and Gan.
      • If you also wish to translate the language yourself:
        • Create an account in Meta.
        • Request rights to translate at Project:Translator.
        • Set the helper languages in which you wish to see translations of a particular message when editing on your user preferences.
        • Enter your name in the translators section of the language portal.
      • If you do not intend to translate yourself, please explain how it is to be supported, or how it is planned to recruit translators. Usually, a language is not enabled for translation until at least one person has entered their name in the translators section at the bottom of the language portal.
  • Steps 6 and 7: After the wiki's Language Committee and other community members agree on the wiki, they will begin to transfer all of the incubation site to the new standalone wiki.
  • Remarks: If the project does not work for a long time (for example, there are no new editorial actions, there are few readers), it may also be recommended to be closed by international administrators. In the past, the Minuteness Wikimedia project had been discussed but closed (quotations discussed (reserved), Library Discussion Record (Reserved), Textbook Discussion Record (closed)); Chinese Zhuang language has also been closed later due to too few editors and insufficient quality of entries (Dictionary Discussion Record (closed)).
• 2015-02-25調查現行族語有在孵育場上的條目，初步發現十六族的族語，依照維基媒體計畫的孵育標準作業流程，最多可以獨立成十五種的族語百科（太魯閣語以及賽德克語合併為同一個ISO693-3的語言代碼），而在這十五種族語中，葛瑪蘭語、鄒語、賽德客/太魯閣語、以及阿美語已經各有4到102篇不等的條目，有些條目內容簡略，僅是幾個單詞加上圖片，但也有部分條目架構已完整可作為一個小作品的規模。是否既有條目的數量，跟族人的數量有一定的關係呢？目前看來關係不大，總數僅有三萬多人的太魯閣/賽德克族其條目已經有六十多條；另一方面，將近二十萬人的阿美族則只有十四篇族語條目。目前這四族的條目的建立者看來都集中於三個使用者帳戶：Songyanzhi、Cuaxdon以及Anonymous。四族中多數詞條有一、兩年沒有動作了，可能未來再與這些編者聯繫到的機會不高。

Key points

Policy norms must be localized

• More entries

(To be checked) Actively edited for more than 100 people

Dilemma: The reference to oral information challenges Wikipedia's "verifiable" principle

Oral reference project documentary

• In 2011, Prabhala's study of India and South Africa opened oral research Case precedent. This begins to describe the unprocessed phenomenon of Western colonization in the past - many developing or low-developing countries use printed publications to preserve knowledge much less than in developed countries. In the absence of published materials, how Violation of the five principles of Wikipedia? This research lasted for nearly a year. At the end of 2012, the English Wikipedia community did not reach a consensus on the use of oral data, so the current situation of the study was changed.

In 2014, Peter Gallert, a professor at the Namibian Polytechnic University in Africa, hosted the Wikipedia Aboriginal Knowledge Workshop in the pre-conference of the African Regional Wiki Forum, further with Participatory design. In the way of experiment, I opened a namespace in English Wikipedia using "Wikipedia:" to directly establish African oral literature, and through the actual oral literature as evidence, I will discuss with the Wiki community when oral literature can be applied. Wikipedia reference.

Taiwan preservation case

• zermezerman/阿力夫 (2014-02-21). 耆老手稿集成冊 巴宰出潘式語言集. 苗栗三義: 原住民電視台. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spdth6sQxRY. Retrieved 2015-02-28. 

Writing tool

The origin of the pronunciation recording tool IPA:Chuyu Huang (2015-02-27). "記錄聲音的祕密武器－IPA". Retrieved 2015-02-28. 

Discussion Notes

• June 22, 2015: writes to the Language Committee Confirmation of subdomain or interface translation

From the end of March to the beginning of May 2016: Ask the Language Committee What are the criteria for making a small language in an incubation field an active language?

• From mid-September to the end of September 2017: The issue of iso code was found in Sagelay, writing to SIL, and also on the Language Committee Discussion Page how to help continue to promote small languages.