Multilingualism

Meta-Wiki is supposed to be multilingual. As of February 2023 it is approximately 58% English. Wikimedia, if it is to maintain a coherent image and policy-set across the world, and to benefit from the input of its many members (It is already the case that the majority of WM users do not natively speak/read english!), needs to ramp up its multilingual efforts.

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Help Meta become more multilingual! Add content in your native language.

Multilingual information

Though a certain page tends to be monolingual, we can provide information to speakers of other languages, too. sic

Sidebar

You can add a sidebar of page summary, it describes the purpose of page, like this page. Please translate the text in the sidebar into the languages you know, and add links below into pages on multilingualism on the WPs you frequent. Encourage colleagues who don't write in English to contribute their thoughts/ideas on this page and its Talk: page in their own language.

We think important documents are better to have such summary sidebar multingual.

Abstract

You can add an abstract of page with {{Abstract}}. Abstract is useful when the page treats a complicated issue and you want to give more information than one line description.

Translators

If you are proficient in more than one language, add yourself to the list of translators (and see also There is also an English Wikipedia available). You may also be interested in the discussion of the translation process.

Managing your language project

• General requests: see Wikitech-l, and #mediawiki.

Inviting language diversity

Send out notes to all the language-groups you know! Get them to support their favorite languages by expanding the CC-BY-SA corpus of their written forms.

• A lang-invite form letter (thanks, Node!)
• Wikipedia languages
• "There's an interview with Alan Cox where he talks about learning Welsh where he has a great quote about how if a language isn't on computers in fifty years, it won't exist" (Alan Cox was/is a sporadic WP contributor) – David Gerard
• The Rosetta Project “is now the largest collection of linguistic data on the Net” according to LongNow Projects

Articles, resources, etc. on indigenous langs

1. Languagegeek site dedicated to the promotion of indigenous languages

Testing resources, etc. on indigenous langs

1. Indigenous Language.org, jar

Internal Links

• Language skill templates (Babel templates): you can indicate your linguistic skills on your user page.
• Meta:Babylon
• Summary of the various-language Wikipedias: Wikimedia projects, Complete list
• Local Embassies for helping visitors get used to your local WP
• Multilingual style: Thoughts on Multilingualism (essay by Jmabel (ca. 12/2003) on naming objects, pages, people originally from other langs).
• Meta:Internationalization guidelines
• Translation: ...into English – project to translate non-English articles on the English Wikipedia (also ...into German, ...into French, …intro Japanese, ...into Romanian, and ...into Chinese),.
  • Tools: Lang recognition chart for identifying unfamiliar charactersets.