Requests for new languages/Wikibooks Nias

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Request for a new language edition: Wikibooks Nias

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submitted

verification

final decision

This language has been verified as eligible. The language is eligible for a project, which means that the subdomain can be created once there is an active community and a localized interface, as described in the language proposal policy. You can discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Once the criteria are met, the language committee can proceed with the approval. If you think the criteria are met, but the project is still waiting for approval, feel free to notify the committee and ask them to consider its approval. A committee member provided the following comment: Clearly an eligible language. --MF-W 12:27, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

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

What	Value	Example / Explanation

Proposal
Language code	nia (SIL, Glottolog)	A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name	Nias	Language name in English
Language name	Li Niha	Language name in your language. This will appear in the language list on Special:Preferences, in the interwiki sidebar on other wikis, ...
Language Wikidata item	Q2407831 - item has currently the following values: English label: Nias native label (P1705): Li Niha instance of (P31)/subclass of (P279): language, modern language / Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands Wikimedia language code (P424): nia writing system (P282): Latin script number of speakers, writers, or signers (P1098): 825,768	Item about the language at Wikidata. It would normally include the Wikimedia language code, name of the language, etc. Please complete at Wikidata if needed.
Directionality	LTR	Is the language written from left to right (LTR) or from right to left (RTL)?
Links		Links to previous requests, or references to external websites or documents.
Site URL	nia.wikibooks.org	langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name	Wikibuku	"Wikibooks" in your language
Project namespace	Wikibuku	usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace	Huhuo Wikibuku	"Wikibooks talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads	no	Default is "no". Preferably, files should be uploaded to Commons. If you want, you can enable local file uploading, either by any user ("yes") or by administrators only ("admin"). Notes: (1) This setting can be changed afterwards. The setting can only be "yes" or "admin" at approval if the test creates an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) first. (2) Files on Commons can be used on all Wikis. (3) Uploading fair-use images is not allowed on Commons (more info). (4) Localisation to your language may be insufficient on Commons.
Optional settings
Project logo	File:Wikibooks-logo-nia.svg	This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone	Asia/Jakarta	"Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces	Portal = "Portal", Portal_talk = "Huhuo Portal", Wikijunior = "Wikiyunior", Wikijunior_talk = "Huhuo Wikiyunior"	For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings		Anything else that should be set
submit Phabricator task. It will include everything automatically, except additional namespaces/settings. After creating the task, add a link to the comment.

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Proposal

The background

The Nias language is an Austronesian language spoken on the Nias island and some adjacent islands off the west coast of Sumatra. The native speakers call it Li Niha and in Indonesian, it is called bahasa Nias.

According to the latest data (2019), Nias had a population of 825.768 which is the number of people who speak Nias natively. However, since many Nias people live outside the Nias island, mainly in Sumatra, especially in high numbers in the hinterlands of Sibolga and Padang, the number of people who speak Nias must be higher.

There are three major speech varieties of Nias (some say there are five), which some call dialects, i.e. northern, central and southern varieties. Historically only the northern variety found its way to printed media, when Christian missionaries printed the Bible in the Nias language more than a hundred years ago. Lacking access to other parts of the island at that time, missionaries set up their office in Gunungsitoli, the main town on the island and started publishing in that speech variety. This speech variety written in the Roman alphabet has become the commonly accepted written form of Nias, although since 2020 churches in the Nias island have been working on different editions of the Bible accommodating other speech varieties.

The rationale

It is a common perception among many enthusiasts that Nias as a language is at risk of being endangered in the digital age. The scholar who wrote the grammar of the southern variety, Lea Brown, sounded such warning already twenty years ago. Unfortunately, despite all the warnings and concerns expressed by many others, there has not been any official institution (government or public) that shows interest for the development of the Nias language.

Wikibooks Li Niha started in 2021 months after Wikipedia and Wiktionary Li Niha had been approved. As Nias doesn't have written literature, the only way to preserve the local knowledge and local wisdom is to start with Wikibooks. The Nias Wiki community can put in writing the oral tradition about culture, religion, history, society, governance, etc. which do not fit in Wikipedia.

As with Wikipedia and Wiktionary, young Nias people, who are more tech-savvy, haven't joined the project, because of the language barrier. The younger generation simply doesn't master the language anymore.

Therefore the effort to revitalise Nias language must start with infrastructure, i.e. providing dictionary (Wiktionary) and reading materials (Wikibooks), which, when developed enough (in its quantity and quality), can be the gate for young people to explore Nias language through stories, books, dictionary (Wiktionary) and encyclopedia (Wikipedia).

In this situation Wikibooks play a more important role in Nias language than other languages. Wikibooks becomes the first gate for young generation to read stories, to enhance their vocabulary, to learn how to use sentences in context (not only words like in the Wiktionary), etc., before they embark on journey to enhance their knowledge on Wikipedia.

The proposal

These projects would bring the knowledge into Nias language (Wikipedia Nias), revive the language in the digital age by creating new words or by reviving old words with new concepts (Wiktionary) to make it easier to converse in the Nias language digitally, and preserve the local knowledge and wisdom in the digital age (Wikibooks).

With that in mind, almost all of community members are from older generation, who are not IT-savvy enough. They don't have any computer and even struggle to use their smartphones to its full potential. Therefore they cannot directly contribute to wikis. They join the discussion on the telegram group Wiki Nias.

Even those who are active on Wikipedia and Wiktionary still find it hard to navigate around in an incubator project, with its prefixes etc. Therefore they prefer writing things on Wikipedia, when sometimes those things are more better placed on Wikibooks.

In the latest community meeting (January 2022), the members expressed the wish to advance this project, while at the same time acknowledge the skill limitation of contributing to the project.

Thefore we appeal to the Board of Trustees and language committee to approve our proposal for easier access and easier contribution and for preserving and revitalising the Nias language through stories and books.

Note about namespace (Special, Wikibooks)

Namespace Special

Unfortunately in the approval process of Wikipedia/Wiktionary the namespace Special was translated into Si tohude, which doesn't reflect the correct meaning. Since there is no better term in Nias language, we would prefer to translate it into Spesial like the Indonesian Wiki. Therefore Special pages: Nga'örö spesial. The rest of the namespaces as they are.

Namespace Wikibooks

Is it possible to use Wikibuku instead of Wikibooks as the name of the project namespace? If this were possible, it would reduce the confusion, as we have been using the term Wikibuku.

Note about the site URL

We would like to have the site URL in Indonesian to make it easier for Nias tounge to pronounce and to understand. Therefore we suggest the site URL: nia.wikibuku.org.

Discussion

In an effort to preserve the Nias language, Wikibooks are simply necessary. Nias culture was and has been oral culture. The only way to preserve it, community members start writing down what they know and still remember, before eveything is lost and forgotten. Wikipedia and Wiktionary alone would be incomplete. Slaia (talk) 11:21, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

mau bertanya kepada @Slaia: pembukaan wikibuku yang baru ini untuk inkubatornya saja atau langsung ke wikibukunya sekalian? 01:23, 11 June 2022 (UTC) عزمي١٩٩۵

Trims ١٩٩۵. Wikibuku Nias telah setahun berada di inkubator dan lebih 100 tulisan. Proposal ini untuk memohon supaya keluar dari inkubator dan menjadi resmi. Terima kasih atas dukungan. Slaia (talk) 06:57, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I applaud and support the community and the proposer's request, as I know personally that he's a very active advocate of his language and actively urging others to contribute. Wish you the best for your endeavor, and if you have any technical request (template, category, etc.) let me know how I could help the project. Semangat! ✒ Bennylin 15:44, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Sip! Semoga sukses! عزمي١٩٩۵ 06:59, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

•  Strong support The nominator provided a very compelling reason to make this, and it sounds sustainable. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

About the logo

I understand that since the project name in Nias would be Wikibuku, like in Indonesian Wikibooks, the logo for Nias Wikibooks could derive from Indonesian Wikibooks logo. However, the Indonesian logo have the subtitle "Buku bebas", what's the equivalent in Nias? Then we can make a truly Nias Wikibooks logo. ✒ Bennylin 16:37, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for reminding us of the logo. The equivalent of Buku bebas is Buku zato, as we have used on Wikipedia (ensiklopedia zato) and Wiktionary (Kamus zato) too. Slaia (talk) 19:46, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Apparently you've made File:Wikibooks-logo-nia.svg, so I took the liberty to change the logo filename in the setting request. ✒ Bennylin 04:13, 1 June 2023 (UTC)