Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Juǀ'hoan

submitted verification final decision

Discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Votes will be ignored when judging the proposal. Please provide arguments or reasons and be prepared to defend them (see the Language proposal policy).

The language committee needs to verify the language is eligible to be approved.

  • Check that the project does not already exist (see list).
  • Obtain an ISO 639 code
  • Ensure the requested language is sufficiently unique that it could not exist on a more general wiki.
  • Ensure that there are a sufficient number of native editors of that language to merit an edition in that language.

    This proposal is on hold:

    Let's see if any speakers show up. For LangCom: StevenJ81 (talk) 15:46, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The community needs to develop an active test project; it must remain active until approval (automated statistics, recent changes). It is generally considered active if the analysis lists at least three active, not-grayed-out editors listed in the sections for the previous few months.
  • The community needs to complete required MediaWiki interface translations in that language (about localization, translatewiki, check completion).
  • The community needs to discuss and complete the settings table below:
What Value Example / Explanation
Proposal
Language code ktz (SILGlottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name Juǀ'hoan Language name in English
Language name Zhuǀʼhõa 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 Q1192295 - item has currently the following values: 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.

Settings
Project name Kòkxúísìǂxanùà ǃ’hàn "Wikipedia" in your language
Project namespace Kòkxúísìǂxanùà ǃ’hàn usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace Kòkxúísìǂxanùà ǃ’hàn nǁá "Wikipedia 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:Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone Botswana/Namibia (UTC+2) "Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings Anything else that should be set
submit Phabricator task. It will include everything automatically, except additional namespaces/settings. After creating the task, add a link to the comment.

Proposal edit

Juǀ'hoan is arguably one of the most phonetically unique languages on earth, and a testament to the sheer myriad of ways in which humans can communicate with each other. Even though Juǀ'hoan only has 4,000 speakers left, there is no reason why the Juǀ'hoansi should not have access to the information which speakers of Inuit, Nahuatl, and Yucatec have access to. And this language should become known to more people, so that it may leave a legacy before it dies, which is its inevitable fate. I have learned it myself and am now ready to translate pages. --Yesükhei Baatar (talk) 04:37, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion edit

  • Oppose This is not how it works. A request for a new language version must come from its speakers. If some Ju/'hoan people want a Wikipedia in their language, they are more than welcome to submit a request and begin a test Wikipedia. But if someone from a totally different part of the world comes up, saying "I love this language, please create a Wikipedia in it", that's not a valid reason to create yet another Wikipedia.
There are several Wikipedias in African languages with millions rather than thousands of speakers and many of them are not exactly thriving. The Afrikaans Wikipedia has almost 70,000 articles, Swahili has now about 48,000, Yoruba has almost 32,000, mostly very short bot articles. Then comes Northern Sotho with 8,000 articles, then Shona with 4,000, then Hausa with 3,000, then Kinyarwanda with only 1,800. Several others have far fewer pages: Zulu has only just crossed the 1,000 articles mark, Xhosa lags behind at 750. (It must be said, by the way, that Wikipedias in African languages are already doing much better than ten years ago, something we may ascribe to the explosive growth of internet access in Africa.)
And these are still the languages with well-developed scriptural traditions. Many of their speakers learn to write these languages at school. Also, many of them live fairly prosperous lives and have access to the internet. Speakers of Khoisan languages usually have rural lifestyles, have no access to computers and... don't learn to write their languages at school. As User:Pgallert, a German expat in Namibia, remarked about Nama: "[Poverty is] not even the main problem yet because Nama is mainly a spoken language. Few the native speakers can read this language, even fewer can write. I'm currently trying to find a student who can read the sample text on en:Khoekhoe language, and I'm struggling." If no native writers can be found for Nama, which has 200,000 speakers, how should they ever be found for Ju/'hoan, which has only 4,000 speakers, often with more or less traditional lifestyles? Steinbach (formerly Caesarion) 14:31, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I'm now 20 years in Namibia, 10 years longer than when I made the remark that Steinbach quoted. I still haven't found anyone reading and writing en:Khoekhoegowab and eager to edit Wikipedia. For a Ju|'Hoansi Wikipedia we will need at least a small community of native speakers. Makuta Makaveli, if you can find a group of interested people that can read and write then I can go to wherever they are and conduct a training unit, and provide whatever support is needed. This specifically includes the creation of a ktz incubator playground, if that's the correct language code. If --- and that's a big if, unfortunately --- editing happens in that language, then we can have a Wikipedia in that language. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 21:03, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]