Tell us about Interlingua Wikipedia

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Interlingua Wikipedia

• Interlingua – ia

Questionaire

Contributors

• Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interpret. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?

About ten editors are 'regulars' who add something new or make a notable improvement at least once a week. Another ten make notable additions, but only at a monthly rate. Another ten or so make improvements less frequently, and the remainder either simply revert vandalism or update factual statements.

• Are your contributors mostly native speakers?

Since Interlingua is an international auxiliary language, the answer to that is no.

• Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?

Mostly in North and South America and Europe, the occasional Indonesian notwithstanding.

• How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?

Maybe once or twice for dinner, not often.

Other Wikipedias

• Do you have special contacts with another Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?

Not that I'm aware of. Other Wikipedias do serve as source material for terminology that is not yet well established in Interlingua, though (see below).

• Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?

Personally I translate a lot from the English and Dutch wikipedias. I also write my own content from scratch, however.

This author (Almafeta) translates from English, Spanish, French, and has just begun translating from Japanese.

Organization and support

• Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?

Not applicable since Interlingua is an IAL.

• Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?

Not formally. Wikipedia is occasionally discussed on Interlingua mailing lists.

Your Wikipedia and the linguistic community

• Is there a language institution for your language, like an Academy, or a club of people interested in your language? Do you have contact with them?

That question has a complex answer. There is no Academy in the sense of an organization that has authority over the language, formal or otherwise. Interlingua is defined instead by a specific method of deriving prototypical forms of words common to most European languages, from a set of natural languages (mostly English and romanic) that are seen to contain international word stock representative to that in the rest of the European languages as well. But this method does not clinch the language to its source languages completely. Where there are several international alternatives for the same word, or in the few cases (mostly grammatical words) where the method simply doesn't yield anything sufficiently international, the language has been evolving since 1951 like any other natural language. So, in summary, instead of an Academy, we have a method of derivation supplemented by natural evolution directed by the community of speakers.

There are organizations of people interested in the language. Many countries have national Interlingua societies under the umbrella the Union Mundial pro Interlingua. The UMI organizes an international conference every two years, and the Swedish interlingua society organizes conferences in the year between those.

UMI is generally considered to be the ruling institute of Interlingua. (Almafeta)

• Who (else) supports you?

No one in particular supports Wikipedia in Interlingua except its contributors.

• How looks your public outreach for your edition? Do you have flyers, give lectures, trainings etc.?

There is promotion in such form for Interlingua, but outside of mentions in conventions, not specifically for Wikipedia in Interlingua.

• Do you get feedback from readers?

Rarely.

• What other encyclopedias exist in your language?

Ric Berger published two sizable works, "Encyclopedia de Interlingua" which is in, but not (much) about, Interlingua, and "Collection pro Interlingua" each part of which treats a different aspect of Interlingua itself. They are old, but still available.

Content

• Does your edition concentrates on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?

Early editors had a very strong focus on Christianity and constructed languages. We're now working our way through ia:Wikipedia:Articulos que omne Wikipedia deberea haber to get all the 'basics' in place and have a more well-rounded list of topics.

• Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?

No.

Language

• Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronunciation)?

Yes; the standard is set by the work of the IALA as updated by the UMI.

• How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?

The grammar of Interlingua lists various optional rules for specific situations: phonetic spelling, euphony, abbreviations, et multiple cetera. Ia.wiki generally takes "optional" as the key rule, and sticks as close to dictionary forms as possible.