Wikijunior talk:Languages

Constructed and unique languages
I mentioned constructed and unique languages in the introduction, but I think they each warrant sections of their own. Any objections? --Hagindaz 12:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * No problem. I am very impressed with the quality of what is here after day one.  There was some criticism over potential "sock puppet" votes, but in this case I think there was some very genuine support for trying to get this developed. --Rob Horning 13:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Displays of script samples
This is a general question about formatting and what to use for non-Latin characters when preparing this content. If somebody has Unicode-enabled web browsers and a good font, most of these characters can be displayed. The problem is that many people from "western countries" (a very broad over generalization here) may not have this multi-lingual support in their operating system. The question I'm posing here is if we ought to create PNG samples of the text in this situation or simply rely on Unicode placement of the characters and leave it as meaningless gibberish if somebody comes here without the Unicode support?

I don't think making the PNG samples of the text is going to be too difficult of a process, but it is going to be something to think about. If you need a good Unicode font that covers many languages (especially the CJK scripts), you might want to check out the Code 2000 page for a shareware font that only costs $5 try before you pay license. I'm not advocating any product specifically here, but I've dug through the 'net and this is about the only significant Han font that you can use without paying serious $$$ or signing draconian licenses (aka Microsoft) just to be able to download the font, if it is even available. For non-Latin European fonts, Everson Mono is a reasonable alternative but much more limited. For southern Asian fonts (Thai, Burmese, Sanscrit, ect.) you may have to dig around a bit more, and please note anything that you might have found. --Rob Horning 13:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree images would probably be better. For ex Hindi, if you don't use a newer Linux or Windows version and for Windows enable the complex text support, the script will not show up right. So most people coming here will not see it correctly, and that is not the halmark of a good text. Is there a better way to create png's with the script than taking a screenshot? - Taxman 22:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Language coverage
To avoid total European bias, we should probably focus on covering languages with the most number of speakers. Wikipedia's list is a decent place to start. I added Hindi here because it is either #2 or #4 depending on how you count, and I know enough of it to write an entry. The languages with the greatest number of speakers that are now missing are Bengali and Portuguese, though there are a bunch of languages with more speakers than Italian. Any objections to adding those two? Or should we wait on those and some of the languages already on the list with lower numbers of speakers until someone can finish the article? In any case, great progress has been made so far in a couple of days. - Taxman 22:05, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The languages I threw up were just some initial ones that I knew were covered by existing Wikimedia projects, or more importantly, by Wikijunior users and contributors. If you look at the "other langauges" links on the main Wikijunior page, the major Wikijunior sites right now are in Chinese, Japanese, French, German, and Italian.  Indeed the Italian Wikijunior is perhaps the most developed Wikijunior site besides English, although the French Wikijunior really did get started with a huge splash fairly recently.  There is no Hindi Wikijunior that I'm aware of, so I wasn't initially encouraged to add it.


 * Still, adding any other major language that has more than 10 million native speakers should be a general goal of this project. This number is something just off the top of my head, but a reasonable number to offer some sort of limit.  At some point in the future it would be nice to have something on all written languages, but that will number in the hundreds of dialects and dive into politics that I'm not ready for yet on Wikijunior.  Another yardstick that perhaps could be used it to have at least every language that is currently covered by an active Wikipedia.  That is a targetable number and something that perhaps would get some initial input from those Wikimedia users that are working on establishing a Wikipedia in their native language.  --Rob Horning 22:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, that makes sense. Though also the guideline page limit for a Wikijunior book is about 48 pages right? So that places some limit on what we should cover. I've made a few requests for some entries to help round out the coverage. I'm going to be bold and go ahead and add a link for Portuguese as I'm sure we can get someone to add an entry for that. - Taxman 01:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't worry too much about the page limit issue here. That has been debated and discussed so much with absolutely no results that I don't know what is fact or fiction any more.  There was a suggestion from back when Wikijunior was started that perhaps a series of books could be put together with a regular publication schedule where kids could get copies of Wikijunior content on a subscription basis.  With the content being developed by volunteers, I have a very hard time seeing that happening here, as pressure to meet deadlines was totally unrealistic and forced some things to happen that caused a few key contributors to Wikijunior project to "burn out".  If you feel inclined to contribute huge amounts of time and content, please do so.  The 48 pages was based on key size (the printer's term) for a professional printing house, and I have my doubts on that limitation as any reasonable attempt to make a print version of the current Wikijunior books has almost always been at least double that number.  It has also been used as an excuse to cull content on some pages that seemed to get too long for the topic.  If we get this book close to a major proofreading stage, this issue can be debated all over again.  --Rob Horning 09:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Songs and stories in different languages
The only German songs I really know are the ones the Beatles sang in Hamburg. These may be copyrighted (indeed, I am almost certain they are!). Can anyone think of something that might substitute? Does the Crazy Frog song count? --EuropracBHIT 23:54, 2 April 2006 (UTC).
 * Folk songs and childrens songs or stories would probably be the best bet. Those are typically well known and liked and in the public domain if they are old stories. I'm searching for some in Hindi to add. - Taxman 01:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you send me one of the stories Chiamamanda (discuss • contribs) 19:40, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Keeping phrases and references age appropriate
I am really enjoying exploring this book as it develops. I have always been fascinated by language.

Looking through, however, I think there needs to be reminder that this book is geared toward 8-12 year-olds. I found one phrase on the Spanish page, that while I as an adult find it handy (I want a beer), it is not appropriate or useful for 8-12yos. I changed it to milk.

Some of the references to authors are also great for adults, or even teenagers, but will be beyond the scope of the target age group. For example, War and Peace, is obviously an important literary work, but the target age group will not only have no clue what is being referenced, but is likely to be turned off from reading anymore of the wikibook. Expanding their horizons is an awesome endeavor, but it must be balanced with maintaining a good level of interest.

Every culture has their folk and fairy tales. A retelling of one of those stories in English, especially if contains phrases in the language of the culture, would give a much better picture to the readers. I suggest this as a replacement for the author and poet section, or at least as an addition that will make the information more friendly to kids. --Starchildmom 05:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Being overloaded with languages
I worried right now that perhaps we have too much too quickly here. I don't mind if somebody lists another language because they want to write a new section in this book, but listing languages just because they exist somewhere is going to overwhelm this Wikibook.

Still, listing all of the languages here is a sign of how large of a project this really can become. I'm just suggesting that some sort of rationale be used before adding too many new langauges. --Rob Horning 12:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that it is very overloaded now. Maybe restrict it to the 12 most spoken languages, and then have a chapter on "Other languages". The twelve would be (in order, using "mother tongue" as the criterion): Mandarin, English, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Bengali, Malay/Indonesian, French, Japanese and German. Jguk 13:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Even though it is overloaded, I support that. Every language is important, and should be showcased. It is just development, and it is happening in this book, and anything that happens too fast can be "overwhelming". I say we keep all the language for awhile and see how the whole book develops. --German Men92 00:48, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I obviously support Jguk's proposal as per my above post. There is some value in editorial decisions and balancing the book by the number of speakers and not just by every language someone feels like writing up. Moving the language requests out to another section was a good idea too. - Taxman 12:36, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, if someone actually feels like writing a language article, there's no reason not to include it. It's free content and I don't think that a subproject of a minor Wikimedia site will have people lining up to work on it. --Hagindaz 13:55, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * See below for more thoughts. If you really want to work on it, fine.  I'm just suggesting that if you start it, make it more than just a bunch of topic headings in an otherwise blank article.  It doesn't have to be a full-blown write-up, but there should be some "meat" in the section if you are going to justify why it is included.  --Rob Horning 13:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Standards for Constructed Languages
A new page to this book was added at Wikijunior Languages/Galactic Basic. I've marked it as a speedy deletion candidate because I feel it really doesn't belong within this book for a number of reasons. I love the word conlang, as in it implies that these languages are spoken almost exclusively at Science Fiction conventions or Cons as well as being some sort of artificial language.


 * Then they have their pros and cons! :-) Seahen 04:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

If these sort of languages are to be included in this book, I think some hard standards should be enforced before they are added, if they are to be added at all. Certainly some languages like Esperanto and Interlingua (both have Wikipedias that are active) should be strong candidates eventually. Klingon (which also had a Wikipedia until it was unceremoniously killed) might be a borderline case. In the case of Galactic Basic, there isn't even an ISO code. These codes have been added even for conlangs, provided they can show a body of literature and document some substantial number of actual speakers.

There will be other political disputes, such as UK vs. US English, Brazilian vs. European Portuguese, Creole languages, and other similar issues including Chinese dialects that are all largely different languages except they have a similar writing style that has the same meaning in most Chinese languages but huge pronounciation and grammatical differences.

Restricting new pages to some sort of standard will go a long way to maintaining the integrety of this project, and allow this book to be taken seriously by educators. I would propose that at least for now as a minimum that you must demonstrate some sort of ISO code for the language before it can be added, or demonstrate that it has a Wikipedia in that language. Either or both standards have merit. --Rob Horning 15:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. For starters Galactic Basic is nowhere near any reasonable inclusion threshold. But before we include any conlangs after Esperanto we should have all important languages covered such as those with 10 million or so speakers. - Taxman 22:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I bet you could find 10 million or so Klingon speakers if you looked hard enough. A survey at my high school (in Toronto) found that, even excluding the obviously spurious answers, about 3% of Grade 11 and 12 students say they speak Klingon. Seahen 04:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * One of the reasons cited for the closure of the Klingon language Wikipedia was the lack of speakers who use if fluently. I've seen numbers cited as low as about 100 people altogether, and suggestions is may be even lower than that.  I will admit that you might find some people (like myself) that speak a few words of Klingon and have actually read the Klingon dictionary written by Michael Okrand, but that does not imply fluency.  In this case, however, Klingon does have an ISO code and a basis to call it a recognized language.  Galactic Basic did not meet even that most loose of requirements.  This is not to say that unpopular languages (languages spoken only by a few people) can't be included in this guide, but let's be realistic and try to include and complete the entries on languages like Chinese and Hindi first before trying to take on something so esoteric as Klingon.  --Rob Horning 14:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

On that note, why is Quenya included? I reallize LOTR fans really enjoy promoting the language but that doesn't necessarily warrant inclusion. An article on constructed languages in general with a few examples would be much more valuable. Quenya is not even complete from what I've read. Further the article in places fails to distinguish the fact from the fiction. - Taxman 21:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I will note that Quenya has been assigned an international ISO language code, as there is at least a body of independent literature written in this language and from some perspective it is about as popular as Klingon (perhaps with even more fanatical speaker base). While Tolkein didn't "finish" the language, there have been extensions to the language to fill in the gaps to make this body of literature.  There is an everlasting request to create a Quenya Wikipedia, for instance, and a modest amount of support with hard detractors who are against a conlang being created for any edition of Wikipedia.  If I had to draw a line, I would absolutely put it here and no more, where Quenya is the very bare minimum acceptable language.  Certainly more widely spoken languages like Cornish and Truk should be written about first before Quenya is given a priority.  --Rob Horning 17:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts on inclusion of constructed languages (in 2010, long after the preceding comments). Because conlangs are by nature less prominent in general society that natural languages, it seems hard to justify including more than one conlang of a particular type. We should have --Pi zero (talk) 16:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * one IAL &mdash; Esperanto, hands down.
 * one artistic language &mdash; Quenya by a spectacular margin.
 * maybe one fictional language (i.e., created for a story world, rather than having a story world created for it as is the case for Quenya). If we have one of these, Klingon is the choice right now, because it's got a very well established community around it; maybe in five or ten years Na'vi will have a similarly robust community, but it's too early to tell.
 * maybe one engineered language. I'm not sure any of these are prominent enough to justify inclusion; the only two anywhere near are probably Lojban and Toki Pona.  I think Lojban is too abstract in concept for a kids' book, and I have doubts about both the prominence and the, well, gravitas of Toki Pona.  So I'm inclined to omit this type of conlang.

New icon
I've made an SVG version of the Globe of Letters. Although I had originally intended to copy the PNG version, it took off in its own direction. In any case, I think the light green continents are more recognizable, and the coloured letters should better appeal to the target age range. I used the same letters as the old version, I think. (Only the left half of the Chinese letter was visible, and I found dozens with that same left half.) What does everyone think? Seahen 22:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I like it. Much friendlier for children. --hagindaz 22:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm happy it's being used. However, it appears rasterized in the PDF version. Since the new logo is SVG, this is no longer necessary. Could someone put it in the PDF in vector form? 72.56.167.210 12:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Removing Pig Latin article
Even though it is a cute idea, I would object to a section of this book talking about Pig Latin as it would seriously detract from any acceptance of this book in a formal educational environment. We have a good thing here, and destroying the book with something like Pig Latin would wreck the momentum that has started with what we have here.

If things like Pig Latin, Ubby Dubby, or other nonsense psuedo languages are to be talked about, perhaps it should be a seperate section about "fun kids languages" or something that marks a distinction between things like this and serious languages with actual distinct cultures and native speakers that don't speak any other language.

At least it wasn't listed as a "publishable article". --Rob Horning 14:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Some help wanted?
Wikjunior is translated into other languages e.g. German. On occasion of translation Wikijunior is often accomplished. Therefore you might find valuable informations, e.g. more about Hebrew such as famous writers in  Hebrew or  Sanskrit and so on. Have a look even if you don't speak German: German Wikijunior/Languages. Hjnie 14:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Could Polish be added to the Publishable section?
The text is fairly well-developed, and I have done some work to flesh out the article further. Could we now consider moving the article into the "Publishable articles" section? --Brisvegas 09:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Order of topics
I believe that the final order of languages, as seen in the full versions, should be something other than alphabetical. Perhaps it could be ordered by number of native speakers or geographical region, but alphabetical order seems silly for a book that doesn't need to be restricted like a dictionary or an encyclopedia. This doesn't apply to the template with links, on which ABC order may actually be useful. MiltonT 02:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know... Alphabetical order is always the most neutral one. If we sorted languages geographically, some people would probably argue whether should Asia or Europe or America come first, etc. And if we sort them by number of native speakers, more endless debates might occur: why should English come before Greek just because there are more people who speak it - Greek is older than English; why should Japanese come before Russian - there are more people who study Russian, and Russia is a bigger country; and so on... --George D. Bozovic talk 20:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Goidelic Languages
Before my edit, Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, and Welsh were listed. For clarity and accuracy, I removed "Gaelic", changed "Irish Gaelic" to simply "Irish", added "Scottish Gaelic", and left "Welsh" as is. Just letting everybody know. --Limetom 03:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Other languages
In a previous comment (on pig latin) a "fun kids languages" section was suggested. Would any one object to me creating an article with suggestions on existing cryptolects and conlangs and very basic ideas on how to create your own. Lots of kids first develop a love of language by these kinds of language games. I remember making up my own alphabets and all manner of other play. Playing with language is one of the best ways to understand language. Also anyone got suggestions for a better name for the section? The bellman 04:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Make sure this stays as a "supplimental section" or an appendix to this book, but yeah, I think it is a good idea. Often professional vocabulary seems to drift into this area, where for example computer professionals will be using exacting terminology to such a degree that non-professionals have no idea what they are talking about when listening to a conversation between geeks.  Lawyers have this problem as well, which is one reason why you should (usually) not represent yourself in court as you would likely miss stuff where opposing counsel talks to the judge and completely smokes you out of the arguments with more exacting terminology.
 * As far as orienting this more for kids, making up a new language is certainly something very fun to do. Even alphabets similar to Latin like Runic are fun to modify slightly and add new symbols, or to try and use Hieroglyphics but with English words (BTW, there is even a hieroglyphic word generator tool on Wikibooks that could come in handy here).  The main thing here is to keep it fun and challenging for a kid, but not get into the gory details that only a PhD in Linguistics would enjoy.  --Rob Horning 17:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool. i'll give it a go in a week or so when my exams end The bellman 08:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Updating of language progress
I've been recently reviewing the different languages listed as "developing articles" under 25% seem inaccurately marked. Particularly the Dutch, Japanese and even Irish to some extent. Anyway, please review and let me know what you think of them. -Simtropolitan 6:44 (UTC)


 * It seems reasonable to me that if you see a problem with the development status for you to go ahead and adjust it yourself. We're all in this together. Rmawhorter (talk) 05:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Irish image problem
I want to put on the Irish languages page, but its size should be decreased and so on. Should I, and if so, how do I? (sorry it got so big) Laleena (talk) 21:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * What you need to do is save the image to your computer if it's not already, open it in a good image editing program, choose the scale image option and make it the size that you're interested in and then upload the image. If you don't know how to upload the image you might need to ask over in the tech support room. An image size an be changed in the image tag itself but it's better to upload a small image so that it will load faster for the viewer and take up less space on the server.Rmawhorter (talk) 05:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Which languages should we cover before publishing?
My idea is that we try to cover the top 15, 20 or 25 most spoken languages by ethnic speakers and by total number of speakers. If we're going to aim for this then we need to pick a source for our list. Any extras languages can be a bonus. It might be good to see that we have a native language from each continent as well.Rmawhorter (talk) 05:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Moved Esperanto to "publishable" section
In the past week or two some volunteers and me have worked to vastly improve the Esperanto page. It is still being improved even now, but I think it warrants "publishable" status - all we are doing now is improving it, not actually creating it anymore. I have moved it over there just now (and updated its % complete status). --Indiana (talk) 04:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Standard list of basic words to learn?
In the section "What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?", how about some book-wide standards about what words should be in that list? Both for the sake of consistency, and for the sake of utility. I'll offer some suggestions to show you what I mean.


 * Basic greetings
 * "Hello", "goodbye", "good morning", "good night" and then one or two greetings that reflect the character and culture of the language (like common slang greetings like 「じゃね」 in Japanese).


 * Simple words
 * "Yes", "no", and then a couple words that reflect the character and culture of the language (here's where you could put stuff like "elda" in Quenya).


 * Courtesies
 * "Please", "thank you", "you're welcome", "I'm sorry", "excuse me", and then a couple that reflect the character and culture of the language (like "sláinte" in Irish).


 * Numbers
 * 1-15 (explained below), then maybe a couple others like 0, 100, 1,000 or 1,000,000.


 * Phrases you can try
 * "How are you?", "I am fine/bad.", "What's your name?", "My name is ...", "How old are you?", "I'm ... years old.", "Do you speak ... language/English?", "No, I don't speak ... langauge", "Yes, I speak English", and then a couple that reflect the character and culture of the language (maybe a proverb like "ce qui est fait n'est plus à faire" in French).

My thinking is that with this list, a teacher (or the students, themselves) can have the class try out a basic conversation: "Hello", "How are you", "Fine, thank you", "What is your name", "My name is ...", "How old are you?", "I am ... years old (this is why they need up to 12 at least, 15 to be safe)", "Do you speak ...?", "No I don't speak ...", "Do you speak English?", "Yes, I speak English". Obviously it probably won't be technically perfect for all languages (especially languages where inflections are different based on gender, or where "years" pluralizes different for 10, 11 and 12, etc.), but it would be fun to at least try to speak the language, even if in pidgin form.

So how about selecting a decent sample conversation, then selecting book-wide standards for the basic words to allow the readers to test drive the language? --Indiana (talk) 21:26, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Cognates: words that are very similar between your language and the language you want to learn
I'd like to add a chapter on "cognates". Herewith an assist. Enjoy, --SvenAERTS (discuss • contribs) 21:36, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Quick-wins: do you know what cognates are?
Cognates are words that are very similar in different languages, for example your language and the language you would like to learn. Wouldn't it be great if you could help making a card system where you put on one side the word or simple phrase in your language and on the other side the words in the language you want to learn and that are very similar? That way you would make very quickly progress from the start. That sounds encouraging, doesn't it? Example. Imagine your friend speaks french and wants to learn english. The word for "a language" in french is "une langue". Another one: "the temperature", in french is "la temperature". Pretty similar aren't they? If you are a witted kind of person, you can help building such a list of cognates in Project Cognates, or you can have a look if such a list already exist for your language and the language you want to learn.

Length of entries
I think it is difficult to get the balance right between an article that doesn't explain enough and an article that is so long it might put some young people off reading it. I suggest that, within each featured language, some sections should be moved to another page which the young person could then access with a click. One possibility would be to move in this way the sections on famous people who speak the language and on basic words in the language. That way, the young person wouldn't look at the length of a lengthy article and be put off.

On the first of the pages, in place of the moved sections, there could be a picture of somewhere in the relevant country to heighten the young person's interest. On the second page there could be pictures of the famous people. Judith M (discuss • contribs) 19:49, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

On giving this more thought, I can suggest an alternative way of preventing children being put off by lenghty articles. For important languages (such as Latin which has had so much influence) there could be a short version, that didn't go into depth, and a long version, with links from one to the other. Judith M (discuss • contribs) 11:45, 2 August 2017 (UTC)