Wiki Translation can be a good way to help develop the project across the world. The wiki holds a lot of important help content and documentation. We'd like to make at least some of this available in other languages. Note that Translation efforts in other areas of the project are equally important if not more so.
Contingut
Community Cohesion
Unlike wikipedia, we are not aiming to capture vast amounts of knowledge in the wiki. Wikipedia decided that the best way to build their encyclopaedia was to split the communities up by language, and run them as almost entirely separate projects. The situation here is entirely different. The wiki is not the project. Translating wiki pages should be an exercise in improving community cohesion, helping everyone to understand each other, and ultimately helping to build the maps!
With this in mind we haven't deployed exactly the same Wiki technology to support translations. We want the small fledging groups of people who do not speak English to feel welcome, and to have all the information they need, but we also want the community as a whole to stay together and stay focussed.
Wiki Translation Progress
Wiki translation is taking place on a somewhat ad-hoc basis, and you are encouraged to join in, but we also need to try and get more organised about this.
Translation efforts are still in very early stages in many languages. There are some wiki pages which are more important than others. Especial:PopularPages gives a good indication.
Wiki Translations HOWTO
Find the English version of a page in the main namespace.
(If there is no english version, you create one by following the HOWTO).
If the languages tool bar is not displayed at the top (as you see on this page for example) then edit the page, and add the following wiki text:
{{Languages|Page_name}}
While you're editing, copy the wiki text of the entire page to your clipboard. ...now 'Save'
Where it says 'missing languages', click 'show' and follow a red link to begin creating the new wiki page. Paste in the text and start rewriting it in english. New new page title should have a language prefix.
See also Wiki Help.
Note: before saving the new page, your language is shown as a missing language in the preview. However, after you have saved it, your language is still shown in the missing language box with black colour and bold type. This strange thing is caused by a template cache. Purge cache to rescan the available languages. Your language will be shown as available.
The Instructions for the Languages Template
This is a template that lists all languages available. It is based on parser functions from mediawiki and the ISO 639-1 language code.
Brief Instruction
- All page names are in English.
Every translated page needs a page name with a language code as a prefix, followed by a colon and the english page name.
If the "plain" english page name content is written in English, the english page name does not have a prefix in the file name. If the "plain" english page name content is written in some other language (ie WikiProject France), the english translated page does need a prefix of "en" (ie En:WikiProject France).
Example:Page_name - fr:Page-name - de:Page_name - the following has to be included in each page: {{Languages|Page_name}}
If you click on "missing languages", and then you click on a red link, it automatically opens a new page with the right suffix and the right page name. Copy the original text to this page and translate it. In the first line you put {{Languages|Page_name}}
Example for actually implemented namespaces and languages (2009-6):
Page_name DE:Page_name EN:Page_name ES:Page_name FR:Page_name IT:Page_name NL:Page_name
This automatically generates a language menu consisting of links to the original page (in English) and all translated pages. The links are written in the respective language: Deutsch, English, Français, etc.
Pages with Title in Foreign Language
Pages with names in a national language or other names can create the automatic menu by redirect:
in XX:Page_name:
#REDIRECT [[Page_name]]
in XX:translated title of "Page_name") the English title has to be added as parameter in the template:
{{Languages|Page_name}}
Interface Selection
If you want to change the design of the bar, translate messages or change where the help bottom links to, you can do it by adding the 2nd parameter of your design template.
{{Languages|Key:highway|Fi:Languages/Interface}}
Copy the Plantilla:Languages/Interface as your first template.
Note: Technically, you can make a interface with the translated language as above, it is not recommended to use. Because this template is set for other language users to go back to their language versions, the translated messages can not be read for them. See also this discussion page.
Language Prefixes and Namespaces
Many languages are supported merely as a wiki page naming convention, while some of the more widely used ones are set up as proper namespaces within the wiki software, allowing features like tickboxes on the advanced search. Pages can be listed by prefix (for any language) using Especial:PrefixIndex
| OSM | WP | ISO 639-1 | name (in native) | name (in English) | wiki namespace |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| am | am | am | አማርኛ | Amharic | Plantilla:No |
| ar | ar | ar | العربية | Arabic | Plantilla:No |
| bg | bg | bg | български | Bulgarian | Plantilla:No |
| br | br | br | brezhoneg | Breton | Plantilla:No |
| bs | bs | bs | bosanski | Bosnian | Plantilla:No |
| ca | ca | ca | valencià | Catalan (Valencian) | Plantilla:No |
| co | co | co | corsu | Corsican | Plantilla:No |
| cz | cz | cs | čeština | Czech | Plantilla:No |
| da | da | da | dansk | Danish | Plantilla:No |
| de | de | de | Deutsch | German | Plantilla:Yes |
| el | el | el | Ελληνικά | Greek | Plantilla:No |
| en | en | en | English | English | Plantilla:No |
| eo | eo | eo | Esperanto | Esperanto | Plantilla:No |
| es | es | es | castellano | Spanish | Plantilla:Yes |
| et | et | et | eesti | Estonian | Plantilla:No |
| eu | eu | eu | euskara | Basque | Plantilla:No |
| fi | fi | fi | suomi | Finnish | Plantilla:No |
| fr | fr | fr | français | French | Plantilla:Yes |
| fy | fy | fy | Frysk | Western Frisian | Plantilla:No |
| gcf | NONE | NONE | créoles guadeloupéen | Guadeloupean Creole French | Plantilla:No |
| he | he | he | עברית | Hebrew | Plantilla:No |
| hr | hr | hr | hrvatski | Croatian | Plantilla:No |
| hu | hu | hu | magyar | Hungarian | Plantilla:No |
| is | is | is | íslenska | Icelandic | Plantilla:No |
| it | it | it | italiano | Italian | Plantilla:Yes |
| ja | ja | ja | 日本語 | Japanese | Plantilla:Yes |
| ko | ko | ko | 한국어 | Korean | Plantilla:No |
| lb | lb | lb | Lëtzebuergesch | Luxembourgish | Plantilla:No |
| lt | lt | lt | lietuvių | Lithuanian | Plantilla:No |
| lv | lv | lv | latviešu | Latvian | Plantilla:No |
| mk | mk | mk | македонски | Macedonian | Plantilla:No |
| nl | nl | nl | Nederlands | Dutch/Flemish | Plantilla:Yes |
| nn | nn | nn | norsk nynorsk | Norwegian (Nynorsk) | Plantilla:No |
| no | no | no | norsk | Norwegian | Plantilla:No |
| pl | pl | pl | polski | Polish | Plantilla:No |
| pt | pt | pt | português | Portuguese | Plantilla:No |
| pt-br | NONE | NONE | português do Brasil | Brazilian Portuguese | Plantilla:No |
| ro | ro | ro | română | Romanian | Plantilla:No |
| ro-md | mo | mo (deprecated) | молдовеняскэ | Moldavian (Romanian) | Plantilla:No |
| ru | ru | ru | русский | Russian | Plantilla:Yes |
| sk | sk | sk | slovenčina | Slovak | Plantilla:No |
| sl | sl | sl | slovenščina | Slovenian | Plantilla:No |
| sq | sq | sq | shqip | Albanian | Plantilla:No |
| sv | sv | sv | svenska | Swedish | Plantilla:No |
| tr | tr | tr | Türkçe | Turkish | Plantilla:No |
| uk | uk | uk | українська | Ukrainian | Plantilla:No |
| vi | vi | vi | Tiếng Việt | Vietnamese | Plantilla:No |
| zh-hans | NONE -> zh | NONE (zh-Hans - ISO 15924 Hans) | 中文（简体） | Simplified Chinese | Plantilla:No |
| zh-hant | NONE -> zh | NONE (zh-Hant - ISO 15924 Hant) | 中文（繁體） | Traditional Chinese | Plantilla:No |
| zh-tw | NONE -> zh | NONE (zh-min-nan-TW - RFC 3066) | 中文（台灣） | Taiwanese Chinese | Plantilla:No |
See Chinese Wikipedia for informations about Chinese languages on WP!
Since Moldavian ro-md/mo is not needed and should be removed! See Closure of Moldovan Wikipedia!