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Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Hassaniya

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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 and will verify the test project content with a reliable neutral source, such as a professor or expert.

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.

  • 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 mey (SIL, Glottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name Hassaniya Language name in English
Language name الحسانية 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 Q56231 - 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 RTL 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 mey.wikipedia.org langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name ويكيبيديا "Wikipedia" in your language
Project namespace usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace "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 This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone Africa/Nouakchott, Africa/El Aaiun "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
Once settings are finalized, a committee member will submit a Phabricator task requesting creation of the wiki. (This will include everything automatically, except the additional namespaces/settings.) After the task is created, it should be linked to in a comment under "final decision" above.

Proposal

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Hassaniya is a variant of Arabic spoken by around five million people in Mauritania, Western Sahara, northern Mali/Azawad, southern Morocco, eastern Algeria and communities in Senegal, Spain (Canary Islands and Basque Country) and abroad. Egyptian, Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian variants are already recognised by Wikimedia and even have their own Wikis, so I'd like to do the same for Hassaniya since I consider it has value on its own (Hassaniya has a distinct oral literature and history independent from Modern Standard Arabic and I'd like to create a Wikipedia/Wikisource/Wiktionary in Hassaniya to promote and encourage the written digital preservation of our heritage through a respected source).

As per the concerns Arab nationalists have, I haven't seen much editing on Mauritanian or Sahrawi related articles that don't end up in stubs or intense political arguments. I think that creating a Hassaniya one will encourage us to write down our history and literature, as several initiatives to promote and preserve our culture exist on Facebook. Moreover, the language is distinct enough from Modern Standard Arabic even if still mutually intelligible at a basic level, it gets more separate thanks to a strong Zenaga and Wolof influence. There are grammar books and dictionaries produced by both Mauritanian/Sahrawi and foreign linguists.

In conclusion, this Wikipedia would protect a special dialect with a rich oral tradition that's even UNESCO-recognised, especially when the language is at risk in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara due to settler colonialism. Having the history, language and culture of our land in an easily accessible website such as Wikipedia, apart from promoting talking about more "serious" or academic content in Hassaniya, will allow the Hassaniya diaspora to be able to reconnect with their language, culture and roots while allowing uneducated people who tend to have a smaller understanding of Hassaniya to find information in their language (with the possibility of adding audio readings of the articles for further accessibility). It will take time to build it to be reliable but I believe in my community's ability to at least create articles from the list of articles every Wikipedia should have together with more Hassaniya-focused ones. --Tidjani Saleh (talk) 14:44, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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