Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Kituba

Kituba Wikipedia

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Requests for new languages (Wikipedia Kituba)

submitted

verification

final decision

This proposal has been closed as part of a reform of the request process. This request has not necessarily been rejected, and new requests are welcome. This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy. The closing committee member provided the following comment: This discussion was created before the implementation of the Language proposal policy, and it is incompatible with the policy. Please open a new proposal in the format this page has been converted to (see the instructions). Do not copy discussion wholesale, although you are free to link to it or summarise it (feel free to copy your own comments over). —{admin} Pathoschild 06:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal summary
Language details: Kituba (ktu ISO 639-3) Editing community: Rasulo (P) List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your name if you are a native speaker of this language. Relevant pages: — External links: —
Please read the handbook for requesters for help using this template correctly.

• Native name: Kituba (also Munukutuba, Kikongo ya leta, Kikongo, Kileta, Ikeleve, Kizabave, Kibulamatadi)
• Number of speakers: up to 10 000 000
• Locations spoken: Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola (Mainly spoken in the francophone Africa so the language file should be initially in French)
• Related languages: Kikongo

Arguments in favour

1. Support Kituba is a regional lingua franca and an official language in two countries. There are two translations of Bible to this language, the most recent just a few years back, and also radio stations (e.g. Radio Okapi) and discussion forums in the internet. There aren't many ISPs in the Congos yet, so the amount of users won't be terribly high in the beginning, but that is likely to change in the coming years. Besides, don't the poor nations need a free encyclopedia the most? --Rasulo
2. Support --Jose77 05:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
3. Support, is a official language in two countries. --Taichi - (あ！) 05:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
4. Belgian man (nl na en) 10:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
5. Support, but enough native or very fluent users must be found. Hégésippe | ±Θ± 16:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
6. Support --Neruda

General discussion

• Comment Kituba is an official language both in Congo-Brazzaville (where it's called Kituba or Munukutuba) and Congo-Kinshasa (where it's called Kikongo ya leta or Kileta). It is a well established creole language in the Congos, spoken as the main language is such important urban centres as Pointe-Noire, Boma, Matadi, Bandundu, Kikwit and Ilebo. Kituba is based on Kikongo and there are great similarities in vocabulary between these two, but grammatically they are totally different languages. Kituba is called Kikongo ya leta (Kikongo of the state) in Congo-Kinshasa because it was originally endorsed by the Belgian colonial administration. Hence Kituba is sometimes confused with Kikongo, which explains why there are tens of articles in Kituba in the Kikongo wikipedia. -- Rasulo 2006-07-08 20:25