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Requests for new languages/Wiktionary Aramaic

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Aramaic Wiktionary

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submitted verification final decision
This proposal has been rejected.
This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy based on the discussion on this page.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

Aramaic identified with the code "arc" is an ancient language and, thus, creating a new Wikimedia project in that language is in collision with the Language proposal policy. If you want to create Aramaic dictionary with descriptions in other languages, please use an appropriate one, English or Hebrew Wiktionaries are. --Millosh 06:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal summary
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There was originally an Aramaic/Syriac Wikitionary Proposal but it seemed to fail due to problems with establishing the syr ISO code. This project would include multiple dialects, modern and classical (as in written form, a dictionary format would be mutually intelligible between most existant dialects), in a way similar to The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon. --Steve Caruso (Administrator, Aramaic Wikipedia) 04:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have invited a number of Aramaic speakers from the English Wikipedia to view this proposal, and if you are one of them I would appreciate you voicing your opinions (either for or against) in the appropriate subsections below. :-) Steve Caruso 06:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments in favour

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    • Such a Wikitionary would be a good resource for Chaldeans, Assyrians, Maronites, other Aramaic speaking people as well as scholars of classical dialects, Syriac Studies, theologians (including Talmud and Biblical scholars), and anyone who has interest in the language. As such any contribution that is easily accessible to the internet is a true boon and advancement in the field.
    • This project would be a very useful compliment to the Aramaic Wikipedia to help keep track of spellings and would thus accelerate the Aramaic Wikipedia's growth (as keeping track of spelling has become time consuming in some cases). Furthermore, users who speak a dialect different to that the Aramaic Wikipedia page is written in would be able to use the Wikitionary to easily disambiguate (and editors can link to it for such means). Such occurrences are rare, and are usually confined to one or two words that have a different enough meaning to sound "off" between dialects.
    • There is a large body of Aramaic literature that millions of people use daily, such as the Talmud, the Bible (Daniel & Ezra as well as the Peshitta New Testament), the Zohar, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Mandean scriptures (Qoolasta and the Book of John the Baptist), a large collection of ancient papyri and incantation bowls, etc.. There is also a large body of scholarly Classical Syriac literature and a Syriac Digital Library project that is underway (eBethArke). An Aramaic Wikitionary would be an invaluable tool for the study of every one of these documents.
    --Steve Caruso (Administrator, Aramaic Wikipedia)04:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • An important language that was close to be considered entangered only after Western people interest came about in the past years. The new generation of the diaspora Assyrians are looking for a place to correct their native language. Of couse you have bible and talmud readers as well that would make this very usefull to them as well. Chaldean 06:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per: Steve Caruso -- also, Aramaic is the language of history and civilisation -- It was the spoken-language, and the administrative-language of number of founders of the human civilisation, from Assyrian to Persian Empires that cannot be taken for granted. The creation of such a Wikitionary for such an immensely important language, it would contribute greatly to better understanding of humanity and the civilisations that mankind has created. Surena 07:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's a good idea to have a wiktionary in Aramaic, because it's a language with a long writing tradition and thus it just should be written as much as possible. Nevertheless, I don't have the time to participate in that project at the moment. --Thogo (talk) 10:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Though I believe that a dedicated Aramaic Wiktionary is valuable, due to the dialectual and cultural differences spanning over a millenium and that UniCode have code point ranges for the both the Aramaic Squares (as "Hebrew") and Aramaic Rounds/Serto (as "Aramaic") and have totally ignored the Aramaic used written in a script what we now associate with Arabic, in order for the Aramaic Wiktionary to be meaningful, there should be a way to show the same words that have ended up being on these different encoding ranges (much like the descriptor at the top of this page that says "Aramaic Language (ܐܪܡܝܐ ארמית [modern dialects: ܣܘܪܬ], arc ISO 639-3)". However, I also believe that we need to first discuss most of the nuances so that all the contributors are on the same page, then have further discussions later as we place entries and encounter words that don't quite fit our joint plan in the initial discussions. CJLippert 14:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fully support the creation of an Aramaic Wiktionary as per the reasons listed above, however, I offer a slight caution. Mainly because Neo-Aramaic languages have come under the influence of several other languages (notably Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, and Persian), be sure that words listed are not loanwords of common vernacular Neo-Aramaic. This somewhat limits the capacity of native speakers of modern Aramaic unless they have some background in writing the language. --334 02:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just to back this up: I am Assyrian, and can speak to the fact that very little of our population is able to read/write in Assyrian. That wouldn't necessarily make this effort not worth anything, but it would hinder it at the least. I don't see the number of contributors being very large at all; I'm not sure if that's something to be considered. The issue of loanwords is also not to be ignored, as I sometimes don't know if the words I speak are genuine to the language or have been borrowed from Persion or another language. --Dimator 23:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. There seem to be a couple of small problems, but as long as there are users willing to contribute to the Wiktionary, I'm all for it. Sr13 01:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against

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General discussion

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  • May I suggest that the original Syriac Wiktionary proposal be re-submitted to the language subcomittee? I believe that the assertions made in the previous discussion about 'syr' not being an ISO-639 language code are incorrect. One only needs to look at SIL ISO 639 code set [1] that Syriac (syr) is a recognized macrolanguage. --Esz 18:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would say that the language code issue is secondary. The main point is: Are there contributors? Will this be an active project? At present, no activity is visible, no test project exists. --Johannes Rohr 22:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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