This report outlines the accomplishments and activities of the group between May 2 2023 and May 2 2024. Commencing with a Movement Strategy Grant in 2023, our primary objective was expanding language diversity across Wikimedia projects and, more broadly, improving language access across the Wikimedia movement. Through meticulous planning and execution, we orchestrated events like translate-a-thons and record-a-thons, facilitated Wikimedia contributions to under-resourced languages, and directly supported mother-tongue contributions to Wikimedia projects and an array of engaging activities.

As part of a 2022 Movement Strategy Grant, we identified 10 Wikimedians from under-resourced language communities and were able to help them realize their communities’ Wikimedia goals, including: creating new language versions of Wikipedia, adding oral knowledge corpora to the Wikimedia Commons, and adding new languages to Wikidata. We also developed free resources for mother-tongue contributions to Wikimedia that expanded on earlier research by the Language Diversity Hub, as described in our previous grant proposal. With continued support, we can guarantee resources for another 10 mother-tongue Wikimedia projects, extending this work through April 2025 and further expanding language diversity in the Wikimedia movement.

See detailed report below:

WIKITONGUES at WIKIMANIA SINGAPORE

On the 18th of August 2023, our Wikimedian in Residence [User:Tochiprecious] gave a presentation on Language Diversity and Empowering Communities through Language Documentation. The program however was engaged with lots of discussions and great ideas towards the project (Promoting Language Diversity). The presentation slide can be found here:

RELAUNCH OF WIKITONGUES USER GROUP

After some years of inactivity, the Wikitongues User Group put out a call to all wikimedians for the relaunch of the Wikitongues User group on September 29th,2023. This entailed discussions and sharing insights on the progress and growth of the User Group, as well as finding out what the community wanted in regards to its aim of promoting language diversity. This meeting brought about 34 participants. The Events page can be found here: https://meta.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Event:Wikitongues_User_Group_Relaunch while our JamBoard for the activity: https://jamboard.google.com/d/1D6TO5cg-0hkkbfJyJCERQsnM-W9GG1ZC_NINBKt0vNA/viewer?pli=1&f=0

WIKITONGUES NOVEMBER MEET-UP(29TH NOVEMBER 2023)

In November 2023, the Wikitongues User Group organized its community meet-up which focused on the Step by Step Guide of How To Document an Endangered Language. This webinar presentation was led by [User:DanielUdell], the Wikitongues CEO.

WIKITONGUES DECEMBER MEET-UP(12TH DECEMBER 2023)

On December 2023, we hosted a Webinar training on Wikidata Lexicography as the future of Language documentation and how to create lexemes in different languages. This was led by [User:Dnshitobu], from the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group.

WIKITONGUES VIDEO DONATIONS

Between May 2023 and April 2024, Wikitongues made a donation of over 280 videos on Wikimedia Commons from its oral histories as part of its language revitalization and documentation efforts. The videos can be found on Commons through this category: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Videos_donated_by_Wikitongues

Cross-Collaboration

Language Diversity Hub

Wikitongues staff continued taking part in the Language Diversity Hub steering committee. Jointly, we applied for a Movement Strategy grant, in order to fund a pilot cohort model for onboarding new language communities to Wikimedia. For that grant project, we chose 10 language documentation and revitalization projects, taking part in various Wikimedia projects. Five of the projects are specifically for the Incubator Hub. None of these languages are in the Incubator Hub yet, so during this project year, we will be able to follow each language communities journey from start to (hopefully) finish. Through this process, we (Wikitongues and the Language Diversity Hub) can document the challenges language groups face in getting their language Wikipedia edition launched.

UNESCO INTERNATIONAL MOTHER TONGUE DAY FROM DRC ON 21ST FEBRUARY 2024

In celebration of the International Mother Tongues Day 2024, from February 21 to March 1, 2024, the Wikitongues User Group launched its mother tongue campaign titled: Wiki Loves Mother Tongues to mark this day by creating, improving and translating articles related to mother tongues, dialects, language activists, sign languages etc in any language. This brought about a total of 3,033 articles created, 15,005 articles edited and 52 participants across 13 languages on Wikipedia and data items on Wikidata. The outcome of the Campaign can be found here: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Wikitongues/Wiki_Loves_Mother_Tongues_Campaign/home