{"id":1772,"date":"2015-06-26T23:15:43","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T21:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/?p=1772"},"modified":"2016-03-05T14:19:09","modified_gmt":"2016-03-05T12:19:09","slug":"1772","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenman.co.za\/blog\/?p=1772","title":{"rendered":"June 2015 African Language Wikipedia Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I recommend that anybody new to Wikipedia editing starts, if possible, with one of the smaller Wikipedias. It’s far more fun, contributions will probably be openly welcomed, and there’s less likelihood of experiencing some sort of bureaucratic nightmare. An example fresh in my mind is the OpenCart article, which doesn’t exist. Anyone attempting to create it will be faced with this page<\/a>, and need to persuade the administrator who locked it (due to previous abuse) that they should be permitted to do so, and who therefore holds veto power over its creation. A bridge too far for most new editors!<\/p>\n

While the English Wikipedia makes the news due to the declining number of editors<\/a>, and has a particularly bad reputation (as can be seen in the mailing lists) amongst African editors who’ve had experience with some of its trigger-happy bureaucrats, how are the African language Wikipedias themselves faring?<\/p>\n

African Language Wikipedias<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Language<\/th>\n11\/2\/2011<\/th>\n13\/4\/2012<\/th>\n9\/5\/2013<\/th>\n17\/6\/2014<\/th>\n29\/10\/2014<\/th>\n26\/6\/2015<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Malagasy<\/a><\/td>\n3,806<\/td>\n36,767<\/td>\n45,361<\/td>\n47,144<\/td>\n47,061<\/td>\n79,329<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Afrikaans<\/a><\/td>\n17,002<\/td>\n22,115<\/td>\n26,752<\/td>\n31,756<\/td>\n33,392<\/td>\n35,856<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Yoruba<\/a><\/td>\n12,174<\/td>\n29,894<\/td>\n30,585<\/td>\n30,910<\/td>\n30,989<\/td>\n31,068<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Swahili<\/a><\/td>\n21,244<\/td>\n23,481<\/td>\n25,265<\/td>\n26,349<\/td>\n27,021<\/td>\n29,127<\/td>\n<\/tr>\nEgyptian Arabic<\/a><\/td>\n <\/td>\n8,433<\/td\n\n\n10,379<\/td>\n12,440<\/td>\n12,934<\/td>\n14,192<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Amharic<\/a><\/td>\n6,738<\/td>\n11,572<\/td>\n12,360<\/td>\n15,968<\/td>\n16,229<\/td>\n12,950<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Somali<\/a><\/td>\n1,639<\/td>\n2,354<\/td\n\n\n2,757<\/td>\n3,646<\/td>\n3,680<\/td>\n3,446<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Shona<\/a><\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n1,421<\/td>\n2,077<\/td>\n2,091<\/td>\n2,321<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kabyle<\/a><\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n1,503<\/td>\n1,876<\/td>\n1,967<\/td>\n2,296<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lingala<\/a><\/td>\n1,394<\/td>\n1,816<\/td>\n2,025<\/td>\n2,077<\/td>\n2,087<\/td>\n2,062<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kinyarwanda<\/a><\/td>\n <\/td>\n1,501<\/td>\n1,817<\/td>\n1,832<\/td>\n1,834<\/td>\n1,780<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hausa<\/a><\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n1,386<\/td>\n1,345<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wolof<\/a><\/td>\n1,116<\/td>\n1,814<\/td>\n1,161<\/td>\n1,201<\/td>\n1,148<\/td>\n1,023<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Igbo<\/a><\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n1,017<\/td>\n1,019<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Northern Sotho<\/a><\/td>\n557<\/td>\n566<\/td>\n685<\/td>\n691<\/td>\n966<\/td>\n1,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Malagasy has shot up, but it’s always been an outlier – a language for which, due to its unusual characteristics, there’s always been a great deal of outside interest. Afrikaans continues to grow steadily, albeit at a slightly slower pace than before. Swahili, in 4th place, is growing at a faster pace than Yoruba in 3rd. Yoruba had a huge burst from 2011-2012, but has only been slowly growing since then.<\/p>\n

Egyptian Arabic is also growing steadily, but after that there are some interesting figures. Amharic has lost<\/em> over three thousand articles. Articles being deleted is not uncommon. Spam gets removed, articles get merged and so on. Losing so many articles simply means the growth before was mostly made up of these kinds of articles, and that there’s little growth outside of that.<\/p>\n

With the exception of Kabyle, most of the languages that follow share a similar fate, or are static. Wolof has even fallen to lower than its 2011 level. The one noteworthy milestone is that Northern Sotho has (just) joined the 1000 club.<\/p>\n

So, barring Malagasy, while the only fireworks amongst the top African language Wikipedias are of the going out kind, and there are no trigger-happy bureaucrats to blame this time, are things in the far south looking any better? What about the South African language Wikipedias specifically? <\/p>\n

South African Language Wikipedias<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Language<\/th>\n19\/11\/2011<\/th>\n13\/4\/2012<\/th>\n9\/5\/2013<\/th>\n17\/6\/2014<\/th>\n29\/10\/2014<\/th>\n26\/6\/2015<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Afrikaans<\/a><\/td>\n20,042<\/td>\n22,115<\/td>\n26,754<\/td>\n31,756<\/td>\n33,392<\/td>\n35,856<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Northern Sotho<\/a><\/td>\n557<\/td>\n566<\/td>\n685<\/td>\n691<\/td>\n966<\/td>\n1,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zulu<\/a><\/td>\n256<\/td>\n483<\/td>\n579<\/td>\n630<\/td>\n686<\/td>\n683<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tswana<\/a><\/td>\n240<\/td>\n490<\/td>\n495<\/td>\n510<\/td>\n513<\/td>\n503<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Swati<\/a><\/td>\n359<\/td>\n361<\/td>\n364<\/td>\n400<\/td>\n408<\/td>\n410<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Xhosa<\/a><\/td>\n125<\/td>\n136<\/td>\n148<\/td>\n333<\/td>\n380<\/td>\n356<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tsonga<\/a><\/td>\n192<\/td>\n193<\/td>\n240<\/td>\n303<\/td>\n309<\/td>\n266<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sotho<\/a><\/td>\n132<\/td>\n145<\/td>\n188<\/td>\n197<\/td>\n202<\/td>\n223<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Venda<\/a><\/td>\n193<\/td>\n190<\/td>\n204<\/td>\n209<\/td>\n208<\/td>\n151<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So while Afrikaans continues steadily, Northern Sotho makes it to 1000 articles (albeit with the energy of an athlete somewhere near the back of the pack crawling over the finish line at the end of the Comrades marathon<\/a>) and Sotho has managed to haul itself off the bottom, all the other languages are static or have shrunk.<\/p>\n

The Xhosa deletion log<\/a>, for example, gives an idea of the kind of articles being deleted, while the latest article to be created at the time of writing, Star Wars<\/a>, is just blank, and probably also not long for this world.<\/p>\n

Northern Sotho is an interesting case, as for a long time it sat in the Incubator, but the experience seems to have helped, as in spite of having less native speakers than both Xhosa and Zulu, it sits well above them in articles created.<\/p>\n

Hopefully there’ll be some fireworks to report in the next update!<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/p>\n