Alemannic Wikipedia

Alemannic Wikipedia

URL	als.wikipedia.org
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Internet encyclopedia project
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	Alemannic
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation

The Alemannic Wikipedia (Alemannic: Alemannischi Wikipedia) is the Alemannic language edition of the Web-based free-content encyclopedia Wikipedia. The project was started on November 13, 2003 as an Alsatian language edition. A year later it was expanded to encompass all Alemannic dialects because of low activity in the first year. Since 2004 all Alemannic dialects are accepted on als:wp.

As of April 30, 2012, this edition has over 11,500 articles^[1] and is the 108th largest Wikipedia by number of articles^[2]. Contributors and users include people from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Liechtenstein, and even a few Walser people from Italy.^{[citation needed]}

A peculiarity of the Alemannic Wikipedia is the wide range of dialects permitted; all varieties of Alemannic, including Swiss German, Swabian, Alsatian, and all others are accepted. Authors may not normally alter the dialect used by another contributor, though exceptions are made for local topics, in which modifying the text to reflect the local variety is encouraged. Articles may thus be written in a mix of different varieties. Since there is no standardized orthography for Alemannic, spelling rules are quite relaxed. However, contributors are encouraged to adhere to spelling conventions found in the Alemannic-language literature, and introducing new symbols is not tolerated ^[3].

The code als was used because in 2003 there had been no language code for Alsatian. ISO 639-3 gives four codes for several Alemannic dialects:

• gct is the code for Alemán Coloniero
• gsw is the code for Swiss German, also for Alsatian
• swg is the code for Swabian German
• wae is the code for Walser German

As all of these four dialects are accepted on the Alemannic Wikipedia, it was decided not to move the Alemannic Wikipedia to gsw.wikipedia.org, even though the code als stands for Tosk Albanian in ISO 639-3. To solve this problem a request for a superior code for all Alemannic dialects has been submitted to SIL International by Alemannic Wikipedians^[4].

It was the first Wikipedia in a German dialect, followed by the Bavarian Wikipedia and the Ripuarian Wikipedia.

Other Wikimedia projects in Alemanic have also been created, such as an Alemannic Wiktionary, an Alemannic Wikiquote, and an Alemannic Wikibooks. As activity in these projects was low even after years, the community of the Alemannic Wikipedia decided to merge all Alemannic projects and import all contents of the other projects into the Alemannic Wikipedia. Since April 2008 these projects are separate namespaces within the Alemannic Wikipedia. Also an Alemannic Wikisource and an Alemannic Wikinews have been created as separate namespaces within als:wp.

Milestones

See also

• Alemannic Wikibooks
• Alemannic Wikinews
• Alemannic Wikiquote
• Alemannic Wikisource
• Alemannic Wiktionary

References

1. ^ Alemannic Wikipedia statistics page
2. ^ Meta-Wiki's list of language Wikipedias ordered by size
3. ^ http://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Artikel#Froge_un_Antworte_zum_Dial.C3.A4kt
4. ^ look here
5. ^ Milestones on Alemannic Wikipedia

Sources and External links

Alemannic Wikipedia edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• (Alemannic) Alemannic Wikipedia
• (Alemannic) Alemannic Wikipedia mobile version (not fully supported)
• Statistics for Alemannic Wikipedia by Erik Zachte
• Katja Fischer: Di freji Enzyklopädie (Tagblatt, Switzerland, 20 May 2009) (German)
• Wikipedia feiert den 5000. Artikel des alemannischen Sprachprojekts (Liechtensteiner Volksblatt, Liechtenstein, 18 May 2009) (German)
• 16. Mai 2009 - Felix Müller: Im weltweiten Netz spricht man auch Alemannisch. (Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany, 16 May 2009) (German)
• Maja Tolsdorf: Arbeit an der freien Enzyklopädie (Badische Zeitung, Germany, 25 February 2009) (German)
• 15. September 2008 - Louisa Knobloch: Dialekt im Internet – die Alemannische Wikipedia (Badische Zeitung, Germany, 16 September 2009) (German)
• Nikolaj E. A. Schutzbach: Kurios! So liest sich Wikipedia auf Alemannisch (Südkurier, Germany, 23 January 2008) (German)
• Christian Keller: Wiki und die schlauen Helfer (der arbeitsmarkt 9/2007, Switzerland) (German)
• D’alemannisch Wikipedia (Südkurier, Germany, 24 January 2007) (German)

• "Que voulez-vous savoir sur „Wikipedia uff Alemannisch“?" (Land un Sproch 63, France, Summer 2007) (French)
• Joachim Grzega Zur Stärkung des Status von Sprachen durch Wikipedia (Journal for EuroLinguistiX 6 (2009): 1-12) (German)