Commons talk:Language guide

Sorting order

Why this particular order for the language list? -- Tuválkin ✉ 05:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

It's indeed not very transparent. I'm going to re-arrange it with English still first (reasonable for a worldwide lingua franca, I'd say) and the rest sorted alphabetically. Gestumblindi (talk) 01:28, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I tried to put the UN languages (English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish) first before the others. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:35, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, but I think the alphabetic order is easier to use. Another question: Is it really necessary to include "self-evident" languages spoken basically in the country the language is named after? E.g. "Icelandic: Iceland", "Norwegian: Norway"... maybe only include languages officially spoken in more than one country, or where the name of the language isn't easily recognizable as derived from the country's name? Gestumblindi (talk) 00:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Another idea: If I understand the intention of this page correctly, it's about adding information in fitting languages to files from a particular country? E.g. if you have a photo from the Netherlands, a description in Dutch would be helpful. So, maybe it should not be sorted by language, but by country? E.g. "Switzerland: German, French, Italian, Romansh" or "Norway: Norwegian" - then it would probably be a good idea to keep also the "single-country" languages I mentioned before, as one doesn't necessarily now that the language of Iceland is Icelandic, but will infer from "Icelandic" that it is the language of Iceland. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

It is based by country. It could be sorted by language or by country, so maybe two sections: Sort by country and sort by language. As for "self-evident" languages sometimes they are spoken in unexpected places. For instance Japanese is relevant to the tourism industry in Guam, the Northern Marianas, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands (places where Continental Micronesia flew) WhisperToMe (talk) 07:46, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

New Zealand

Essentially all speakers of te reo Maori can speak English too. I'm not saying that Maori is unimportant, but if you want to expand your audience in NZ, I think Samoan and Mandarin would be better choices. --Avenue (talk) 14:29, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I can add those as "immigrant" languages, as in in matters relating to immigrants. I've mentioned immigrant languages as possibilities for the United States, Canada, France, UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, and other countries WhisperToMe (talk) 02:50, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Chinese

Being a logographic script when written down there is no distinction between Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese and any of the other, dialects, although they sound different, all the dialects are written and read the same (we just hear it in our own dialects when we do so). There are minor differences in colloquial use of words but the real distinction would be between traditional hanzi (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Chinese diaspora) and simplified hanzi (PRC). For speakers of Mandarin who cannot read either logographic system, you could include pinyin as an option.--KTo288 (talk) 21:49, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• Actually there are grammar and character differences between written Mandarin and written Cantonese, which is why they have separate Wikipedias (http://zh.wikipedia.org and http://zh-yue.wikipedia.org) - And other dialects like Gan, Hakka, Taiwanese Min-Nan, and Wu have their own Wikipedias) - For Mandarin what can be done is ask for Pinyin (for Mainland) and/or Bopomofo (for Taiwan) to be included with obscure or difficult characters WhisperToMe (talk) 02:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

What is this guide for?

I don't understand the goal of this guide and its list. Is it just to suggest uploaders to describe in Chinese their China-related media? Is it to encourage editors to delete German description of Madagascar-related media? Is there a task force to be raised to translate all Commons files to the languages listed?

I think our language guide should be like this:

• Describe your uploads in the languages you want. Uploaders are encouraged to describe them in as many languages as possible.
• Editors are encouraged to improve descriptions and translate them to as many languages as possible.
• Try to direct your efforts to have descriptions translated to local languages (e.g. languages related to the places related to the media).

A list of languages related to any place is just a wish list if a task force isn't expected to follow it.--Pere prlpz (talk) 20:13, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

• The goal of this guide and list is precisely "Try to direct your efforts to have descriptions translated to local languages" because people may not know all of the relevant local languages of a given place. The purpose of this list is to tell people "these are the local languages of X country, and these countries use X language"
• 1. "Is it just to suggest uploaders to describe in Chinese their China-related media?" - Yes, if they know Chinese. If they don't they can add it to a list of pictures that need Chinese.
• 2. "Is it to encourage editors to delete German description of Madagascar-related media?" The photographer can and should use his or her native language(s) in his or her uploads. You do not delete a language just because it's not the "area" language. The actual practice is: the more, the merrier. Having said that if you think people will mistakenly think that languages should be deleted, I can add a disclaimer.
• 3. "Is there a task force to be raised to translate all Commons files to the languages listed?" There is a list of requests, but there isn't a formal task force yet
• WhisperToMe (talk) 02:56, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I think that explaining the more, the merrier in the introduction (in whatever wording you want) would make the guide a lot clearer.

The disclaimer will be very useful, too.--Pere prlpz (talk) 11:39, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Added the disclaimer! WhisperToMe (talk) 04:26, 8 October 2013 (UTC)