Wikipedia and lesser-resourced languages

van Dijk, Ziko

doi:10.1075/lplp.33.3.03van

Article published In: Language Problems and Language Planning
Vol. 33:3 (2009) ► pp.234–250

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Wikipedia and lesser-resourced languages

Ziko van Dijk

Published online: 25 September 2009

https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.33.3.03van

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, exists in more than 260 different language editions, some larger, some smaller. This article deals with difficulties in comparing them with each other and assessing their strength. Wikimedia Statistics can mislead if not interpreted with a knowledge about the ways Wikipedia editing works. Many language editions embellish the total number of articles by creating pseudo-articles with little or no encyclopedic value. The main question of the study presented by this article is what factors make a language edition grow, such as the existence of a standardized language, language status, Internet access for the average speaker, and the attitude of speakers to their language.

Keywords: Wikipedia, wiki, encyclopedia, small language, dialect, planned language

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