Thread:User talk:Imdadb/On script variants in languages

Thanks for your piece on your user page. Very informative. You need to separate two entities. First we have translate.net, which is not directly related to Wikimedia. Here you can basically localise any language with an ISO 639 code. If a language is written in different scripts, we create a code postfix for that, for example xxx-latn for a localisation of language with code xxx in Latin script, and xxx-arab for a language with code xxx in Arabic script. So please go forward: if your content will be written in Latin script, start localisting your language on the main code in Latin. If in the future Arabic script also will be used, we will accomodate that. For now, given your explanation, I see no reason to make things difficult.

Second is the language committee. This is a Wikimedia entity that, among others, judges based on certain criteria if languages are eligible for test projects, and ultimately for their own project. Your language qualifies quite easily for a test project in general: you need to have a request for a language that is classified in ISO 639. This is the reason your test project was approved this quickly.

Having the test project, in itself, is of course nothing. A simple page was created on Wikimedia Incubator to show the project exists. The challenges are different, create content, create a community, and arrange for the user interface to be available in your requested language. Of those three criteria, you need translatewiki.net for the last one. On Special:Translate/core-0-mostused you will find some 470 messages that make up the primary reading interface of MediaWiki. Those must be translated as part of the requirements for your own project. Depending on the presence of some wiki specific concepts in the vocabulary of your language, this takes somewhere from 5-10 hours of translation work. Of course we hope that the translatewiki.net work for your language does not stop there, but if your main goal is to get a Wikipedia in your language erected, that's what you need to do *here*.

Hope this is all clear. Please let us know if you have questions on Support. Cheers!