Adding a new language ISO 639-3: yol (Request)
Hi admins! Could you please add the Yola language? I'd like to translate for it! I'm a fluent speaker, and there is a growing revival movement, regarding the classification, it is a living language as it is currently used, and is used as the primary means of communication within the revival movement. My source is both firsthand, and through the information avaialable on Gabble Ing Yola.
Thank you!!
ISO 639-3: yol
Yola language - Yola taalke (yol)
Directionality: LTR
Script: Latin
(For MediaWiki): English, Scots (Note: Neither of these languages are mutually intelligible with Yola but they are equally as distant and form the closest living relatives, the Anglic family.)
Note that for Glottolog, this is classified as an regional dialect of English spoken on the East coast of Ireland, close to Fingalian, both falling into Southern Irish English. In this classification, Yola is far more distant from Scots than from standard English and all international dialects of modern English.
But may be you're looking into an old version of Yola (dating before the distinction of Middle English, at end of the Middle Age), when Old Anglosaxon coexisted with other Celtic substrates spoken in Irland and Scotland.
But I don't think that Scots (as it is used today) is related to Yola, so "for MediaWiki", the standard English [en] or Irish English [en-IE], are still the nearest "hat language" form, not Scots. May be there's a recent local redevelopment with more borrowings from Scots (or more likely from Celtic Irish, or in the reverse direction from other Low Germanic languages like Frisian or Dutch), in order to renew or reinforce this old dialect in a renewed modernized form? If so, there's a confusion about the term "Yola" (up to 1850 or recent redevelopment), and the proposed use of the ISO 639-3 [yol] code (which currently clearty falls into the Germanic family, not the Celtic family)...
And so may be this is the same kind of confusion that also exists betweeen Scots (Germanic-based), and Celtic Scottish (Scottish Gaelic), caused by the difficulty to distinguish them clearly by a simple name.
Anyway, the language was "officially" declared "extinct" in the 1850's. It survived for liturgical purpose only and in traditional songs and litterature. Its last active speaker, a priest that used it in his public summons at church, died around 1998 (reportedly without any other active user, except possibly people that remember some old songs and have kept some written or audio records). And the attempt to revive it seems to be very recent, by a single(?) person promoting it since last year on the web (is that you or are you in close contact there?), even if it has some documentation in English Wikipedia (but more about its historic aspect, notably before the Norman invasion and the introduction of modern English, first used in vernacular speech as the "Hiberno-English" variant). The ISO 639-3 code [yol] was recently added, probably for handling historical/traditional texts kept in archives.
That language visibly (from its known old written records) shares more features with Frisian than with Scots, even if both Yola and Scots have a similar history and have both been in contacts with Celtic languages, which were more prevalent than modern English used in the same regions, between coastal Ireland, western Scotland and in most parts of Wales, where Frisian people came before the invasion of Normans and later the progressive normalization with modern English (which almost completely "erased" the relicting usage of Middle English dialects, and which also surpassed Celtic languages, i.e. Irish, Welsh, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic, that became minority/secondary/cultural languages). Scots however was more preserved than other Frisian-like dialects of Middle English, because the introduction of Modern English in Scotland was much slower and there was a strong resistance (still existing today in UK whose unification has been contested since long) which also helped to preserve Scottish Gaelic.
Anyway, I see you've created Portal:Yol, I categorized it and added its name in a subtemplate, so that it shows correctly in the portal. For now it is still marked disabled (because using the generated link to the translation interface would not bring to the translation to Yola but to any other (unrelated) user language selected by the user (which could be English or everything else, like French, Irish or anything else depending on current user's preference, so using this link to start "translating" would actually damage existing translation to these other languages). Be careful when using links to the translation interface that the final target page will correctly display the intented language before submitting any translation (unfortunately, translatewiki.net still does not bring any warning: the final target language is not even any one of relevant fallback languages, so this can cause confusion for tentative translators).
Hi! Thank you for responding! In order to not flood the support page, I've left any additional comments on your talk page, Best regards
Wait here for a reply from site admins, if and when they will decide to enable the translation interface (this does not mean that the portal is not useful, at least it can be used to register some other interested users that want to develop it: they can use their Babelbox on the user page to show their support, or can register directly in the portal if they want to translate to it).
But most often, before enabling it, they will need a demonstration site that can be used as a reference accepted by a sufficient community of contributors : e.g. a lexical source or wordlist in Wikisource (this can be the English edition of Wikisource), collecting translated terms in Wikidata, not necessarily creating a beta Wikipedia, it could also be a specific beta edition of Wiktionary, or any other open-source project needed to support the Yola culture and teach it). It can also be some official support in a linguistic department in an Irish University or another cultural institution (ministry, public library, etc.), or a local governement (e.g. at town/city/county level).
Don't hesitate to provide relevant links of such efforts and existing support in the Portal page (but beware about copyright restrictions: don't copy-paste protected contents).
In that case, I'll add the corrections to the additional comments you left in your first reply here so the site admins have a better understanding of the language, I only sent them to you because I thought you were an administrator, sorry about that.
"A.) Yola is not a celtic language, it's a Germanic language that is an offshoot of Early Middle English, with some Irish vocabulary influence (around 40% of words)
B.) There are no recent developments in the language that borrow from Scots, I only listed Scots alongside English because it is another member of the Anglic Family, as it also split from Middle English, meaning that they would both be sister languages in the linguistic sense.
C.) The language is incredibly well attested in writing so there is no need for borrowing from other languages, reconstruction, or otherwise, and the English Wikipedia isn't representative of all the historical documentation of Yola, those are highlighted examples.
D.) There were no other active users in 1998 when Jack Devereux unfortunately passed away, only in the sense that Jack Devereux was known as an avid speaker of the language, even after his death Yola continued to see extensive liturgical use among the Kilmore Choir, the Yola farmstead, and in other local events and song reciting.
E.) The Norman Invasion time-period doesn't constituite the majority of the Corpus of Yola literature, most Yola literature is from the range of the late 18th century to the end of the 19th century.
F.) And lastly I only repeat the mention that the Yola revival did not start last year with a single person, the Yola revival has been an ongoing process since the founding of the Yola farmstead in the early 1990's, they hosted Yola classes, and delivered speeches in the language etc. Sorry for the bombarding of writing, I have no absolutely no grievances with you and merely want to clear up any misconceptions on the Yola language. I do hope you understand my good intentions, and I wish you all the best."