Hebrew script in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) Wikipedia

שלום עליך, Amire80:

Though I don`t really speak Judeo-Spanish (JS), I`m currently an Administrator at ladwiki, trying to focus on infrastructure and mechanical cleanup work. So over the course of what I`ve been doing, a number of questions really specific to issues of language and script in that wiki have come up, and I thought you might be a good person to ask.

As you know, JS was really originally a Hebrew-alphabet language, like Yiddish and most other Jewish languages. Now, most users use one of a number of Latin alphabet transcriptions (we support four). ladwiki is configured as a Latin-script wiki, and nobody argues that it should be changed. But: we also include Hebrew-script JS pages. Some of my questions surround the ability of MediaWiki, and the Wikimedia projects, to support that a little more natively, and a little less in a jury-rigged way.

1. There is no official ISO code for "lad-he" (or, if you want to take that as the original, for "lad-la"). But there are some other things around here that exist notwithstanding the lack of an ISO code, like "simple". So is it possible to create items, here and callable on Wikimedia projects, in "lad-he"?

   I would see earliest use of such items for such purposes as calling the parser function {{#time:...}}. If you look at the home page of ladwiki, we have five versions, and among other things each shows the secular and Hebrew date and time. Right now, I output the date and time by using a {{#switch:...}} function and manually entering Hebrew-script versions. (Today's day of the week is "בֿײרניס".) It would be nice if I could get that through {{#time:...|lad-he}}. (Obviously, if that's the only thing I ever want to do, I can simply accomplish it the way I am now, or by moving that to a template. I'm looking at this approach as a test case for other possibilities, though.)

2. A couple of other administrators (not necessarily me) would like to see a Rashi script font as the default Hebrew (body text) font on the wiki. (This is because JS was traditionally printed with Rashi-script fonts, not square fonts.) I know that at least one open-source Rashi script font exists. Question is: can we get the server to serve a font like that for Hebrew script on ladwiki?
3. I note the "Special characters" box below the editing box. How do I get the Hebrew alphabet into that corresponding section on ladwiki? (It currently includes extended Latin characters as well as Greek, Cyrillic and IPA—but no Hebrew!)
4. How do I learn the fallback language cascade for ladwiki? There are hints that the first fallback is to Spanish, and it should be. But I'm not quite sure how to confirm that.
5. How do I arrange for Babel boxes (using the parser function, rather than local templates) to automatically categorize users by language?

That's probably plenty of questions for now. Thank you for your time and patience in answering. שבת שלום. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:25, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

1. lad-latn and lad-hebr are standard, based on ISO 15924. "simple" was always a bad idea, and I'm actually trying to change it, and we shouldn't add more mistakes like this. But you can use lad-hebr, and it's perfectly standard. It would be possible to add a lad-hebr script variant and have localization in it. Ask about this at the Support page.
2. It's technically possible, though may entail some issues, and I can't commit to a date. Can you please give a link to that open-source font?
3. Of course Hebrew is there! Between Arabic and Bengali.
4. See the file MessagesLad.php in the core MediaWiki source code. The first fallback language is Spanish, and after Spanish it's English, which is the default for all languages.
5. See the file InitialiseSettings.php in the Wikimedia server configuration. In that file, search for the string wmgBabelCategoryNames. You'll see the category configuration for other languages. These examples should be pretty self-explanatory. Please write the configuration as it should be for Ladino, and I'll add it to that file. (This question made me notice that we don't have this for Hebrew, so I'm probably going to add it.)

1. Thank you, Amir. I'll do that.
2. I don't know that we're even asking yet; this was just a feasibility question.

   I'm personally not sure if it's such a good idea. Unquestionably, it only works if the server can offer the font, not if it depends on browser-side fonts. Also, as much as Rashi script is traditional for JS, there are a lot of people who can read the Hebrew alphabet who can't read Rashi script. Conversely, everyone who can read Rashi script can also read more conventional (square) Hebrew lettering. So I'm not sure that the "tradition" of Rashi script in JS outweighs the greater accessibility that more conventional Hebrew lettering brings the project.

   I found the font at the Open Siddur Project.

3. I wasn't talking about the box above the editing box, I was talking about the section below the editing box.
4. Thank you.
5. Thank you. I'll get back to you with that.

StevenJ81 (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh, for number 3 edit https://lad.wikipedia.org/wiki/MedyaViki:Edittools .

We'll go with 'ladwiki' => array( '0' => false, '1' => 'User %code%-1', '2' => 'User %code%-2', '3' => 'User %code%-3', '4' => 'User %code%-4', '5' => 'User %code%-5', 'N' => 'User %code%-N', ),

...because the categories are currently named "User ...", and we do have some level-5 categories. (Just curious: the local Babel box templates categorize an individual both to User %code% and User %code%-n, except in the case of level 0. Does the parser function work that way?)

Hi StevenJ81,

This was just deployed to the Ladino Wikipedia, and you can test it. I see that it works on https://lad.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usador:Amire80 .

It works on my talk page, too. תודה רבה! (One question, though: is there a switch to suppress categorization? I ask only because I've got Babel on both my User page and my User talk page, and I don't need it to categorize me twice.) By the way, I also edited MediaWiki:Edittools, too. You can see alefbet glyphs there, including glyphs with rafe-bars. Also by the way: Why isn't Ladino listed at Special:SupportedLanguages? Finally: I have a note in at the Support page re lad-hebr.

Thanks for your help, and שנה טובה.

> is there a switch to suppress categorization

Hmmm, not that I know. Nikerabbit, SPQRobin?

> Why isn't Ladino listed at Special:SupportedLanguages?

Not sure, this is also a question for Support.

Seems actually not to matter. Only "User:StevenJ81" appears on the category pages, not "User talk:StevenJ81". Only difference between two seems to be that local templates also categorize me directly into Category:User en (without level) as well as within level. But in that case, as it happens, using the #babel function actually suppresses the possibility of including the category User en (without level); I can't even add it manually.

Hi, Amir. שנה טובה! Is there any way to nudge someone to answer the question I left on the support page? (After all, mostly what I have are questions now, not a lot of need for work.) Thanks very much.