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ARMENIAN WIKIPEDIA: PART OF A BIGGER BATTLE
Lusine Grigoryan
Watching the Watchers.org
http://watchingthewatchers.org/indepth/1393584/armenian-wikipedia-part-bigger-battle
July 14 2011
(This is the second installment in a series of updates from the
WikiHistories summer research fellows, who will be studying the
history of different non-English Wikipedia editing communities and
publishing their findings over the course of the summer.)
I am writing this post from a nice, cool part of Armenia called
Ijevan, where I've come to escape from the unbearable heat of the
capital city, Yerevan.
Fresh air and green mountains for fresh mind.
For the last week 40 degrees Celsius was the temperature in the city
where over 1/3 of the population of the country lives and all the
major developments in social life take place. I ran away from the city
buzz for a few days to enjoy the cool air and breathtaking nature,
which makes fieldwork fun and helps me get a fresh perspective on
thoughts and ideas.
But to explore the Armenian Wikipedia community you need to spend
time in Yerevan. This is where I met some of the Wikipedians during my
first week in Armenia: Aleksey, Maro, Rob and Mher are Wiki activists
and contributors. We found a nice open-air cafe for the meeting:
Armenian Wikipedia does not have any office, Wikimedia headquarters,
or any other physical space. They are just a small community of
people who contribute to Wikipedia in their local language and try
to promote the movement in their country. Passion for Wikipedia is
something they all share, but the community is quite diverse -- from
high school students to mid-age professionals, architects, historians,
web-developers, etc...
About 14.000 articles, a few dozen or hundred contributors and only
6 admins: these are the general figures about the Armenian Wikipedia
that can be traced back to the founding of the project in 2005.
Armenians write about their interests, idols, hobbies, but more
intensively they share information about their country, history and
culture. As some of Wikipedians mentioned, they would welcome more
articles on science and innovation.
The first wiki-meetup in Armenia took place in 2009, when the most
active members met to put faces to
January 2011: Armenians celebrate Wikipedia's 10th birthday!
usernames, to talk and to share their concerns. The last official
meeting was Wikipedia's 10th anniversary, which they celebrated with
a symbolic cake.
Xelgen is one of the small number of admins and active contributors.
He is active in promoting not only Armenian Wikipedia but the Armenian
language on the internet in general. He believes that paper is no
longer the main medium for language; it's digital technologies, and
the language we use on the iPad, computer, and cell phone largely
affects the way we think.
Xelgen (Aleksey Chalabyan in real life), thinks that having Wikipedia
in Armenian is important to store knowledge in the local language
and to give everyone in Armenia access to that knowledge.
Taking into consideration overall internet usage figures, the
Armenian-speaking audience is very limited (in Armenia about 37% of
the population uses Internet), so many people prefer sharing English
or Russian content to reach a wider audience. The main reason is that
the vast majority of Armenians also speak Russian or English. Despite
operating in Armenia, many blogs and corporate websites do not have
an Armenian-language version. Moreover, there are lots of Armenians
who have been living abroad for generations, many of whom don't know
Armenian very well.
Using Armenian on the Internet means facing certain technical issues,
as well: Armenian still can't be used on many mobile phones and
there is no one unified Armenian keyboard: with 39 letters and tons
of punctuation marks, Armenians need to agree to some compromises...
Aleksey and his friends are concerned with these tendencies and
they feel that promoting Armenian Wikipedia will help people to feel
more comfortable reading and writing in their local language on the
Internet. They meet with NGOs, visit universities and schools to
encourage young people to join them.
During our meeting Aleksey, Maro, Rob and Mher were discussing the
translation of words such as "fellowship" versus "scholarship,"
"state" versus "region" versus "province" to find the right Armenian
words for certain articles: none of them is a linguist, but getting
the translation right is a priority for them all.
The dominance of English on the Internet is a major issue for many
nations, even for big ones. For small nations like Armenia, it is a
matter of national identity, and they take the language issue very
seriously. Armenians, who are very proud of their rich and unique
language and 1600-year-old alphabet, consider Armenization of the
Internet a key mission, and developing Armenian Wikipedia is a big
part of this battle. Wikipedians are optimistic: they say that the
number of articles has almost doubled during the last year, although
they put stress on quality rather than quantity. Over the summer they
also hope that many students will use their holidays to spend more
time adding and editing articles on Armenian Wikipedia.
From: A. Papazian
Lusine Grigoryan
Watching the Watchers.org
http://watchingthewatchers.org/indepth/1393584/armenian-wikipedia-part-bigger-battle
July 14 2011
(This is the second installment in a series of updates from the
WikiHistories summer research fellows, who will be studying the
history of different non-English Wikipedia editing communities and
publishing their findings over the course of the summer.)
I am writing this post from a nice, cool part of Armenia called
Ijevan, where I've come to escape from the unbearable heat of the
capital city, Yerevan.
Fresh air and green mountains for fresh mind.
For the last week 40 degrees Celsius was the temperature in the city
where over 1/3 of the population of the country lives and all the
major developments in social life take place. I ran away from the city
buzz for a few days to enjoy the cool air and breathtaking nature,
which makes fieldwork fun and helps me get a fresh perspective on
thoughts and ideas.
But to explore the Armenian Wikipedia community you need to spend
time in Yerevan. This is where I met some of the Wikipedians during my
first week in Armenia: Aleksey, Maro, Rob and Mher are Wiki activists
and contributors. We found a nice open-air cafe for the meeting:
Armenian Wikipedia does not have any office, Wikimedia headquarters,
or any other physical space. They are just a small community of
people who contribute to Wikipedia in their local language and try
to promote the movement in their country. Passion for Wikipedia is
something they all share, but the community is quite diverse -- from
high school students to mid-age professionals, architects, historians,
web-developers, etc...
About 14.000 articles, a few dozen or hundred contributors and only
6 admins: these are the general figures about the Armenian Wikipedia
that can be traced back to the founding of the project in 2005.
Armenians write about their interests, idols, hobbies, but more
intensively they share information about their country, history and
culture. As some of Wikipedians mentioned, they would welcome more
articles on science and innovation.
The first wiki-meetup in Armenia took place in 2009, when the most
active members met to put faces to
January 2011: Armenians celebrate Wikipedia's 10th birthday!
usernames, to talk and to share their concerns. The last official
meeting was Wikipedia's 10th anniversary, which they celebrated with
a symbolic cake.
Xelgen is one of the small number of admins and active contributors.
He is active in promoting not only Armenian Wikipedia but the Armenian
language on the internet in general. He believes that paper is no
longer the main medium for language; it's digital technologies, and
the language we use on the iPad, computer, and cell phone largely
affects the way we think.
Xelgen (Aleksey Chalabyan in real life), thinks that having Wikipedia
in Armenian is important to store knowledge in the local language
and to give everyone in Armenia access to that knowledge.
Taking into consideration overall internet usage figures, the
Armenian-speaking audience is very limited (in Armenia about 37% of
the population uses Internet), so many people prefer sharing English
or Russian content to reach a wider audience. The main reason is that
the vast majority of Armenians also speak Russian or English. Despite
operating in Armenia, many blogs and corporate websites do not have
an Armenian-language version. Moreover, there are lots of Armenians
who have been living abroad for generations, many of whom don't know
Armenian very well.
Using Armenian on the Internet means facing certain technical issues,
as well: Armenian still can't be used on many mobile phones and
there is no one unified Armenian keyboard: with 39 letters and tons
of punctuation marks, Armenians need to agree to some compromises...
Aleksey and his friends are concerned with these tendencies and
they feel that promoting Armenian Wikipedia will help people to feel
more comfortable reading and writing in their local language on the
Internet. They meet with NGOs, visit universities and schools to
encourage young people to join them.
During our meeting Aleksey, Maro, Rob and Mher were discussing the
translation of words such as "fellowship" versus "scholarship,"
"state" versus "region" versus "province" to find the right Armenian
words for certain articles: none of them is a linguist, but getting
the translation right is a priority for them all.
The dominance of English on the Internet is a major issue for many
nations, even for big ones. For small nations like Armenia, it is a
matter of national identity, and they take the language issue very
seriously. Armenians, who are very proud of their rich and unique
language and 1600-year-old alphabet, consider Armenization of the
Internet a key mission, and developing Armenian Wikipedia is a big
part of this battle. Wikipedians are optimistic: they say that the
number of articles has almost doubled during the last year, although
they put stress on quality rather than quantity. Over the summer they
also hope that many students will use their holidays to spend more
time adding and editing articles on Armenian Wikipedia.
From: A. Papazian