In Tulu, India's 23rd Regional Wikipedia Goes Live
In a major boost to ancient Indian languages, Tulu wikipedia has finally gone live.
The article by Naina Chaturvedi was published in Huffington Post on August 7, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted.
According to a report in The Hindu, eight years after its launch, Tulu Wikipedia has gone live with over 1,000 articles.
The announcement was made by Katherine Maher, executive director, Wikimedia Foundation, USA, at the Wikiconference India 2016, India's second national Wikipedia meet in half a decade, held in Chandigarh on Friday.
"There are about 200 registered users (editors), out of which around 100 have more than 10 edits. On an average, there are about 8 to 10 active editors," Dr. U.B. Pavanaja from the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, and one of the mentors of Tulu Wikipedia, told The Hindu.
He further added that, "Vishwanatha Badikana, a Kannada professor, followed by Bharatesha Alasandemajalu, an engineer, are the highest contributors."
The language is spoken by around two million native speakers, mainly in southwest Karnataka and in Kasaragod district, Kerala, The Indian Express reported.
Pavanaja, further explained how this achievement would help create pressure on the government to include Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution.
"After we became live, we will import articles from the 'incubator' site, build the 'village pump', set up policies, administration structure, info boxes and templates,"IANS quoted Pavanaja saying.
Wikipedia which is available in 22 Indian languages include, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, now, including Tulu making the count 23.
