Submissions/Javanese Wikipedia

Submission no.

20

Title of the submission: Javanese Wikipedia: Retrospect and the Path Forward

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation): Presentation

Author of the submission: Bennylin

E-mail address: bennylin dot idwiki at hotmail dot com

Username: Bennylin

Country of origin: Indonesia

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.): Community member

Personal homepage or blog

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

A little bit background: the Island of Java, as the densest island in the world, comprises not only Javanese people, but also of other ethnic group indigenous to the island (i.e. Sundanese) who have distinct language and culture. But the Javanese people is the majority group, and Javanese language is the largest Austronesian language as well as the largest regional language of Indonesia, even though its not an official language of any country in the world. Within the long history of the language, it has evolved into many dialects and also writing forms. It used Arabo-Javanese script (Pegon), Sanskrit-based Javanese script (Aksara), and also Latin alphabets.

Now, Javanese Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and Wikisource have existed since 2004, as long as Indonesian ones, but its growth is stalled. Wikimedia Indonesia recently has organized a project to revitalize the Javanese Wikipedia, and it seems that it was successful. But it is still in question whether the current editors are able to attract new editors or not, since nowadays Javanese people tend not to use their own language anymore, being replaced by the Indonesian language, especially in writing. The presentation will skim through recent initiatives by government to reintroduce the language in public spaces.

In regards with the writing forms, even though the Javanese Aksara still being taught at school, but in public practically it has been replaced by Latin alphabets, and to make matter worse, until today it still to some degree hasn't been supported by almost all software, despite it already has it's own Unicode assignment. Therefore, the editors cannot enter Javanese Aksara script easily, and old documents has to be painstakingly transliterated to Latin first. The presentation will explore what it means to the editors, as well as the effect on its sister projects (Javanese Wikisource and Wiktionary).

Case comparison: 1) Bugis Wikipedia (bug) besides using Latin also uses Rejang which also hasn't been supported by most software, but already being implemented in the website. 2) Chinese projects have two sets of characters and can switch between the two 3) Languages who have both Cyrillic and Latin can switch between the two views.

Question raised: Could the Aksara being introduced to Javanese Wikipedia? Could it use dual view or should it be on the same page? What about the Pegon script?

To make matter more complicated, 1) there's different dialects of Javanese, and 2) there's different sets of vocabulary within a dialect. There's "jv" Wikipedia which is the standard Javanese originated from Central Java; there's "map-bms" Wikipedia which is a version of Javanese spoken in a Western Java, and there's other versions of Javanese (i.e. East Java dialect, Suriname-Carribian dialect, etc.) In "jv" language itselt there's at least three level of speech vocab being used, high (formal, polite or court) Javanese, low (informal, brash or lay) Javanese, and another in-between the two. The presentation will delve more on how the Javanese speakers who are either from different ethnic groups or lived far from the Javanese court influence (as far as South America), began entering low Javanese vocab (which originally only intended for speech to someone younger or of lower class, and certainly not for writing an encyclopedia) into Wikipedia, the resulting mix, and how the community cope with it.

About the author: born in Java, speak mainly Peranakan language (code "pea"), which is a mixture of Indonesian and Chinese and local dialect, in this case Javanese. Speak passable English and Javanese and Chinese. Can code in Java ;)

Related wikilinks: w:Javanese script, w:Javanese Wikipedia, w:Javanese language

Track: WikiCulture and Community

Length of presentation/talk (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long): 25 Minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: yes

Interested attendees

If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with four tildes. (~~~~).

Amir E. Aharoni (talk)
CT Cooper · talk 19:17, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Very much interested. One of my former Masters (Electrical Engineering) students is a Javanese and I would like to learn more about the status and future of this Wikipedia C.R.Selvakumar (talk) 01:11, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Graham87 (talk) 12:55, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Add your username here.

Thanks for all who have displayed interest in my presentation. Unfortunately I won't be able to travel to DC this summer. So I hope I'll see you all in Hong Kong '13. Cheers. Bennylin (talk) 11:11, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]