?What is the place of Amazigh in parsing in the world of Wikipedia
Wikipedia, the American encyclopedic site founded in 2001, is considered one of the most popular and visited sites in the world. Despite being a non-profit site, it ranks 5th in the world in terms of the number of visitors, surpassed only by the American sites Google, YouTube, Facebook, and the Chinese site Baidu, all of which are profitable commercial sites owned by giant companies with imaginary budgets that exceed the budgets of entire large countries, such as Morocco, for example.
Because of the enormous costs of managing the Wikipedia website in terms of the electricity bill for the giant computers, maintenance costs, and salaries of its employees, and its lack of commercial income, it depends entirely on donations from individuals and institutions.
The reason for the success of the Wikipedia website can be summarized in its complete freedom, freedom from advertising, ease of use, multilingualism (298 languages), and allowing everyone to participate in recording, correcting and modifying its encyclopedic scientific and literary materials, provided that academic and media references are included and no omissions or sabotage are included.
The presence of languages on Wikipedia is a good criterion for measuring the extent of their literary, scientific and media presence in the world and the extent of their people’s activity in writing about them.
As expected, English takes the lead, followed by other European languages and languages from other developed countries such as Japan, China and South Korea, and also languages from developing countries such as the Vietnamese language (written in the Latin alphabet).
Among the languages of developing countries and third world countries that have a good or fair presence on Wikipedia and the Internet in general, we find Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Indonesian, Malay, Kurdish, the Yoruba language spread in Nigeria, and the Swahili language spread in Kenya and Tanzania.
However, it is noted that the accuracy of the information in the Arabic Wikipedia is sometimes very poor, and that a percentage of its materials have a clear ideological bias toward Arab nationalism, political Islam, or certain countries, but some of the Arabic Wikipedia materials are very good or okay.
1) The weak presence of the Amazigh language on Wikipedia and the Internet in general:
1) The weak presence of the Amazigh language on Wikipedia and the Internet in general: The presence of the Amazigh language is very weak on Wikipedia, but at least it is not non-existent. There is no official Amazigh version of Wikipedia under the name Tamaziɣt (or Berber in English), and this comes due to the neglect of Amazigh-speaking learners and intellectuals to write in Amazigh. But there is an official version of Wikipedia in the Amazigh Kabylian language, Taqbaylit, in the Latin alphabet, and it was created by Algerian Kabylian bloggers years ago.
It can be found here: https://kab.wikipedia.org
The reason for the Amazigh weakness in this field is known to everyone and is summarized in the ban and repression to which the Amazigh language was subjected by the authoritarian regimes ruling the Amazigh world, as the Amazigh language was banned from teaching and media in the twentieth century. Because those regimes saw the Amazigh language as a threat to their grip on their authority. These regimes adopted a policy of Arabization and Frenchization. Islamic clerics also played a pivotal role in alienating people from the Amazigh language and spreading the policy of Arabization. In addition to this, the Amazigh language has been neglected by its native-speaking intellectuals and even by most of its activists, who, until now in 2018, continue to write exclusively in Arabic and French instead of making even a small effort to write and blog in Amazigh.
2) The presence of world languages on Wikipedia
This is the weight ranking of languages in Wikipedia according to the number of their encyclopedic articles according to Wikipedia numbers in 2018:
– Rank 1: English Wikipedia with 5,583,000 articles.
– Rank 2: Swedish Wikipedia with 3,783,000 articles.
– Rank 3: German Wikipedia with 2,160,000 articles.
– Rank 4: French Wikipedia with 1,962,000 articles.
– Rank 5: Dutch Wikipedia 1,925,000 articles.
– Rank 6: Russian Wikipedia
– Rank 7: Italian Wikipedia
– Rank 8: Spanish
– Rank 9: Polish
– Rank 10: Vietnamese
– Rank 11: Japanese
– Rank 12: Chinese
– Rank 13: Portuguese Wikipedia with 993,000 articles.
(…)
– Rank 16: Persian Wikipedia with 595,000 articles.
– Rank 17: Catalan Wikipedia with 574,000 articles.
– Rank 18: Arabic Wikipedia with 561,000 articles.
(…)
– Rank 22: Hungarian Wikipedia with 427,000 articles.
– Rank 23: Indonesian Wikipedia 424,000 articles.
– Rank 25: Czech Wikipedia 401,000 articles.
– Rank 27: Malaysian Wikipedia 312,000 articles.
– Rank 28: Turkish Wikipedia with 306,000 articles.
– Rank 38: Hebrew Wikipedia with 220,000 articles.
(…)
– Rank 91: Swahili-Kenyan-Tanzanian Wikipedia with 39,000 articles.
– Rank 96: Wikipedia in the Nigerian Yoruba language with 31,000 articles.
– Rank 106: Kurdish Wikipedia with 23,000 articles.
– Rank 111: Wikipedia in Egyptian Arabic (Egyptian) with 17,000 articles.
– Rank 176: Somali Wikipedia with 4470 articles.
– Rank 203: Amazigh Kabylie Wikipedia, with 2,900 articles.
– Rank 225: Wikipedia in the Nigerian Hausa language with 1,687 articles.
– Rank 228: Aramaic Wikipedia (the original language of Syria), 1,622 articles.
– Rank 237: Wikipedia in the Nigerian Igbo language with 1,285 articles.
– Rank 296: Wikipedia in the Kanuri language with 0 articles (recently created).
3) The crisis of the Amazigh language with writing and its neglect by native speakers:
Talking about Wikipedia is very important. Why?
Because Wikipedia is a completely independent, non-governmental project that best embodies the spirit of free initiative and intellectual independence.
All material written on Wikipedia in all languages is written by amateurs and is free. They are amateurs, even if they are scientists and technicians specializing in certain sciences, because their writing on Wikipedia is primarily a hobby in which they write about a topic they like or are interested in. This means that no one there depends on the state, and no one there is waiting for the state to order him to do such-and-such, or to write him such-and-such, or to issue a regulatory law for him that regulates such-and-such for him and orders him to do such-and-such.
Wikipedia is a 100% independent project from the state.
This is the mentality that the Amazigh language needs.
Currently, one theme or tone prevails among those interested in the Amazigh language, which can be summarized as follows: “The state has committed a great crime against the Amazigh language, and now this state must take care of the Amazigh language, write it for us, teach it to us, lend it to us, and explain it to us.”
Yes, the state has committed a great crime against the Amazigh language, which is preventing and suppressing it for a century. But the solution to this problem is not in the hands of the state, even if we wish it were. The state is already incapable of providing any real, fundamental benefit to the Amazigh language. Demarcation, teaching, and the official government Amazigh television are merely formalities in the end (although they are important formalities, of course) that do not compare to the real essence, which is the people themselves practicing this language through writing, production, and free voluntary creativity. If this essence is lacking, a thousand demarcations, a thousand laws, and a thousand government television channels will not be of use to the Amazigh language, because the one who lacks something will not give it.
The true flame of the Amazigh language exists among the Amazigh speakers. If they extinguish it or throw it away, the state will not succeed in doing anything for the benefit of the Amazigh language, even if it had the desire (which it currently does not have). The paradigm shift is that Amazigh speakers begin to imitate (i.e. dress) Amazigh just as they imitate and wear dialect, Arabic and French in their daily lives and in their WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, media and political activities.
The Kurdish language suffered from the same destructive Arabization policy that the Amazigh language suffered from. Rather, we can say that the policy of Arabization, Turkification, Persianization, and Islamization in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran against the Kurdish language and against the Kurdish people was fiercer, more violent, and more horrific than the practices of the regimes of the Amazigh world. For some reason, the Kurds succeeded in achieving a production accumulation in their Kurdish language that is many times greater than that of Amazigh. The Kurdish language (often written in the Latin alphabet) is now found on Wikipedia and Google Translate. There are hundreds of active Kurdish news sites in the Kurdish language written in the Latin alphabet. There are newspapers and magazines printed 100% in Kurdish. There are also more than 30 Kurdish satellite television channels, most of which are privately owned and broadcast from Kurdistan or Europe.
This free creative initiative outside the umbrella of the state is what the Amazighs lack.
This pathological Amazigh dependence on the state, coupled with chronic waiting behavior, is the No. 1 incurable disease that has afflicted the Amazigh and the Amazigh language. If Amazigh speakers do not start imitating Amazigh and writing it (in any letter they like) on their phones, pages, and daily lives, no one will imitate it for them in their place, and no one will write it for them in their place.
If the Amazigh do not compose their sentences and phrases themselves with ink on paper and screens, who will compose them for them?
! 4) Relying on the state to write Amazigh for you is a waste of time and pouring water on sand:
Many Amazigh-speaking learners and intellectuals are governed by the usual “dialectical concerns” whose content is: “If I write a sentence in Rif Amazigh on the Internet, I fear that the Soussians and Atlanticists will not understand it. That is why I must write it in classical Arabic or French and wait 50 years until the classical standard Amazigh descends upon us from the seven heavens of Sidrat al-Muntaha, where the state’s Irkham is located.”
This logic paralyzes people and prevents them from writing in Amazigh.
Who told you that the Soussians (or the Atlanticists, or the Riffians, or the Tangawis, or the Kazawis) will not understand what you will write, or will understand it, or want to read it, or will not want to read it? This is pointless speculation.
You don't know what's going on in people's minds. And you do not know what their language skills are or what their mood is at such-and-such a time and such-and-such place. In the city of Casablanca, Anfa, Rabat, Eṛṛbaṭ, or Fez, there may be people in the thousands or hundreds of thousands whom we do not know and whose linguistic skills we do not know. They may be able to read a text in Amazigh written in the Latin alphabet, for example, with complete ease (thanks to their knowledge or talent) and perhaps better than the Al-Hasimi or Akkadiri citizen. Or Rashidi, Khemissati, Khenifri, or Intermediate Tetouan.
A person writes in his mother tongue to express himself and his opinion. For 5 people to understand his book or blog, or for 40,000,000 people to understand it, these are possibilities that depend on many factors that no one has control over.
The writer in the Amazigh language of Khenifra, Xnifṛa, does not necessarily need all Moroccans to understand his genius Amazigh blog post or his genius Amazigh book! If 70 people in the city of Khenifra read what our friend Khenifra wrote This is enough to convey the idea or story to them and make an impact on society.
There is no need for our friend Khenifri to convey his idea or his Amazigh book to all the people of Agadir, the people of Tarudant, the people of Ennaḍor, the people of Inezgan, and the people of Meknas. Even a Moroccan who writes a comment, article, book, or film in Arabic or French often only reaches a very small percentage of Moroccans in limited cities and limited social segments.
So there is no need for our friend, the Khenifari writer, to worry about the dialect differences and sociolinguistic balances between his Khenifari dialect and the rest of the dialects of the Amazigh language in Morocco and Thamazgha. This is a useless intellectual luxury.
Write and blog on WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, and other websites and printing presses in your daily local Amazigh dialect and language, as if the entire world understands your local Amazigh dialect, and you will certainly be surprised at the number of people who will understand your article, book, videos, or small Amazigh blog.
Embody your Amazigh language or dialect as you pronounce it in your daily life, and leave behind the talk of dialects, standard, formal, tqa’id, cubism, regulatory law, organic law, and saffron law, for these are merely topics of gossip and sophistry that have no weight in reality. The language is nothing but a dialect that has an army and a fleet. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. But your intellectual and material linguistic production is the only one that changes the balance in society and shapes the face of the Moroccan and Amazigh future.
I suggest to those interested in the Amazigh language that they change their linguistic mentality and adopt new writing habits in which they use their daily Amazigh language in all their written chats, emails, and messages with their families, friends, and even with their clients and partners, and in their comments and blog posts on Internet networking sites, without worrying about this dialect or that dialect. The residents of such-and-such a distant city may not understand such-and-such dialect.
They have the right to choose any letter they like to write their Amazigh language. They can also use more than one letter. With a little getting used to, they will discover that it is very easy and requires only practice and practice.
It is this collective communicative accumulation that will establish the future automatic arrival of the Amazigh language to other fields, such as spreading on Wikipedia and the Internet in general, and becoming a language for teaching in schools and universities, and a language for politics, democratic governance, and the new civilization, Taɣaṛma tamaynut.
Mubarak Belkacem - Morocco tussna@gmail.com
Source: Inomidin