Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages
Wikimedia subject-area collaboration
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This WikiProject aims primarily to provide a consistent treatment of each human language on Wikipedia. Many languages already have extensive pages, and the systematic information on those pages is not presented in a consistent way. The purpose of this WikiProject is to present that information consistently, and to ensure that each of the major areas is covered at least briefly for each language.
| This is a WikiProject, an open group of Wikipedia editors. New participants are welcome; feel free to talk to us!
|
These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. However, try to stick to the format for the Infobox for each language. See the template for an example Infobox.
The easiest way to get started writing for a language that doesn't already have an article or to convert an article to the WikiProject format is to start with the template.
Article alerts
Did you know
- 10 Mar 2026 – Linguistic purism in France (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Emholt1 (t · c); see discussion
Articles for deletion
- 06 Mar 2026 – T-rules (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Replayful (t · c); see discussion (4 participants)
- 04 Mar 2026 – Nawat typology (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by EllaMinnowPea371 (t · c) was closed as redirect by Kelob2678 (t · c) on 11 Mar 2026; see discussion (4 participants)
- 04 Mar 2026 – Generational terminology in immigrant communities (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by All in (t · c) was closed as delete by Explicit (t · c) on 11 Mar 2026; see discussion (7 participants)
- 02 Mar 2026 – Licei Linguistico e Pedagogico di Montepulciano (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by BhikhariInformer (t · c) was closed as delete by Explicit (t · c) on 12 Mar 2026; see discussion (2 participants; relisted)
- 02 Mar 2026 – Mirzapuri (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Adrikshit (t · c) was closed as delete by Explicit (t · c) on 10 Mar 2026; see discussion (4 participants; relisted)
- 01 Mar 2026 – Sylheti nationalism (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Muydivertido (t · c) was closed as delete by OwenX (t · c) on 09 Mar 2026; see discussion (14 participants)
- 28 Feb 2026 – List of English-language pop songs based on French-language songs (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by EasternShah (t · c) was closed as delete by RL0919 (t · c) on 07 Mar 2026; see discussion (5 participants)
Categories for discussion
- 10 Mar 2026 – Category:Categories by language of Malawi (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Mclay1 (t · c); see discussion
- 10 Mar 2026 – Category:Native American language films (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Mclay1 (t · c); see discussion
- 10 Mar 2026 – Category:Categories by language of the United States (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Mclay1 (t · c); see discussion
- 30 Jan 2026 – Category:Greater Punjabi languages and dialects (talk · edit · hist) was CfDed by Gotitbro (t · c); see discussion
Templates for discussion
- 11 Mar 2026 – Template:His or hers (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by EasternShah (t · c); see discussion
- 11 Mar 2026 – Template:His/her (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by EasternShah (t · c); see discussion
- 11 Mar 2026 – Template:His or her (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by EasternShah (t · c); see discussion
- 11 Mar 2026 – Template:Him/her (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by EasternShah (t · c); see discussion
- 11 Mar 2026 – Template:Him or her (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by EasternShah (t · c); see discussion
- 11 Mar 2026 – Template:He/she (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by EasternShah (t · c); see discussion
- 11 Mar 2026 – Template:He or she (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by EasternShah (t · c); see discussion
Redirects for discussion
- 12 Mar 2026 – Binigura/Pinikura language (talk · edit · hist) →Pinikura language was RfDed by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
- 28 Feb 2026 – Cuban language (talk · edit · hist) →Cuban Spanish was RfDed by Mathguy2718 (t · c); see discussion
- 19 Feb 2026 – French-speaking Country (talk · edit · hist) →Geographical distribution of French speakers was RfDed by Mathguy2718 (t · c); see discussion
- 19 Feb 2026 – French speaking contries (talk · edit · hist) →List of countries and territories where French is an official language was RfDed by Mathguy2718 (t · c); see discussion
- 19 Feb 2026 – French-speaking countries (talk · edit · hist) →Geographical distribution of French speakers was RfDed by Mathguy2718 (t · c); see discussion
- 19 Feb 2026 – French speaking countries (talk · edit · hist) →Francophonie was RfDed by Mathguy2718 (t · c); see discussion
Good article nominees
- 25 Jan 2026 – Grammatical aspect in the Slavic languages (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by ThaesOfereode (t · c); see discussion
Good article reassessments
- 06 Mar 2026 – Russian language in Israel (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for GA reassessment by An anonymous username, not my real name (t · c); see discussion
Requests for comments
- 08 Mar 2026 – Template:Interlanguage link (talk · edit · hist) has an RfC by Fabrickator (t · c); see discussion
Peer reviews
- 10 Mar 2026 – Mochica language (talk · edit · hist) has been put up for PR by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
Requested moves
- 02 Mar 2026 – German pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Pronouns in German by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Spanish personal pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Personal pronouns in Spanish by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Catalan personal pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Personal pronouns in Catalan by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Austronesian personal pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Personal pronouns in Austronesian by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Spanish object pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Object pronouns in Spanish by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Japanese pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Pronouns in Japanese by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Hindi pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Pronouns in Hindi by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Slovene pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Pronouns in Slovene by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Spanish pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Pronouns in Spanish by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- 02 Mar 2026 – Circassian pronouns (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Pronouns in Circassian by Abesca (t · c); see discussion
- (2 more...)
Articles to be merged
- 10 Mar 2026 – Jiayou (cheer) (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Add oil by ~2026-11785-17 (t · c); see discussion
- 10 Mar 2026 – Add oil (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Jiayou (cheer) by ~2026-11785-17 (t · c); see discussion
- 03 Mar 2026 – Naʼvi language (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Naʼvi grammar and language by 11WB (t · c); see discussion
- 22 Feb 2026 – Huvadhu dialect (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Maldivian language by Bearian (t · c); see discussion
- 15 Feb 2026 – Guarani languages (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Guarani dialects by Yacàwotçã (t · c); see discussion
- 15 Feb 2026 – Guarani dialects (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Guarani languages by Yacàwotçã (t · c); see discussion
- 05 Mar 2026 – Northern Bengali dialects (talk · edit · hist) proposed for merging to North Central Bengali dialects by Jacklincoln47 (t · c) was closed; see discussion
Articles to be split
- 05 Feb 2026 – Resígaro language (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
- 30 Jan 2026 – Sabanê language (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
- 08 Jan 2026 – Indonesian slang (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Swarabakti (t · c); see discussion
- 27 Dec 2025 – Old East Slavic (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Mellk (t · c); see discussion
- 15 Oct 2025 – Macro-Chibchan languages (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
- 12 Jun 2025 – Paraujano language (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
- 21 Apr 2025 – Aleut language (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
- 31 Jan 2025 – Yugambeh–Bundjalung languages (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Kepler-1229b (t · c); see discussion
- 04 Nov 2024 – Makonde language (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Liuxinyu970226 (t · c); see discussion
- 31 Aug 2024 – Angika (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Snowman304 (t · c); see discussion
- (8 more...)
Articles for creation
- 26 Feb 2026 – Draft:Piedmontese literature (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by Qwerfjkl (bot) (t · c)
- 24 Feb 2026 – Draft:Language Services Associates (LSA) (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by ArnisaXharra (t · c)
- 20 Feb 2026 – Draft:Pearson Test of English (PTE) (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by CGee331 (t · c)
- 13 Feb 2026 – Draft:Cultural loss (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by Andreuarinyo (t · c)
- undated – Draft:Nyagrong Minyag (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC
- 11 Mar 2026 – Draft:Majh Kumaiya dialect (talk · edit · hist) submitted for AfC by Dasoyla (t · c) was declined by Hoary (t · c) on 11 Mar 2026
Quality articles
Featured articles marked in bold have appeared on the Main Page.
Article assessment
Place the {{WikiProject Languages}} project banner template on the talk pages of any language-related articles. To rate the article on the quality scale, add one of the following parameters:
class=FAfor featured articlesclass=Afor A-class articlesclass=GAfor good articlesclass=Bfor B-class articlesclass=startfor Start-class articlesclass=stubfor Stub-class articles (which may not necessarily have a "stub" message on them!)class=NAfor non-articles (templates, images, etc.)
See WP:GRADES for pointers on classification.
Statistics
Index · Statistics · Log
| Language articles by quality and importance | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | Importance | ||||||
| Top | High | Mid | Low | NA | ??? | Total | |
| 2 | 1 | 5 | 8 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 4 | 16 | 1 | 30 | ||
| B | 46 | 53 | 73 | 169 | 109 | 450 | |
| C | 67 | 193 | 241 | 784 | 546 | 1,831 | |
| Start | 13 | 343 | 328 | 1,723 | 1,527 | 3,934 | |
| Stub | 360 | 261 | 3,507 | 3,061 | 7,189 | ||
| List | 6 | 4 | 22 | 94 | 4 | 128 | 258 |
| Category | 8,054 | 8,054 | |||||
| Disambig | 138 | 138 | |||||
| File | 14 | 14 | |||||
| Portal | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Project | 18 | 18 | |||||
| Redirect | 24 | 21 | 194 | 1,133 | 1,372 | ||
| Template | 1,004 | 1,004 | |||||
| NA | 46 | 46 | |||||
| Other | 75 | 75 | |||||
| Assessed | 136 | 984 | 951 | 6,492 | 10,487 | 5,372 | 24,422 |
| Unassessed | 40 | 40 | |||||
| Total | 136 | 984 | 951 | 6,492 | 10,487 | 5,412 | 24,462 |
| WikiWork factors (?) | ω = 71,538 | Ω = 5.32 | |||||
Article names
The guidelines for article titles for languages are at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages). In short, most language articles should be titled XXX language. Reasons for this recommendation:
- Ambiguity. While some language have special forms that refer unambiguously to the language, English is inherently ambiguous about language names. Having a standard of "XXX language" ensures that it's always unambiguous.
- Precedent. This is how Encyclopædia Britannica and many other English-language encyclopedias name their articles.
When there is nothing to disambiguate a language name from, such as Hindi, Esperanto or Inuktitut, there is no need for the "language".
Whether the varieties of Arabic and Chinese should be called "languages" or "dialects" continues to be a highly controversial issue. The current convention is: use NAME + Arabic for Arabic varieties (e.g. Egyptian Arabic) and NAME + Chinese for Chinese varieties (e.g. Mandarin Chinese). Infoboxes are put at both Arabic language and Chinese language and at their first-level subdivisions. However, where there is little controversy that a variety of Arabic or Chinese is a dialect (when it is demonstrably intelligible to other dialects), then 'dialect' is acceptable in the title.
Even in cases in which there is a consensus that varieties of a language have a dialect status, the number and divisions between such dialects are often vaguely-defined, and controversies exist among dialectologists over whether certain varieties should be treated in a unified way or are best understood as separate though related varieties. Separate articles should only be written on varieties (e.g., Estuary English) or related groups of varieties (e.g., Hispanic English) that have been well-enough studied by linguists that at least a minimal body of literature exists about that variety or group of varieties, as a distinct dialect or group of dialects. Phonological, morphosyntactic, or lexical variation that may be considered subdialectal should be noted as "differences within X dialect,", where X is a dialect as discussed in the relevant literature. Controversies over dialect status can be noted in articles as such, but should also be based on citable work. Names used to refer to that dialect in the title should be preferred over folk-linguistic terms (e.g., Inland North versus Midwestern Accent).
Article structure
If you would like to create an article on a new language, you can use {{subst:New language article}} to help streamline the process. An example structure and explanation of the sections can be found at /Template for oral languages and /Template (sign language) for sign languages. Language articles are subject to Wikipedia's inclusion criteria.
Open tasks
General
- Answer requests for comments
Updates
Population data has been mostly updated from Ethnologue 16 to 17. However, an unknown number of articles which did not have the ref field set to "e16" slipped through the cracks. For instance, Cumanagoto did not have a ref'd population figure because E16 had mistakenly listed it as extinct. Articles which are not ref'd to Ethnologue could be checked in case E17 has a more recent figure.
User:PotatoBot helps keep ISO redirects in sync with changing WP articles and ISO standards. The results of the latest run are displayed at ISO 639 log and ISO 639 language articles missing.
Names at Spurious_languages#Spurious_according_to_Glottolog with asterisks have not been addressed.
Articles to improve: Category:Language articles with unknown population not citing Ethnologue 18
Articles citing previous editions of Ethnologue can be found in the following categories:
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 8 (empty as of Dec 2022)
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 9 (empty as of Dec 2022)
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 10 (empty as of Dec 2022)
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 11 (empty as of Dec 2022)
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 12 (empty as of Dec 2022)
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 13 (acy and twc as of Dec 2022)
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 14 (nul, yud as of Dec 2022)
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 15
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 16
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 17
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 18
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 19
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 20
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 21
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 22
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 23
- Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 24
Articles citing undated versions can be found in:
Most should be updated to a reference to the latest Ethnologue edition or to another reliable source. However, references to old editions may continue to be appropriate, for example, with undated citations, or where an old edition shows the date or range of estimates of the source, and that info has been lost from recent editions, or where a new source in the latest edition of Ethnologue just cites an old edition of Ethnologue, so we should cite the old edition ourselves.
Some articles do not use templates such as {{e25}}:
- "Ethnologue: Languages of the World"
- "ethnologue.com"
- http://ethnologue.com
- http://www.ethnologue.com
Short descriptions
All articles should have a short description. As of December 2022, about 1,000 articles about languages do not have one: -hastemplate:"Short description" hastemplate:"Infobox language"
Articles to be created
Here you can see languages what others Wikipedias have, but English one is don't (SPARQL-code what you can run by yourself). Below is a list of the five what have the most interwikis:
- Yi language (redirect) (16 articles)
- Akawaio language (redirect) (14 articles)
- Tapieté (redirect) (13 articles)
- Chorotega language (redirect) (11 articles)
- Globasa (10 articles)
Red links should either be redirected or have their own articles.
Articles with red links |
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99.9% of ISO language names have articles, though not always one-to-one (e.g. Fulani, Zhuang, and Mazatec); the 0.01% which do not are spurious, dubious, or insufficiently attested to justify their own article, and are redirected to an article stating that.
- Lists for evaluation
The lists below are of self-links in our articles, language names from various sources which do not have articles or redirects, and suspicious cases to keep track of.
Lists of obscure names from common refs |
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Circular and suspicious links |
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Cases to track |
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Requests for expansion
Images for articles in Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of languages.
- Standard Moroccan Tamazight
- Chilean Sign Language
- Chadian Sign Language
- Brazilian Sign Language
- Indonesian sign languages
- Kurtöp language
Requests for attention
- We may need to distinguish Fernando Poo Creole English from Pichinglis, per talk page
- we may want to split Tsotsitaal (Camtho/Shalambombo is Zulu-based, not Afrikaans)
- review Haiǁom people#Language (article history inadvertently deleted and never restored)
- need to work out Língua Geral vs. Tupi language; holding off on info boxes at Lingua Geral and Língua Geral Paulista until then
- Old and Middle Greenlandic language may be fictions, see Talk:Middle_Greenlandic_language#Old and Middle Greenlandic may not exist
- Verify if Carpathian Rusyn language should be a separate article from Rusyn language.
- Contradictory/nonsensical description at Teiwa language#Vowels - does it have 5 or 6 vowel phonemes?
(no article Ashéninka people; Keres functions as the lang article but reads as a family article)
- Old Tamil mangled – see Talk:Old Tamil#Mangled?
Tagged categories
- Category:Ill-formatted IPAc-en transclusions (catches obvious screw-ups to the IPAc-en template)
- Category:Articles needing IPA cleanup
- Category:Language articles needing attention
Category:Articles lacking sources
Only language varieties are included here. Subjects such as 'French language in Jordan' and 'Westernized Chinese language', though in bad shape, are not listed.
- 2004–2014: (only articles with 'language', 'dialect', 'creole', or 'pidgin' in name are included; distilled from an insane number of articles)
- English: Jewish English languages
- Germanic: Central Franconian dialects, Eastphalian dialect, Hamburgisch dialect, Norwegian dialects, Orsamål dialect, Ripuarian language, Sognamål dialect
- Romance: Chipilo Venetian dialect, Comasco-Lecchese dialects, Fornes dialects, Pavese dialect, Sabino dialect, Sutsilvan dialects (Romansh)
- Slavic: Debar dialect, Reka dialect, Strumica dialect
- Maltese: Qormi dialect, Żejtun dialect
- Chinese: Luoyang dialect, Mango dialect, Qihai dialect, Weihai dialect, Ningbo dialect, Ganyu dialect, Fu'an dialect, Xuzhou dialect
- other: Kfar Kama Adyghe dialect (Adyghe), Enuani dialect (Igbo), Thanjavur Marathi dialect, South Korean standard language
- 2015: (thru Jun 23) Harbin dialect, Qingdao dialect, Southern Rural dialects, Dutch-based creole languages, Old Montagnais language
Titles containing 'language' checked through November 2024: Bangi–Tetela languages
Category:Orphaned articles
(same search terms as missing sources)
- Ordek-Burnu language (moved to 'stele')
Open ISO issues
The following ISO requests for new languages from previous years were still open in 2016 Jan. The articles should be updated if they are accepted. (See the current list, reviewed to 2024-11.)
2023-006 ynb Yamben 2021-044 ftg Taigi
Articles proposed for deletion
including WP:AFD, WP:PROD and other processes
Articles to watch
The following are language articles which come under repeated POV attack, often for ethnic or nationalistic reasons. Feel free to add ones you've noticed, and to remove languages which have not been a problem for some time. That way, if one of us drops out from editing, the articles we've been watching hopefully won't go to pot.
- Population inflation: Arabic (2015.10), Assamese, Azeri, Balochi, Bengali (2015.10), Bulgarian (2015.10), Cantonese (we have no estimate), Cherokee (2015.10), Egyptian Arabic, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Kurdish, Nepali, Oromo, Portuguese, Angolan Portuguese (60% is an exaggeration, per ELL2), Punjabi (2015.10), Sindhi, Tajik, Tamil, Tati, Turkish, Ukrainian, Yue, many Indic languages and dialects being pushed as separate languages. Many of these will be caught by checking the top 100 at List of languages by number of native speakers or List of languages by total number of speakers.
- (Note: Ethnologue 17 and the Swedish Nationalencyklopedin use Indian census data, which is not a RS because it does not have a consistent definition of Hindi. For example, part of the Awadhi population is listed under Awadhi, but most is counted as Hindi. This problem is acknowledged in the presentation of the census results, but has gotten lost in 2ary sources.)
- Serbo-Croatian & Croatian (subject to ARBMAC)
- Saraiki dialect, Punjabi dialects, and "Panjistani" (requires text searches to purge repeated additions of contradictory claims of "Panjistani" to multiple articles)
- Southern Luri language. It may be worthwhile splitting the Luri article, but so far the attempts to do so have been incompetent and motivated by OR redefinition of the language. The present description of the two varieties in the Luri article is so intertwined that splitting them would create something close to a content fork. — kwami (talk) 02:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
- Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, along with the ethnic articles. A seemingly chronic ethnic dispute.
- Luganda and Baganda: deletion of ISO name
- Misleading maps: Many national languages have had maps with half the world filled in because of emigration, with no apparent standard for what counts as a speaking population. Most of these will be caught by checking the top 100 at List of languages by number of native speakers.