Last modified: 2014-11-16 07:32:08 UTC

Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

Wikimedia migrated from Bugzilla to Phabricator. Bug reports are handled in Wikimedia Phabricator.
This static website is read-only and for historical purposes. It is not possible to log in and except for displaying bug reports and their history, links might be broken. See T12034, the corresponding Phabricator task for complete and up-to-date bug report information.
Bug 10034 - Multiple script enabling for Kashmiri
Multiple script enabling for Kashmiri
Status: NEW
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
Language converter (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Low enhancement with 2 votes (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
http://ks.wikipedia.org
: i18n
Depends on:
Blocks: 30759
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2007-05-26 02:58 UTC by Eukesh
Modified: 2014-11-16 07:32 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description Eukesh 2007-05-26 02:58:00 UTC
Kashur or Kashmiri (ks:) is originally written in Sharda script which is left to right. Due to lack of Sharda unicode, devnagari has been used by most of the editors in Kashmiri wikipedia, which is ltr as well. The rtl setting of Kashur hence needs to be changed to ltr. However, a sizable number of population write Kashmiri in Nastaleeq as well which is written right to left (rtl). So, an alternate "bar" needs to be established for Nastaleeq (in rtl) as has been done in Kazakh(kk:) or chinese (zh:) wikipedia. Similarly, an rtl bar needs to be placed for Nastaleeq users in Panjabi (pa:) and an ltr bar needs to be placed in Sindhi (sd:) (for Devnagari) and two alternate bars in Romani, both in ltr for Cyrillic and Devnagari. Please pardon me for putting it this crudely over here but I dont know how to put up these things more precisely. Thanks.
Comment 1 Vaibhav Jain 2011-07-30 15:00:32 UTC
Please review this bug as this is a major concern for ks wikipedia. Thanks.
Comment 2 Mark 2011-10-11 06:33:59 UTC
Eukesh's statement is misleading. Kashmiri was written in Sharda script in ancient times; it is now written in Arabic (Nastaleeq) script by virutally all speakers. Arabic script is the official script for the language in India. When Eukesh says that "most of the editors" have used Devanagari, he is referring to a single editor who published hundreds of stubs written in the wrong language (Sanskrit), which hardly seems relevant.

Although computer support for the Kashmiri language is still problematic and difficult, Devanagari is not required to be a part of this strategy as it is rarely used to actually write Kashmiri. I also think that Eukesh's devanagari transliteration tool should be turned off by default at ks.wp, since in its current state it impedes development by users who speak the language and wish to write in the official Arabic script.
Comment 3 Vaibhav Jain 2011-10-11 06:37:19 UTC
Sorry but i don't agree with this, both Devanagari Script and Arabic script should be used for Kashmiri.
Comment 4 Mark 2011-10-11 07:58:30 UTC
This creates an unnecessary barrier to participation for Kashmiri users, the vast majority of whom use the Perso-Arabic alphabet, which is also official script used for the language in the Republic of India. Any minority wanting to write Kashmiri in Devanagari will probably be better to seek a separate Wikipedia, since lossless conversion between the two scripts is not yet possible.
Comment 5 Vaibhav Jain 2011-10-11 08:00:26 UTC
But many people in the Jammu and Ladakh region uses devanagari.
Comment 6 Mark 2011-10-11 08:20:08 UTC
According to Dr. Rahi, expert in Kashmiri language and literature: "The modern Kashmiri script is Perso-Arabic. It is a standard accepted by people for six hundred years. Most writings, whether by Muslim writers or Hindu writers in the last six or seven centuries, has been Perso-Arabic."
Comment 7 Vaibhav Jain 2011-10-11 08:22:06 UTC
That seems a little biased, hindu writers mostly writes in devanagari, however bugzilla isn't the right place to discuss all this, please do that on ks wiki.
Comment 8 Purodha Blissenbach 2011-10-11 13:45:50 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> Any minority wanting to
> write Kashmiri in Devanagari will probably be better to seek a separate
> Wikipedia, since lossless conversion between the two scripts is not yet
> possible.

We are not discussing Wikipedia here, but your suggestion would imho likely not pass due to WMFs current language policy.

Generally, having user selectable scripts in MediaWiki would imho be a more convenient and less restrictive solution. What are the precise problems inhibiting an automated conversion between the scripts? Would an algorithmic approach with a limited dictionary of special cases do?
Comment 9 Mark 2011-10-14 03:11:44 UTC
Vaibhav: That is not the case; only a tiny minority of Kashmiri Hindus use devanagari script, and this is a very recent development.

Purodha: I'm well aware of language policy, I was under the impression that languages which were identical but used two different non-convertible scripts could be allowed separate Wikis; anyhow this is all at the total discretion of langcom.

Several of the issues with conversion are outlined here: http://kashmiruniversity.academia.edu/AadilKak/Papers/553013/Building_a_Cross_Script_Kashmiri_Converter_Issues_and_Solutions even with an extensive rule-based system, only 90% accuracy is reached, a level unacceptable for a major reference work (should be over 99%). With regards to the issue of which script is used by whom, note that that document reaffirms what I've said that Devanagari is usually not used for works in the language, but rather mostly for works in Hindi *about* the language (linguistic studies, for example).

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.


Navigation
Links