Screenshot of wikipedia.org
[Wikipedia's web portal] showing the different languages alphabetically sorted by article count
Wikipedia is a free multilingual open source wiki-based online encyclopedia edited and maintained by a community of volunteer editors, started on 15 January 2001 [21 years ago] as an English-language encyclopedia. Non-English editions were soon created: the German and Catalan editions were created on circa 16 March,[1] the French edition was created on 23 March,[2] and the Swedish edition was created on 23 May.[3] As of November 2022, Wikipedia articles have been created in 329 editions, with 318 currently active and 11 closed.[4]
The Meta-Wiki language committee manages policies on creating new Wikimedia projects. To be eligible, a language must have a valid ISO 639 code, be "sufficiently unique", and have a "sufficient number of fluent users".[5]
Wikipedia edition codes[edit]
Each Wikipedia project has a code, which is used as a subdomain below wikipedia.org
.
Interlanguage links are sorted by that code as a prefix. The codes are mostly those defined by ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-3, and the decision of which language code to use is usually determined by the IETF language tag policy. Wikipedia projects also vary by how thinly they slice dialects and variants; for example, the
English Wikipedia includes most modern varieties of English [American,
British, Indian, South African, etc.], but does not include other related languages such as
Scots or Old English, both of which have separate Wikipedia projects. Among other pluricentric language editions, the
Spanish Wikipedia also includes both Peninsular Castilian and Latin American Spanish, the
French Wikipedia includes both European French and Canadian French, the Portuguese
Wikipedia includes both European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, and the Malay Wikipedia includes a large number of areal
Malayic languages, etc.
Additionally, some Wikipedia projects vary in orthography. The Chinese Wikipedia automatically transliterates from modern
Mandarin Chinese into six standard forms: Mainland China, Malaysia [grouped with Singapore until mid-2018] and
Singapore in simplified Chinese characters, and Taiwan, Hong Kong and
Macau in traditional Chinese characters. Belarusian, however, has separate Wikipedia projects for the official Narkamaŭka [be
] and
Taraškievica [be-tarask
] orthographies.
Nonstandard language codes[edit]
Differences between the ISO mappings and Wikipedia codes include:
Variant Wikipedia codes[6][7]als
| gsw
| Alemannic Wikipedia | Alemannic German | als is the ISO code for Tosk Albanian. The Alemannic Wikipedia covers several dialects: gsw for Alemannic German, Alsatian and
Swiss German, gct for the Colonia Tovar dialect, swg for Swabian German, and wae for
Walser German.
|
bat-smg
| sgs
| Samogitian Wikipedia | Samogitian | bat is the ISO code for the Baltic languages while smg is the ISO code for Simbali, a Baining language.
|
bh
| bh , bih
| Bhojpuri Wikipedia | Bihari [Bhojpuri] | bh and bih are the ISO codes for the Bihari macrolanguage, which includes Bhojpuri [bho ], Maithili [mai ], Magahi [mag ], and nine others. The Bihari Wikipedia
excludes Fiji Hindi [hif ] and Maithili [mai ], both of which have independent Wikipedias.
|
cbk-zam
| none | Chavacano Wikipedia | Zamboanga Chavacano | cbk is the ISO code for Chavacano while zam is the ISO code for Miahuatlán Zapotec, an Oto-Manguean language. The individual variants do not have ISO codes.
|
fiu-vro
| vro
| Võro Wikipedia | Võro | fiu is the ISO code for the Finno-Ugric languages.
|
ksh
| none | Ripuarian Wikipedia | Ripuarian | ksh is the ISO code for the Colognian dialect, the most prominent dialect of the Ripuarian language group. Ripuarian itself and the other variants [e.g. the Aachen dialect] do not have ISO codes.
|
map-bms
| none | Banyumasan Wikipedia | Banyumasan | map is the ISO code for the Austronesian languages while bms is the ISO code for the Bilma Kanuri dialect of Kanuri, a Saharan language.
|
ms
| ms , may , msa
| Malay Wikipedia | Malay | ms , may and msa are the ISO codes for the Malay macrolanguage, which includes more than 30 individual languages and dialects. However, the wiki excludes Indonesian because the
Indonesian Wikipedia [id ] exists independently.
|
nds-nl
| multiple | Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia | Dutch Low Saxon | nds is the ISO code for Low German, restricted to Germany in Ethnologue. The various subdivisions of Dutch Low Saxon have separate ISO codes.
|
no
| nb , nob
| Norwegian Wikipedia | Norwegian [Bokmål] | no and nor are the ISO codes for Norwegian in general while nn and nno are the ISO codes for Norwegian [Nynorsk].
|
nrm
| nrf
| Norman Wikipedia | Norman | nrf is the ISO code for the Guernésiais and Jèrriais dialects of Norman while nrm is the ISO code for Narom, an
Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polyneasian branch. Norman itself and the other variants do not have ISO codes.
|
roa-rup
| rup
| Aromanian Wikipedia | Aromanian | roa is the ISO code for the Romance languages.
|
roa-tara
| none | Tarantino Wikipedia | Tarantino | As above, like with Aromanian, while nap is the ISO code for Neapolitan in general.
|
simple
| none | Simple English Wikipedia | Simple English | en-simple is the IETF BCP 47 language tag for Simple English.
|
sq
| sq , sqi
| Albanian Wikipedia | Albanian | sq and sqi are the ISO codes for the Albanian macrolanguage, which includes four individual dialects: aae is the ISO code for Arbëresh, aat for Arvanitika,
aln for Gheg Albanian, and als for Tosk Albanian.
|
zh-classical
| lzh
| Classical Chinese Wikipedia | Classical Chinese | zh is the ISO code for Chinese in general.
|
zh-min-nan
| nan
| Southern Min Wikipedia | Southern Min | As above, like with Cantonese and Classical Chinese. Not written in Chinese characters, but uses Pe̍h-ōe-jī or a derived romanization instead. |
zh-yue
| yue
| Cantonese Wikipedia | Cantonese | As above, like with Cantonese and Southern Min. |
Redirects[edit]
be-x-old:
– redirects tobe-tarask:
cz:
– redirects tocs:
dk:
– redirects toda:
mo:
– redirects toro:
, since November 2017nan:
– redirects tozh-min-nan:
nb:
– redirects tono:
Charts[edit]
| Distribution of the 59,957,649 articles in different language editions [as of 22 November 2022];[8] the majority of the articles in Swedish, Cebuano, and Waray were created by Lsjbot.[9] English [10.97%] Cebuano [10.22%] German [4.58%] Swedish [4.26%] French [4.12%] Dutch [3.51%] Russian [3.12%] Spanish [3.03%] Italian [2.97%] Egyptian Arabic [2.69%] Polish [2.58%] Japanese [2.25%] Chinese [2.2%] Vietnamese [2.13%] Other [41.37%] |
Lists[edit]
Basic list[edit]
The table below lists the language editions of Wikipedia roughly sorted by magnitude of the number of active users [registered users who have made at least one edit in the last thirty days].[8]
The Nostalgia Wikipedia is an archive of the English Wikipedia's initial display, while the Simple English Wikipedia merely uses Basic English.
Denotes that the Wikipedia is currently closed or deleted
Edition details[edit]
Notes for detailed list[edit]
- The "Total pages" column refers to the number of pages in all namespaces, including both articles [the official article count of each wiki] and non-articles [user pages, files, talk pages, "project" pages, categories, redirects, and templates].
- "Users" refers to the number of user accounts, regardless of current activity – not the amount of people or devices using [accessing] Wikipedia.
- "Active users" are registered users who have made at least one edit in the last thirty days.
- "Files" is the number of locally uploaded files. Note that some large Wikipedias don't use local images and rely on Commons completely, so the value "0" is not an error. [see also list of Wikipedias having zero local media files]
- The "Depth" column [Edits/Articles × Non-Articles/Articles × [1−Stub-ratio]] is a rough indicator of a Wikipedia's quality, showing how frequently its articles are updated. It does not refer to academic quality.
- Lsjbot, a bot run by Sverker Johansson, is responsible for much of the growth of the second and fourth-largest Wikipedias, the Cebuano and Swedish Wikipedias, respectively, as well as the rapid growth of the Waray Wikipedia.
- The statistics are derived from API:Siteinfo and updated at Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab every six hours, and are
displayed with
{{NUMBEROF}}
via{{WP7}}
. - When the Northern Luri Wikipedia was closed due to not actually being written in Northern Luri, all articles except the main page were deleted.[10] This produces an abnormal depth since the deleted edits and remaining non-articles are still counted.
Detailed list[edit]
Notes cannot be added directly into table header - please see "Notes" section just aboveDenotes that the Wikipedia is currently closed
Number of Wikipedias by language families and groups[edit]
- Indo-European languages — 131
- Romance languages — 32
- Germanic languages — 29
- Indo-Aryan languages — 25
- Slavic languages — 20
- Iranian languages — 10
- Celtic languages — 6
- Baltic languages — 4
- Paleo-Balkan languages — 5
- Turkic languages — 18
- Mongolic languages — 3
- Puyŏ languages — 2
- Uralic languages — 15
- Finno-Permic languages — 14
- Ugric language — 1
- Dravidian languages — 5
- Ibero-Caucasian languages —
10
- Northwest Caucasian languages — 3
- Northeast Caucasian languages — 5
- Kartvelian languages — 2
- Sino-Tibetan languages —
12
- Chinese language — 8
- Tibeto-Burman languages — 4
- Afroasiatic languages —
13
- Semitic languages — 8
- Cushitic languages — 2
- Berber languages — 2
- Chadic language — 1
- Austronesian languages — 35
- Malayo-Sumbawan languages — 11
- Oceanic languages — 8
- Philippine languages — 8
- South Sulawesi language — 1
- Language of Kalimantan? — 1
- Central Malayo-Polynesian language — 1
- Formosan languages — 5
- Austroasiatic languages — 4
- Kra–Dai languages — 4
- Indigenous languages of the Americas —
12
- Indigenous languages of North America — 6
- Indigenous languages of South America — 3
- Eskimo–Aleut languages — 3
- Niger–Congo languages — 29
- West Atlantic languages — 5
- Mande languages — 2
- Benue–Congo languages — 20
- Bantu languages — 18
- Volta–Niger languages — 2
- Kwa language — 1
- Savannas language — 1
- Nilo-Saharan languages — 1
- Language isolate — 1
- Pidgins and creole languages — 10
- Constructed languages — 9
See also[edit]
- List of online encyclopedias
- History of Wikipedia
- Languages used on the Internet
References[edit]
- ^ Wales, Jimmy [16 March 2001]. "[Wikipedia-l] Alternative language wikipedias". Wikipedia-L [Mailing list]. Archived from the original on 20 June 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
- ^ Noisette, Thierry [24 September 2010]. "Wikipédia en français dépasse le million d'articles" [French Wikipedia exceeds one million articles]. ZDNet France [in French]. Red Ventures. Retrieved 21 December 2020. Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie collaborative libre, fêtera ses dix ans en janvier 2011, et a débuté le 23 mars 2001 en version française, mais dès ce jeudi 23 septembre, à neuf ans et demi exactement, la Wikipédia francophone a enregistré officiellement le cap du million d'articles. [Wikipedia, the free collaborative encyclopedia, will celebrate its tenth anniversary in January 2011. It started on March 23, 2001 in its French version, but as of this Thursday, September 23, at exactly nine and a half years old, the French-language Wikipedia has officially reached the one million article mark.]
- ^ "History of HomePage". Swedish Wikipedia. Archived from the original on 8 October 2001. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
- ^ "Wikipedia statistics/meta.tab - Wikimedia Commons". Wikimedia Commons. Archived from the original on 14 August 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
- ^ "Language proposal policy, revision 21811318". Meta-Wiki. Archived from the original on 22 December 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
- ^ "ISO 639 Code Tables". SIL International. Archived from the original on 8 July 2006. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
- ^ "ISO 639-3 Macrolanguage Mappings". SIL International. Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
- ^ a b "List of Wikipedias". Meta-Wiki. Archived from the original on 20 December 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
- ^ "Wikipedia Statistics - Bot article creations only". Wikimedia Stats. Archived from the original on 4 July 2014. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
- ^ "Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Northern Luri Wikipedia". Meta-Wiki. Archived from the original on 3 November 2021. Retrieved 28 September 2021.