Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing systems

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WP:WPW
Current assessment
statistics
Writing system
articles		 Importance
Top High Mid Low None Total
Quality
Featured article FA 1 1 2
A 1 1 2
Good article GA 1 2 3
B 16 17 40 19 19 111
Start 11 29 57 70 42 209
Stub 7 27 110 28 172
List 1 2 1 6 10
Assessed 30 58 126 200 95 509
Unassessed 1 2 36 781 820
Total 31 60 126 236 876 1329

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to Writing systems. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; whilst by no means mandatory, it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page, register your name on the Participants list and review this Project page. All contributions to articles and ideas for further development of this project are welcome. See this subpage for information about quality assessment of articles in this project.

This article is a child project of WikiProject Linguistics. For more information on WikiProjects, please see Wikipedia:WikiProjects and Wikipedia:WikiProject best practices.

Contents

[edit] Title

WikiProject — Writing systems

This WikiProject aims primarily to provide Wikipedia (en) with a consistent treatment for each writing system and general information relating to the study of writing systems. Many writing systems already have extensive pages, and the systematic information on those pages is not presented in a consistent way. A main purpose of this WikiProject is to present that information consistently, that many notable writing systems are documented, and to ensure that each of the major subject areas relevant to each is covered, at least briefly.

Note: the abbreviation WS may be used on this project page as a shorthand way to mean "writing system".

Read further for more on proposed coverage, strategy, areas to be developed, etc.

[edit] Scope

This project covers all articles describing writing systems, their individual symbols, their relationships with language, culture, and art, as well as their development in these areas.

[edit] Related WikiProjects

Related WikiProjects are listed below. Monitoring their development, usage and approach may be useful when considering this project's further expansion and direction.

[edit] Descendant WikiProjects

Other WikiProjects whose subject matter is actually (or conceptually) derived from this one include:

  • WikiProject Latin alphabet
  • WikiProject Chinese characters

[edit] Similar WikiProjects

Other thematically-related WikiProjects include:

[edit] Related Wikiportals

[edit] Related Collaborations

  • No related Collaborations have yet been identified.

[edit] Sister project searches:

[edit] Task Forces

[edit] Participants

WikiProject WS
This user is a member of the
Writing Systems Project.

Feel free to sign up below if you'd be interested in helping out. You can add the userbox {{User WikiProject WS}} to your userpage after you've signed up. It will put you under Category:WikiProject Writing systems members. Please add yourself in alphabetical order.

  1. Rob C (Alarob) 21:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC) -- Likely to help out with Cherokee syllabary and whatever comes up after that. I can puzzle out a few non-Latin alphabets, and am learning Arabic.
  2. Atura 14:17(AEST) 2 December 2006 - English is my native language, i understand some Japanese and can read Hiragana and Katakana and some Kanji, also understand the greek alphabet. Im more involved in neating up pages making them 'universal'
  3. BalkanFever 02:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC) - Can help with Cyrillic, Latin and IPA.
  4. CBD 20:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC) - Mostly a template handyman, but will also look into possible improvements to Maya script, Sarati, Enochian, and various other dead and/or fictional scripts which I am familiar with. --CBD 20:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  5. Cbdorsett Count me in. Ask me questions; I'm always happy to help. And yes, I really do speak Arabic. --Cbdorsett 10:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
  6. Chet Gray (talk) 08:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC) — I don't have a particular expertise in any writing system, but this has long been an interest of mine, at least since I taught myself Tengwar in grade school.
  7. cjllw added 9 Jun05; will be glad to help expand related articles where I can
  8. Codex Sinaiticus) -- Have been working in this area. -- ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 04:31, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  9. Dcmacnut: Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Not sure how much help I can be, but am willing to pitch in.Dcmacnut 18:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  10. Dr Bug (Vladimir V. Medeyko) I've made numerous changes in this area, happy to know that there's a project. 07:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  11. Doc Rock: Korean, Japanese, Chinese, runiform scripts, Ogham, Tifinag,and others Doc Rock 00:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  12. User:Ephraim6888 10 April 2007 (UTC) -- Devanagiri, Telugu, Kannada.
  13. Evertype·✆ 08:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  14. FrancisTyers · 08:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  15. Geoking66
  16. graymornings: I speak and read Russian, so I'm familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet. I'm willing to help in any way -- just post a message to my talk page.
  17. John Carter (talk) 00:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  18. JWB (talk) 02:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC) Familiar with most major scripts and writing system issues in general.
  19. K.A.David: I speak English, Filipino (Tagalog), Cebuano, I can read Japanese Kana, Hangul, a few Chinese Characters, the Greek Alphabet and a little bit of Hebrew. I hope I can help!
  20. Kwami: Have contributed to hangul, rongorongo, Cree syllabics, Middle Bronze Age alphabets, Mayan glyphs, Signwriting, IPA, &c., so I should probably throw my name in. Currently have access to a copy of Daniels & Bright, which is uneven but a good all-around reference. Glad to help where I can. kwami (talk) 08:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
  21. Kingsleyj: I can chip in with tamil script as well Kingsleyj 23:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  22. Nightsky: What a great idea! I'm chiefly interested in Western European scripts, such as those of the Middle Ages. Nightsky 21:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  23. Msanford (talk) 19:12, 4 March 2008 (UTC) Arabic, Greek and interested in starting a task force to improve and audit transliterations into English for which the original text is not provided (i.e., provide the original text).
  24. Mbrutus 15:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  25. node
  26. Nofate I would very much like to work on this project in many aspects, but would probably be the most helpful with the Chinese Character WikiProject Nofate 00:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  27. nohat
  28. Novinha -- various dead languages, primarily mesoamerican ones.
  29. N-true — mainly Caucasian and some South Asian ones; also IPA.
  30. pjacobi
  31. Ragib - I can help with any Bengali language scripts. --Ragib 02:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
  32. Randfan
  33. Sarayuparin
  34. Selethryth (talk) 02:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
  35. sephia karta Mainly Devanagari and Abkhaz Alphabet
  36. Siva 23:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC) Especially interested in beefing up the Shorthand articles (particularly Pitman's).
  37. Sundar I can participate where I can and will also use any template we decide upon to Tamil script
  38. Tanzeel
  39. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC) I made the Template:User iso15924 and am interested in ISO 15924
  40. Umofomia - mainly Chinese
  41. WilliamThweatt I can help with Khmer script, Thai, Lao, various Cyrillics, Greek, Hebrew and related scripts. Just contact me and let me know how I can help!
  42. Yenx I have little time, but know about 10 writing systems almost perfectly and would love to improve the articles, it's needed!
  43. Yung Wei綪永徽 00:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
  44. Alastair Haines 14:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC) I'm familiar with paleo Hebrew forwards and Greek uncial; have a little devanagari; currently working on cuneiform, hieroglyphics and hieratic (also Javanese in my spare time).
  45. Stammer. Hopefully I can help with Tibetan. Stammer 12:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
  46. Tea and crumpets 03:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC) Interested in Japanese, and any other language that sparks my interest. Hope I can be of some help.
  47. Shruti14 can help with many including Indian languages
  48. User:Joost Trying to help sorting out and cleaning up some of the many writing systems. Started some work today on cleaning up the mess in the articles about the various Brahmic writing systems, including work on infoboxes, broken links, etc.
  49. Flag of PolandFlag of EuropeFlag of World
  50. pieandcheeseandcereal

[edit] Example Article structure and format

The appropriate infoboxes should be included (see template section)

  • Introduction: Cover the type of writing system (Alphabet, Syllabary, Abjad, etc.), which languages it transcribes, and its time period. Also cover information which is needed in order to understand further information in the article (i.e. something is not always the case, or the writing system has different names).
  • History: Cover the previous writing system(s) that it descended from and how it happened. Alternatively, if it is artificial, describe the creator(s) and how they made it.
  • Description: A chart of the writing system is given, as well as specifics about how it is written (printed and handwritten styles, whether it goes left to right or right or left, etc.)
  • Usage: When and where it is used, political situation, etc.
  • Unicode Specify any ranges the writing system possesses in unicode.

[edit] Classification and hierarchy schemes

Writing systems can be discussed in a classified hierarchy.

  • Typology. With this we may describe whether a writing system is an abjad or an alphabet or an abugida or a syllabary.
  • Identity. With this we may distinguish one script from another: Devanagari script is different from Arabic script and Bengali script and Latin script.
  • Subsidiarity. With this we may look at alphabets as subsets of a script. The Urdu alphabet, the Persian alphabet, the Arwi alphabet, and the Sindhi alphabet are all subsets of the Arabic script. Note that the word "alphabet" is typological (distinct from "abjad" in that it writes vowels) as well as subsidiary.
  • Constituency. With this we may describe the individual letters and diacritical marks and characters that make up an alphabet or other type of writing system.

[edit] Goals

Common goals and protocols suggested for the project to be documented here.

  1. Standardise all writing system articles, utilize {{Infobox WS}}
  2. Improve the general quality of writng systems articles...bring a few to good and featured status
  3. Start a portal
  4. Include complimentary visual images of each writing system in its article (at least one per article)

[edit] Project Tasklists

Here is an organized list of current projects, jobs, etc. which this project aims to accomplish, or at least aid in the success thereof.

[edit] To-Do list

  • Rate and assess the importance of all articles pertaining to writing systems. The progress is recorded and centralized at Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing systems/Assessment.
  • Link all articles about a particular writing system to the appropriate page on Omniglot.com.
  • Tag every article about a writing system with {{Wsproj}}, and fill in the appropriate variables.

[edit] Open task assignments

Project contributors may wish to identify some specific section or theme upon which they are interested in working on. If so, you may do that here.

[edit] Article adoption

Individual articles, stubs, or proposed articles may be identified here for specific collaboration and coordination of efforts.

[edit] Discussion Forums on general strategy, other subpages, etc.

For now, the talk page is being used for as-yet undecided points and some resources.

  • /General
  • /Strategy

[edit] Templates

All writing system templates should be listed here. They should also be listed at Category:Writing system templates.

[edit] Infoboxes

[edit] Stub templates

[edit] General templates

[edit] Script series templates

[edit] Categories

WS-related categories and sub-categories to be listed here.

Ideally, every WS-related article should be placed in at least one WS-related cat or subcat, as per the schema definition (yet to be supplied), above.

[edit] Primary category

[edit] Parent categories

[edit] Subcat— Terminology

[edit] Subcat— Taxonomic

[edit] Subcat— Linguistic Script families

[edit] Subcat— Notational Script families

[edit] Subcat- ISO 15924

[edit] Lists

[edit] Articles

All articles related to writing systems may be linked to here, for ease of reference, monitoring recent changes, and annotating where appropriate the article's current "completeness".

"Missing" or proposed articles can also be listed as redlinks as a prompt for future development.

[edit] Main article(s)

(i.e., primary or overview articles)

Writing systems

[edit] Writing system terminology

(i.e., articles concerned with technical definitions and terminology used in the description or study of writing systems)

acrophony allograph grapheme orthography

[edit] Writing system taxonomy

(i.e., articles concerned with the overall classification of writing systems according to common features, historical development, language relatedness, etc.)

Alphabet Abjad Abugida Logogram Syllabary

[edit] WS— Ancient

[edit] Resources and references

Links to, or details of, commonly-used, important and authorative resources and reference works to appear here.

Languages