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Bhutan's
Culture: Dzonghka - National Language
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Dzongkha:
Bhutan's National language |
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Bhutan's
Culture: Dzongkha |
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Bhutan Information |
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The
Dzongkha Wikipedia |
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Ever
heard of Wikipedia? Presumably most Bhutanese would say, No. Log on to www.wikipedia.org and you are entering into the Internet's largest encyclopedia that Time
recently described as the web encyclopedia "by the people, for the people."
So
what?
This
again, presumably, could be the second remark one might make on hearing
about this weird-sounding Wikipedia thing. But listen to what Wikipedians
have to say: It is pretty helpful, especially if you want information urgently.
Wikipedia is a free open-source encyclopedia, which basically means that
anyone can log on and add to or edit it, says Time's Chris Taylor. |
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Started
by Alabama-born Jimmy Wales some four years ago Wikipedia today has 1.5
million entries in 76 languages and is increasing by the day. Wales, whose
long-time obsession was to create an online encyclopedia, stumbled on wiki
after Nupedia (his first trail on online encyclopedia) failed.
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What
Wales did then was create a free-for-all encyclopedia written in their
own language by anyone. Today Wikipedia, according to Chris Taylor, is
"a cumulative work of 16,000 pairs of hands, the bulk of it done by a hard-core
group of about 1,000 volunteers." Wikipedia's current English entries alone
stand at 500,000, making it "far larger than the 65,000-article 2005 Encyclopedia
Britannica."
A
wiki is a simple piece of software that one can download for free and use
to make a website that can be edited by anyone interested. So Wikipedia
is basically a wave of wikis where people from anywhere who have access
to the Internet collaborate to write, edit and improve articles over time. |
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| A
Dzongkha edition of Wikipedia? |
Currently
the site has 146 Wikipedias including one in Dzongkha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzongkha_language).
The Dzongkha Wikipedia, however, has no actual content apart from the main
page that introduces the Dzongkha language briefly, provides example of
the Dzongkha alphabets and has some external links related to the language.
"This
is primarily because there are no contributions in Dzongkha so far," says
Pavel Bandakov who often makes contributions to the Russian edition. "But
here is a chance for the Bhutanese to have an encyclopedia in Dzongkha
written by Bhutanese themselves."
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the recent development of the Dzongkha Unicode, Bhutanese who have interest,
time and access to the Internet could perhaps start contributing articles
to Dzongkha Wikipedia that is currently categorized under slightly active
sub-head. |
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However,
if you visit the Dzongkha Wikipedia page today you would see an invitation
notice: "This sub domain is reserved for the creation of a Wikipedia in
the Dzongkha language. At present there are no articles. If you speak this
language and think it would be cool to have your own encyclopedia then
you can make it. Go ahead. Delete this crap and start working on your encyclopedia."
Wiki
culture is slowly replacing group e-mails like yahoo groups for team and
group work. Chris Taylor reports that big corporations in the west, especially
in Silicon Valley, have already started wikis for project management, mission
statements and cross-company collaborations.
The
term 'wiki' originates from Hawaiian phrase 'wiki wiki' meaning "quick"
and was fathered by Ward Cunningham, a programmer who created the WikiWikiWeb
in 1995. If you fly to Hawaii you apparently can catch the "wiki wiki"
bus from the airport.
Obviously
Wikipedia has its own problems, too. Chris Taylor says that vandals and
fanatics often take advantage of Wikipedia's open system to "deface, delete
and push one-sided views." While it has also been criticized for lack of
reliability, comprehensiveness and authority, academics see it as 'info
anarchy'.
But
there are others who often visit Wikipedia in absence of Britannica encyclopedia.
Pavel Bandakov, a Warsaw-based Russian journalist, told Kuensel he found
quite a few topics were more comprehensively covered by Wikipedia. "For
example, type in Gross National Happiness in the English edition of Wikipedia
and you have it there," he said. "But I don't think Britannica would have
anything on GNH as of now."
One
thing most Wikipedians seem to agree is: Use it, edit it, contribute to
it, but be very discerning.
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| Contributed
by
Gopilal Achary, KUENSEL, Bhutan's National Newspaper, 2005 |
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