Help:Add a new language

You can record any language, dialect or language variety using Lingua Libre. Lingua Libre uses item to store information on language in a way equivalent to what Wikidata does. All existing languages are listed here.

If your language/dialect does not exist yet, you can create it by yourself. To do so, we have two options:

• ask to an administrator (this is the recommended way). You can find a list of the administrators here.
• create a new item by hand

Tool for administrators

This section applies only for administrators

The gadget LinguaImporter can be used by administrators in order to import a language directly from Wikidata. To do so, follow the following steps.

• Enable the LinguaImporter gadget in your preferences by checking the LinguaImporter box and click on “Save”;

The gadget tab of your preferences.

• Go to the tool menu on the top right corner and click on “Import a language”;

The tool menu.

• The popup below appears.

LinguaImporter popup used to import the Picard language.

Enter the Wikidata identifier of the language. For example, to import here the Picard language, you have to enter Q34024. Instead of the identifier, you may also type the name in English of the language (if you want to import the French language, “français” will not find the language while “French” will do. Click on the element corresponding to the language you are interested in. Be careful to click on the right language in order not to import elements that are not languages. Validate by clicking on the “Import” button.

• A small popup appears on the top right indicating that the import is successful. It indicates the item identifier that corresponds to the language.

The language has been successfully imported on Lingua Libre.

This new language is now available to anyone who wants to record word lists.

Create a new language by hand

It is recommended to create a new language by asking to an administrator. So that, all labels filled on Wikidata, that contain the language name in several languages, will be imported. If you create a language by hand, you will have to translate the name of the language by yourself.

If you still want to create a new language by yourself, follow these steps:

• Click on this link in order to create a new item. You arrive on the page below.

The main page to create a new item.

• In the label field, type the language name in the language that is selected in the Language list;

In the description field, type a short description that allow to understand which language is it;

In the alias field, you can optionally enter other language names that are used for this language

Finally click on the “Create” button.

Creation of the Franco-Provençal item. Label, description and alias are filled.

• You are redirected to the page of the new element you just created

The Franco-Provençal item that has been created. Statements have to be added.

• Now, you have to create the following statements by clicking on “add statement”:

• instance of (P2) with the value language (Q4);
• wikidata id (P12) with a value with a form like QXXXX where XXXX has to be replace by the Wikidata identifier of this language;
• ISO 639-3 code (P13) with the value YYY, where YYY is the ISO 639-3 code of the language if it has one. For dialect or language that does not have ISO 639-3, do not use this property;
• optionally, you can add other statements such as Wikimedia language code (P17), ... You can also add language name in other languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish, ...).

To save the statement, you have to click on “save”.

Several statements have been added to the Franco-Provençal item.

This new language is now available to anyone who wants to record word lists.