# How to include oral culture in Wikimédia movement?

Let's gathering around oral culture integration in Wikimédia movement!
Wikimania Stockholm 2019 - diversity space (Submission on Wikimania Web site)
Sunday 18/08/2019 14:45 - 15:30, room Lessing (D499)
Lionel Scheepmans

### What is oral culture?

Oral culture is a culture where tradition or lore (knowledge, laws, art, ideas and other cultural material) are transmitted without a writing system. If the word culture is embarrassing, let's talk about orality.
Keep in mind : Culture is not only language. The language is only one of multiple medium of culture transmission. There is lot of different medium as pictures or draws, music or sounds, all kind of body or face expression, practices as social behaviours, handicraft, agricultural practices, martial arts, etc. All of this previous example take part of humans cultures and knowledge transmitted form holder to younger people members of communities.
Example of oral culture and culture of oral origin:
* Walloon : Wikipedia (2003) : 39 406 pages - 1 single person admin and bureaucrat - 26 active users last 30 days (one edit) Wiktionnary (2005) : 37 806 pages - 1 admin (same) - 17 active editor
* (Probably one video in commons).
* Twi locutorTwi : Wikipedia (2003) : 180 pages, no admin, 9 actives members (Probably one video in commons). Wiktionnary (2005) closed with 225 pages.
* Others : SiteMatrix (projects by languages).

### Environmental impacts concerning oral cultures related to Wikimedia movement context
#### Digital divide

* All Walloons have internet access possibility.
* All people in Ghana don't have internet access possibility even if the 3G mobile network is pretty developed.

#### Knowledge of a second written language

* All Walloon read French.
* In Ghana, students textbook are in English since the beginning of education and ethnic languages are not teach in school More than this all Ghanaians don't go to school and a significant part of the country side population don't read any language.

### Oral culture inclusion is a two ways issues

* Making Wikimedia projects accessible and understandable for people who can't read or don't want to read. (Dyslexia, Youtube generation, difficulty reading a language that you have not learned in school).
* Including oral culture knowledge inside Wikimedia ecosystem : Amadou Hampâté Bà said : « In Africa, When An Old Man Dies, It’s A Library Burning ».

### Challenge

* Cultural diversity and endangered languages : ""Endangered languages are mainly unwritten language [...] Only one third of some 6,000 languages existing in the world are both written and spoken. I do not think that the Web will contribute to the loss of the identity of languages and I even have the feeling that, long-term, it will strengthen this identity. For instance, an increasing number of American Indians linguists to ask them to write the grammar of their language and to assist them in compiling dictionaries. For them, the Web is an instrument that is both accessible and very precious for cultural express. " (Robert Bea, 1999).
* Political aspect and Neutrality of point of view : "The absenc f nntraditional sources leadso a hierarchy f cutures where se ho have been provided with a Western education and can submit their wrkin writing to peer-reviewed journals, etc. are considered better s ces than the very people whose culture, heritge, anguages, eop a being written about. In doing so, we also blindly trust that the pers viewing these works know more about these subjects, even thugh tey are also outsiders, than the communities themselves. Articles ed up bing one-sided and depicted and categorized mainly from the Western point of view, which clearly violates NPOV. Our job is to minimize this bias and close the knowledge gaps in articles that may not be obvious to readers who are from the same or similar demographics as the main Wikipedias’ editors are. One way of doing so would be the use of oral sources." (Wikimania, 2019).
* Ethical aspect : Linguistic justice (Phillipe Van Parijs,2015).
* Law aspect : Traditional Knowledge and Creative Commons (Mehtab Khan, 2019).

### Actual solutions
##### Research

* Oral citation research : "Helping overcome a lack of published material in emerging languages on Wikipedia" (Achal Prabhala, 2011).
* (Lionel Scheepmans, 2015).
* Atikamekw and Indigenous languages and knowledge in Wikimedia projects :
** ndigenous Languages and Knowledge on Wikimedia Projects Toolbox (Université du Québec en Outaouais, 2017).
** Atikamekw knowledge, culture and language in Wikimedia projects.
* Wikipedia Cultural Diversity Observatory (Marc Miquel, 2018).
* Other ?

#### Technical projects

* Text to speech engine
** Wikispeech project (2016 on line english arabic and Swedish)
** Kiwix and its text to speech functionality in android (of line using text to speech android engine but article selection not possible)
** Wikipedia app : text to speech ticket on phabricator (T230655) (off line article selection bot no text to speach connection)
** Videowiki tool- project (on line only ?)
** Others ?
* Natural speech recoding
** LinguaLibre (functional)
** Wikitongues (Meta - Wikimania ) (promotional)
** Spoken Wikipedia (2005 but obsolete probably because no way to update records)
** Others ?

#### Editorial projects

* No place for original works on Wikipedia...
* Original research on Wikiversity (French exemple of specific name space) (no peer review).
* Wikijournal (peer review)

#### Wikimedia projects

* Luganda-wikipedia-project
* Wikipedia Incubator and the revitalization of Taiwanese Aboriginal Endangered Languages
* Wikimedians of North American Indigenous Languages User Group
* WikiLang
* Others ?

#### Education

* Lingua franca.
* Making written all languages of the world.
* Teach in school all languages of the world.

### Future solution ?
#### WikiOral project, output of the diversity committee work

* Wikioral, (diversity commitee proposition)
* Diversity Recommendations survey

### Attendees?

* User:Frimelle
* User:Flixtey
* User:Celestinesucess
* User:Gereon K.
* User:Amire80
* User:Wittylama
* User:MF-Warburg
* User:Pratik.pks
* User:Ian Furst
* User:Audrey Lebioda, Nationalmuseum
* User:Lithoiyen
* User:Yihsiangyang
* User:Lkjidm
* User:Sebastian Berlin (WMSE)
* User:André Costa (WMSE)
* User:Islahaddow
* User:Anthere
* User:Kelson
* User:Psubhashish
* User:Psubhashish
* User:marcmiquel
* User:Lyokoï
* User:Padaguan
* For remote participation click on this link : https://meet.jit.si/lionel.scheepmans

#### Reference

* ↑ {{Cite book|url=http://greenstonesupport.iimk.ac.in/greenstone2012/resources/pdf/UNESCO-Publications/Cultural%20and%20linguistic%20diversity%20in%20the%20information%20society%20(2003).pdf%7Ctitle=Cultural and linguistic diversity in the information society.|last=Unesco|first=|last2=World Summit on the Information Society|date=2003|publisher=UNESCO|year=|isbn=|location=Paris|pages=|language=English|oclc=156866215}}
* ↑ Parijs, Philippe van (2015). Linguistic justice for Europe and for the world. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198732457. OCLC 908011807. http://worldcat.org/oclc/908011807.

### Attendees comments collected after the presentation

* Body knowledge still not include in Wikimedia project.
* Western culture not a neutral position or point of view.
* Wikimedia cant be the reference position.
* Oral culture is not only language.
* Oral culture also disappear in western countries.
* Traditional knowledge don't need a new project but have to be include in actual ones.
* Wikimedia commons must be adapted for oral and traditional knowledge.
* Wikimedia commons must stop focussing on wikipedia needs but be attentive to others opportunities.
* Wikimedia projects data articulation is done in the frame of a global western style and culture that loose many symbolic or semantic part of other cultures.
* It's important to start oral Wikimedia projects from and with the traditional communities and not bringing western dreams every where in the world.