bab.la - Loving Languages

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Beneficiary countries:
  - USA, UK
  - Germany
  - Spain
  - France
  - Turkey
  - China
  - Russia
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Dr. Andreas Schroeter
  Palmaille 94
  Hamburg
  Germany

Summary of the activities
bab.la is an interactive language portal.
bab.la offers a free collaborative dictionary (English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Turkish, Russian and Portuguese), language quizzes and a language forum. The basic idea is to let users participate and interact with one another rather than just presenting information and material. bab.la is about sharing the
knowledge and experience of learning languages.

The wiki-style approach enables users to contribute new translations to the dictionary, to verify translations, to create their own language quizzes and to comment or rate existing quizzes. The dictionary and the language quizzes can be embedded into other websites via widgets. To date, the users have shared thousands of new translations, quizzes and comments.

Bibliothèque numérique sur la littérature arabe traditionnelle: Majaliss

• Thématique : Cyberespace
• Étendue de l'impact : Régionale
• Nature du projet: Diffusion d'information
  
  
  
• Pays bénéficiaires : Pays du Maghreb
  
  
• Entité responsable principale :
  UNESCO
  Jaco du Toit
  35 avenue du 16 novembre, Agdal
  Rabat
  Maroc

Résumé de l'activité
Consacré spécialement au patrimoine du Maghreb, le CD Rom Tome II de Majaliss permettra aux pays de la sous-région de faciliter à leurs citoyens l'accès aux contenus appartenant au domaine public à travers le recours aux technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC).

Il a pour objectif d'assurer la préservation et la diffusion du patrimoine littéraire Maghrébin en langue arabe. Il contient environ 50 oeuvres soit 80000 pages en format texte repartis sur 4 thématiques et 18 sous-thématiques, ainsi que des extraits sonores d'une dizaine d'oeuvres destinés aux non-voyants et malvoyants arabophones.

Le Bureau de l'UNESCO à Rabat et l'ISESCO contribuent au renforcement de l'identité maghrébine par la dissémination des contenus de la bibliothèque numérique dans les cinq pays du Maghreb. La collection de CD-ROM ainsi que le site web sont le fruit d’une étroite coopération entre spécialistes en littérature arabe et associations de jeunes s’intéressant à l’application des TIC dans le domaine du patrimoine.

Un Tome III est en cours de réalisation, il se focalisera principalement sur l'aspect pédagogique de cette collection avec des oeuvres en format texte et des exercices pédagogiques destinés aux élèves des trois niveaux de l’enseignement fondamental.

Partenaires principaux
Ministère de l'Education Nationale (Maroc)

busuu.com - the language learning community

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Beneficiary countries:
  Spain
  UK
  France
  Germany
  Austria
  Switzerland
  China
  USA
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Bernhard Niesner, Adrian Hilti
  Calle Nuñez de Balboa 9, 4th floor
  Madrid
  Spain

Summary of the activities
busuu.com is a free online community where native speakers from all over the world can come together, exchange their language knowledge and improve their language skills.

busuu.com aims to inspire people to actively participate in their own personal language learning whilst helping others improve their skills. Users are encouraged to complete picture based learning units focussed on topic areas with phrases and vocabulary represented by images and voices of native speaker. This involves learning new vocabulary, a comprehension dialogue, a writing exercise an online chat about the chosen topic and a review section. All members are free to correct other users' exercises or contact other native speakers to ask about doubts or even start a video conference.

The website can be used completely free of charge and is enjoying strong growth since its launch.

The name "busuu" derives from a little known Cameroonian language called Busuu. This name was chosen in the hope that one day busuu.com will not only be a platform for teaching and
learning all the well-known languages of our world but also for all those less known languages which deserve to be preserved - languages such as Busuu.

Cuaderno Intercultural

• Marco temático: Ciberespacio
• Amplitud del impacto: Internacional
• Naturaleza del proyecto: Difusión de información
  
  
• Países beneficiarios: Global (a través de Internet)
  

• Principal entidad responsable:
  Rosana Larraz Antón y Mª Isabel González Martínez
  C/Rosal 28 29730 Rincón de la Victoria
  Málaga
  España

Resumen de la acción
Cuaderno Intercultural es un blog que proporciona información y materiales didácticos para la promoción de la enseñanza intercultural, el apoyo a la alfabetización, la integración del alumnado inmigrante y la enseñanza de segundas lenguas. Nuestro propósito es desarrollar un catálogo de materiales de ayuda para profesores, maestros y educadores que trabajen dichos aspectos en contextos escolares o como formadores de adultos. El catálogo de materiales se desarrollará por medio de la recopilación y organización de recursos y herramientas didácticas que se hallan de forma dispersa en internet a fin de posibilitar su visibilidad y accesibilidad. Se recopilarán materiales en las cuatro lenguas oficiales de España -castellano, catalán, euskera y gallego - así como en inglés, francés y alemán, principalmente.

Con este catálogo pretendemos proporcionar un instrumento que facilite al profesorado la búsqueda de materiales didácticos que se ajusten a sus necesidades y las de su alumnado en un medio tan extenso y complejo como es la Red. El catálogo que se pretende desarrollar comprenderá fundamentalmente materiales didácticos, herramientas para la creación de recursos y recursos didácticos de acceso libre.

Freelang - www.freelang.com

• Thématique : Multilinguisme et cyberespace
• Étendue de l’impact : International
• Nature de projet : Renforcement des capacités
  
  
• Entité responsable principale:
  Beaumont
  44/12 soi Thonglo 1
  Bangkok
  Thailande

Résumé de l'action
Freelang est un site Internet dont le rôle est de mettre à disposition des ressources gratuites dans le domaine des langues. On y trouve des dictionnaires bilingues à télécharger ou à consulter en ligne, ainsi qu'un service d'aide à la traduction animé par des traducteurs bénévoles.

Les dictionnaires sont réalisés et mis à jour par les utilisateurs du site, et beaucoup d'entre eux sont consacrés à des langues régionales ou en danger.

Freelang propose également une liste d'expressions courantes dans de nombreuses langues, des quizzes sur les langues et les cultures, et un service d'hébergement de mémoires pour les étudiants de langues et de linguistique.

Une communauté de passionnés des langues se retrouve chaque jour sur les forums Freelang, pour débattre, s'entraider ou simplement discuter.

Freelang est un projet indépendant et auto-financé, présent sur la toile depuis 10 ans. Le site est disponible en français, en anglais et en espagnol.

Principaux partenaires
Adsense (régie publicitaire de Google) et Ectaco (fournisseur de dictionnaires électroniques et logiciels de traduction).

italki.com

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach : International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Main responsibles:
  Eric Pang, Toffler Niemuth, Li Qi
  88 Caoxi North Road,
  Charity Building Ste. 404-405
  Shanghai
  China 200030

Summary of thez activities
Italki is a website. Its goal is to help people around the world share and teach others their native language. Italki has openly-edited webpages (wiki style). With these, Italki hopes that the fundamentals of each and every one of the world's languages no matter how small will be preserved for anyone to learn online. Native speakers of these more obscure languages can create pages about their native language that others can edit, learn from, and add to. Italki believes that this will play a critical role for less popular languages by providing the means to preserve those languages.

Italki also facilitates the learning of foreign languages between any language pair, for example, native speaker of Urdu learning Finnish. In traditional language study, the learner must first know one of the world's main languages, for example, English or French. However, with Italki, starting from any base language learning any foreign language is possible.

Main partners
Yongyue Jiang (co-founder)
Kevin Chen (co-founder)
Talk English, Shanghai

Kindersite Project

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Beneficiary countries: Global (available over the Internet)
  
  
• Main responsible
  Joel H Josephson
  5th Floor Durkan House, 155 East Barnet Road
  New Barnet EN4 8QZ
  UK
  Contact
  

Summary of the activities
The Kindersite project an online educational resource used for the introduction to English for all age levels, as a second language. Currently 18,100 schools in 157 countries have registered to use the Kindersite resource. The resource consists of 100s of items of graded rich multimedia content. Today the Kindersite is being used by: preschools, primary for ESL/EFL.

The resources available are used by educators to reinforce, engage and motivate very young learners.

The Kindersite takes the CLIL approach to language learning.

• Go to the website: http://www.kindersite.org

Learnitlists.com

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Nicola Robinsonova
  Nový Mlýn, Vlčeves, U Tabora
  Tábor
  Czech Republic
  

Summary of the activities
We are keen to be involved with the International Year of Languages because we can provide support for anyone with Internet access to share their native language. Though we are beginning with the world's most common languages, we also want people who speak anything from Cornish to Mirpuri to be involved in sharing their language.

Learnit works by building vocabulary. Every day 10 words to learn from a list of the 1000 most common English words are allocated. When you refresh the page, the words on your list will appear one by one. You can show or hide the meaning and swap between the two languages as you wish.

By seeing this same list many times in one day, learning will take place in the same way as used throughout the advertising industry. Then, next time you are actively studying (in class, with a text book or an online course) you’ll find that more and more words are familiar to you. Advertisers call this brand
exposure leading to brand recall, but you’ll be learning useful vocabulary instead.

Main partners
Mike Robinson, Digital Egg ltd. UK,
Jan Horna Hormart SRO, Czech Republic,
Nicola Robinsonova, Everyday English, Czech Republic.

Lena Resolution on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace (international conference; Yakutsk, Russian Federation)

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Type of project: Awareness raising
  
  
  
  
• Main responsible
  Government of the Republic of Sakha
  Yakutia
  
  

Summary of the activities
The International Conference on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace was held under UNESCO auspices in Yakutsk, Russian Federation, from July 2 to July 4, 2008. This conference represents the Russian Federation’s contribution to the United Nations International Year of Languages.
 
The Conference gathered more than 100 representatives from 15 countries and all continents—leaders and staff members of intergovernmental and international nongovernmental organizations, government bodies, agencies and institutions of culture, education, research, information and communications, business, civil society and the mass media, as well as political and community leaders and leading experts.

The Conference discussed the political, cultural, social, ethical and technological aspects of research and development of linguistic and cultural diversity in cyberspace, and examined issues related to the use of information and communication technologies to safeguard all languages.

The participants held three plenary meetings and five thematic sections: Political, Ethical and Legal Aspects of the Development of Multilingualism in Cyberspace; The Internet and Other Media; The Role of Libraries in the Preservation of Linguistic Diversity; Languages and Education; and The Preservation and Development of Cultural Diversity.

In concluding its work, the Conference agreed on the Lena Resolution.


Main partners
- Russian Federation’s Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography
- UNESCO Moscow Office
- Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO
- Russian Committee of the UNESCO Information for All Program
- Interregional Center of Library Cooperation
- National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) 
- Committee of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) for UNESCO

Malayalam Computing Campaign

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach : Local
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Beneficiary country: India
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Dr Ajaykumar IAS/ Dr Dinesh Arora IAS
  ICT Campus, Vellayamabalam, Trivandrum
  Trivandrum
  India

Summary of the activities
It is one of the stated objectives of the IT Policy 2007 that Government of Kerala shall promote development of content in local language (Malayalam). This is becoming more relevant in today's scenario where all the segments of the society are utilizing the contents available through internet either for
communication purpose or for information purpose.

Keeping in view that the information can become more accessible if available in the local language, Kerala State IT Mission (under Government of Kerala,India) has started a year long campaign for promotion of Malayalam Computing. This campaign include awarness as well as capacity bulding initative. Campaign will be carried out through Akshaya telecenter network and schools. Special training will be provided to local computer vendors so that they bundle Malayalam software tools. Training programs for public will also be organised.

Main partners
Society for Promotion of Alternate Computing and Employment (SPACE), Akshaya

Miftaah: free and open source software in the Arab region

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: Regional
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Beneficiary countries:
  - Algeria
  - Libya
  - Morocco
  - Tunisia
  
  
• Main responsible :
  UNESCO
  Jaco du Toit
  35 avenue du 16 novembre, Agdal
  Rabat
  Morocco

Summary of the activities
Software is considered open source when its source code and the basic elements of its design are accessible to all, as opposed to the traditional form of software which is “proprietary”, and whose source code is inaccessible, secret and therefore closed. UNESCO recognizes the importance of the social value of free and open source software (FOSS) and its actions aim at giving the necessary means and autonomy for countries to make their own choice.

In this context the UNESCO Office in Rabat, in co-operation with UNDP/ ICTDAR, is creating the “Miftaah” memory stick, containing not only free and open source software, but also a storage capacity for the user’s personal data. Miftaah also provides a customized and user-friendly interface, ensuring accessibility to this FOSS package in arabic, in english and in french.

Academic institutions represent the focal point of the development of the project because of their commitment to free and autonomous research and their dedication to quality in higher education, in accordance with the fast changes of the needs of society.

Main partners
Algeria: Centre de recherche sur l’information scientifique et technique (CERIST), Alger;
Morocco: École Mohammadia d’Ingénieurs, Rabat;
Palestine: University of Birzeit.

Multilingual Education (scientific conference)

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Developing networks
  
  
• Beneficiary countries:
  - Russian Federation
  - France
  
  
• Main responsible:
  North-Ossetian State Pedagogical Institute
  362003,
  K. Marx str., 36
  Vladikavkaz
  Russian Federation

Summary of the activities
The Second Scientific International Conference “Multilingual education as the basis for preservation of language heritage and cultural diversity of humanity” was held on 12-13 May 2008 in Vladikavkaz (Republic of North Ossetia – Alania, Russian Federation).

The main goal of the conference was to acquaint scientists and cultural activists with UNESCO programs and projects in the field of language and cultural legacy preservation. The results of the actions for the establishment of experimental infantry and multilingual type schools in Republic of North Ossetia-Alania will be introduced to the conference participants.

Representatives of scientific and educational organizations from different North Caucasus regions and other regions of the Russian Federation as well as France have shared the experience and efforts taken to elaborate modern education models aimed at the development of minority languages.

Main conference topics were:
1. Language policy priorities in education.
2. Principles of multicultural education space formation.
3. Application of modern technologies in simultaneous learning of different languages.
4. Multilinguism and comprehensive school subjects.
5. Correlation of national and regional components in the sphere of education.

Multilingualism in Philippine Literature and Cyberspace

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Beneficiary countries: Philippines (and other countries)
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Santiago Villafania
  Emilio Aguinaldo College,
  1113-1117 San Marcelino St.
  Ermita, Manila
  Philippines
  

Summary of the activities
The primary aim of this project is to encourage the youth in the Philippines to write literary works in their Mother Tongue.
The MAKATA, since 1999, serves as an online journal for Philippine and International contemporary poetry.

2008 project activities include:
- publication works in major Philippine languages: Tagalog, Cebuano, Iluko, Hiligaynon, Bicol, Waray, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, etc.
- organize/coordinate poetry readings in different provinces which will be a build-up to World Poetry day (21 March)

The site will be available for writers, educators and researchers interested in literary works in different Philippine languages.


Main partners
Currently in cooperation with the Commission on Filipino Language which supports multilingualism in its annual literary contest : the Gawad Komisyon.

Open Training Platform

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Armelle Arrou
  UNESCO CI/INF
  Paris
  France

Summary of the activities
The Open Training Platform is an on line collaborative hub to free learning resources in all development domains, especially language to better serve local people knowledge and skills acquisition needs worldwide.

The OTP is an unprecedented collaborative effort hyper-linking to 2300 resources constantly completed. It is enriched by over 1,600 members from all UN agencies and over 630 other institutions dedicated to development including languages issues. The free learning resources are available in the domains of Language courses, Conversational languages courses, Language teaching, Language acquisition, Language exams preparation, Linguistics.

The OTP is a significant tool for languages’ learning and preservation as well as for the reinforcement of practitioners’ capacities in the linguistic domain.

Main partners
In addition to the 1600 members who voluntarily enrich the OTP, this open multi-partners initiatives counts
- 9 UN agencies (FAO, ILO ITC, ITU, UNEP, UNESCO, UNITAR, UNU, UNV and WHO),
- development agencies (IDRC and SPIDER) and well as - initiatives advocating for open educational content (APC, CURRIKI, Development Gateway, GLP, Merlot African Network, OER Commons and the Shuttleworth Foundation).

UNESCO expects more UN agencies and development stakeholders of join this open and collaborative effort.

Pan-African Living Dictionary Online

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Disseminating information
  
  
• Beneficiary country/countries:
  Tanzania
  Ghana
  Kenya
  Rwanda
  Nigeria Congo (DRC)
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Martin Benjamin
  chemin du Mont-Tendre 11
  Crissier 1023

Summary of the activities
Building on the successful Kamusi Project Swahili-English online dictionary, PALDO will be an interlinked participatory dictionary among multiple African languages. PALDO will begin with :

- a full dictionary linking Kinyarwanda with the existing Swahili and English lexicons, and
- a 2500-word terminology lexicon for each of a dozen languages widely spoken in Africa.

As new partners are identified, the resource will be expanded to include complete dictionaries and learning resources for several dozen African languages, including cross-border and endangered languages.

PALDO will include definitions for each term within its own language (monolingual dictionaries), as well as links between terms in each language, thereby creating the first bilingual dictionaries between most African language pairs.

PALDO will be free, updated regularly, and available in online and portable formats. The project will also work with educational and technology organizations to make the project data widely available in African schools and IT applications. The resource is expected to serve more than 100 million visitors a year by 2012, including millions from throughout Africa.

Main partners
International Development Research Centre (Canada),
World Languages Documentation Centre,
Zuza Foundation (South Africa),
Grambling State University (USA),
Rwanda Institute for Research in Science and Technology, Kasahorow.org (Ghana)

Promoting linguistic diversity in cyberspace

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: Regional
• Types of project: Research and Analysis
  
  
• Beneficiary country: Russian Federation
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Russian IFAP Committee
  2 "a", build. 1,
  1st Basmanny pereulok,
  105066
  Moscow
  Russian Federation

Summary of the activities
Objectives:
- analyze Russian and international experience in promoting linguistic diversity in cyberspace
- provide the environment for sharing the experience and establishing business partnership
- disseminate the relevant information materials

2008:
- International conference «Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace» (July, Yakutsk, Russia)
- Research on the role of libraries in preserving cultural and linguistic diversity in cyberspace
- Publication of a book series on multilingualism in cyberspace (in Russian and English).

Last year activities:
- National Report on Measures Taken to Implement the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace
- Research in the measures being taken in Russia for promoting multilingualism in cyberspace
- Round table meeting and collected book on Russia’s and the CIS countries’ languages on the Internet
- Translation and publication of the UNESCO books "Comment assurer la présence d’une langue dans le cyberespace?" and "Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Internet"

Main partners
Russian Committee of the UNESCO Information for All Programme
Interregional Library Cooperation Center (Russia)
Department of Nationalities and Federal Relations, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia);
Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography

Sgarfefurlans: Looking for friulians around the world

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach : International
• Types of project: Developing networks
  
  
  
  
  
• Beneficiary countries :
  Italy,
  Thailand,
  China,
  Australia,
  New Zealand.
  
  
• Main responsible
  Loris Vescovo
  Via Udine 44
  Trivignano Udinese
  UD
  Italy
  

Summary of the activities
One of the most important demographic phenomena in Friuli was emigration. It began in the last few decades of nineteenth century and it was stopped in the 70s. It was estimated that more than a million Friulian people emigrated in approximately one hundred years. According to the last census of AIRE (2005), Friulian migrants number 134.936. Of these, 56.0% reside in Europe, 24.0% in South America, 10.3% in North America and 4.7% in Oceania. These data pertain only to those Friulians and their descendants who have Italian citizenship.

Friulians in the world have given life to cultural associations called Fogolârs furlans, of which there are 46 in Italy and 156 in the rest of the world.

Sgarfefurlans is a project - radio documentary of Cooperative di Informazion Furlane - Radio Onde Furlane and Comunità Collinare del Friuli financed by S.I.L.C.E. - Servizio Identità Linguistiche, Culturali e Corregionali all’Estero of the Friuli- Venezia Giulia autonomous region.

Main partners
Radio Onde Furlane,
Comunità Collinare del Friuli,
Atôr pal Mont,
Corregionali all'estero-FVG

Slavonic-English Dictionary Project

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Beneficiary countries :
  United States
  United Kingdom
  European Union
  Australia
  Russian Federation
  Canada
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Ernst Troyan
  Fakultetsky Pereulok 6-95
  Moscow
  Russian Federation

Summary of the activities
It is planned to build a Slavonic to English dictionary. It will be available for free online. It will include around 5’000 words selected, in general, from old books printed in Russia before 1917.

Before the eighteenth century, Church Slavonic was in wide use as a general literary language in Russia. Many medieval East-European chronicles and other materials were written in this language. Church Slavonic is the liturgical language of several Christian Orthodox churches. Some English-speaking parishes also use Church Slavonic in the services. Particularly, the Orthodox Church of America, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, some parishes of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, there is no Slavonic-to-English dictionary, while it deserves to be completed - to enable easy access to the relevant Biblical texts, services and historic records - for the wider community.

For this reason Millennium Memorial Ltd (UK) launched online project: http://www.slavonic-english.com

Main partners
- Department of Foreign Languages, Peoples' Friendship University (Russian Federation)
- consultations Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem
- consultations Center for Armand Hammer Studies Ltd (UK)
- old books collectibles

The Pulaar project

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Disseminating information
  
  
• Beneficiary countries:
  - Mauritania
  - Guinée
  - Mali
  - Sierra Leone
  - Niger
  - Burkina Faso
  
  

• Main responsible:
  Ibrahima SARR
  10, Allée D'Avranches - Appt 111
  76610 Le Havre
  France
  

Summary of the activities
With the absence of pulaar/fulfulde on the internet, my team and I have set up a website entirely written and updated in pulaar. Our objective is to give pulaar readers news and other features on the internet.

I have been researching on Pulaar digitizing and codification for the last twelve years. Pulaar is a great language to learn and analyse since it has very complex structures that add spice to any linguistic or semantic project work. Unfortunately, people like me are usually isolated and cannot coordinate their work
with other people in other parts of the world since governments' policies in different West African countries often give very poor attention to the development of National languages.

In the last decade or so, the crucial problem of Pulaar scholars was typing and displaying Pulaar correctly on computers. Ten years ago, I discovered a program called "Type Designer" which could be used to create fonts and to map the characters freely to any type of keyboard. I was so excited!! I bought the
program and got to work immediately!!

I had no graphic skills at that time and did not know how to ceate fonts from scratch. What I did was edit existing fonts from my computer and add Pulaar characters that did not exist in the given font. Then, I was able to map characters to specific keys on my keyboard. I modified a dozen fonts and gave them the same names with the prefix "Peul" which gave names like PeulArial, PeulTimesNewRoman, etc. You have probably seens those fonts since they are widely and freely used in many countries.

Main partners
We are looking for partnership with local radio in West Africa and press agencies thoughout the world for news sources.

Vulgarisation de l’Alphabet Général des Langues Camerounaises (AGLC) et promotion de la

• Thématique : Cyberespace
• Étendue de l’impact : Régionale
• Nature du projet : Renforcement des capacités
• Pays bénéficiaires :
  - Cameroun
  - Tous les autres pays intéressés (notamment ceux avec des langues bantu)

• Entité responsable principale :
  Sous-comité de Langue Bàsàa (SCOBA)
  Dr. Pierre Emmanuel Njock, Linguiste
  B.P. 30272 Yaoundé, Cameroun
  

Wikipedia and Wiktionary to save endangered languages

• Thematic framework: Multilingualism and Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Disseminating information
  
  
• Beneficiary countries: all
  
  
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Ad Huikeshoven
  Bekerstraat 17
  The Hague
  The Netherlands
  

Summary of the activities
The Wikimedia Foundation Inc is a non-profit organization hosting the online encyclopedia Wikipedia in over 250 languages and other multilingual projects such as Wiktionary, an online dictionary. New languages are added regularly if there are enough speakers of a language to form a viable community and audience according to Wikimedia Language proposal policy.

This project calls upon all officers employed by the U.N. or one of its subsidiaries or affiliations like UNESCO who speak a language currently not included in Wikipedia to make a request for a project in their language on this page, calls upon senior leadership to endorse and encourage their staff to join a new language community and devote a little bit of their time to get an online encyclopedia or dictionary in their language started.

From the perspective of Wikipedia all languages currently not included on Wikipedia should be considered an endangered language. The Wikimedia Foundation has the resources to host many more languages, however current volunteers involved (and there are millions of volunteers) aren't (native) speakers of languages currently not included.

Main partners
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has office in San Francisco

WikiProverbs - the multilingual online proverbs compendium

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Pavel Kats
  Tel-Aviv
  Israel
  
  
  

Summary of the activities
WikiProverbs is the first online multi-lingual proverb compendium. WikiProverbs provides a platform (a well-known Wikipedia-like interface) to document, describe and research proverbs belonging to different languages and cultures. With WikiProverbs one can now document proverbs, provide information about proverbs (e.g. meaning, context, usage) and group proverbs in different languages according to the meaning.

One of the main motivations for establishing WikiProverbs is the important role that we give to proverbs in the task of endangered languages documentatios. It is both concise, making it easy to document, and extremely rich in language and culture specific traits, such as unique vocabulary, metaphors, melodie and sense. We believe that by documenting language’s proverbs one can make a major step to preserve this language heritage for the future generations.

We have already established a number of important cooperations (see on the site) with the organizations involved with languages preservation.

Main partners
* Folklore Research Center, The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
* Center for Circassian Heritage
* Bahalachin, the Ethiopian Jewish Cultural Center

YesIType.com

• Thematic framework: Cyberspace
• Geographical outreach : International
• Types of project: Capacity-building
  
  
• Main responsible :
  Barry Wong/Equinet Broadcasting Network
  Vancouver
  Canada