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