WikiQueer:Babel

On WikiQueer and Wikimedia projects, the noun Babel (an allusion to the Tower of Babel) refers to the user language templates aiding multilingual communication by making it easier to contact someone who speaks a certain language. The idea originated on the Wikimedia Commons and has also been implemented on Meta-Wiki and some of the other WikiQueers to varying extents. To participate, you can add the Babel template to your user page by following these instructions:


 * Start off with  

So, for example,   would indicate a native speaker of English with basic knowledge of German.   would indicate a professional proficiency of the English language, a native speaker of Swedish with an almost-native knowledge of Norwegian, advanced knowledge of Hebrew, an intermediate knowledge of Lithuanian, a basic knowledge of Spanish and no knowledge of Aragonese.

These templates add you to the category associated with your level of understanding, and to the overall category for that language.

To find someone who speaks a particular language, see WikiQueerians by languages, and follow the links. For the most part, the two and three letter codes are taken from ISO 639, but see this list for a comprehensive guide.

You can help expand this system by creating templates for your language. Categories have already been created for most languages which have editions of WikiQueer containing over a hundred articles; they just need labelling up! It's recommended to copy the English or French versions when expanding the scheme, as most of the languages listed here are incomplete.

Note that many sign languages currently use the same template with language code "sgn", with the exception of American Sign Language users who should use the American Sign Language template. Other sign languages can be specified within the template itself. The use of this parameter requires the user to perform an extra step when using the templates, described here.

Alternatives
See also Templates for making babel style templates. There are other options for achieving results the same as or similar to the standard Babel-X template above.


 * 1) You can add stand-alone language templates. Format:  .
 * 2) You can use the Babel-N template. Format:  .
 * 3) You can use top and bottom templates to make the box. Format:  .