Tulu Wikipedia more than doubles in size in seven years Premium

A group of dedicated academics and language enthusiasts have kept the Tulu language Wikipedia pages alive for the last over seven years. But some institutional support would give it a big boost, they say.

About seven years after Tulu Wikipedia went live, it has more than doubled in size and has over 2,100 articles now. It had a little over 1,000 articles when it went live on August 6, 2016, at the Wikiconference India, 2016, at Chandigarh, in which Katherine Maher, Executive Director, Wikmedia Foundation, U.S., had announced the new project.

Tulu Wikipedia, which can be accessed at http://tcy.wikipedia.org, was in incubation for about eight years since 2008 before it went live. It was the 23rd Indian language Wikipedia to achieve this distinction. Presently Tulu Wikipedia has 11,434 pages with 7,61,224 words.

A non-scheduled language, Tulu is spoken commonly and prominently in Dakshina Kannada district and southern parts of Udupi district in Karnataka and northern parts of Kasaragod district in Kerala. Tulu speakers are spread all over India and abroad.

Wikipedia is now available in 24 Indian languages with Santali being the 24th to go live, said U.B. Pavanaja, who is also the founder and editor of www.vishvakannada.com, which is the first on-line Kannada magazine. Kannada Wikipedia, which went live on June 12, 2003, has more than 31,500 articles, Pavanaja said.

Tulu speaking professionals from Dakshina Kannada – Pavanaja, an IT professional, Vishwanath Badikana and Kishore Kumar Rai Sheni, both senior college teachers, Bharatesh Alasandemajalu, a bank employee, and Benett G. Ammanna, a former member of Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy -- are among the prominent people behind the birth of Tulu Wikipedia. This group continues to keep the pages alive.

The mentors launched Karavali Wikimedians User Group, a registered body exclusively for writing for Tulu Wikipedia.

“It is the only such user group in Karnataka now devoted for writing for a language Wikipedia,” said Badikana, the president of the user group who teaches Kannada at St. Aloysius College in Mangaluru. Writers use Kannada script for writing in Tulu.