Largest online encyclopaedias

Wikipedia is the largest encyclopaedia ever written. There are more than 22 million (23 July, 2012) articles on it in more than 100 hundred languages. With a little more than four million articles, the English encylopaedia is the largest. Next comes the German Wikipedia with its approximately one and a half million (1.44 million) articles. The French version will soon cross the 1.3 million mark. Currently these are the only Wikipedias (Dutch too, with its more than 100,000 bot generated articles)  to have more than a million articles. The Italian, Spanish and Polish versions are set to join the club before the end of this year.

Compared to this, the Chinese Wikipedia's performance is dismal. Despite having more than a billion speakers, the article count is barely above half-a-million. Even Japanese (with much less speakers) boasts of close to 900,000 articles.

So are the Chinese (just like the Arabs and Indians) disinterested, or are we missing something?

It turns out, they are just as excited about voluntarily contributing online as anyone else in the world. The Chinese Wikipedia may not have an article count comparable to English, German or French, but then it's not the only Chinese collaborative encyclopaedia online.

Baike Baidu (百科百度) and Hudong (互動) are two such giants. There is also Soso (搜搜). Of these, with its 6.4 million (1 July, 2012) articles, Hudong is the largest. Then comes Baike (5 million). It's followed by Soso (900,000).

I got the numbers from this table. This is an article on Baike Baidu on the Chinese Wikipedia.

Here is a screenshot: 

And here are the numbers:

Translation help:

First row from second column onward:

維碁百科：Wikipedia

中文維碁百科：Chinese Wikipedia

百度百科：Baike Baidu

互動百科：Hudong

搜搜百科：Soso

First column, third row from top:

條目數：Article count

So, it turns out the largest online encylopaedia is Hudong. The second largest is Baike Baidu, followed by the English, German and French Wikipedias.

Saanjo - a script for Punjabi

Yesterday I found this. It is a script created by Ejaz Mahmood to write Punjabi. What I like about Saanjo? Unlike Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi, it does represent tones. Though the creator doesn't call them tone markers, my understanding is that the "Supportive Signs" are indeed there to show tone. However, I may be wrong. 

Also unlike Gurmukhi, which is an Abugida, and Shahmukhi, an Abjad, Saanjo is an alphabetic script. There is a guide to the script on the website for those who wish to learn.

How do Indians eat with their hands

While practising Chinese on Yahoo! Taiwan on Saturday, I typed 為什麼印度人 (why do the Indians) and the top suggestion was 用手吃飯？ (use their hands to eat?) 

Here is a screenshot: 

Fantastic!

I even found this newspaper column. Its title is 揭秘：印度人吃飯為何用手抓。It roughly translates as: "Unearthed: How do Indians eat with their hands?" This will make an interesting reading when my Chinese is good enough to read newspaper columns.

And it doesn't end here. One of the other suggestions reads: 為什麼印度人用手吃飯咖哩？(Why do the Indians eat curry with their hands?)

Wow! So they are specific about curry! Interesting! I confess I have never seen anyone eating curry with their hands. Perhaps they do it in the South. But I have no idea how they will hold curry in their hands! Anyway I will find out in the next few months!