KOCHI: The election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as pontiff on May 8 sparked global curiosity—and nowhere in India was this more evident than in Kerala, which has the country’s largest Catholic population. Over the next few days, the English Wikipedia page for Pope Leo XIV — the papal name that Cardinal Prevost assumed — witnessed a remarkable 300% increase in views globally.
And, to cater to the needs of Malayalis who prefer to access information in their mother tongue, Malayalam Wikipedia stepped in with a thoughtful initiative: using its ‘content translation’ tool, the article on Pope Leo XIV was swiftly developed in Malayalam. And there were many takers, with the viewership rising manifold for the Malayalam edition.
“Wikipedia is the largest online encyclopaedia, and the most popular version is the English Wikipedia. However, it’s now available in 345 languages. Besides Malayalam, we’ve editions in 20 Indian languages. More and more people are now searching in their local languages. The viewership for Malayalam Wikipedia has surged of late, especially after the election of the new Pope. This after we instantly translated the English Wikipedia content on Pope Leo XIV into 23 other global regional languages, including Malayalam. Similarly, when the Wayanad landslides happened last year, many people created articles on Malayalam Wikipedia and contributed images.” Santhosh Thottingal, principal software engineer (language engineering), Wikimedia Foundation, told TNIE.
The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation hosts Wikipedia- — the free online encyclopaedia created, edited, and verified by volunteers around the world — as well as many other vital community projects.
Santhosh said the regional language Wikipedia editions are as credible as the English version as entries are not merely “machine-translated”, but contributed by volunteers who thoroughly check their veracity and write in the taste of the local language viewers. So, what are the challenges ahead for regional language editions? “Many people are unaware that Wikipedia info is available in Malayalam. That’s our main challenge,” he said.
“Now, however, Malayalam Wikipedia has been integrated into our education system. Project ‘School Wiki’ has been introduced in higher classes under the state syllabus, starting from 8th grade. There are also technical issues like typing in the local language on devices,” Santhosh, who was honoured with the central government’s Maharshi Badrayan Vyas Samman in 2019, explained.
However, the Malayalam edition has its task cut out. “While there are nearly 70-lakh articles on English Wikipedia, there are only 86,000 entries on Malayalam Wikipedia. The language engineering team at Wikimedia, which I’m part of, is working towards reducing this ‘knowledge gap’. We want to make sure that all the knowledge available on English Wikipedia is accessible in other languages as well...,” he said.
Wikimedia first introduced the ‘content translation’ tool in 2015 and volunteers created 21 lakh articles using the tool. “Of the nearly 86,000 articles in Malayalam, around 12,000 have been created using this tool... That’s how people create local language knowledge databases, which are freely available. Now, a vast amount of content is available on Malayalam Wikipedia with it open to editing by anyone. People will find it very much useful if they search the content in their native language,” Santhosh added.
So what are topics trending in Malayalam? “When we reviewed the Malayalam content from 2015 to last year, most of them are on biography and geography...That’s also the common trend globally,” notes Purity Waigi, lead product manager, Wikimedia Foundation.