Wikilengua, an Internet site for the usage, rules and style of Spanish promoted by the Fundacion del Español Urgente, received 1 million views for the first time in October and has accumulated more than 50 million views since its creation, the foundation recently reported.
The milestone “shows that the idea of creating an interactive site for language issues has its place on the Internet,” Wikilengua coordinator Javier Bezos told the Latin American Herald Tribune.
Wikilengua was launched in January 2008 as a meeting place for people interested in Spanish. The site was built by its community and served a a forum for people to share their doubts and difficulties with the language.
“No way is it a type of spokesman for what is established by the (Spanish) Language Academies,” Bezos said.
Wikilengua’s 10,000 registered users have generated more than 40,000 pages of content.
Creative Commons, owner of Wikipedia’s create content license, also holds Wikilengua’s content license, according to the article. Wikilengua’s goal is different from Wikipedia’s according to Bezos.
Bezos said Wikilengua offers objective data like Wikipedia, but “also allows … in the jargon of the Wikis, what is known as original research. That is, a person who has studied on his own the use of a word … can contribute (that information) so that it may be at everyone’s disposal.”
