I wonder how many people know about Thai Wikipedia. I recommend it--and I recommend getting involved. I've been a member since July 2006, and while I've only made 100 or so edits, I try to do what I can. Particularly, since I'm not quite confident enough to start full blown articles, I create a lot of redirect pages for things with more than one name, correct obvious typos, interlink with Wikipedias of other languages, and use the Thai info to create or expand English pages about various Thai things, like authors, or the Royal Institute.
On the Wikipedia frontpage, which lists languages in groups by number of articles, Thai is firmly in the 10,000+ group (with 28,135 as of just now). It has more articles than the respective Wikipedia sites of all of mainland Southeast Asia (assuming I'm interpreting their statistics pages correctly):
Vietnamese Wikipedia: 25,150 articles
Malay Wikipedia: 23,659 articles
Khmer Wikipedia: 373 articles
Lao Wikipedia: 228 articles
Burmese Wikipedia: 101 articles
As for the island portions of Southeast Asia, Tagalog Wikipedia has 9,722 articles, and only Indonesian Wikipedia has more than Thai, with 67,922 articles. Some of the other major Asian languages, like Japanese and Chinese, dwarf Southeast Asia's Wikipedias, but things are well on their way. Thai Wikipedia is a great resource, and great language practice.
Let me get you started: here's a link to the article on Bangkok.
The gap between Thai Wikipedia and English Wikipedia is an aspiring translator's dream: plenty of material and no penalty for mistakes. There are plenty of articles in great shape from the English version with no Thai counterpart. Also, I have noticed some that are better in the Thai version (the most recent I've seen is เทศกาลกินเจ, compared to the Vegetarian Festival, which has nothing to say about what it is, its connection to Chinese culture, or really much of anything).
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, a friend of mine pointed out that one of the best places to find hard-to-translate ideas, phrases, or even words is Wikipedia. Look it up in the language you know, and then look for the "English" or "ไทย" link along the left-hand side. If it's there, it's usually quite helpful.