Template:Babel

This user's Babel info
en-N This user has a native understanding of English. fr-N Cet utilisateur a pour langue maternelle le français. de-2 This user has intermediate knowledge of de.
Users by language

A userbox for signaling which languages you know and your proficiency in those languages. Doesn't actually use the Babel MediaWiki extension, but is almost identical in function: Add this template to your User page as in the example below, with a code for each of the languages you speak, and it will produce a userbox like the one on the right and add you to the relevant categories.

{{babel|en-N|fr-N|de-2}}
<!-- {{infobox individual}}, if you included one -->

<!-- your bio, or whatever it is you've put on your user page -->

You can list up to 10 languages, or only list English if you're monolingual. They're displayed in the same order you use in the template call. Please put English first, then order any others from most fluent to least.

The available codes are a subset of the ones the extension uses:

• The first part is a 2- or 3-character language identifier (typically called ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-3 codes, respectively, after the global standard where they're defined), and the second part is a hyphen followed by a single-character 'proficiency level' identifier.
• For this wiki, you're encouraged to include any languages you speak, but localised descriptions have only been added for the following:
  arb العربية الفصحى / Standard Arabic (mixed directionality is hard), cmn 中国话/Mandarin, en English, es Español/Spanish, fr Français/French, ja 日本語/Japanese, pt Português/Portuguese, and ru Русский/Russian. Using any other code will produce a box with a generic message in English, but is otherwise fine.
  • These are the UN's international languages, plus those with a dedicated subforum on TASVideos. Complaints about being left out should be directed to the latter.
• The proficiency code must be one of the following:
  N or 4 for native or as-native fluency, 3 for proficient / advanced fluency (i.e. only occasional mistakes), 2 for intermediate fluency (i.e. can communicate without much trouble), 1 for basic familiarity (i.e. confused by complex or novel constructions).
  If in doubt, round down.
  • Not included is a 0 for no familiarity, because that's the assumed level. (Maybe it would be useful to identify yourself as en-0, but then how are you reading this and why would you register to edit this wiki?)
  • The distinction between 4, 5, and N in the extension didn't seem clear or useful, so it's been dropped. (The English Wikipedia's documentation is clearer, but still.)
    • Considering that most ostensibly-native English speakers have misconceptions about the language or find certain aspects hard to understand, the only pragmatic choice for where to put the 'bar' of native fluency is whether you can understand a verbose and jargon-filled page like this one. And it's not like those levels are even important—en-2 is necessary for most of the modern Web and should be considered the lowest common denominator for readers of main-space articles, and en-3 should be the target level for editors.

This template-based implementation is based on Wikimedia Commons' old system which predated the extension. However, as described above it has fewer features than either. And where possible the remaining features have been modified to match the extension. Specifically:

• A nocat parameter was added which skips adding the containing page to user categories (because this documentation page needed such a parameter anyway).
• The labels are taken from interface strings, using the same paths as the extension (because Yoshi didn't like the defaults and was going to change them anyway).
• The HTML/CSS class names used for the output match those from the extension, and most of the styles were taken directly from it.
• You can't add an arbitrary number of languages, nor split them into multiple columns.
• There's no plain parameter.
• You can't use the {{int:Lang}} trick.

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A userbox for signaling which languages you know and your proficiency in those languages.

Template parameters

This template has custom formatting.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Babel-code 1	1	should be for English Suggested values en-4 en-N en-3 en-2 en-1 Example en-N Auto value en-4	String	required
Babel-code 2	2	should be for the language you're most fluent in (excluding English) Example fr-N	String	optional
Babel-code 3	3	no description Example de-2	String	optional
Babel-code 4	4	no description	String	optional
Babel-code 5	5	no description	String	optional
Babel-code 6	6	no description	String	optional
Babel-code 7	7	no description	String	optional
Babel-code 8	8	no description	String	optional
Babel-code 9	9	no description	String	optional
Babel-code 10	10	no description	String	optional