The Wikimedia Foundation

Today, each language version of Wikipedia is distinct, meaning that some articles may not be available at all in certain languages. This means the best and most comprehensive information from other language versions is not universally available.

On Wikipedia, volunteers manually translate an article from one language to another. While content translation tools are certainly available and growing, translating articles from digitally-dominant languages like English into others can be time consuming.

Abstract Wikipedia is a major innovation in how people can create, edit, and store articles as “abstract content” that is language-neutral, rather than written text that is language-specific. It uses mathematical-like “functions” to display text, facts, and references.

For example, a Wikipedia contributor can create an article in Urdu, and the knowledge it contains is immediately turned into this “abstract” form. Someone across the world can then access that same knowledge in a different language, and build from it, add to it, and even collaborate with the original contributor, without needing to speak the same language. This matters because we know that the more people contribute to Wikipedia, the more diverse, trustworthy, and complete the information becomes.

The breakthrough: within a short timeframe, Abstract Wikipedia will give every language version of Wikipedia a strong base of articles to help strengthen this shared and trusted knowledge base, globally.