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Help:Interlanguage links

This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

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Interlanguage links are links from a page in one Wikipedia language to an equivalent page in another language. These links can appear as links in a dropdown menu in the top right corner of the page if you use the default Vector 2022 skin, or in the "Languages" section of the page's left sidebar in other skins.

Less commonly, interlanguage links can be used as inline links in the text of a Wikipedia page.

These two types of links are created and handled differently.

Pages on Wikipedia can link to equivalent pages in other languages. The English article on Spain includes a link to the Spanish article España in the "Languages" list, and vice versa. These links are primarily maintained in Wikidata and can be overridden in rare cases using local links in the text of the page. Using Wikidata is the preferred method.

Wikidata

Wikidata is a sister project of Wikipedia; it is a collaboratively edited knowledge base. Part of this project is to centralize the interlanguage links for all the Wikipedia projects. The "Languages" list for a page contains a list of links to a version of that page in different languages. Editing that list on Wikidata is the standard procedure to add or modify interlanguage links.

Adding a new link

"Languages" in a menu at the upper right (or in the sidebar in non-default skins) shows the Wikidata language list. At the bottom is a link labelled "Edit interlanguage links" (or "Edit links" in non-default skins; mobile viewers may lack such a feature). Clicking on this will reveal the Wikidata page. To modify entries on the Languages list:

1. Scroll, if necessary, to the box marked "Wikipedia" and click on "edit" at the top of that box.
2. Click on the greyed-out "wiki" field, the final item on the list, and enter a language code (see list of ISO 639-1 codes for all language codes).
3. Click on the greyed-out "page" field (now visible) and paste or type in the name of the article as it appears in that language's Wikipedia.
4. Click on "publish" at the top of the box.

Modifying or removing an existing interlanguage link is similar. To modify a link, click "edit", then modify the text of a link and click "publish". To remove a link, click "edit", then click the trash can icon for the link you wish to remove.

If you get an error message like "Site link ... is already used by item Q ...", this means that there is already an item in Wikidata pointing to the article you are trying to link to. Wikidata does not allow more than one item to point to a single article in a Wikipedia. This happens for two reasons:

• The two items really are the same, and might need to be merged: see d:Help:Merge.
• The scope of the two items is not in fact the same (typically, the article in one language is wider in scope than the article in the other language) and they should not be linked, unless there exists a redirect between the two items on one of the languages. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism in Wikidata at present for linking articles that are related, but different in a scope – it is possible to do this with local links, however.

It may take several minutes for the link to show up in the article's "Languages" list. To enable links between templates, you must explicitly purge the server's cache for each template.

Finding interlanguage links for an article

There are many ways Wikipedia articles in other languages can be found. These include translating the article's title and its synonyms to other languages and searching for them on the respective language-versions of Wikipedia or on Google, searching for articletitle site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org (for non-English Wikipedia articles), and checking related or superordinate articles or categories in other Wikipedias.

Local links to override Wikidata interlanguage links

Before 2013, the only method of generating a link to the article in another language was to use a "local" interlanguage link in the text of the page itself. As of 2013, the use of such "local links" for interlanguage linking was deprecated except in the situations listed below, with interlanguage link data being centralized on Wikidata. The problem with having links on each page was that each language had to maintain its own separate lists. So for example, if the name of a page on the English Wikipedia changed, then each Wikipedia article in a different language that linked to that English Wikipedia page would have to separately notice this fact and change their own links.

For most pages, these links are no longer needed and can be safely removed, but you should verify that the local list and the Wikidata lists match before doing so. There is an automated tool to help with that.

The local links do however still serve some purposes:

1. They override the information that comes from Wikidata.
2. They were required if more than one article (or redirect) in one language should point to a target article in another language. This can now be resolved by doing a redirect to a section of the article and adding the redirect to Wikidata.
3. They are required for pages that are not allowed on Wikidata, such as your userpage.

Syntax

Although they are useful only in rare cases, you can force the generation of one of these local interlanguage link overrides in the article using the following form:

[[language code:Title]]

where the language code is the two-letter code as per ISO 639-1. (see complete list of language Wikipedias available. English is "en", German is "de", etc.) So for example in the English language article on plankton, which is available on many other wikis, the "local" interlanguage links might look like this:

[[ar:عوالق]]
[[el:Πλαγκτόν]]
[[fa:پلانکتون]]
[[he:פלנקטון]]
[[ja:プランクトン]]
[[ko:플랑크톤]]
[[ru:Планктон]]
[[ta:மிதவைவாழி]]
[[te:ప్లవకాలు]]
[[th:แพลงก์ตอน]]
[[zh:浮游生物]]

NOTE: These links are treated specially, and don't show up in the body of the text, but in a special sidebar section or drop-down menu, "Languages", listed by language name. They can go anywhere in the article source, as their placement does not alter the visual appearance of the links on the rendered page except for the order. However, the convention is to put them at the bottom of the page. Remember, you need these links only if you are overriding the information from Wikidata; in the vast majority of cases, you should edit the links on the Wikidata entry.

To force the "local" generation in the Languages list of the article of all the languages of a different Wikidata item, use Template:Interwiki extra. For example, the Murder of Kitty Genovese automatically links languages listed at murder of Kitty Genovese (Q18341392); to add the language links at Kitty Genovese (Q238128), use {{Interwiki extra|Q238128}}. Links to non-English Wikipedia articles to both topics will then appear in the Languages list.

Featured articles and good articles

Featured or good articles are represented via Wikidata.

When the English Wikipedia doesn't have an article, the links to it show up as red links. For example, we don't have an article on Erich Anders (it shows up as a red link), but the German Wikipedia does. There are a few options available:

1. The best practice is to use the template {{interlanguage link}} which gives both a redlinked English link and a German blue link, but hides the German link if the English redlink turns blue when the article is created. For instance, by writing {{interlanguage link|Erich Anders|de}} we get "Erich Anders [de]"; however, if we write {{interlanguage link|Ludwig van Beethoven|de}} we get "Ludwig van Beethoven", as the page does exist on the English Wikipedia. (Alternatively, the shortcut {{ill}} may be used in place of {{interlanguage link}}.)
2. If the foreign language article has a different title, use the following parameters: {{ill|English article title|language code|Title in foreign language}} – for example, {{ill|Marivan and Sarvabad constituency|fa|حوزه_انتخابیه_مریوان_و_سروآباد}} gives Marivan and Sarvabad constituency [fa].
3. To show the language code and the link to the other language article, but don't link to an English article: ''[[:fr:Jeux olympiques]]''or[[:ja:東京都]] These links look like this: fr:Jeux olympiquesorja:東京都. The language abbreviation is displayed, so the reader knows that they are links to the French article on the Olympic Games and the Japanese article on Tokyo.
4. To show the name of the other language instead of its code, which can be easier to read for less experienced readers, you can use the lang template or one of its class: {{lang-fr|[[:fr:Jeux olympiques|Jeux olympiques]]}}or{{lang-ja|[[:ja:東京都|東京都]]}} These links look like this: French: Jeux olympiquesorJapanese: 東京都.
5. To show only the title: ''[[:fr:Jeux olympiques|Jeux olympiques]]''or[[:ja:東京都|東京都]] which would look like this in your text: Jeux olympiquesor東京都.
6. Using the pipe trick to simplify methods 4 and 5: ''[[:fr:Jeux olympiques|]]''or{{lang-fr|[[:fr:Jeux olympiques|]]}}. These give the same results: Jeux olympiquesorFrench: Jeux olympiques.
7. To link to a namespace other than the main article namespace, add the namespace after the language abbreviation. For example, the page for general discussions on the Japanese Wikipedia is located in the Wikipedia namespace. You can link to it as follows: [[:ja:Wikipedia:井戸端]]or[[:ja:Wikipedia:井戸端|]] giving ja:Wikipedia:井戸端orWikipedia:井戸端.
8. OnTalk pages and on Meta, you can omit the leading colon. An interlanguage link like [[fr:Jeux olympiques]] will appear inline in the text, like a regular link.
9. An inline link to a Wiktionary entry, such as [[wikt:model|]], can be directed to another language's Wiktionary: ''[[wikt:fr:modèle|]]'' gives fr:modèle.

On the English Wikipedia, links to pages that do not exist are displayed in a different color (usually red). But this check is not performed for links to pages on another wiki (including other Wikimedia Foundation sites). Unlike internal links, these links do not indicate whether the target page exists or not.^[1] If the target page does not exist, the link leads to a message on the target wiki informing you that the page does not exist and inviting you to create it.

If you find interlanguage links to non-existent pages on the English Wikipedia, they may be deleted as having no content. Alternatively, you can create at least a stub page on the target wiki before adding an interlanguage link to it. Later, interested people can complete the rest of the page.

Note: if the language prefix is wrong, it is considered to be part of the name of a page on the English Wikipedia. This page will probably not exist, so the link will be displayed in red.

The {{interlanguage link}} template can help with this.

You can also link to Wikipedia pages in other languages by using external links, in the same way as linking to other sites on the Internet. This method should not be used in the body of an article, but it may be useful on User pages or Talk pages. For example, this method can be used to link to diff pages that show the editing history of a page on another Wikipedia.

The following code:

Tokyo 2020 was added to the French page on the Olympics in [https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeux_olympiques&diff=96480208&oldid=96417677 this diff].

renders as:

Tokyo 2020 was added to the French page on the Olympics in this diff.

Templates {{Cross-wiki language diff}} and {{Cross-wiki language free diff}} are also available to construct diffs for other languages and projects, as is the special-page term :Diff/: [[:fr:Special:Diff/96480208]] will show the same diff as above.

https://qrpedia.org/ offers a tool to create a multilingual link to a Wikipedia article in any language. The user's browser will be redirected to the corresponding page in the language of the browser. Just replace en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ with en.qrwp.org/ in the URL to get a multilingual link. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat, if changed to https://en.qrwp.org/Cat, will be redirected in a French browser to https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat. You can also make QR codes using the tool at: https://qrpedia.org/ and 3D print them into plaques for zoos, botanical gardens, monuments, etc. using https://printer.tools/qrcode2stl/

• Help:Menu/Links – overview

Different languages

• {{Interlanguage link}}
• Wikipedia:Translation
• List of Wikipedias

Sister projects

• Help:Interwiki linking
• Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects
• {{Sister project}}
• {{Sister-inline}}
• List of Wiktionaries

Miscellanea

• Wikipedia:Babel – Userpage language proficiency banners
• Wikipedia:TemplateData

• meta:Help:Interwiki linking
• meta:Interlanguage links for details on linking different languages on Meta.
• Wiktionary:Interlanguage links