The Wiki marathon ‘Who’s Afraid of Ramon Llull?’ has ended with very positive results: ten articles have been published in different languages, especially the versions in Romanian, Serbian and Hungarian. Although in general entries in these languages already existed, they have been revised, expanded and improved thanks to the work of the students and the bibliographical support offered by their teachers. The University of Konstanz, for example, took it upon itself to translate into German some passages from Fèlix o Llibre de meravelles, and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile translated some verses from the Llibre d’Amic e Amat into Spanish.
Altogether 50 students signed up to the project, from the Universities of Konstanz (Germany), Massachusetts (USA), Szeged (Hungary), Hosei (Japan), Bucharest (Romania), St Petersburg (Russia), Belgrade (Serbia), and the Pontificia de Chile (Chile). Over the last week in April, they met at their respective universities to edit and translate the articles about the Majorcan philosopher on Wikipedia.
In a preliminary phase, during March the students had already made contact with the work of Ramon Llull in classroom sessions, so the activity enabled them to put into practice what they had learned, always with the support of a high-quality bibliography supplied by their Catalan teacher. According to Àlex Hinojo, projects director of the Amical Wikimedia association, it has been “a good way for students of Catalan language and culture in the University Network of Catalan Studies Abroad to reinforce and share their knowledge, by editing articles from Wikipedia in the context of an educational project, showing the world what they are learning”.
The Wiki marathon is one of the events of Llull Year, being celebrated this year to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the death of the Majorcan writer and philosopher, and which has organized nearly 300 activities with the aim of recovering and disseminating his work.