Title: A Glimpse into Babel: An Analysis of Multilingualism in Wikidata

Authors: Lucie-Aimee Kaffee:University of Southampton; Alessandro Piscopo:University of Southampton; Pavlos Vougiouklis:University of Southampton; Elena Simperl:University of Southampton; Leslie Carr:University of Southampton; Lydia Pintscher:Wikimedia Deutschlan

Abstract: Multilinguality is an important topic for knowledge bases, especially Wikidata, that was build to serve the multilingual requirements of an international community. Its labels are the way for humans to interact with the data. In this paper, we explore the state of languages in Wikidata as of now, especially in regard to its ontology, and the relationship to Wikipedia. Furthermore, we set the multilinguality of Wikidata in the context of the real world by comparing it to the distribution of native speakers. We find an existing language maldistribution, which is less urgent in the ontology, and promising results for future improvements.

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