Scripts & Writing - SPARQLqueries

Writing Systems in Wikidata

Wikidata stores labels in many scripts. The writing system is usually determined by the language tag, not stored separately.

Script	Languages	Example
Latin	en, fr, de, es	Paris
Cyrillic	ru, uk, bg	Москва
Arabic	ar, fa, ur	القاهرة
Han	zh, ja	東京
Hangul	ko	서울
Devanagari	hi, sa	दिल्ली
Greek	el	Αθήνα
Hebrew	he	ירושלים

Querying Multiple Scripts

City Names in Multiple Scripts

Run ↗

SELECT ?city ?en ?ru ?ar ?zh ?ja ?ko
WHERE {
  VALUES ?city {
    wd:Q84    # London
    wd:Q90    # Paris
    wd:Q649   # Moscow
    wd:Q1490  # Tokyo
  }

  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?en . FILTER(LANG(?en) = "en") }
  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?ru . FILTER(LANG(?ru) = "ru") }
  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?ar . FILTER(LANG(?ar) = "ar") }
  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?zh . FILTER(LANG(?zh) = "zh") }
  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?ja . FILTER(LANG(?ja) = "ja") }
  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?ko . FILTER(LANG(?ko) = "ko") }
}

Multilingual 6 different scripts side by side

Cultural Heritage in Original Scripts

Museum Names in Native Scripts

Run ↗

SELECT ?museum ?enLabel ?nativeLabel
       (LANG(?nativeLabel) AS ?script)
WHERE {
  ?museum wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q33506 ;
          wdt:P17 ?country .
  ?country wdt:P37 ?officialLang .
  ?officialLang wdt:P424 ?langCode .

  # Get English and native labels
  ?museum rdfs:label ?enLabel .
  FILTER(LANG(?enLabel) = "en")

  ?museum rdfs:label ?nativeLabel .
  FILTER(LANG(?nativeLabel) = ?langCode)

  # Non-Latin scripts
  FILTER(?langCode IN ("ru", "ja", "zh", "ar", "he", "ko", "el"))
}
LIMIT 30

Multilingual Domain: Cultural Heritage

Right-to-Left Scripts

Arabic and Hebrew City Names

Run ↗

SELECT ?city ?enLabel ?arLabel ?heLabel
WHERE {
  ?city wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q515 ;
        wdt:P17 wd:Q801 .  # Israel

  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?enLabel . FILTER(LANG(?enLabel) = "en") }
  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?arLabel . FILTER(LANG(?arLabel) = "ar") }
  OPTIONAL { ?city rdfs:label ?heLabel . FILTER(LANG(?heLabel) = "he") }
}
LIMIT 20

Multilingual RTL scripts: Arabic, Hebrew