Editing Bourbon Wiki:Namespace (section)

==<span id="Interwiki links"></span>Interwiki and interlanguage links ==
{{see|Help:Interwiki linking|Help:Interlanguage links}}

[[m:Table of Wikimedia projects|Interwiki]] and [[m:List of Wikipedias|interlanguage]] prefixes do not define namespaces, but point to pages in other Wikimedia projects, outside the en.wikipedia.org website. They are mentioned here because they use a namespace-like prefix technique for linking. Examples of interwiki prefixes include '''w:''' for Wikipedia; '''m:''' (or '''meta:''') for [[Meta-Wiki]], '''mw:''' for [[MediaWiki]],  and '''wikt:''' for [[Wiktionary]]. Examples of interlanguage prefixes include '''en:''' for English language, '''fr:''' for French language, and '''de:''' for German language. 

Important points to note:

* In the presence of an interwiki prefix and the absence of an interlanguage prefix, the link will be to a specified project in the current language. So <code><nowiki>[[w:Internet]]</nowiki></code> links to "[[w:Internet|Internet]]" on the English Wikipedia, if the link is on any English-language Wikimedia project.
* In the presence of an interlanguage prefix and the absence of an interwiki prefix, the link will be to a specified language in the current project. So <code><nowiki>[[:en:Internet]]</nowiki></code> will link to "[[:en:Internet|Internet]]" on the English Wikipedia, if the link is on a Wikipedia project in any language.

When making links to other language Wikipedias, add an initial colon if you want the link to appear inline rather than in the skin's sidebar under "Languages"; see [[Help:Colon trick]] for an explanation. So <code><nowiki>[[:de:Internet]]</nowiki></code> is an inline link to "[[:de:Internet|Internet]]" in the German Wikipedia; but if using an interwiki prefix this is unnecessary, for example <code><nowiki>[[w:de:Internet]]</nowiki></code> is the same inline link.

Further examples:

* [[m:Meta:Babel]] and [[meta:Meta:Babel]] both link to the "Babel" page in the project namespace (Meta:, the 2nd prefix) of Meta-Wiki (m: or meta:, the 1st prefix).
* [[wikt:fr:Discuter:pied/fusion daf]] links to the "pied/fusion daf" page in the talk namespace (Discuter:, the 3rd prefix) of French (fr:, the 2nd prefix) Wiktionary (wikt:, the 1st prefix).

Interwiki prefixes are not just for Wikimedia projects. For example, [[Dictionary:]] is the interwiki link for [[dict.org]] (the DICT Development Group). For a complete list of interwiki prefixes, see the [[m:Interwiki map|interwiki map]] and [[m:Special:Interwiki|interwiki table]].

As with aliases, it is not possible to create a page with a title beginning with an interwiki or interlanguage prefix. It is also not possible to create redirects to interwiki pages, unless it is a [[Wikipedia:Soft redirect|soft redirect]].