Kwamikagami

Formatting

Please read the documentation for Template:also (the replacement for Template:see. These are not used to link synonyms; they are for linking identically spelled words that differ only in capitalization, diacritics, spacing, or hyphenation. You would do well to learn a little about Wiktionary formatting standards before you continue to alter pages. --EncycloPetey 20:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The primary formatting article is WT:ELE (Entry layout explained). It can be difficult to interpret at times, so I would also direct you to the model pages (deprecated template usage) listen and (deprecated template usage) parrot, where many particular points of format are visible to help intepret Wiktionary standards. For more complex layout and page format, pages like (deprecated template usage) amo or (deprecated template usage) por may be helpful, though proper format for all sections is not guarranteed for longer pages such as those. --EncycloPetey 21:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That, at least, is helpful. Kwamikagami 22:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

{{rare}}

Hi, if you use {{rare}} at the start of the definition, then it will both format and categorise correctly. Conrad.Irwin 22:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Kwamikagami 22:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Welcome template

Better late than never. Conrad.Irwin 22:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC) Hello, and welcome to Wiktionary!

If you have edited Wikipedia, you probably already know some basics, but Wiktionary does have a few conventions of its own. Please take a moment to learn our basics before jumping in.

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Note for experienced Wikipedians:

Wiktionary is run in a very different manner from Wikipedia and you will have a better experience if you do not assume the two are similar in culture. Please remember that despite your experience on Wikipedia, that experience may not always be applicable here. While you do not need to be an expert, or anything close to one, to contribute, please be as respectful of local policies and community practices as you can. Be aware that well-meaning Wikipedians have unfortunately found themselves blocked in the past for perceived disruption due to misunderstandings. To prevent a similar outcome, remember the maxim: be bold, but don't be reckless!

Having said that, we welcome Wikipedians, who have useful skills and experience to offer. The following are a couple of the most jarring differences between our projects that Wikipedians may want to learn up front, so things go smoothly for everyone. Changing policy pages on Wiktionary is very strongly discouraged. If you think something needs changing, please discuss it at the beer parlour, after which we may formally vote on the issue. You should also note that Wiktionary has very different user-space policies, we are here to build a dictionary and your user-page exists only to facilitate that. In particular we have voted to explicitly ban all userboxes with the exception of {{Babel}}; please do not create or use them.

We hope you enjoy editing Wiktionary and being a Wiktionarian. Conrad.Irwin 22:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Usonian

When you reach a stopping point on editing (for the day or for a few hours), please drop me a note. I'd be happy to make some comments about format, but don't want to make those while you're still actively editing, as you may figure some of the issues out yourself. I also don't want to cause an edit conflict, since it looks as though some of your edits involve considerable material, and I know it can be irritating to be warned of an edit conflict under such circumstances. --EncycloPetey 22:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I apologize for abusing you on your Wikipedia page. Kwamikagami 23:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

To rudely intrude, you can use {{quote-book}} to format quotations from books correctly. Conrad.Irwin 23:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure thing. ('Rude'?) EP, I guess I will be editing a little longer. Kwamikagami 23:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Fine, just repost to me when you've reached a stopping point you're satisfied with. New editors need time to experiment. --EncycloPetey 23:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's one major task out of the way. Conrad.Irwin 00:04, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll begin by noting the "most major" points of page format, and let you get a feel for handling them yourself, rather than do the editing for you. For minor or advanced technical points, I might do them myself and post a diff link.

1. Section order - WT:ELE sets out the overall order for major sections on a page. The key section order issue on this page is that Pronunication precedes Etymology, when it should be the other way round. This is easily fixed.
2. Synonyms - even though it may mean repetition of items, Synonyms should always be listed as a subheader under the particular part of speech for which they are synonyms, with all synonyms identified as to the particular sense to which they apply, using the {{sense}} template. Example for the Noun section:
   • (inhabitant or citizen of the United States of America): American, US American
   • (house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright): American

   The second line above would only be included if "American" is actually used to mean "a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright". I expect that US American was never used to mean such a thing, which illustrates why we don't just have a large and unorganized Synonyms section; not all synonyms apply to all definitions and senses.

3. Translations - Like Synonyms, these are always placed indented as a subheader under a particular part of speech. Each definition gets its own collapsible Translations box, even if the content ends up being repeated. You can see a model of this format at (deprecated template usage) parrot, where each definition has its own translation box, and some words are in fact repeated. Note also the last collapsible box on that page is a "trans-see" box, because one of the definitions is identical in meaning to another word, where the Translations can be all placed. Within a single page, however, duplication of translations can and does happen.

That should be enough to start with. --EncycloPetey 01:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Will get to it later today. Since you objected to placing an example which illustrated two uses of the word under both definitions, I thought duplicating translations might also be a problem. Kwamikagami 01:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a different situation. A quote should only be used to support one definition. If it supports more than one definition, then that's taken as evidence that the two definitions are actually part of a single definition. I assumed that your definitions were correctly distinct, as they do not seem to me to duplicate meaning. --EncycloPetey 01:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

One quotation with two tokens of the word, one as an adjective and one as a noun. AFAIK, Wiktionary guidelines require us to treat those as two different definitions. Kwamikagami 06:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. I have a "see below" placeholder where you removed the repeated citation. Kwamikagami 07:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Ausonian

Hey, thanks for expanding this entry. A quick note about etymologies: We like to wikify our etyma, as we have some people who specialize in dead languages, and sometimes create entries for them (as I have done for one of this entry's etyma). There are a million other little formatting details, but I don't want to bog you down right away, so I'll leave it at that for now (unless of course, you'd like a bit of advanced reading, which can be found at {{term}} and {{etyl}}, or just take a look at some of the formatting I've done), so I'll nag you about them next time you write an etymology. Any questions, feel free to ask, and thanks again. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 08:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

And here I thought I didn't have to bother with that anymore!

BTW, the way you've used the IPA with Αὐσονία, you're claiming that σον is a closed syllable, and that the stressed syllable starts with a vowel. When I saw it, I heard a glottal stop in my head. The stress mark comes at the start of the syllable: [aɸsoˈnia]. Also, diphthongs are normally marked with a non-syllabicity mark, [aʊ̯soníaː]. The tie bar you used is normally used for affricates like [t͡s] (it makes no difference whether it ties above or below), though what you have will be understood. Kwamikagami 09:15, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see it's the template that's screwed up with the diphthongs. It also links to the English IPA chart, which won't be of any help for letters like [ɸ]. Kwamikagami 09:20, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

To begin with, the stress marker is a shortcoming of the template, which we have been aware of for some time. As the template is currently set up, there is, unfortunately, no way around it. I have been thinking about a more robust format for it, but that will be a ways off yet. I will look into the bit about the non-syllabicity mark. The issue with {{IPA}} is one which is being currently discussed, and should be fixed (in one way or another) very shortly. Thanks for your critique. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 09:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad it's just a programming bug.

As for the diphthongs, it wouldn't make much difference with [a͜ʊ]. However, [i͜u] would be ambiguous: there's no way to tell whether that's supposed to be a rising diphthong, [i̯u], or a falling diphthong, [iu̯]. Kwamikagami 09:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Boldness

Hi,

Please be a bit less bold in reverting other editors' changes. So far, the only editors to [[Usonian]] have been you, a bot, and three admins; and while the bot and admins certainly don't know everything, a lot of our changes are for good reasons that have community consensus behind them. For example, by and large we consider it a good thing for senses to have transparent example sentences; some quotations can serve this purpose, but most can't, either because they include unusual words (note: even slightly-less-common words are bad), or because they require the reader to infer a lot of context (or conversely, because we supply that context, making the quotations much longer).

(Personally, I basically never add example sentences, for roughly the same reasons that you gave, but I'd never remove another editor's example sentence without good reason.)

—Ruakh_TALK 22:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but the examples were simply bad. Two actually misrepresented the way the word is used.

• Why "surprisingly ordinary"? Does Usonia, New York, have the reputation of being a cult, that its inhabitants being "ordinary" would be a surprise? Perhaps so, but it's not supported by the refs.
• "Usonian architecture is not perfect, but it is more than good enough."--whose opinion is that? Who are we deciding it's good enough for?
• "There is a tendency among Usonian politicians to say what they think people want to hear."--what, other politicians don't? Is this really a case where we need to distinguish Usonians from other Americans? because that's generally the only time that the label "Usonian" is used.
• "In a Usonian world we would never be in debt." Where does that come from? None of the refs say anything that I can see about Usonian America being debt-free. It seems to be confusing "Usonian" for "utopian"; one of the refs even says that Usonia is a practical rather than utopian concept.

The examples read like a middle-school homework assignment. They do not illuminate the word; if you remove "Usonian" or replace it with some generic term they work just as well, and so are completely useless as illustrative material. I have simplified some of my replacement quotes a bit, so that they better stand on their own, but agree that my first example is not very good. However, at least it shows how the word has actually been used. Kwamikagami 23:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The examples were made up and intended to be as simple as possible, I tend to find that the quotes in real use are too complicated to get the correct meaning across. By deliberately writing relatively generic sentences people can work out how the word corresponds to other words they may know already - though I agree writing too generic examples is bad. I know many others disagree with me on this, so I don't really mind. Conrad.Irwin 20:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, my first replacement example is too complicated, so you definitely have a point, though I think the other real-use replacements work pretty well. The problem I had was that this word carries rather strong connotations that aren't easy to capture in a definition or made-up illustration. It's not as easy as a common or generic word like tree or tweny-six. Kwamikagami 21:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

All the more reason to craft the best illustration we can; if you think it's hard to capture the connotations in made-up examples, then it seems basically hopeless to wait for a quotation that captures it for us (keeping in mind that the goal of quoted authors isn't to illustrate the word, but rather to say whatever it is they're trying to say). Of course, I'm speaking abstractly here; if you find such a quotation, then that's that, but I suspect that you're simply accepting a lower level of illustrativeness from a quotation than we could get from a well-crafted example.

More generally, rather than removing flawed information (such as an example sentence), it's generally better (when possible) to improve it, or replace it with better information.

—Ruakh_TALK 22:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

But that's exactly what I did: I replaced made-up examples which either didn't illustrate the word well, or actually mis-illustrated it, with real-world examples. The only problem was that one of my replacements requires more context than we'd like. The problem with making stuff up is that we're making it up. That's not lexicography, it's fiction. Or in Wikipedia speak, OR.

There's an entire field of bizarre pseudo-scientific linguistics in the US (thankfully not everywhere) that relies on made-up examples for "data". They don't use real data, because it's too confusing, and what they end up with is garbage. There's a similar problem with dictionaries: Well-crafted examples would be fine if somehow we could ensure that they were all well crafted, but a glance through any published dictionary that follows this method quickly shows that much of what results is garbage. It's no easier for lexicographers to make up sentences to illustrate words than it is for linguists to make up sentences to test whether a construction is grammatical. That's why the OED decided to restrict itself to real data in 1870, and why remains the greatest dictionary in the world. Kwamikagami 22:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a very strange comparison; the problem with using made-up examples for "data" is that it's a closed loop, which basically guarantees that Gresham's Law and GIGO will take effect. We don't have this problem: we use actual quotations for our data — under sense lines, in #Quotations sections, and on Citations: pages — and our example sentences are basically an extension of our definitions. Personally, I, like you, prefer quotations to example sentences, and I basically never add them myself (except in usage notes, where it's even more painful to add quotations than to add example sentences), but there's community consensus that example sentences are important as well, and a lot of the feedback we receive at Wiktionary:Feedback seems to suggest that our readers agree (though I'm not sure about that last one; it's possible that when our readers ask for examples, they'd be just as happy with what we call "quotations" as what we call "example sentences"). —Ruakh_TALK 02:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Usonian etymology

Hi, you removed all mention of "United States of Northern Independent America" from Usonia and Usonian, was this for a good reason? I feel it just as likely a possible etymology as Usona + ia, and given the much more clear view James Law would have had on events than the Harvard art review 60 years later, I am more inclined to trust it. Conrad.Irwin 20:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's still there in the quotes at Usonia, and I explain why I toned it down on that talk page. Basically, this looks like a fake folk etymology, and not just Harvard but no-one else picked up on it. (You can force an ad hoc "independent" into Usonia if you take the entire thing to be an acronym, but "Northern Independent America" isn't an English phrase that you'd make an acronym from.) Law notes the parallel between Usonia and Caledonia, so there's that as well. Kwamikagami 21:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

What you say makes sense. I apologise for not checking the other talk page, I assumed you'd have commented on Talk:Usonian with the rest of that discussion. Just to be nit-picky, is the Independent italicized in the original? It would change the emphasis of the text considerably if so - but I have to fight with google books to see any of it so have no idea. Conrad.Irwin 22:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's in the original, showing the difference between USONA and USONIA as an acronym. Kwamikagami 22:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. Conrad.Irwin 22:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

octothorpe

An etymology section is always for information about the page name, not about other items. So, the information you added about the origin of the "pound sign" belongs at #, not at octothorpe. --EncycloPetey 23:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Check it out: That's the Wiktionary main page, so I wasn't able to place the info there. Kwamikagami 01:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Then point this out in the WT:GP and ask for a solution to the technical problem. The information should not be dumped into an inappropriate location. --EncycloPetey 02:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It also shouldn't just be deleted. The symbol is illustrated in that article, so it is at present the best second choice. Kwamikagami 02:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't. The page is about the word, not the symbol. We don't deliberately put information into incorrect places, ever. It just happens that the word can be depicted with the symbol. The two have entirely separate etymologies. I found the page for the pound sign, but I can't cfreate a text link to it. Insert a blank space then the pound sign into the URL as if you were typing the page name in by hand. --EncycloPetey 02:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for that, but if we can't link to it, and can't edit it to add any information, it doesn't do us much good. Kwamikagami 02:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could have a subsection of octothorpe related to the symbol with a note explaining that there can't be a separate entry due to technical limitations. Not ideal, but it would be better than nothing. Nadando 02:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Another possibility would be to use the double-width Chinese glyphs ＃：；＜＝＞［］＿｛｜｝． ＃ already has an article; maybe we could coopt that. But maybe better to wait until GP gets back to us. Kwamikagami 02:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

o

I understand the edit you made, but I question the plural as being "oes". I've never seen the plural as anything but "o's". --EncycloPetey 17:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

O's is the plural of the letter, like b's or c's; oes is the plural of the name, like bees or cees. Granted, it's not very common to spell out letter names. The quote from Tennyson should cover it, as that's what the OED uses to illustrate it. It is rare though, so perhaps we should mark it as such.

Under the heading "oes", OED has a redirect: the plural of O, or an obsolete form of ooze. Kwamikagami 19:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

-in-

Using redirects here is really not the best solution. We generally frown on redirects here, and for good reason. The problem is that, while a redirect would work perfectly if we only had Esperanto, we cover all languages, and chances are that some language has a genuine infix -in-. Thus, might I suggest an alternative approach? Perhaps a simple morphological definition could suffice, such as "-ino when preceding a consonant" or something like that. Now, I know nothing about Esperanto, so I'm not sure what -in- really means in it, but a redirect is really not the best route. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 01:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. It should go under -ino; that's what we do with all other Esperanto words. (The final -o shows it's a noun, and it's customary to enter nouns in a dictionary with that final -o intact.) Maybe we could just have an Esperanto heading with a 'see -ino' tag? Kwamikagami 02:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Eventually, someone with a morphological penchant might come in and do something more intense, but your suggestion is probably the best route for now. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 02:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Nominal suffix, etc.

Please do not introduce new "Parts of speech" headers. Wiktionary uses "Suffix", without specifying the nature of the suffix. If specification is needed, please do so on the inflection line with a {{context}} tag. --EncycloPetey 19:32, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

But it isn't an inflection. The part of speech is inherent in the suffix despite inflection, and a handful of suffixes have more than one part of speech, neither of which can be derived from the other.

The {{sense}} tag seems to be appropriate. How is -ant- now? Kwamikagami 19:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

It is badly and incorrectly formatted. I told you how to correctly format it, but instead you have used an inappropriate tag. The {{sense}} tag is used only in "-onym" sections to pair listed words with the related sense. When did I say anything about inflections? --EncycloPetey 19:46, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

You said to use it "on the inflection line". I made the silly assumption that had something to do with inflections. And I "had" to use an inappropriate tag? Didn't I ask you about it to make sure it was okay?

How's that now? Kwamikagami 19:52, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Soory, I misspoke, then, and didn't realize it. The {{context}} tag should be on the definition line, which you seem to have figured out on the second go, despite my mistake. I'm going to make a couple of minor style edits and add the (mandatory) inflection line. You should be able then to follow the same basic format on other pages, as needed. --EncycloPetey 19:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

plagiarism

Please do not alter definitions to support your own arguments, especially when doing so introduces errors. By your defintion, a person who photocopies a page from a book is guilty of plagiarism. --EncycloPetey 18:39, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Please do not make false accusations. (I suppose I should write the OED and have them change their definition because it supports my argument.) The old definition was faulty: plagiarism does not require any overt claim, and you could only misread my correction by being obtuse. I see that Ruakh corrected you on your revert. Kwamikagami 23:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Please don't try to drag me in on your side. My edits were in no way a comment on EP's revert (except in that his comment here drew my attention to our definitions for that term). I happen to think you're both behaving like jerks, and I now regret having commented in his defense at Wiktionary talk:English Phonemic Representation. I wish y'all would move your conversation off-wiki, say into e-mail or something, so the rest of us can pretend Wiktionary is an adult enterprise. —Ruakh_TALK 00:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, Ruakh. I won't make any further comments on the topic. Kwamikagami 00:30, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

glottalization

I just wanted to note that glottalic and glottalized are distinct term in linguistics, and "glottalization" refers only to glottalized consonants. Glottalic consonants like ejectives and ingressives include full closure of the glottis and a movement of the larynx producing a different form of airstream, whereas glottalized consonant (including, in the more extreme cases, glottal stops) are still produced by pulmonic airstream (indeed, it is not possible to make a glottalic sound if the glottis is not completely closed).

It is oddly frequent in science for a noun or adjective to be created before the matching verb, or an adjective+verb compound before the adjective is used in other construction. I strongly suspect glottalize should be defined in term of glottalization, not the other way around...

Hum. Sorry, my thougts went a bit out of control. I think my point is basically that ejective and ingressive sounds are not glottalized, and "glottalization" is not derived from "glottalic." Circeus 04:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I've seen "glottalized" used for ejective and implosive sounds as well, so that it's sometimes impossible to tell what it's supposed to mean. (For example, in the inventory of a language, they'll list glottalized /k'/ alongside glottalized /m'/.) But that may well be considered substandard. Kwamikagami 06:00, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

However, the word we are trying to define at the moment is glottalization, not "glottalized". As far as I can tell "glottalization" is pretty well covered by the two definition as is (I don't think I've seen it applied to transformation into a glottalic consonant, but sense 2 could be easily extended). Adding adjectival senses to glottalized is what you'd be interested in. Also I'm curious to see some examples of glottalic consonant called glottalized. Most likely these are ambiguities in transcription: IIRC it is common to transcribed glottalization with the ejective mark (alternatively, there might be an added subtlety I'm not seeing, it sounds from a quick look that only consonants other than stop can really be glottalized). But it's late and I need to go sleep. Circeus 06:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! (for suppletion)

Thanks so much the thoughtful reply and refs regarding suppletion! (Now to set up categories so the lay may more easily find their way…)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 00:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure! That's useful info for me too. kwami 15:19, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

US Americans et al

I don't know what the outcome of the RfD under our current rules will be. One thing I am reasonably sure of: Citations pages will not be deleted if they have good content. Another realistic possibility: Our rules change. Implication: Having each of the terms with all the citations you have collected in a Citations page may provide the base for a future entry even if the entry is deemed to fail. In addition, someone looking for the term may find the citations through the search box (although the search by default does not cover Citations, which default may also change). In the meantime, I was trying to sort the quotes onto Citations pages for the exact spellings and format using our templates. I had butchered at least one quote and not yet gotten back to repair the damage I caused. DCDuring TALK 13:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning that up. I know it was a mess! kwami 14:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

on whether and where "r" is pronounced

Please read the article w:Rhotic and non-rhotic accents on Wikipedia before making any more incorrect edits to the pronunciations of English words ending in "r". — hippietrail 05:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm following Wiktionary pronunciation guidelines as they have stood for half a year. I'll review the Wikipedia article you suggested to make sure it does not contain factual errors, but I suspect it will support my edits as it stands. Please read it more carefully: bar is /ˈbɑɹ/ in both GA and RP. (It may be /ˈbɑː/ in Oz, but that's another issue—I haven't been changing Aussie pronunciations.) The fact that the phonetic realization in RP depends on whether there is a following vowel has no bearing on the underlying phonemic structure, which is what is indicated by the slashes. In other words, [ˈbɑ(ɹ)] with brackets would be correct for RP, but */ˈbɑ(ɹ)/ with slashes is not.

There is, of course, a phonemic difference in bark, where GA has an /r/ but RP does not. But I haven't been changing those words either. kwami 06:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

British and Australian pronunciations differ mostly in vowel quality. Neither pronounce word-final r and both British and Australian dictionaries do not indicate a pronounced word-final r. What they do have is "Linking r" which is considered correct, and "intrusive r" which is considered incorrect. See w: Linking and intrusive R.

Much thought thought went into the current system which has been in place much longer than half a year. The parenthesized final r indicates both that some accents pronounce it and some don't, and that for for those which generally don't they do when the word is followed by one beginning with a vowel sound. So it can be "optional" in two ways.

Also for American pronunciation if not all rhotic accents there are "r-coloured" symbols used in IPA such as ɚ and ɝ which are often used instead of a full r symbol. — hippietrail 06:57, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

But that's still factually incorrect. First of all, if we're going to cover "some accents do and some don't", then wouldn't it be incorrect to label the result RP? Secondly, what you're describing for both RP and GA is phonetic, not phonemic. If you consider linking r to be part of RP, then bar is /ˈbɑɹ/, not */ˈbɑ(ɹ)/—what you call "optional" is allophonic, not phonemic optionality. If you consider intrusive r to be part of RP, then you could argue idea is phonemically /aɪˈdiːəɹ/ in RP, so that if we write /ˈbɑ(ɹ)/ for bar (to cover both those who maintain there is an /ɹ/ and those who don't) we'd need to write /aɪˈdiːə(ɹ)/ for idea as well.

It could well be that some pronunciations are mislabeled RP. I've always said that our pronunciation sections are in the worst shape of all our sections. So such errors could be interpreted two ways: a) the transcription is wrong but the regional label is right or b) the transcription is right but the regional label is wrong. Generally like most dictionaries we avoid technical terms like phonetic, phonemic, allophonic from section headings because they are unfamiliar to most dictionary users. We aim to have pronunciation guides as pragmatic and useful as those in major dictionaries, whether those would be considered exactly "phonemic" or not to a linguist might be going too far.

Intrusive r is part of British and Australian English but probably not part of RP. As it's considered incorrect we do not put it in our pronunciations. Linking r is considered correct in RP but most modern British and Australian dictionaries do not indicate it. It being indicated is a Wiktionary improvement. I have seen it used in some dictionaries for foreign learners of English, perhaps COBUILD dictionaries. Most British and Australian dictionaries will list /aɪˈdiːə/ and /ˈbɑː/. I am not aware of any monolingual English dictionary which use the upside-down r at all. — hippietrail 07:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be great if we would write "(r)" to cover both rhotic and non-rhotic dialects. We could do the same with the /j/ in new, and abolish the dichotomy between RP and GA. But that's not how "(r)" is being used on Wiktionary. kwami 07:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Years ago it was my intention to use both (r) and (j) for exactly these reasons but due to many confusions and many opinions on pronunciation here on the English Wiktionary over the years the (j) didn't catch on but the (r) did. I hope with work and effort we can someday have decent pronunciation sections but we're not there yet. Constructive discussion I welcome very much. — hippietrail 07:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I was involved in developing the integrated "IPA for English" key used for English pronunciations on Wikipedia, which isn't perfect but does a decent job of covering both RP and GA (but not Scottish). However, I had some nasty run-ins (there and here) with a prolific Wiktionary editor who was adamant that it not be used because it uses slashes but is not phonemic: that transcriptions must be dialect-specific. He is, of course, correct about it not being exactly phonemic, but I thought utility more important than theoretical fidelity. I wonder, though, about the chances of getting something similar adopted here, where he is much more involved, even though similar objections can be made about the "(r)" convention. Anyway, in the WP system we don't use parentheses; I objected to them because I thought them distracting and difficult to read in running text. But Wiktionary would not have that problem, since the IPA is set off in its own section. It's a fairly simple matter to compromise on the vowels; it might be better to go with "/əʊ/" than "/oʊ/", since that would allow "/ə(ʊ)/". (We went with "/oʊ/" because it contained orthographic o, which makes it more accessible to the newbie. Same reason for choosing "/r/" over "/ɹ/".)

I always prefer /əʊ/ just because more dictionaries use it and the more phonetically accurate the symbols, the more people expect the symbols should be exact. I think the major Australian dictionary, the Macquarie uses /oʊ/ as is used for American pronunciations. Not that any American dictionary I'm aware of uses IPA though. Another difference is that in American pronunciations the focus is on vowel quality and quantity is omitted. British and Australian dictionaries go in for the length mark : even if they don't use the RP-style diphthong symbols. No two dictionary publishers use the exact same system. You probably know this but it's a surprise to many who believe that since IPA is supposed to be able to represent all languages that it is always used in the same way and that only one way is correct for a given language or dialect. I used to maintain a page comparing how IPA was used in various dictionaries. I'll see if I can find it for you. — hippietrail 09:50, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that s.t. comes up with sourcing on WP when s.o. objects to us converting the transcription to our conventions. The dict. comparison might be interesting: I've seen some (Ladefoged covers some of the issues), but being Usonian have seen more AHD-type systems. kwami 10:35, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be nice to have a consistent system here: either use "r" or "ɹ", etc. And I think it would be nice to have a pan-dialectal system. Does AWB function on Wiktionary? One argument for keeping "ɹ" would be that it would be much simpler for a bot to identify IPA entries for later automated adjustments, than if we used "r". kwami 08:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally I don't like "ɹ" because English dictionaries don't use it, but I generally lose such arguments here. We mostly seem to go with it now though I have seen at least 4 symbols used for "r" in English here! I am personally in favour of adopting a pan-English scheme and only separating UK and US when the differences are not systematic. But again other contributors here might feel strongly against this view.

I've heard of AWB but I'm not sure if it runs here. I'm not aware of any bots which manipulate pronunciation sections here. — hippietrail 09:50, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

-vir- et al.

As far as I can see, these aren't suffixes, they're infixes. I'm not sure there is a [[Category:English infixes]] yet, but there is one for Esperanto and Ido, which use them enormously. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

On second thoughts, some examples would help to clarify this issue. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Esperanto does not have infixes. If that category is still being used, we need to fix it.

Esperanto has inflecting suffixes. However, in a few cases, such as -aĉ-, the affix inherits the part-of-speech inflection of the base word. You might argue that these few cases (also -et- and -eg-) are infixes. However, I'd like to see that argued in print somewhere. kwami

An infix is placed within a stem. That is not the case here. The double hyphen merely indicates that a following suffix is mandatory, though perhaps that's not WT convention? (In linguistic glossing, at least in the Leipzig conventions, infixes are marked with angle brackets: <bloody>, not double hyphens.)

I've only added 'derived forms' that have WT entries, because otherwise there are hundreds of them. -lim- and -tum- have examples. kwami 20:01, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Butting in: We've had warm discussions on this. I think interfix is the word. We don't have a heading for these in WT:ELE. If we have enough legitimate cases, then we can legitimize the heading. They get put on a headings cleanup list along with typos etc, but there is little danger that anyone will "correct" the heading. The following-"-" convention you suggest is what I would have expected, though it is not policy. The other "fixes" with leading and trailing hyphens that I know about are -fucking-, -bloody-, -i-, and -o-. I think the group of them need to be in a hidden category. What would be a good name for the category? Category:English interfixes is a subcategory of Category:Interfixes by language. Would the chem/bio ones need Category:Translingual interfixes? DCDuring TALK 20:26, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

In a minute or two I'll have this question posted in the Tea Room. You might want to join in there. kwami 20:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Etymology 2 sections of -i- and -o-

If this and this are suffixes, then those entries need to be listed at -i and -o, respectively. Please more your information to the correct place and revert your own revisions to -i- and -o-. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:35, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"-o" and "-i" would imply that these occur at the ends of words, which they do not. "-o-" and "-i-" show that something else follows. Or is that not WT convention?

I suppose that we could classify them as interfixes, though that's not what the USAN guidelines call them. Anyway, the problem is what we call them, not IMO where we put them. kwami 20:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

If you could add some derived terms, I’d be better able to judge the morphology. Either way, however, they need to be headed by Interfix headers if they are to remain at their present locations. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 21:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Some derived terms are mentioned above. Meanwhile there's a discussion going on in the Tea Room. kwami 21:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

co-mother-in-law

Please review Wiktionary:Entry_layout_explained#Translations, especially the Translation dos and don'ts. The "don'ts" include: "Do not give translations back into English of idiomatic translations", which is a specialized case of the unwritten policy of not giving translations back into English within the Translations section. When the translation does not exactly match the meaning of the English word it is used to translate, that information should be given on the entry for the translation, as it is not about the English entry. --EncycloPetey 04:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay. kwami 11:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

edzino

Sorry, but your way of doing the IPA for edzino is wrong. edzino has three syllables, ed.zi.no. I know my IPA very well and I know that the thing goes after the d. Furthermore, I added a hyphenation which your previous edit did not have. Therefore, your undoing of my edit is wrong because my edit was right. Razorflame 03:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

No, your edit was wrong because you syllabified incorrectly. Dz is an affricate in Eo: e-dzi-no, at least according to Kaloscay & Waringhien's Plena analiza gramatiko de Esperanto §22. kwami 09:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that is where you are wrong. Several other sources of mine confirm that there is no such dz affricate in Esperanto. Furthermore, don't say that I don't know Esperanto when I am an eo-2 editor. You are the one that doesn't know the language. Thanks, Razorflame 19:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Then please give those sources. Kaloscay & Waringhien are generally considered authoritative. kwami 20:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

w:Esperanto phonology, for one, doesn't list the dz affricate anywhere on the page, and that page was made using most of the most used sources. You will see that that page does not list a dz affricate anywhere, and that the sources don't either. Razorflame 21:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

You're using WP as a source? Well, besides the fact that I'm the one who wrote that article, it does say precisely that:

Although it does not occur initially, the sequence dz is pronounced as a cluster if not as an affricate, as in edzo [e.dzo] "a husband" with an open first syllable [e], not as *[ed.zo].

The reason I used the wording "as a cluster if not as an affricate" is because my sources didn't actually use the term "affricate", though from the context there's little doubt in my mind that's what they meant. But in either case, it speaks to precisely the example we're debating here. kwami 21:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Very well. That's all you had to do to show me that I was wrong. Sure, people can be wrong sometimes. Hopefully you harbor no hard feelings towards me :) Thank you for explaining it and showing me the example. Cheers, Razorflame 21:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

No, of course not! We're all here for the same thing. I guess I just expected the word of Kaloscay & Waringhien to be good enough, and for all I knew, you had a more recent source which explicitly explained why they were wrong. (That happens too: K&W have been criticized for an overly complex analysis of the vowels, for example, which other E-ists has said reflects their native languages more than it does Eo.) kwami 21:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

This is Therequiembellishere

Hey, this is User:Therequiembellishere. Er, I'm still blocked. 71.99.96.174 21:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

IPA question

Would you happen to know how to do multi word Esperanto IPA? I would be very grateful if you would teach me how to do multi word Esperanto IPA :) Thanks, Razorflame 03:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking. Could you give me an example? kwami 06:10, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

bruna nano, for example. Razorflame 06:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, you can separate it into words, which is technically incorrect but quite common (for any language, I don't mean for Eo), or you can run it all together, which reflects speech but is difficult to read. So */ˈbruna ˈnano/ or /ˈbrunaˈnano/. But */ˌbrunaˈnano/ would be incorrect, because Eo does not have a phonemic distinction between primary and secondary stress. (Neither does English, for that matter, at least according to Ladefoged, but English 2ary stress is conventional with the IPA the way separating words is conventional.) AFAIK syllabicity isn't phonemic, but you'll sometimes see that too: */ˈbru.na.ˈna.no/. (I wonder though if the difference between naŭa and nava might be /ˈnav.a/ vs. /ˈna.va/, in which case syllabicity is phonemic, but that's getting a bit speculative and I'm sure wouldn't be acceptable on WT.) I've starred the technically-incorrect-but-commonly.accepted conventions; but if you want to be a stickler, it's /ˈbrunaˈnano/. kwami 06:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for the help. Cheers, Razorflame 20:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I happened across your userpage by complete accdient; FWIW, there are no official rules about stress (secondary or otherwise) in unstressed (non-penultimate) syllables in Esperanto, as per this page out of PMEG. Jesus H. Lincoln 08:43, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Question

Is there any particular or special way that the IPA for voiceless h in the IPA for Esperanto words is done? Thanks, Razorflame 20:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, an example would be helpful. I say that because it should just be /h/, and wonder why you'd ask. kwami 21:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

herbo is the word that I was thinking of. I was just wondering if there was any special way of writing the silent h, is all. Razorflame 21:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

No, just /'herbo/. kwami 21:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I just wanted to make sure. Cheers, Razorflame 21:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Na'vi templates

When you have some time you might want to take a look at the Na'vi templates for dictionary entries that I came up with: {{NaviHW}}, {{NaviSE}}, {{NaviSA}}. I wrote a bit of documentation and some examples on how they might be used on each template's talk page. If you feel like some things are missing or should be done differently, please add a comment to Appendix talk:Na'vi#Templates. Sebastian…talk 23:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

edzo and edzino

• Sigh*...I really wish that we had gotten over these things...anyways, edzino is just edzo with the -in- suffix added to it. edz-o+ino=edzino. Therefore, since edzino is just edzo+a suffix, it is a derived term of edzo, and edzino would be a related term of edzo. Razorflame 05:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Gotten over what? Making corrections?

It is edzo that is edzino with the -ino suffix removed, and so a derivative of edzino. There are two words in Eo which are inherently feminine, with a derived masculine: edzino and fraŭlino. In each case, the -ino derives from the parent language, in which the masculine does not exist (there is, for example, no German word like "fraŭl" that means bachelor; the closest is Frau "woman"); the masculine of each is an internal derivation within Esperanto. However, the -ino suffix removed from these two words to derive the masculine is in turn added to hundreds of other words to derive the feminine. So yes, in most words the feminine is a derivative of the masculine, but these two are exceptions. kwami 08:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I meant gotten over fighting >_>. Anyways, ok, your explanation helps to explain it. Cheers, Razorflame 08:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know we were fighting. I saw what I thought was an error and I corrected it. I'm not used to discussing it first; for one thing, I never know how long it will take someone to respond, and if I waited for them, I'd lose track of half the edits. I don't make that many edits on Wiktionary, but I do make thousands on Wikipedia. It's so much easier to just fix them. In my mind, that has nothing to do with respect or disrespect or anything personal. And all I said in the edit summary was "no, it's the derived term". There is nothing disparaging or insulting in that as far as I can see; I certainly didn't intend anything like that. kwami 08:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Nah, we aren't fighting. I was just wondering why you undid my edit. That was all. You explained why and now we can move on with our lives :) Razorflame 08:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Question

Why is what you changed the pronunciation to the right way to do the IPA for it instead of what I wrote? When I looked on the English Wikipedia article, I thought that I remember reading that the IPA was written like a w....I could be wrong, though. If I am, why am I wrong? Thanks, Razorflame 08:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I was just getting to that as a PS above :)

The Plena analiza gramatiko says that aŭ, eŭ should be considered /au̯, eu̯/, not */aw, ew/. Not necessarily a big deal, until people start arguing whether the letter ŭ is a consonant or a vowel. (In the opinion of the PAG, aŭ, eŭ are diphthongs, and ŭ is not normally to be considered a consonant /w/.) Actually, in their take, the letter j has two uses, as a consonant (e.g. in jes) and as part of a diphthong (e.g. in -aj, -oj, -uj, -ej). The transcribe the first as /jes/, and the latter as /ai̯, oi̯, ui̯, ei̯/. Because j works either way, as consonant or vowel (diphthong), that isn't normally a problem, but there have been fights over ŭ.

Anyway, I'd better check the WP article to see if someone has "corrected" it over there. —Okay, looks like it's been stable for quite a while. kwami 08:45, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm..I've been using aw for quite some time now (since early to mid December of last year, at the very least), so there will be many entries that will need to be fixed for these...it'll be a big timetaker to go through all my contribs until that date and fix the ones that I see...ugh...not looking forward to it. Razorflame 08:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm halfway through the nouns, so it's not too bad. I'll take care of it.

Along with the confusion over whether ŭ is a C or V is how to syllabify it in derived words. In words like naŭa, it's naŭ·a rather than *na·ŭa. But so far I haven't seen any of them syllabified.

(For a better example, consider kontraŭulo, which I just checked. Everyone agrees, I think, that there is no *ŭu- is Eo, so that cannot be *kon·tra·ŭu·lo. It must, therefore, be kon·traŭ·u·lo.)

Ah! I see that's the way you have it at naŭedro. Perfect.

I couple errors, though. I don't know if you put these in or s.o. else:

neŭ·trono : tr, kr, pr, sr, kl, pl, sl, etc. go with the following syllable.

psikologio: the stress is on the gi, not the lo.

pseŭdo-: the p is pronounced.

kwami 08:54, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I know that the g is the one stressed in psikologio. That was probably one of my earlier ones. Furthermore, I don't see how the p could be pronounced. Is the word pronounced like Pseudo, or like it is in English, seudo? It would make more sense for it to be pronounced like in English, but maybe that isn't the case...Razorflame 09:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It's /ps/. If the letter is there, it's pronounced. The only exceptions are things like "kz", which a lot of people pronounce as /gz/, and "ŭato", which a lot of people refuse to accept as legitimate Eo, and pronounce as "vato" (or because they're Russian or German and can't say "ŭato"!) "Ps" is really no harder to say that "ks" or "c". kwami 09:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

NaviHW

I noticed that you made some changes to the {{NaviHW}} template, with an additional parameter "sn=". What are you trying to implement? Maybe I can help. Sebastian…talk 21:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I just reverted. I didn't realize how many subtemplates there were. I was trying to restore Frommer's preferred orthography, say with tsun (cun) as the header. I doubt it can be automated, so I was thinking of just adding another parameter and doing it manually.

Oh, and I left a note on the appendix talk page about other subtypes of verbs. kwami 22:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll look into adding the "sn" parameter (what does "sn" stand for)? But didn't Frommer mention at one point that he'd like to avoid the non-movie script orthography in the future, in order to avoid the confusion that this might cause? I'm not sure where I read it, maybe I'm just misinterpreting things. Anyway, I'll add the "sn" parameter, we can then later decide whether we want to use it. Sebastian…talk 22:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"scientific" orthography. His term. We could just have "alt" - I have a feeling we're going to get some alt spellings due to nasal assimilation to: zenke but kangkem, and that would allow all of them.

F would prefer we use the c, g orthog. But he's been using ts, ng for practical reasons. However, in a dict. we need both, because people will use both, and therefore come across both and need to look them up. kwami 22:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Got it! But we should be careful: "sn" and "alt" are two different things. "sn" would be the exact word as it appears as headword but in the scientific transcription, whereas "alt" could be any alternative spelling (such as due to assimilation) appearing in addition to the scientific orthography of the headword. Sebastian…talk 22:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

We could have two, then: c, ts vs other alt. spellings. (Esp. if both occur, as possibly in kangkem, kankem, kagkem.) Also, there are adjectives that don't take 'a'. That could be set up the way you did for nominal plurals, maybe. Predictable, but we might want to be explicit, since beginners will be using this too. kwami 23:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't quite follow you. I see your point with words that have both a separate scientific orthography and "regular" alternative spellings: it wouldn't make much sense to include all possible combinations. So, how should we best deal with that? Have only one parameter "alt" for everything, or have "sn" and "alt", but use the latter only for transcribing in script orthography, i.e., for "normal" alternative spellings we'd use "ts" and "ng" exclusively?

How should we handle adjectives in general? I still tend to think of "a..." and "...a" not as adjective markers (not in the sense of "tì" or "nì") but as the special application of the subordinator/relativizer particle "a" which attaches to the words (in written Na'vi). But you're right, we could as well include both forms of the adjective as well. How would that look like? "'ewan (a'ewan, 'ewana)", but "apxa (apxa, apxa)"? Also, since numbers take the attributive "a" too, should we include all three forms for numbers as well? Sebastian…talk 00:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The reason I'd like to include all forms is to allow search. Especially beginners might forget lenition and the like, so IMO it's best to include such forms. Case forms on the nouns probably aren't needed, since they're at the ends of the words, though I think I'd like to add them for the PNs. Plurals prob'ly aren't needed, since they're so common. (But notice that Wiktionary includes all forms, even regular ones, and even gives them separate pages. I suppose the idea is that there's no lack of space.) I agree that the attributive marker is just a cliticized sbrd, written together when it modifies only a single word. But it is written as a single word, and since it occurs at the beginning, and is not nearly so salient or as common as the plural, IMO we should include those forms too, for searchability if nothing else. And yes, I'd throw numbers in there, or at least the numerals.

Yes, the way you have the adj entries looks good, though I wouldn't want the parentheses in boldface. We could automate it, to be manually overridden in cases like apxa or lefpom. kwami 00:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, sounds reasonable, and I think you've finally convinced me that it is a Good Thing to include all forms. :)

I'll work on the adjectives (with partial automation) tomorrow, it's about time I get some sleep now (living in UTC+1). Sebastian…talk 00:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That does leave out the verbs. I think we could manually add stem-changing verb forms like poltxe and seiyi, since we'd need to list what each of them is. kwami 00:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

I did some work on the "adj" category implementation. The idea is that the {{NaviHW}} template has 1 to 3 arguments: the first is the adjective in its regular form, second and third are pre- and post-attributive forms. The latter two can be left empty/undefined, in which case their values default to "adjective-a" and "a-adjective", respectively (without the hyphen, of course).

I'm now thinking about how to best represent them in the dictionary. I tend to not use the way we had them originally since we already use parentheses for scientific orthography: "sìltsan (sìlcan) (asìltsan, sìltsana) /sɪl.ˈtsan/" looks kind of cluttered. Instead, I propose to append the attributive forms to the entry, just like we do with dual/trial/plural forms of nouns. The example might then look like: "sìltsan (sìlcan) /sɪl.ˈtsan/, attr. sìltsana X asìltsan".

What do you think? We can play around with that some more until we are satisfied. I've not yet enabled the adjective category in the main template. Sebastian…talk 15:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

BTW, similarly, we might also want to move the infix-marked versions of verbs further to the right, maybe like this: "kenong (kenog) /ˈkɛ.noŋ/, inf. k·en·ong" This would make the way headwords look like more consistent: we'd always have headword (with optional scientific orthography in parentheses), followed by the IPA transcription, followed by anything else that might be necessary and which depends on the word category: dual/trial/plural for nouns, infixes for verbs, attributive forms for adjectives, etc. Sebastian…talk 16:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, yes, and yes, looks good! Only two changes I'd make: replace the "X" with N. to match what we have for POS of nouns,

"sìltsan (sìlcan) /sɪl.ˈtsan/, attr. sìltsana N. asìltsan".

and spell out infix : I read "inf." as "infinitive". kwami 20:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It's done! Another thing I noticed is that the word category (n., v., adj., num., etc.) ends up far to the right now for a lot of entries: it comes only after the dual/trial/plural forms, infix-marked verb, attr. forms, etc. I'm thinking of moving it more to the left. Which one would you prefer? Right now, we're using (1).

1. sìltsan (sìlcan) /sɪl.ˈtsan/, attr. sìltsana N. asìltsan adj.
2. sìltsan (sìlcan) /sɪl.ˈtsan/ adj., attr. sìltsana N. asìltsan
3. sìltsan (sìlcan) adj. /sɪl.ˈtsan/, attr. sìltsana N. asìltsan
4. sìltsan adj. (sìlcan) /sɪl.ˈtsan/, attr. sìltsana N. asìltsan
5. adj. sìltsan (sìlcan) /sɪl.ˈtsan/, attr. sìltsana N. asìltsan

(3) and (4) would be identical for words without separate scientific transcription. I wouldn't want to use (5). Sebastian…talk 21:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I like (3). The two orthographies belong together, but it's nice to separate them visually from the IPA better than what the slashes accomplish. It can look awfully cluttered otherwise, depending on your fonts. In my browser, the IPA is a larger font size than the header, which really makes it hard to scan. The small caps of the POS make a nice visual break in (3). kwami 22:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking too. (2) would probably have also worked since technically header and IPA belong together, but I agree with the "separator aspect" of the small caps POS. I changed the template accordingly. Sebastian…talk 23:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! kwami 00:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Na'vi names

Hi I see you are the most frequent contributor of the Na'vi lexicon. I also see that the list includes many untranslated names. However there are several from the games et al which aren't included. I tried to add 3-4 of them, however it's a tedious task for me to edit such a large page and also since I am not familiar with the ipa alphabet. Would you be willing to add some yourself? There is a list in the Avatar wiki (under category:na'vi). 91.132.141.80 13:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Unfortunately, several of those names are not Na'vi. Either the Tipani speak a different language, or someone made an error, or, as in the Survival Guide, s.o. who didn't know what they were doing made them up. IMO they aren't reliable enough to include here.

The same goes with other words: Meresh'ti cau'pla (supposedly the banshee catcher) is not Na'vi and does not mean "nothing to see", despite what the Survival Guide says.

Eventually we'll remove anything from the game that's in this dictionary unless it can be confirmed. kwami 21:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh that's a pity. I think they deserve at least a mention in an Appendix, or be tagged as dialectal? And that's why some words are khaki?

Anyway these are some names that don't violate Na'vi rules in case you are interested: Akwey, Amanti, Ateyo, Hukato, Lungoray, Marali, Ninat, Raltaw. Hope I was of some help! 91.132.141.80 23:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

You have! I wasn't aware of some of these. Some might be from Cameron, in which case Frommer might just tweak them to make them fit Na'vi: Beyral, for instance, is Peyral. So some of these might be good names; hopefully we can confirm from Frommer which they are, in which case they'll be added. But the SG has also made up stuff that neither Frommer nor Cameron knew anything about, like the banshee catcher. kwami 08:02, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Rhymes pages

n.b. : whatever page you were copying format from contains an error. Both one and two syllables should be indented as levels under "Rhymes". The format you've been pasting in has two syllables as a subheader under one. --EncycloPetey 23:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Ach! Thanks for catching that! kwami 23:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. kwami 23:43, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Another bit of information. When the Rhymes were originally conceived and set up, the person who did so deliberately omitted non-lemmata (-ed verb forms, plurals, etc.). Now, this was before we began seriously creating such entries on Wiktionary, and I'm not sure anyone has given serious thought to whether we want to modify that original decision. I'm not particularly attached to either option (inclusion or exclusion of such forms). However, if you've an interest in working seriously on our Rhymes pages, then you might put that thought into the Beer Parlour and then a vote, to see what people think. If we do choose to include such forms, it would provide a lot of work for someone to update those pages, and they really need some kind of face lift anyway. --EncycloPetey 23:50, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm only interested in refractionary rhymes, or obscure rhymes that people might think are refractionary, but I'll bring it up. kwami 23:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

As I say, this practice was set in place by the project's original creator, and most editors here have never touched a Rhymes page. I mention it mostly because there are many Rhymes pages that have a comment hidden in them asking editors to exclude such words. --EncycloPetey 00:05, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I can certainly see excluding such words from a list if we can sum them up by saying "also rhyme with plurals/3sg.pres of X". Asked at the beer garden about other cases. kwami 00:28, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

multiple IPA renderings

As with {{rhymes}}, the {{IPA}} template accepts piping to separate mutliple transcriptions. --EncycloPetey 23:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, must've forgotten. I've used it elsewhere. kwami 23:36, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Moving pages

When removing content from a page to be added to a different page, please either delete the section entirely and use {{also}}, or convert using {{alternative form of}} (diff). Nadando 23:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. kwami 23:34, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those is really appropriate. Is there a template like 'root of'? kwami 23:36, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. Could you explain the difference between -er- and -ero? Nadando 23:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

-er- is the root of -ero. We normally list Esperanto words in their inflected form, not by their bare root. 'Father', for example, is listed as patro, not patr-. But some dictionaries, esp. old ones (say, ca. 1910) list bare roots, so it's not unreasonable to have cross refs. kwami 23:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess you could have something like {{eo-root of}} for these, which would output: Root of xxx. Would you like me to create it? Nadando 23:46, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Thanks. kwami 23:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Splitting Na'vi

Apparently, you were the most active contributor of Appendix:Na'vi, but has not been editing that page for some months. I suggest splitting Na'vi words from that appendix into various pages, like how it's done at Appendix:Klingon. --Daniel. 21:27, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Our appendix is out of date, and some of the words are spurious. kwami 23:53, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see exactly how your reply fits into my question. Are you suggesting Appendix:Na'vi to be updated and cleaned up in the future? --Daniel. 01:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Given that it's outdated, I don't see much point in splitting it up. You could update it using Wikibooks, which should at least be accurate if no longer complete. kwami 21:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

RP / GA split for ă and ăr

Re this, how would you split them? At the very least, RP and GA have different /r/s. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

You got the ă's reversed, but the distinction is minor, and if we don't make it in the entries, what's it doing in the key? The key is supposed to explain the dictionary entries, nothing more.

The ăr's aren't appreciably different. You gave a different GA r here than elsewhere, which is incorrect, and the r does not drop from RP. Again, it should reflect the entries. If a reader comes to the key to understand a transcription, but the key describes some different convention, then it's useless for our purposes. kwami 22:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Our key does not reflect well what symbols we use; it's in dire need of being updated. This particular edit of mine derives from the discussion at User talk:Stephen G. Brown#borachio.23Pronunciation. I was first informed of the /ɹ/–/ɻ/ distinction by Ƿidsiþ, and it was first enforced for (deprecated template usage) intercrural (sorry, but I couldn't find a link to the discussion itself). If any of that convinces you to make some appropriate changes, then that's all for the better; otherwise, the links are FYI. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Such distinctions are dialect-specific and utterly irrelevant for a phonemic transcription. They don't belong in a dictionary: when no distinction is made, the convention is to use the most familiar or typographically simple letter, which in this case is /r/. /ɻ/ is retrogressive, being even worse than /ɹ/. Here on wiktionary we have an idiotic mishmash of different systems which are not internally consistent nor consistent with the keys which are supposed to explain them. Since we can't even get our act together and correct the tens of thousands of improperly transcribed entries we do have, why in the world would we want to add yet more meaningless noise? kwami 23:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

That convention only makes sense for a monolingual dictionary. We can't adopt the same convention for this omnilingual dictionary because distinctions will probably exist between /r/, /ɹ/, and /ɻ/ within some languages, and they will most certainly exist between languages. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 17:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

But we note that the language is English, so that's irrelevant. And again, this varies between English dialects, so it's not even accurate for English. The problem is that we provide a key but then don't stick to it, so the reader has to second-guess the editor. Not a good situation for a reference work. kwami 00:03, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The use of ⟨ɹ⟩ was decided upon for RP a while ago (I think it was by a vote), so the key should be amended to reflect that convention used for our entries, rather than vice versâ. I don't know what the official status of ⟨ɻ⟩ is. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 16:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if a certain convention has been decided on, we should update keys and entries to match, and stick to it until we decide as a group otherwise. But if we're going to use the WP keys, then we should follow their conventions. Also, someone needs to go through all the entries. kwami 20:18, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, {{enPR}} (without a language parameter) links to Wiktionary:English pronunciation key, and not to Wikipedia. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 16:13, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

IP 85.132.27.130

Salam. Mən və User:Vugar 1981 və digər bəzi iş yoldaşlarımız eyni IP-dən istifadə edirik. EnVikidə Vugar 1981-nin bloklanması nəticəsində bizim IP-də bloklanmışdır. Sizdən blokun götürülməsini xahiş edirəm. Və yaxud da mənə Ipblock-exempt istifadəçi hüququ verməyinizi xahiş edirəm. Təşəkkürlər! Hörmətlə, Cekli829 08:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow! That's the first time I've ever gotten a letter in Azeri. Give me a minute and I'll look into this. kwami 11:55, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

dash/hyphen

We use the hyphen here to represent the erm, hyphen. AFAIK we don't use the en dash at all. Perhaps in titles that actually use a dash. But we definitely use the hyphen to represent the hyphen. --Mglovesfun (talk) 21:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we do. Or are you trying to say that we substitute hyphens in words that use dashes? I wasn't aware of such a convention. It would seem odd, in a dictionary, to purposefully mispunctuate things!

The pages you moved take an en dash in sources which use en dashes, such as the Cambridge Language Surveys. kwami 21:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry what? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:19, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Language families whose names combine two independent elements take an en dash in the punctuation of the Cambridge Language Surveys and other series with similar punctuation conventions. They distinguish such compounds from more tightly bound compounds which take hyphens. For example, the (imaginary) South–Central Laka languages would be composed of the South Laka languages and the Central Laka languages (as opposed, say, to a third group, the North Laka languages), whereas the South-Central Laka languages would simply be those Laka languages of the south-central region. In The Languages of the Andes, which I happen to have handy, they dash Bora–Huitotoan, Guaycurú–Charruan, Jebero–Jivaroan, Ge–Pano–Carib, Andean–Equatorial, Huitoto–Bora–Záparo, and Colombian–Venezuelan border, but not things like Macro-Chibchan, Proto-Quechuan, or Meso-America (macro-, proto-, and meso- are not independent entities).

(My hyphenated examples all involved prefixes, but that's not the motivating factor. Kingdom of Austria-Hungary (one entity) vs. Austria–Hungary border (two entities). kwami 00:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The Cambridge Language Surveys have no relevance here. I don't understand why we should use an en dash for a hyphen. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the real point (I was a bit tired last night when I posted that) is not that such changes should not be made, but that such changes should be discussed before any other action is taken. FWIW, different authorities disagree with each other, so quoting just one authority is usually misleading. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me. As it is, we at least have a redirect, so it really doesn't matter which we choose. kwami 11:27, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

dekstruma

Hi kwami. You might want to take another look at the image you've put at dekstruma, because the rotation in it is counterclockwise. --JorisvS 20:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It's the international definition of clockwise. Reta vortaro covers this. For a clock, you need to think of the arrow as pointing into the clock face, in the direction you are facing. The term 'clockwise' can be ambiguous, as it depends on one's orientation, much as left & right banks of a river, or east & west winds are ambiguous. kwami 21:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK the international definition of clockwise, and the only logical one, is '(in) the direction an analog clock moves', which is the direction counter to the one indicated by the right-hand rule. So if dekstruma is "supposed to be" the right-hand-rule direction, then the meaning given on its page is currently wrong (and many people would confuse it). --JorisvS 09:52, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

But it is in the direction the clock moves. Or it can be, depending on how you view the clock. A clock can be said to move in either a right-handed or a left-handed direction, so by your definition either direction can be said to be either clockwise or counterclockwise. The right-hand-rule in the only unambiguous definition. kwami 06:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The direction most people will give when asked to say what clockwise is is counter to the direction indicated by the right-hand rule (they would point their thumb out of the wall or screen and then find that that is counterclockwise). While I would have no problem with dekstruma being in the direction of the right-hand rule (in fact, I'd like that), that's not what this is about, just clarity to our users and reflecting actual usage. I suspect that because of the connection between "clockwise" and 'dekstruma' and what I've said above, one could find many instances where dekstruma is used when meaning 'counter to the right-hand-rule direction'. --JorisvS 18:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've made it two definitions, which is what ReVo does. kwami 18:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, much better. Though, it could still confuse people, so maybe a usage note is in order? --JorisvS 19:07, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

oranĝkolora

diff How is oranĝokolora an "international spelling"? A quick google search shows 250 times as many hits for oranĝkolora, and it's also the spelling used in Vikipedio, as well as appearing in apparently all Esperanto dictionaries, whereas most of the google hits for "oranĝokolora" seem to have come from the Wiktionary entry... --Yair rand 01:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Oranĝkolora violates Zamenhofian phonotactics. Ĝk is not a permitted consonant sequence, because it would be pronounced ĉk by Slavs and Germans (among others), though I suppose Esperanto is not really as immutable as its promoters claim. If you don't mind it being "oranĉkolora", then I suppose it doesn't matter. kwami 06:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, regardless of how it may be pronounced by certain people, it seems clear that the most common spelling is oranĝkolora. Would you mind if I moved the page back? --Yair rand 06:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. It just belies the claim that Esperanto follows the rules that Zamenhof set out for it. If we can change the rules of grammar here, why not change it for gender as well, and make patro 'parent' and use patriĉo for 'father'? The reason people give for disallowing that is that we supposedly cannot change the grammar of the language, but then they go and change the grammar with un-Zamenhofian oranĝkolora and longtempe. kwami 06:58, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps. I don't know all that much about the issue. I've moved the entry back to oranĝkolora. Thanks for your help. (On an unrelated note: You may want to put a Babel box on your user page.) --Yair rand 07:33, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

As this page from PMEG shows (as well as roots like tvalet/o, kvitanc/o and ekzamen/o), mixed-voice consonant clusters do *not* violate any specific rule, and are pronounced as written (with the possible exception of -kz-, which some pronounce /gz/). Additionally, as this page shows, there are no rules about stress in unstressed (non-penultimate) syllables; thus, entires such as oranĝkolora which you have marked with two IPA primary stress marks are incorrect. I've taken the liberty of going ahead and cleaning up/correcting the entry at hand to conform with PMEG and Esperanto standards of usage. Jesus H. Lincoln 08:32, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

/v/ does not behave like an obstruent in Esperanto. It can be thought of as covering both [v] and [w], which is an inheritence of Slavic, where it also does not follow voicing assimilation rules. That is, /v/ is excluded from the rule, as I believe I have spelled out.

Given the ambiguous nature of /v/, /kz/ is the only real exception, and as you've noted, many people treat it as /gz/. Zamenhof himself almost certainly did, as /kz/ is not possible in his native languages.

You are correct about Eo not having official rules for placement of a 2nd (not 2ary) stress. However, that does not mean there is no such thing. Zamenhof's poetry indicates that every other syllable was stressed, and that's established, customary usage, even if there is no official dictat. The uncertainty comes in with compounds: Do elements of a compound retain their original stress, or do they lose it? Here people disagree. In the case of oranĝkolora, however, the two schools of accentuation match, so there's no question that the second stress goes on the ranĝ. kwami 01:13, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Redirections

We don't do them much. See Wiktionary:Redirections. SemperBlotto 16:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Reversion of etym edits at head

Heya Kwami --

I'm curious about your revert of my etym edit at head (http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=head&diff=17043371&oldid=17019149 ). Your edit comment only stated "no such thing", but I'm not really sure what you're referring to. I assume you mean the Sanskrit कपालः (kapāla, “cup, bowl, skull”)? We don't have an entry for that yet, certainly, but the HI entry at कपाल (kapāl) refers to the Sanskrit as the source, and both Daijirin and Shogakukan refer to the Sanskrit as the source for JA かわら (瓦, 骨), albeit with romanized spelling of the Sanskrit as kapāla. There are also a few online mentions of the JA etym, such as [1] (though not CFI-worthy) or [2] (though this only states that the derivation of JA kawara is from Sanskrit, without stating which particular Sanskrit term).

Meanwhile, this online SA dictionary entry shows a meaning of "skull-bone" for the SA term कपाल (kapāla), and this page on the same site gives a meaning of "cup" for the same term, and this page on the same site shows a meaning of "bowl" for the related SA term कपालक (kapālaka). This site (does not allow direct linking, you'll have to input the search terms yourself0 gives a similar result for skull, but not for cup or bowl. This site gives a meaning of skull for कपालः (kapālaH) (with the double-dot used to distinguish from कपाल (kapāla, “forehead”)). This site gives a romanization of kap&asharp;la (presumably intended to be kapâla as an encoding cludge for kapāla) for a Sanskrit term meaning, variously, "dish, mendicant's bowl; plate; lid; potsherd; egg-shell; skull".

Or did your "no such thing" comment refer to something other than the Sanskrit? -- Curious, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 20:44, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you were doing. Generally the term "cognate" excludes loans. For instance, you wouldn't use the word "castle" in demonstrating the relationship between English and Latin—I thought you were claiming that Japanese was related to English! Maybe you could revert me, and add "borrowed into Japanese as ..."? kwami (talk) 06:53, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Aha, and doh, please forgive that lacuna in my understanding. I'll add the "borrowed into" then to make that clear. I certainly don't intend to claim that English and Japanese are related as languages! o_O Rather, that the English word "head" is related to the Japanese word "かわら". That's an important distinction, and one that I didn't realize I was clouding. I'll make the fix. Thanks! -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:09, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone had to point it out to me when I made the same mistake. kwami (talk) 05:50, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

rebbetzin etymology

I have reverted your reversion — I don't know what you mean by "rs.", so I have no idea where you're coming from. I'd like a source, however, because your etymology is somewhat ridiculous and seems pretty unlikely. At the very least, it's a bit strange that two suffixes would be stacked, and extremely strange that the second one would be from German. Maybe you meant Middle High German instead? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:35, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It was from a Yiddish scholar, I'll have to look it up. Yes, it is odd two suffixes would be stacked, which is why I thought it worth adding the etymology. "Rs" means "restore", since you deleted info without explanation. (I'm restoring it again, BTW.) kwami (talk) 05:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

You haven't responded to my concerns. I have changed the German to Yiddish, as that's a common mistake/misunderstanding and it's the best I can do operating under the assumption that your etymology is correct. We still need a reference. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:48, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Since it was email, I'll leave out the name, but the exchange went like this:

Q: I was wondering if anyone there knew the etymology of "rebbetzin", specifically the -tz-. One person I know suggested it's the Russian feminine, as in "tsaritsa", which would mean that Russian feminine -itsa and German feminine -in were both suffixed to a Hebrew root. Any ideas?

A: Yes, that is exactly right. It's a Hebrew word with 2 feminine suffixes attached to it.

Q: The two affixes derive from Russian and German?

A: Not necessarily Russian, but some Slavic language - probably Ukrainian or Belarussian.

As for Yiddish vs German, Yiddish is German, so I'm not sure how much that matters. She only objected to calling the first Russian, but the exchange was brief. kwami (talk) 05:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

"Yiddish is German" - ouch, way to hit a language where it hurts ;)

This is, well, a bit sub-par as far as references go, but I guess it's good enough. I'd still like a published source if possible. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know of a published source, which is why I emailed the U. Would be better of course.

"German" isn't really a language at all, but a family of languages. There's greater difference between some of the German "dialects" than there is between some of them and Yiddish. Less comprehensibility, anyway. Yiddish seems like a rather specialized register within that continuum. kwami (talk) 06:05, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but here, German means {{de}} and that means Standard High German. I don't know how much you know about Yiddish, but besides having a different script and a lot of separate vocabulary, Yiddish has a grammar that is closer in some ways to Dutch than to Standard High German. Nouns, for example, do not decline and conjugation is quite simplified as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose saying -in is German suggests that it's a borrowing rather than native. Your version is better. kwami (talk) 17:31, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

WT:RFV#be, ce, ĉa, etc. (EO "alternative letter names")

Notifying you of this RFV since you created many or all of these entries. --Yair rand (talk) 15:39, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

IPA phonetic transcription for Japanese

Heya Kwamikagami --

I saw some of your recent pronunciation edits. I was curious about your change of the rhotic to [ɽ], such as in this change to the じょんがら entry. To my ear, the Japanese rhotic changes depending on the following vowel: [ɺ̠a̠], [ɾi], [ɾ̠ɯᵝ], [ɺ̠e̞], [ɺ̠o̞]. I note that the w:Alveolar lateral flap article even uses ラーメン as an example of [ɺ̠a̠]. I've changed that back for the time being at じょんがら. If you have any strong objections to this, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could state your case for [ɽ].

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:46, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

It's closest to [ɽ] before /a/. It's certainly not [ɺ], at least not normally. I'll remove the example from WP - that's an error. But since there is no way of accurately writing Japanese r in IPA, I suppose it doesn't matter all that much. kwami (talk) 18:10, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

• Maybe that's a dialect- or geographically dependent issue, then? Listening closely to the audio samples at w:Alveolar lateral flap and w:Retroflex flap, the former is what I'm used to hearing in words like ラーメン, 来日, etc., and even when followed by /o/ as in 廊下 or 炉辺. But then my bias is experience in the Tōhoku and Kantō regions, starting in Iwate Prefecture and moving southwest to Tokyo, and older folks in Iwate have (perhaps "had" by now) a markedly more "L"-like pronunciation for all of the らりるれろ sounds. I have no experience living further southwest than Tokyo, and I haven't spent any appreciable time around Kansai speakers, but the stereotypical trilled accents sported in Kansai speech in the media makes me wonder if the harder flap might be more common there. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:36, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I spent more time in Kansai. You don't hear trills, not in normal speech, but it's a central flap before /i/, and most lateral before /o/. I've heard that description formally, too, so I think it must be more than just Kansai. I didn't notice a difference in Tōhoku, but I wasn't listening for one either.

Neither of the sound samples sound all that close to me. It's interesting reading the IPA Handbook struggling with Japanese. They use ⟨ɽ⟩ for 'a 25-year-old student [in Tokyo] whose speech is typical of speakers of his age group with this background'. They describe it as 'postalveolar in place rather than retroflex ... Initially and after /ɴ/, it is typically an affricate with short friction, [d̠^ɺ̝̆].' (Looks like a postalveolar [d] with superscript ⟨ɺ⟩ with breve and up-tack, but my copy's a bit blurred. Can't say I've ever noticed such a sound.) 'A postalveolar [l̠] is not unusual in all positions. Approximant [ɹ] may occasionally occur in some environments.' kwami (talk) 19:27, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Etymology at 海豚#Japanese

Do you have any bibliographical info for the Murayama reference you added here? If so, it'd be great if you could add a <ref> tag. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Added a 2ary ref that also gives a 2nd possible source, per Vovin. kwami (talk) 02:06, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• Awesome, thank you! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:28, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Etym for 巫

The given etym for 巫 roughly makes sense, but for one wrinkle -- the given source describes this character as entering the Chinese lexicon roughly 4,000 years ago, but Old Persian is only dated to 2,600 years ago. Any ideas how to resolve this? Is there an earlier ancestor of Old Persian that could be listed instead, that would fit the dates? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:12, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll let Mair speak for himself in the comments to that post, on that very question. I don't know anything other than what I read there. kwami (talk) 03:19, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

law of the tongue

Are you really saying that orcas are inviting people on whale hunts? Can orcas make implicit agreements with people? Even if they could, would it be to invite people on whale hunts? Renard Migrant (talk) 18:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, yes, and yes, though it was a hundred years ago. Added a link to the talk page. kwami (talk) 18:38, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

phonetic alphabets

Just to let you know ... phonetic has more than one meaning. Phonetic alphabets such as the the NATO phonetic alphabet are not phonetic in the sense of IPA, but they are phonetic in the sense relating to sounds of the spoken language. Alphabetic systems such as Able, Baker, Charlie, Delta are commonly known as phonetic alphabets. The term spelling alphabet exists as well, though it is not so common (at least in American English).
If you're going to rename these files, you also need to check on and correct the links to them. See, for example, Special:WhatLinksHere/Appendix:Spanish phonetic alphabet, which will list a fair number of pages that have links to Appendix:Spanish phonetic alphabet. If you rename it to Appendix:Spanish spelling alphabet, you need to fix all of the links to all of the pages as well.
When renaming pages like this, you usually need to check the wiki languages in the left margin to see if there are links to other Wiktionaries. If there are, then those pages should be renamed as well, and, of course, any pages that link to them. I think it's probable that there won't be any links to other Wiktionaries, but you never can tell. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:35, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Problem is, there is e.g. a Swedish phonetic alphabet, and it isn't the spelling alphabet.

The whole point of a redirect is that you don't need to change every entry. And a bot should clean up any redirects.

kwami (talk) 19:03, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

But we generally do not keep redirects here. Those redirects are subject to deletion by anyone at anytime. That's why we do not allow links to redirects. Sooner or later, the redirects will be gone and, after that, the links will also be deleted because nobody will know what to do with them. It would be nice if a bot can clean up all those links, but I don't know how to make a bot. If you can create a bot that will fix the links, I think you should do it.

I searched for the duplicate Swedish phonetic alphabet, but could not find it. If it's not a spelling alphabet, then it probably would not be placed in the "Appendix" namespace anyway. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:06, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

So why not automate it? Seems like an awful lot of manual labor for cyberspace.

There is no duplicate entry. There's a duplicate concept. There are Swedish, Danish, Uralic, Americanist etc. phonetic alphabets similar to the IPA. That's how I found the appendix, BTW -- I was searching for the Swedish phonetic alphabet. Quite misleading to find something else there (which, despite common usage, is not phonetic, not in any of the subsenses in the OED). kwami (talk) 06:13, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea how to automate it.

If there is a duplicate concept, it's no different from any other word or phrase that has two or more senses. They are not misleading, they're expected. Most words have multiple senses and they all fit comfortably on the same page. See for example nail.

The OED does not show the sense of "relating to the sounds of spoken language" for phonetic? I've never see the OED, but that surprises me. Be that as it may, we need to fix the links to redirects, and I can't make a robot. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:18, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

But this is an appendix, not a dictionary entry. If "nails" were an appendix, one might expect fingernails or construction nails, but not haws in the eyes, defects in stones, sobriety or having sex. Not that any of those are wrong, and they belong in the dictionary entry, but there are better ways to title appendices.

That is indeed the definition of "phonetic". But that's not how we were using it in the appendix. We were using it, not for the sounds of spoken language, but for the names of letters in written language. Calling <h> "aitch", or "hotel", is not phonetic, it's just a name. Calling alpha, bravo, charlie ... "phonetic" is like calling alpha, beta, gamma ... the "Greek phonetic alphabet" -- or indeed, calling a bee cee dee ... the "English phonetic alphabet". None have anything to do with phonetics, apart from the acrophonic principal in naming the letters (which in any case is violated by several like "charlie"). kwami (talk) 18:16, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

In other words, an alphabet that is phonetic indicates the phonetics of a word etc. -- how to pronounce it. These do not. They're used for indicating the spelling of a word under noisy conditions. Such "phonetic alphabets" are not actually phonetic, and thus a misnomer. They may be common usage, but I really don't think we should be using misnomers as the titles of appendixes.

(Actually, all alphabets are spelling alphabets, because all can be used to spell a word, so "spelling alphabet" is a misnomer too. "En-wye-em-pee-aitch" will tell you how to spell "nymph" just as well as "november-yankee-mike-papa-hotel" will, assuming hearing conditions are good. The proper term would be "radiotelephony spelling alphabet". But at least with "spelling alphabet" we're not going to be confounding them with anything else. I was tempted to rename them all radiotelephony (spelling) alphabets, but thought a more minimal change might be wiser.)

As for automating it, I suspect Wikipedia:WPCleaner will do that. I know AWB (autowikibrowser) will, but I don't remember how to change domains. (I have mine set for WP:en.) I'll take care of it when I get that figured out. kwami (talk) 18:39, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Hm, doesn't look like I'm approved to use AWB here. I'll apply, or in the meantime you can do it. kwami (talk) 18:45, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

---

Ah, I asked at Cleanup, and User:DTLHS said that "redirects in the appendix namespace are fine." kwami (talk) 20:54, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Labiodental nasal allophone

@Kwamikagami Hi Kwamikagami. I've seen that you've contributed writing the article about the labiodental nasal in en.wikipedia, so maybe you an help me with this doubt of mine. I was wondering why in the Help:IPA pages for languages (such as Corsican or Sardinian) where ɱ is an allophone of m/n before f and v the symbol ɱ isn't used but replaced by a wrong symbol m, while in the same Help:IPA pages for the same languages where also ŋ is an allophone of n/m before k and g the symbol ŋ is used instead. Don't you think this is a wrong and useless distinguo? If it was for simplicity, then also ŋ should be transcribed as n (since in those languages this sound can't be found elsewhere). But this would make the transcription less accurate, then why doesn't ɱ have a place of its own in the list? It's weird to me such a different treatment... I thought you could enlighten me about this issue. Thank you if you will! Otrioo (talk) 11:28, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

@Otrioo Hi Otrioo. It's may be because this is English Wiktionary and thus anglocentric. In English, [ɱ] is an automatic allophone the same way it is in Sardinian etc., but [ŋ] is a phoneme. Thus an English-speaker needs to be told when to pronounce [ŋ] and when to pronounce [n], but not when to pronounced [ɱ] vs [m]. Similarly, we don't indicate other allophones of [n], such as those found before /θ/ and /t͡ʃ/ ([n̪] and [n-minus]). [ɱ] only seems special because there's a dedicated letter for it, but that's just a historical accident. The IPA would never accept such a letter today -- we'd simply write it [m̪], and most of the time no-one would bother with in. kwami (talk) 19:25, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

dog

It is a pity that [the] earlier etymolog[y] was not verifiable, because the connection with the meaning of strength seemed quite logical - a deal more so than dox (swarthy), nor any relation to Greek DAKNO (bite), particularly due to its pronunciation (DOCGA). Kind regards. Andrew Andrew H. Gray 11:34, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

The pronunciation dox > doc- fits quite nicely. But who knows what twisted pathway the word followed. Maybe people bred for color. kwami (talk) 11:47, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for responding so promptly. I should have reworded my statement: any connection between Greek ΓΑΚΝΩ and Anglo-Saxon DOCGA causes a phonetic problem due to the reputed 'j' sound of the 'cg'; but that does not apply to DOX; compare FROCGA with FROX that are related. However, I would have difficulty with the possible semnantic relationship between those words. Have had to learn that to present an etymology effectively, etymological logic must be considered at all times, as well as the stringent guidelines on (my) user page.

Kind regards. Andrew (talk) Andrew H. Gray 13:20, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@Werdna Yrneh Yarg "due to the reputed 'j' sound of the 'cg' [in DOCGA, FROCGA]". Do you mean /dʒ/ sound? If the derivation is //-oks-ga// > //-ok-ga//, wouldn't the <cg> represent /kː/ or /ɡː/ instead? Or was the suffix palatalized <ġa>?

Also, if hund was a well-bred dog, and dogge a cur, wouldn't hund have the connotations of strength? Well-bred as in bred for speed, strength and hunting? And also for a fine coat, which may be where the dox came in. Not sure it makes sense to refer to a mangy old cur as strong or muscly.kwami (talk) 21:17, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami I understand your logic. Your last sentence is self evident; but the entry that you felt needed to be deleted was just one scientific (although dubious, as you imply) way of arriving at some conclusion to the etymology of dog. My due apologies; I put 'j' for quickness, whereas I meant the /dʒ/ sound.

I know my limits and rather than to pursue a course of the intricacies of linguistics, I had chosen to concentrate on substrate languages in view of improving at least some etymologies on Wiktionary, from my 45+ years of experience in that field.  Personally, I believe that the next step would be to ascertain the year in which the cognate (if they were not borrowed from English) forms mentioned in the entry page, were first used in these cognate languages.  If they were not borrowed and can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period, then those lexemes would be cognates from some PG root.  Kind regards.  Andrew (talk) Andrew H. Gray 09:00, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

cognate

@Kwamikagami Your presentation as to this word is the general concensus as to its bearing; I just used "akin" to distinguish the cognates from other PIE branches from those lexemes in the same family branch. Also, Metaknowledge rightly reverted by recent etymology main entry edits on two counts: the etymology codes were inconsistant at the end with the former and two of the Old English forms linked only with lexemes or entirely different meanings. The OED online gives PG "thwit-" the root of Norse "thweita" (to hurl, to hew), whereas "thwait-" would normally be expected as per sound rules! I want to have more access to the full version of the Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Kind regards. Andrew (talk) Andrew H. Gray 09:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Katakana in headings

Heya, in answer to your edit comment query, we've had one user in particular who has seemed very keen to add katakana forms. For the names of plants and animals, she's generally used the convention for biological spellings, probably based on the JA WP articles, which usually just mirror the hiragana spellings (using ウ instead of the 長音符 for long ō sounds). See ja:w:カゲロウ for one such spelling example.

I'm not too keen on including these in headwords, as I think they're 1) unnecessary, and 2) clutter up the line, but I can see the argument that some folks might find them useful, and also frankly that one user has also been so prolific that I just couldn't keep up. I've more commonly added a mention in a Usage Notes section, using {{U:ja:biology|[KATAKANA SPELLING]}}, which more clearly lays out why someone would spell the given term in katakana: an important usage detail that that other user was happy to omit, and even actively remove.

Anyway, that's how the current state has happened. If you have strong feelings one way or the other, I'm open to suggestions.

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:39, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Eirikr No, no strong feelings. It does seem like a lot of clutter, though. If it were English, we'd put these all under 'alternative forms'. The one useful aspect is that you can clip and paste kanji or kana for an electronic search, if your search engine doesn't treat them as equivalent already, and it's handier this way than having them mixed up with other alt forms. But then that's reformatting Wikt for the convenience of online searching. As for long vowels, I'm used to 長音符, but that doesn't mean much, and since the conversion is trivial, hardly matters. Unless of course you don't get the best search results that way. kwami (talk) 23:32, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

長音符 is simply inappropriate here. The katakana form for とんぼう is トンボウ. ー is mostly in use for loanwords or onomatopoeia. As for the use of katakana in the names of plants and animals, I am pro the use in the header because it's very common. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:03, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Headword templates

Headword templates do not go in the definition line. DTLHS (talk) 03:00, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Example? kwami (talk) 03:08, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

diff DTLHS (talk) 03:11, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

The line should not start with "*" either. DTLHS (talk) 03:30, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, but without * (or :), how do you get them to line up properly with the header? If they stick out to the left as you did it, it's not very legible. kwami (talk) 03:33, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't, that's just how it looks. DTLHS (talk) 03:36, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

So, all the headers have indented text except for that one? With both the header and the first word of text bold, so they look like two separate headers? That's a really bad format. Sorry, I won't contribute to illegibility like that. kwami (talk) 03:38, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I believe they're formatted that way to allow for entries to display inflected forms across the entire page, like they do at cover up. Either way, it's unacceptable for a user to disregard our basic format for aesthetic reasons; if everyone did this, Wiktionary would be a hideous, inconsistent mess. If you don't like it, make a post in the Beer Parlour to see if others want to see it changed, and eventually voted on. But for now, stop putting asterisks and colons in the headword line. Ultimateria (talk) 04:21, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

abuse of admin privileges

@Benwing2:

Hi Ben,

I'm pinging you because we've had some interaction in the past. I know Wikt is more informal than WP, but this seemed ridiculous. User:Wyang reverted four other editors, including me, on converting pseudo-IPA to actual IPA in the "IPA" display in the Chinese transcription modules, claiming ownership of them, and when I restored the consensus version, he blocked me. Is it acceptable for an admin to do engage is such COI here on Wikt? Most of the discussion is at Template_talk:IPA.

Several other editors switched over the sinological consonants and vowels (curly-tailed t, d, n, etc.). Then recently I started changing the tone notation from digits, which are internationally ambiguous ('3' could be high, mid or low tone, depending on the language and author) to the IPA Chao tone letters, and three other editors helped. Wyang's objection is that since not all Chao tone letters were adopted by the IPA (only the phonetic distinctions were, not the ones for tone sandhi), that we shouldn't use any of them, even though they're the only internationally unambiguous system.

Since my block, another editor suggested taking this up at the Beer Parlour, which I'm fine with, or creating parallel IPA and sinological transcription, which I'm fine with too. But the block by an involved admin seems ridiculous. kwami (talk) 18:42, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Kwami. No it's definitely not acceptable for an involved editor to use their admin powers to block someone they're having a disagreement with. Unfortunately this behavior does sometimes happen at Wiktionary, and certain people are more guilty of it than others. Wiktionary has no real arbitration mechanism, unlike Wikipedia, so these abuses of admin powers tend to go unpunished. I'll go ahead and unblock you. Benwing2 (talk) 00:16, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Benwing. I won't revert him again (I have twice), but will try one of the other suggestions brought up by the new editor in the discussion. kwami (talk) 00:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Follow-up: the irony is that these tone letters actually are IPA. They were adopted at the Kiel convention. They just don't appear on the 1-page summary chart, but then not everything does. kwami (talk) 08:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Saltillo

Do you have a source that says Rapa Nui uses a saltillo rather than a regular apostrophe? As far as I know, it doesn't, and I haven't once seen it being used. The fact that an apostrophe is a punctuation mark for some languages, doesn't mean it is for others.

For the future, before doing moves on this scale, please consult with the other editors. Thadh (talk) 08:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes I do. It's not an apostrophe a punctuation mark. There was a discussion on WP-en. kwami (talk) 08:13, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Please, do enlighten me! If I'm correct, right now, WP states that the saltillo may be used (emphasis mine), which in my interpretation means it's not standard. Rapa Nui is semi-standardised in writing by PLRN, which does use apostrophes AFAIK. Saltillos should not be used in main entries IMHO. Pinging @Metaknowledge, Rudi Laschenkohl. Thadh (talk) 08:23, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

"May" meaning it's now a possibility, due to Unicode support. The full fn on p19 of the grammar is,

To prevent word processors from turning ꞌ into curly brackets (‘ or ’), which take up more space and disrupt the visual unity of the word, a special font was used in the past containing a symbol ꞌ. More recently, the development of Unicode has obviated the need for a special font; the code point UA78C (‘Latin small letter saltillo’) is now available for a symbol ꞌ which is not confused with an apostrophe by word processors.

The fact that they felt the need for a special font to create an apostrophe letter distinct from the apostrophe punctuation parallels the Unicode standard, which we follow here on Wikt. Per Unicode, U+0027 is defined as a punctuation mark. It should not be used as a letter. The ' in English "don't" is a different creature than the ' in Hawaiian "Hawaiʻi" -- regardless of standardization. Orthographic standards are generally worded for how the letters should appear; Unicode governs how they're encoded. The glottal stop in Rapa Nui is straight. The straight apostrophe letter in Unicode is the saltillo; AFAIK, it's the only one.

If Wikt encourages the use of U+0027 as an orthographic letter, then that's an error that should be addressed. This isn't an ASCII dictionary. kwami (talk) 10:25, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll go over some sources on Monday, since I can't right now. I hope that's okay with you. Thadh (talk) 18:45, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Kwami, I will leave it to Thadh to weigh in on the actual issue at hand, but I need to reiterate that you should not move pages en masse without bringing it up first. And no, a discussion at another wiki doesn't count. Also, please remember that Wiktionary is a descriptive dictionary — many languages use characters that Unicode defines as punctuation marks as letters, and you may think that's an "error", but we aim to describe actual usage, whether or not we personally like it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Understood. But it is of course extremely rare for an orthography to specify which Unicode point should be used for a letter. English doesn't. Rather, Unicode defines which of its characters correspond to English. kwami (talk) 19:30, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Notifying @Metaknowledge So, as I see it the facts are as follows:

• Kieviet (2007) indeed suggests the saltillo could be used to prevent the apostrophe turning curly, but still states the straight apostrophe is used, along with the occasional curly apostrophe, and rarely a glottal stop, question mark or the stød.
• Programa de estudio básico (2011-2017; published by Chile's Ministry of Education and divided into eight grades) use the apostrophe unambiguously, sometimes just straight, sometimes curly but using a font that displays it as a prime (′).
• Du Feu (1996) uses the prime (′), but says the following: "The Latin alphabet is used for all the Polynesian languages. For Rapanui only two extra symbols are required: for the glottal stop, [′], and the nasal velar, [ŋ], although these are often simply represented by the apostrophe ['] and [g / ng] respectively."
• The Diccionario de la Lengua Rapa Nui (also published by the Ministry of Education) uses the curly apostrophe.
• The Diccionario etimológico Rapanui-Español (2000) uses the curly apostrophe as well.

Apart from Kieviet, there is no mention of the saltillo and I couldn't find any usage of it either. There is a difference between the saltillo and the apostrophe (although, admittedly, small), and it seems the Chilean government prefers the apostrophe, considering Unicode 5.1 came out in 2008, three whole years before the first Programa de estudio básico. That said, Kwami, if you have any examples of saltillos in usage among Rapa Nui speakers or researchers (except Kieviet), please do share! If not, I propose restoring the moved pages and agreeing that the regular apostrophe should be used. Thadh (talk) 20:49, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

First, when someone says "apostrophe", they're generally referring to the shape of the character, not to its Unicode point. So the fact that someone says "apostrophe" does not necessarily mean the ASCII apostrophe, or that it's best to not use the saltillo -- I challenge you to find someone who specifies it should be the ASCII mark. The Unicode point SALTILLO is for a straight apostrophe used as a letter rather than as a punctuation mark.

If it should be a curly apostrophe, then the Unicode point should be U+02BC 'modifier letter apostrophe' because, again, it's not a punctuation mark.

The Ministry of Education does not use a font that displays it as a prime, as far as I can see. They use a straight apostrophe -- that is, what Unicode provides U+A78C for. In contrast, they use curly quotation marks, both for Rapa Nui and for Spanish. (Spanish doesn't have an apostrophe.) So regardless of how they accomplish it, they distinguish a straight glottal stop letter from curly punctuation marks.

Du Feu also notes that a distinct letter is needed for glottal stop. She (or her publisher) appears to use a prime, but it's hard to tell and she never specifies that it should be a prime -- just that it's not an apostrophe. Presumably this was the special font that Kieviet mentioned.

The ministry's dictionary uses an opening quote mark at the beginning of a word, and a closing quote mark in the middle of a word. That's just sloppy, the result of their word processor's 'smart quotes' substitution.

The 2000 dictionary does indeed consistently use a closing-quote shape, even at the beginning of a word. That would be U+02BC. So we have a conflict on whether the letter should be straight or curly. That's true regardless of whether we treat it as a letter or as punctuation.

BTW, the 2000 dictionary uses the same glyph for the 'eta of Tahitian, and in Tahitian it's a distinct letter, not a punctuation mark. (Though AFAICT the Académie tahitienne has not yet decided on whether it should be a saltillo, ʻokina or modifier apostrophe.)

"I propose restoring the moved pages and agreeing that the regular apostrophe should be used." If you reject the RS's that this is a distinct letter, you still have the problem of which shape punctuation mark should be used.

We do have two reliable sources that this is a letter, not a punctuation mark. Even though other sources are sloppy, here on Wikt we try to use the proper code points, rather than ASCII etc substitutes. E.g. we don't use ` for an opening quote mark even when our sources do. If you wish to debate this, I suggest we start a broader discussion. kwami (talk) 22:02, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Regarding "here on Wikt we try to use the proper code points": this is not true across the board. We are descriptive dictionary, not a prescriptive one, and we do not follow the prescriptions from Unicode either. To shift the conversation to a language I know well, Hausa also uses an apostrophe to indicate the glottal stop. Carefully printed materials generally show this as a curly character, but we don't use U+02BC at Wiktionary, because we want people to be able to look up words that they find in the wild! You'll note that both Hausa Wikipedia and the Rapa Nui Wikipedia Incubator use the apostrophe throughout. You're welcome to go tell them they're doing it wrong, but I have a feeling they won't listen. In the mean time, we'll try to follow actual practice. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:21, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Like insisting on using fake IPA for Chinese, this might be a place where Wiktionary and Wikipedia need to part ways, then.

"because we want people to be able to look up words that they find in the wild!" -- but wouldn't it be best just to have an auto-redirect, they way we do when someone uses the wrong capitalization? When I do a search for ASCII apostrophe, I even get hits for the IPA stress mark. So I'm not sure I see how this makes things easier for the reader. Maybe for the editor, but you can always type up an article with an ASCII substitute like ` and then do a mass replace before hitting the 'publish changes' button.

Though it's hard to follow actual practice when RS's conflict. I'm not sure Wiktionary should be using Wikipedia as the deciding factor, though. kwami (talk) 22:34, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

We can't have it auto-redirect to both a saltillo and a modifier letter apostrophe! So that's not actually a solution. Wiktionary and Wikipedia frequently part ways; we care about actual usage (while noting reliable sources), whereas Wikipedia cares about reliable sources (while ignoring actual usage). If it wasn't clear, I brought up what Hausa and Rapa Nui Wikipedians do as an easily accessed example of usage in the wild — but also because as fellow WMF wikis, you could go and tell them they're doing it wrong if you really believe that. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:49, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say rd to both. Choose one and rd to that -- you'll need to do that anyway, even if you use punctuation marks, because actual practice is to use both forms. kwami (talk) 23:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

The Ministry of Education is a little incosistent in which apostrophy to use (the Programa de estudio 7o año básico uses a straight apostrophe, but for example the Programa de estudio 1 año básico uses a curly one). To answer your main question: the straight apostrophe (') seems to be the way to go, like Kieviet suggests. Thadh (talk) 23:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

The question then is whether we follow Kieviet and Du Feu and make glottal stop a letter of the alphabet, as e.g. for Hawaiian, or if we substitute punctuation marks. kwami (talk) 23:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with calling the straight apostrophe (U+0027) a letter in the Rapa Nui alphabet, while using the curly apostrophes (U+2018/U+2019) for quotes if need be, if that's what you mean. Thadh (talk) 12:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

For the graphic shape, in a printed document, sure. With a typewriter, it's just a blob of ink in a particular shape, and the shape for the letter may or may not differ from the shape for punctuation. But when you define it with a Unicode value, you're talking about the Unicode character, not the shape, and in this case the Unicode character is a punctuation mark. It behaves like a punctuation mark. Words may not break correctly at the ends of lines, word processors may substitute a different character, it won't highlight properly when copying and pasting, meaning that glottal stops will get left out when copied, it will trigger the wrong behaviour in a spreadsheet (and again not appear in print), etc. There are all sorts of problems when you use the wrong apostrophe.

We could have a RS for a language that uses a capital O for a zero, and a l.c. el for a one, as manual typewriters sometimes do. Should we therefore tabulate data with oes and els instead of zeros and ones, because that's what's found in practice? Sure, it makes no difference in print, but it'd create havoc if you put it into a spreadsheet. Put the year 2OlO in an online form that requires a date and see what happens.

There are two straight apostrophes in Unicode: U+0027 is a punctuation mark, and behaves as a punctuation mark because the behaviour of characters in fonts is defined by their Unicode properties. U+A78C is an alphabetic letter, and behaves as a letter in Unicode fonts. You could also use a Chinese or Korean character that looks like an apostrophe, but it won't behave right, will mess up the spacing, etc. Best to just use the correct character and avoid the errors that using the wrong character will cause. kwami (talk) 12:20, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I understand your point, I really do, but it's just that it seems like Rapa Nui doesn't use a saltillo. To give a good example, Finnish similarly uses a curly apostrophe for a glottal stop: raa’an. It's not a punctuation mark, but rather a letter, in the way it is used, and yet it would sound strange to propose the usage of the ʻokina in Finnish. Thadh (talk) 12:47, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

What would sound strange about proposing that the word be written raaʼan?

My (minimal) understanding of Finnish is that the glottal stop is not usually written, and does not appear in all dialects. My impression is that with the k grade, the apostrophe is marking the loss of a consonant, much like it does in English contractions, or say Cockney li'le. Finnish dictionaries don't list it as a letter of the alphabet. In Rapa Nui, however, glottal stop clearly is a consonant, with a dedicated letter of the alphabet, and dictionaries treat it as a letter when alphabetizing words. kwami (talk) 13:25, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

It would be strange, because the language has been written for about four hundred years, and they never used the ejective consonant. As Metaknowledge pointed out, you could go to Finland and tell all Finnish speakers their use of the unicode in all their daily life is wrong, but I don't think they will be glad to hear that. So, unless you can give any evidence Rapa Nui speakers actually use the saltillo, rather than the apostrope, in their daily life, or even in official documents, I would be happy to oblige and move all these pages, but until then I think the pages should be restored. Thadh (talk) 23:10, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say Finnish orthography was wrong (just the opposite: it seems reasonable based on the little I know), but Finnish doesn't have any ejective consonants. And they haven't been using Unicode for 400 years. And their solution is not what you're proposing. So I don't see how it has anything to do with Rapa Nui.

Unless you have evidence that Rapa Nui orthography requires the ASCII apostrophe, despite all RS's contradicting you, I don't think you should be moving any pages. You may dispute that U+A78C is the correct character, and you may well be right to do so, but U+0027 is clearly the wrong character. Please provide at least ONE source that U+0027 is correct. kwami (talk) 01:17, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

You keep talking about reliable sources and ignoring usage, when I already explained that this decision is going to be based more on usage than reliable sources. Here's how I see it: we can open this up to the community and create a new thread at WT:RFM (which is what you should've done in the first place). My guess is that all that will do is put off moving them back for a month, but seeing as you're unconvinced, @Thadh should probably do this just to get it over with. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:19, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Why bring up RS's if they're not the issue? If it's just usage, what's the evidence for usage? We only have a single source that says what usage is, but you both seem to think it's irrelevant. So what do we base a decision on? The WP incubator? kwami (talk) 03:24, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

All those schoolbooks are written (partially) in Rapa Nui, and they all use the apostrophe, that's your usage right there. I don't see how a school book in 2017, made by the ministry of education, would not use a saltillo if it wanted to, because I have a tough time believing they don't have the knowledge or resources to write that whole book using saltillos. Thadh (talk) 09:28, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

"All those schoolbooks" -- I'm losing track of what's what. Which schoolbooks? You mean the ones that contradict each other on which character to use? kwami (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

They may contradict each other on whether to use the straight apostrophe or a curly one with a font, but they sure don't use the saltillo, which is the point. I'm afraid if you have no evidence left, I'll be sending this to RFM tomorrow. Thadh (talk) 22:00, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

They also contradict each other as to whether they use an apostrophe or a quotation mark. kwami (talk) 23:15, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Ilmarë, Lempo, Varda

Did you mean translingual or English? The headword template is missing (i.e., {{mul-proper noun}} or {{en-proper noun}}). The entries have ==Translingual== and English labels and categories. J3133 (talk) 08:44, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Translingual. They're international names. Added templates. kwami (talk) 09:11, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Entries without a L2 language section

Hi! It looks like you created some pages without a L2 language section. See here for a list, I think yours are the pages that start with N where you added a Proper noun. JeffDoozan (talk) 23:03, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for catching that. Copy-paste error. Took care of the Dutch and Hebrew while I was at it. Author took care of the Romanian. kwami (talk) 23:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Our problem

Yay! It’s fixed now! 138.229.19.202 13:42, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Congrats! kwami (talk) 13:43, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, students should stop editing without logging in. 138.229.19.202 14:40, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Example

Hi Kwamikagami, I just added a new Chinese example sentence there, and my English translation is “Although I understand manners, and I know that it’s very important to say thank you, but I refuse to say it anyway, because I’m not used to it.”, if the English grammar is wrong, please correct it. Thanks. 138.229.19.202 03:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your change. 138.229.19.202 03:57, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@138.229.19.202 The "but" was the only grammatical error. But I wonder about the word "refuse" -- that's quite strong in English, and suggests you're being obstinate -- i.e., rude on purpose. English doesn't really have a milder colloquial word that means "I don't have the inclination to". Translating it "don't" avoids the issue, and is how I'd express that meaning. kwami (talk) 04:01, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

”Do not want to say thank you” is it milder than “to refuse”? 138.229.19.202 04:08, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@138.229.19.202 No, they mean about the same thing. To "want" something implies that you're thinking about it. "I don't want to say thank you" means I thought of saying thank you, but decided not to. In other words, I refuse.

If you mean you forget to say thank you because you have no natural inclination to, and you don't mean to be rude, you could say "I forget because I'm not used to it" or, maybe better, "I don't think of it because I'm not used to it." Or just "don't" as I worded it, but saying you don't think of it sounds more like an apology. kwami (talk) 04:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Zodiac table

Hi, Kwamikagami. While I disagree that "yellow is too bright", I'd be fine with a change of color so long as it isn't the exact one you changed it to. The color you changed it to is almost exactly if not exactly the default hypertext color for an already-visited link, meaning it's easy to click on the image erroneously thinking you're being directed to an entry. For that reason, I'm undoing the change until a more suitable color can be found. While I disagree with your assessment that yellow is "distracting", I would consider it more harmful to have an image that perfectly resembles hypertext. I think a seafoam green or a lavender could work well, personally. A good seafoam green, for example, would be #90edb0. TheTechnician27 (talk) 04:43, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi TheTechnician27. That's fine, and you're right about seeing them as links. The seafoam is awfully pale, though, maybe won't show up well enough. And purples start getting into link colors as well. What of this green: ? Or this 'copper': ? There's also this green: , if that's not getting too bright. kwami (talk) 05:02, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I personally prefer green. I think the copper is a bit too pale. If seafoam is too pale, then I think something like the existing symbols but with #008040 would work well. It shouldn't be distracting, it's not mistakable for hypertext, and it will still be easily visible. I think using the existing shapes, which are licensed under Apache 2.0, would be preferable, and all it would require is changing the fill parameter. I'm going to try out Inkscape and see how it turns out. TheTechnician27 (talk) 20:31, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Update: @Kwamikagami: This is how it turned out; I think it looks really good. I'll start making the other ones. TheTechnician27 (talk) 20:46, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks better. Thanks. kwami (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

No problem! I actually like it better, since green against white is far more legible than yellow against white. Thanks for giving me the kick in the pants I needed to improve it. TheTechnician27 (talk) 05:22, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Alchemical symbols

Hello. Have those new symbols been added to the Unicode standard? I don't see them in the Unicode 14.0 table, and that's the latest version of Unicode according to [3]. 70.172.194.25 20:38, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

They're Unicode 15, which is being finalized for publication later this year. At this point the names or descriptions (disambiguation, decomposition, equivalents etc., none of which we use here) might still be modified, but the code points are fixed. People won't be looking them up until they're published, but we'll be ready. kwami (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

That is false. Code points can still be changed at this point.

See [4]

"code point assignments are reasonably firm"

In other words, they are not fixed. --172.58.76.99 01:30, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

𝼆

Hi, 𝼆 is not a recognized IPA character, so using it puts entries in CAT:IPA pronunciations with invalid IPA characters. Let's follow Wikipedia's lead and use c͜ʎ̥˔ʰ for Hadza ⟨tlh⟩, OK? —Mahāgaja · talk 10:56, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mahagaja <𝼆> is extIPA, which is recognized by the IPA. For example, JIPA accepts <𝼆> in illustrations of the IPA. kwami (talk) 18:35, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

I can add it to Module:IPA/data/symbols so it's whitelisted, but I'd kind of prefer to use ʎ̥˔ anyway because it has better font support. (I just see a box with the codepoint in it for 𝼆 – what fonts include it?) —Mahāgaja · talk 18:45, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mahagaja Indeed, <ʎ̥˔> does currently have better font support, but IMO the extIPA characters (Latin Extended-G) should be whitelisted regardless. Font support will improve over time, and not all IPA fonts handle diacritics well. <𝼆> is supported by the free SIL fonts Gentium, Andika, Charis and Doulos. There's also Symbola 14 and GNU Unifont. I believe it's also in the works for Brill, which is free for personal use. (A representative from Brill sits in on the Unicode meetings approving new characters.) I'd expect that if MS fonts like TNR don't yet support Latin G, they soon will. kwami (talk) 20:12, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

I had to download version 6.1 of Gentium, Charis, and Doulos, and now I can see it. I previously had version 5 of those fonts installed, which lacked it. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:47, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

♂, ♃ and ♄

Hello. On ♂, ♃ and ♄ you've entered botanical senses which are followed by a bracketed comment that the orbital period of [X] is [Y]. Is this related to the etymology? In isolation, a sense such as woody perennial plant (the orbital period of Saturn is 30 years) looks like a nonsequitur, as it presumably isn't intended to relate only to plants with a lifecycle of exactly that long. Even on ♂, where it's clear that there's some kind of relation, it's still not obvious why it's mentioned there.

For future reference, bracketed comments after senses are intended for glosses, which these definitely aren't. If the comments are etymological, they should go in the etymology section, but if they're actually an intrinsic aspect of the senses themselves, that should be explained properly. Theknightwho (talk) 02:27, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Translations at Usonian

Unless you're a Russian speaker, you are not in the best position to judge whether a particular term is or isn't an apt translation unless there is an egregious error. The translations граждани́н США (graždanín SŠA) and гражда́нка США (graždánka SŠA) obviously aren't. If there's some connotation that you feel isn't bwing conveyed, that suggests the definition is lacking. Theknightwho (talk) 03:04, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I already reverted myself. But "citizen of the USA" is obviously not a translation of "Usonian" -- it's a gloss. We could add thousands of glosses to words, but it would be inaccurate to call them "translations". kwami (talk) 03:06, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

What makes it inaccurate? Theknightwho (talk) 03:07, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not a translation, it's a definition. I mean, for French vert, you wouldn't add "a mixture of blue and yellow" and call it a "translation", even though it's accurate. kwami (talk) 03:09, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

You know that a gloss is intended to be something you could substitute for the term, right? "A mixture of blue and yellow" is not a gloss for French vert. Theknightwho (talk) 03:14, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It would be if we didn't have a word "green". Russian apparently doesn't have a noun for "Usonian", so yes, that's equivalent. kwami (talk) 03:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't - it would be a nonsense gloss, and you seem to be conflating etymology with the sense. If the term is clunky in a language then so be it, but your prescriptivism is not how we do things here. Theknightwho (talk) 03:22, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

In pigments, green is a mix of blue and yellow, so that's quite a sensible definition. Or you could say "leaf-colored", but again that would be a definition. kwami (talk) 03:33, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It isn't a sensible definition, because it's just an explanation of how green paint is made, but that doesn't define green. In any event, I'm not sure you have a coherent idea of what you're looking for, because being a "definition" isn't mutually exlusive with being an accurate translation. They're two different concepts. Theknightwho (talk) 03:41, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

So would "French language" be a good translation of français? Or would we just translate it as "French"? And if a language doesn't have a word for "French", why include it in the list of translations? kwami (talk) 03:44, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

So by your logic, if a language only had the equivalent of "French language" it shouldn't be included as a translation? Theknightwho (talk) 03:46, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes. There are thousands of languages in the world, and we only include a few. Why add bad translations when we could add good ones instead? kwami (talk) 03:51, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Because there is a very reasonable possibility that it isn't a bad translation, but instead merely an aspect of how that language works. Not every language works like English. Theknightwho (talk) 03:59, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

That's not how Russian works. For example, "French" (as a person) in our Russian translation is "францу́зы", not "citizen of France" or "one of French ethnicity". There could very easily be a Russian equivalent to "Usonian", but apparently there isn't. Or if there is, what we have is not it. kwami (talk) 04:15, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, but that strongly suggests that the term has connotations that should be mentioned, because if Russian doesn't have a term then we put what the best translation is. It's not somehow "bad" just because you don't like it, or because it's not cognate or whatever. Theknightwho (talk) 04:35, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

If Russian doesn't have a term, why include Russian at all? That's what I don't get. For "Neptune", should we include languages that don't have words for Neptune or the outer planets? What would be the point? Or "mauve" -- I suspect the majority of languages in the world don't have an equivalent. Why would we add them? kwami (talk) 05:03, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

We care about translations, not what you personally consider to be a satisfactory translation. If a concept can be succinctly conveyed, that is fine. Theknightwho (talk) 05:05, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Why succinct? Isn't that just your judgement of what is a satisfactory translation? If it takes a paragraph to explain what a radio telescope is, shouldn't we accept that explanatory paragraph as a "translation"? kwami (talk) 06:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Widely held consensus. Please feel free to try to change it at WT:BP. Theknightwho (talk) 09:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Phonetic alphabets

We do not practise prescriptivism at Wiktionary. The only source for claiming "phonetic alphabet" is inaccurate is you, because you don't like it (and yes, I did check the WP article history). However, many terms have multiple senses, whether or not we like it, and trying to impose your own preference for how language should be used is frowned upon here. Theknightwho (talk) 05:02, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, now you're just arguing in bad faith. You can't be that ignorant, or at least wouldn't say such a thing without checking first. There are plenty of sources that note that "phonetic alphabet" is a misnomer. They are in no way phonetic. I'm not arguing that we "practice prescriptivism". We're not talking about definitions, but about the title of a template. Why have a misleading title when we could so easily avoid it? kwami (talk) 05:04, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

You can argue that it's badly named, but that doesn't mean that it is correct to label it erroneous, which implies that the use of the word to mean that is erroneous. Stop conflating etymology with definition. Theknightwho (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Where did I label it erroneous?

And if a template is "badly named", shouldn't it be moved? kwami (talk) 05:09, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't matter that they are "in no way phonetic", because we are concerned with what the term phonetic alphabet means (which is determined by use), with the question of why it means that being secondary. Google ngrams shows that phonetic alphabet is far more common, so let's stick with that.

To answer your question, here. Theknightwho (talk) 05:15, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

That's a spurious comparison. "Phonetic alphabet" includes actual phonetic alphabets, such as the IPA, and you haven't removed them from the data. It also includes unambiguous phrases such as "NATO phonetic alphabet", and you haven't removed them either. If you have a template for "phonetic alphabet", a user would reasonably expect it to cover phonetic alphabets, such as the IPA, UPA et al. kwami (talk) 05:20, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It's a ratio of 20 to 1. In any event, it simply uses sense 1 of phonetic instead of sense 2, so the argument that it's badly named feels like lingusitics snobbery more than anything else. Your whole argument is just prescriptivism that we shouldn't be using it because it happens to be the same as a bit of specialised jargon. That applies to thousands of other terms, too, and we don't prioritise those either. Theknightwho (talk) 05:30, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what the ratio is, because it isn't a valid comparison.

Here I prove that the template should be labeled "Tuesday". The ratio to "phonetic alphabet" is far greater than 20 to 1, so by your argument that what we should call it.

And no, it doesn't use sense 1 of phonetic. That says "relating to the sounds of spoken language." The NATO phonetic alphabet does not relate to the sounds of spoken language. It's a set of codes to name the letters of an alphabet. kwami (talk) 05:37, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not arguing in bad faith, because it's so overwhelming that your objections are just ridiculous. And yeah, sure, let's use Tuesday if you can find any evidence that it's used as a synonym of spelling alphabet at all.

And yes, it does use sense 1 of phonetic, because the entire point of it is that it's intended to distinguish the sounds of the letters. Things can relate to phonetics in more than one way. Stop making me explain the obvious. Theknightwho (talk) 05:42, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

You're reading your own meaning into that definition, one which isn't there. It's not intended to distinguish the sounds of letters, it's intended to distinguish the names of letters. That's not what "phonetic" means, and since (I just checked) you speak a bit of Latin, I assume you're educated and intelligent enough to know that. When intelligent people make stupid arguments, I wonder if they're pretending to be stupid so that people give up trying to argue with them as a lost cause.

Perhaps we should add a third definition to phonetic to cover the meaning you're using, but it's not covered by either 1 or 2. I'd be curious if phonetic is ever used with that meaning outside set phrases such as "NATO phonetic alphabet". kwami (talk) 05:47, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It's intended to phonetically distinguish the sounds of the (names of the) letters when spoken aloud for the sake of clarity. The names of letters are still part of spoken language, and therefore it serves a purpose related to phonetics. That comes under Relating to the sounds of spoken language. There's no requirement that phonetic only describes things that cover all spoken language. Theknightwho (talk) 05:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

"Relating to the sounds" means "relating to the sounds". Since all words are phonetic, by your argument, a warning label on a bottle is a "phonetic warning" because it contains words. That is, phonetic is just a synonym of verbal. That expands the definition to near meaninglessness.

Swaziland was recently renamed "Eswatini" because people kept confusing it with Switzerland. Does that make Eswatini a "phonetic" name?

Yes, the intent for clarity is why people call the NATO letter names "phonetic". But that's not included in def. 1. Again, I'd be curious if phonetic ever has that meaning outside these set phrases. If it does, I'd be interested in adding examples. kwami (talk) 06:01, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not talking about the individual names in isolation. I'm talking about the purpose of those kinds of alphabets, which is to ensure that the names of the letters are unambiguous when spoken aloud. In other words, for phonetic purposes. Also, if you insist on going into the etymology of it, it derives from Ancient Greek φωνητικός (phōnētikós, “vocal”). Theknightwho (talk) 06:05, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that's why they're called "phonetic". But it's quite a stretch to say that's covered by def. 1. If we have 3 friends named "Robert", and to keep them straight we call them "Rob", "Bob" and "Bobby", we wouldn't call those "phonetic names".

These "alphabets" are a specific extension of the word "phonetic". Again, I'd be curious to see examples of it being used that way outside these phrases. kwami (talk) 06:11, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Relating to the sounds of spoken language. is very broad. It's not a stretch at all. And no, you wouldn't call them phonetic names, but you might say that the reason behind it is phonetic (but maybe not, as they're orthographically different as well). However, I certainly would say that eSwatini changed its name for phonetic reasons.

In any event, "phonetic name" seems to be in pretty widespread use, and not just by accident. Leaving aside the Egyptology (which I haven't looked into), the modern usage in programming is in pretty much the same vein: a name used for the purpose of making it easier to distinguish the pronunciation.[5] It's another case where it's not about describing the phonetics of language in any formal sense. Theknightwho (talk) 06:30, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

By "phonetic name", they mean the spoken name. If I wrote my name &^% and said it was pronounced "Ungothonthp", then "Ungothonthp" would be my "phonetic" name. The term is used when we don't know the pronunciation of something (as in Egyptian, where "Ra" was not pronounced "Ra", or Mayan, where names have traditionally been translated, and only recently have attempts to reconstruct their pronunciations been made), and perhaps where there's little connection between the written and spoken forms (as in many Japanese given names, where there's a many-to-many correspondence). kwami (talk) 06:49, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Right, but that exact same logic applies to phonetic alphabets, given the entire point of them is that they are intended to be spoken. The spoken forms of the names are rarely written down. Theknightwho (talk) 06:54, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Actually, they're quite commonly written down: Bravo Company etc.

So the names of the countries of the world are "phonetic names". You're broadening the definition of the word to near meaninglessness.

I think "phonetic" in "phonetic name" needs its own definition. It's too specialized for def. 1. kwami (talk) 06:58, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

As I've already said, the purpose behind phonetic alphabets is a phonetic one, which is why that adjective was chosen. That doesn't apply to the names of most countries.

I also don't think your approach of wanting more specific senses is very helpful, because you're conflating etymology with meaning again. I said that "phonetic alphabet" is not particularly inaccurate for the reasons I've explained, but that doesn't justify having an additional sense at phonetic that only applies in that term (or any other). You could apply this logic to all kinds of adjectives and the various terms derived from them. Fundamentally, they're still Relating to the sounds of spoken language. If there are specifics that only apply in a particular collocation, then it probably needs its own definition on its own page (e.g. phonetic alphabet), but obviously it's still useful to be able to see the connection.

Plus defining it this way isn't so broad as to make the term meaningless, either. I don't routinely describe cats as atomic (“composed of atoms”), but it's still true. I'd only do so if its atomicity was of primary relevance. The same applies to phonetic. Theknightwho (talk) 07:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

But they're no more phonetic than the usual names of the letters. "A bee cee dee ..." are also "phonetic". What it is is a disambiguation alphabet when noisy transmission causes the names of the letters to be indistinct. That's a very specialized use, not what people normally mean by "phonetic". And your "phonetic names" are not what people normally mean by "phonetic" either. So yes, those do deserve separate defs, or at least sub-defs. kwami (talk) 07:26, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

They’re specifically created for the purpose of distinguishing the sounds of the letters, which is very clearly Relating to the sounds of spoken language. Once again, a cat might be atomic, but I’m not going to call it that unless that is of primary relevance. I’ve explained this already, so it’s pretty absurd to keep bringing up examples which very clearly don’t fit. Even with “phonetic name”, you’ve suddenly changed tune to start insisting that that must need its own sense as well, which frankly just feels like sour grapes.

Also, why would we add additional senses to phonetic that only apply in specific compound terms? Obviously that information belongs at the entry for the compound term. Theknightwho (talk) 08:28, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Then the same is true of a "phonetic alphabet" that is no more phonetic than any other words in a language. You can't have it both ways. It's hardly "sour grapes" to ask for consistency. This is very much like you "atomic cat" analogy. If "phonetic" just means "verbal", then it's a synonym for "verbal", which is rather silly. kwami (talk) 08:49, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

It’s about what is of primary relevance. The purpose is what makes phonetics of primary relevance with phonetic alphabets. The whole point of the “atomic cat” analogy is to show that a term can describe many things we might not normally use it for, but that’s because it’s not normally the thing we actually care about.

Also, phonetic doesn’t mean verbal. I can tell someone to speak to someone else verbally without caring about the sounds used (within reason). Perhaps I don’t even speak the other person’s language. At the very least, the sounds are probably not in my contemplation when I say it. Theknightwho (talk) 08:59, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘But the primary relevance *isn't* the sounds of the language. It's disambiguation -- that is, the words. The sounds themselves are irrelevant. It doesn't matter if 'A' is "alpha" or "apple", as long as you can recognize it as a word that starts with the letter 'A'. A "phonetic alphabet" per def. 1 is an alphabet used to write sound. Often used in the sense of a phonemic orthography, as opposed to something like English or French. (People commonly say Spanish has a "phonetic alphabet" -- that is, the letters correspond to sounds.) Even def. 2 is just distinguishing phonetics from phonemics. A spelling alphabet isn't "phonetic" under either definition unless you stretch it ridiculously. The phrase "phonetic name" likewise is unintelligible from its components.

As for the name of the template, "phonetic alphabet" could mean phonemic orthographies, like Spanish; it could mean actual phonetic alphabets, like the IPA; or it could mean spelling alphabets like the ICAO/NATO one. Why would we want an ambiguous and likely misleading name when we could just as easily have a clear one? kwami (talk) 09:32, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

None of that shows that phonetic is wrong to use as an adjective. I never said it was the best possible name. Theknightwho (talk) 10:11, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Then why use it? Why fight to use inferior wording? I don't get it. kwami (talk) 10:12, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

You haven't given a basis for it being inferior. You've just given patronising concerns that completely ignore the context of what the template actually does, which is readily apparent when used (and will be even more obvious when I do the documentation). Theknightwho (talk) 10:14, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Also, I love that your argument is now that we shouldn’t use anything that isn’t readily apparent from its components. You know that as a dictionary we can just link to the entry, right? Nevermind that spelling alphabet tells us absolutely no information whatsoever about what it entails, so shouldn’t be used by the same logic. Can you just drop the bullshit at this point? Your complete refusal to see the plainly obvious fact that something which relates to the sounds of spoken language is something which relates to phonetics is, frankly, not mine or anyone else’s problem. It’s just irrational stubbornness, which becomes ever more obvious every time you double-down instead of addressing what I actually say. Theknightwho (talk) 10:27, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree that "spelling alphabet" is also a misnomer -- it's not an alphabet at all -- but at least it doesn't have the ambiguity of "phonetic alphabet". I'd use something else if it could be reliably sourced.

Where did I ever say we shouldn't use anything not readily apparent from its components? You're developing a habit of inventing things and claiming I said them. What I said was that if the meaning isn't readily apparent from its components, then that meaning needs its own entry. You argued that the collocation should have an entry, rather than adding the meaning to the primary definition. But do you really think that "phonetic name" deserves its own Wikt entry? kwami (talk) 05:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Fortunately, we already have an entry at phonetic alphabet, and yes, phonetic name would need its own entry if you feel it’s being used in some special fashion that isn’t clearly derivable from the constituent parts. I would strongly advise you to spend some time looking into how things actually work at Wiktionary, because we care about what is attestable, and not about how you personally think language should work. It’s contradictory to argue that “phonetic name” uses a unique sense of “phonetic” while also arguing it’s just a collocation. Theknightwho (talk) 09:36, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

These things are judgement calls. Based on how other words are covered, that seemed to be a rather trivial extension, and I figured people would object to a separate entry and would nominate it for deletion. I've gone ahead and created it.

As for how Wiktionary works, that's what I base things on. The entries I base my edits on may not be good models for what you want Wikt to be, but that's up to you to fix.

And of course it needs to be attestable. Stop trolling. kwami (talk) 16:52, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

If the difference is trivial, then it’s not worthy of having a separate sense at phonetic. You can’t have it both ways.

Your autopatrolled status is contingent on you being able to follow basic consensus, and going through the correct processes that we are all expected to follow. You seem to have a very long history of disregarding the opinions of others when they disagree with your own, but it won’t get you very far here. Theknightwho (talk) 18:02, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

'Judgement call'. I said 'judgement call'. Since you're literate, I must assume that your repeated mischaracterization of what I say is intentional -- that is, that you're trolling. Trolling behaviour is not acceptable on Wikt or on WP.

"Too trivial for a separate entry" doesn't mean there's no distinction. It's a judgement call whether a collocation is transparent enough for the meaning to be included in the main entry, or whether a separate entry should be created. There is no defined boundary between them, which is one of the reasons why so many collocations end up under discussion, with editors disagreeing over whether they're warranted or not. You know this, so quit being a troll. kwami (talk) 18:09, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

And I am saying that you are making a judgment call to have it both ways. There’s no reason why the bar for creating a new sense should be any lower than the bar for creating a new entry. Given these issues come up all the time, fortunately we have WT:CFI to help us.

Let’s be real here: you were arguing in favour of a separate sense of phonetic when you wanted to say I was wrong about it being covered by sense 1, but argued against an entry at phonetic name when I said that it should have gone there instead.

Calling me a troll is not going to get you far here, unfortunately. It just makes you seem quite manipulative. Theknightwho (talk) 18:35, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

And your intentional misrepresentations and threats are not manipulative?

You were arguing about phonetic alphabet, not phonetic name. You also argued that it was covered by def 1 of phonetic, so you are indeed arguing to have it both ways. You repeatedly accuse me of your own behaviour. You may be correct in that assessment (I may be as bad as you), but it's still hypocritical. kwami (talk) 18:51, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I argued that the term phonetic in phonetic alphabet wasn’t a misnomer, remember, because it used sense 1. I also argued that any narrowing of that sense was specific to the term itself, so belongs at the entry for that term. Those aren’t contradictory positions: lock lips derives from sense 1 (maybe 4) of the verb lock. We don’t need a sense that says “kiss”, because it only specifically refers to that in lock lips (and no, it being a metaphor is irrelevant, before you start arguing that).

What misrepresentations or threats have I made? Are you genuinely hung up on the fact I said phonetic name and not phonetic alphabet, despite holding the same view for both? Theknightwho (talk) 19:37, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

You've implicitly threatened my editor status because I supposedly don't follow consensus, when you edit-war over bad, POINTy edits (on WP) based on no more than IDONTLIKEIT. That makes it hard to respect you, or to accept your claims as honest.

I've come across RS's that call the NATO phonetic alphabet a misnomer, though I don't have them at hand: it's not NATO's, not phonetic, and not an alphabet. While the use of 'phonetic' derives from sense 1, it isn't synchronically sense 1 except unless you grotesquely distort that meaning. kwami (talk) 19:51, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Well thanks for clearing up that it’s not a misnomer by the standards that Wiktionary actually cares about. We can both agree with it’s a misnomer in the field of linguistics, but that doesn’t make it a misnomer in general. I can find specialised legal works that make claims to various formal technical definitions as well, but it doesn’t mean using lease to mean rent is erroneous except in a technical legal context.

By the way - reverting 3 times and only then accusing me of edit warring is comically bad faith, especially when you then follow it up with a 4th revert just outside of the 24 hour window and make no effort to discuss the issue. You seem to think you can just bully everyone else into submission, and seem to have a long history of doing this kind of thing. Theknightwho (talk) 20:20, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and I didn’t threaten your editor status. I expected an autopatrolled user to actually know what they were doing when it came to entry layout and verifying translations. Consensus is the polite way of putting it - fundamentally, they’re policy issues, so you don’t have a choice. Theknightwho (talk) 20:30, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

But you feel you can bully your way through with edit-warring and the like, to the extent of making POINTy edits that you know are bad but which you try to force through anyway, so yes, you're a hypocrite. And to say I haven't attempted to discuss the issue with you in the middle of such a discussion -- you seem to be intentionally irrational, which unless you actually are irrational I can only attribute to bad faith. kwami (talk) 03:22, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not just a misnomer in linguistics -- it's a misnomer from def 1. The way around that is to argue it's a specialized collocation, which is fine, but that's not what you're arguing. kwami (talk) 03:24, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Look, if that's what you need to tell yourself, then go ahead. Clearly I'm just a big, nasty troll who's being intentionally irrational >:( It couldn't possibly be that you struggle with not getting your own way.

And no, it's not a misnomer from sense 1. If it's using a narrower, specialised sense, it's still covered by the broader one. Really basic stuff. Theknightwho (talk) 03:36, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Could be that I struggle with getting my own way. But it's hypocritical of you to condemn me for it when you clearly have the same problem. And at least I don't make intentionally bad edits. kwami (talk) 03:41, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

The difference between me and you is that I've argued a consistent point of view throughout this discussion, whereas you have not. I'm perfectly willing to back down when I'm wrong about something, and I can dig out the receipts to prove it, but what I won't tolerate is the kind of never-wrong bullshitting that you seem to love.

Call me a hypocrite and my edits intentionally wrong as much as you like - it's all just cope from a bruised ego. Have a good one. Theknightwho (talk) 03:47, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Hey, I'm wrong all the time. I don't have a problem with that. This is annoyance at your intentional disruption of WP. I let your substantial change go because I didn't have the sources to contest it. What I challenged were your later disruptive edits, which you have yet to acknowledge. That shows continuing bad faith, so this discussion has become pointless. kwami (talk) 03:52, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Stop making a tit out of yourself

I don't know what game you think you're playing here, but it's much more likely to make people think you're impossible to work with than anything else. This is not a particularly large community and we generally prefer to work cooperatively, so pretending like a small number of oversights on a project page somehow make for consensus (consensus for what, exactly?) is absurd. Theknightwho (talk) 17:51, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

"Working cooperatively" is not unilaterally changing articles against opposition. And where does your "consensus" come from, yourself? You're being a hypocrite -- again -- demanding that others follow a process that you ignore.

My "game" is that I'm trying to prevent people like you from turning WP/WT into a joke. kwami (talk) 17:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

The consensus is based on what we as a community actually do, and not what you're trying to force through. Are you seriously arguing that current consensus is to be inconsistent?

By the way, I love that you view your own position as the default that needs to be overturned, whether you're the one making the change or rolling it back. (I can already hear "no you!") Theknightwho (talk) 17:59, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

You're arguing that your edit is the "status quo", as opposed to what's been stable for over a decade. Assuming you know what "status quo" means (and I assume you do), your arguments appear to be in bad faith, as they usually do.

Anyway, you appear to be little better than a vandal, so stay off my talk page unless you have something intelligent to say. kwami (talk) 18:03, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

To make this easier for you to understand: imagine that you were doing this over a revision of a page that included a typo that I'd corrected. Would it be good or bad faith to insist that community consensus was to include a typo? Pretty obviously bad faith, because no reasonable person would think it was an improvement. Likewise, insisting on an inconsistency is bad faith, particularly when community practice is well-established. You might have a point if the whole page included monosyllabic stress marks, but the majority of monosyllabic words omitted them. Why is that, do you think? Theknightwho (talk) 18:08, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Stress marks were present in all the phonemic transcriptions, and none of the phonetic ones (monosyllabic). I don't know if that's good practice, but it's common enough to exclude irrelevant lexical details or to add extra-lexical elements to a broad phonetic transcription. A phonemic transcription, on the other hand, needs to include all phonemic distinctions. You're effectively arguing that English monosyllables don't have phonemic stress, which is contradicted by RS's on the subject. kwami (talk) 18:14, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

You can call me a vandal as much as you like, but you wouldn't actually have any basis for saying that. You're the one causing drama - not me. Theknightwho (talk) 18:12, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I didn't call you a vandal. I did say you were the next best thing to one, since you edit-war over intentionally bad wording. And I did call you a troll, which I believe you are, since your knowingly false claims seem designed to create drama rather than resolve anything. And of course you repeatedly accuse me of engaging in your own behaviour, a classic tactic of the troll. kwami (talk) 18:16, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Symbols

No point putting "the symbol for..." in the definition. Just write what it means :) Equinox ◑ 02:00, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I just noticed that! I'd copied it from another def for consistency. kwami (talk) 02:01, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Unicode 15.0

Hi, I just updated the Appendix:Unicode on Indonesian Wiktionary, if you want to do the same on other language Wiktionaries, you might want to see my recent contributions at Indonesian Wiktionary. Ekirahardian (talk) 06:20, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Unfortunately, the WK-en modules are protected, and I can't edit them. WK-vi will be interested, though, so I'll contact them. kwami (talk) 06:38, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Solar system table

What talk? If you look in the archives in the discussion, you'll see there was agreement to reduce its size. Vininn126 (talk) 09:10, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

The talk page of the template. kwami (talk) 09:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

You added one reply after it was already agreed. Don't edit war. Vininn126 (talk) 09:12, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I'm editing today. My comments are therefor going to be from today. Unless you'd prefer I change the date?

In your edit, you have misrepresent the content of the template. This is a dictionary. I expect you to know what words have definitions and should be used with those definitions. kwami (talk) 09:15, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

You can start a new discussion about the table if you want, linking to the old one, but until consensus is reached in THAT thread you shouldn't revert - because there's already agreement to have it the way it is. Vininn126 (talk) 09:17, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

No, there is no consensus. One person made a comment, and you changed the table -- badly -- to reflect that. An incompetent agreement between two people does not constitute consensus. kwami (talk) 09:20, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Actually, it does. Your comment later does show at least one person disagrees and you have the right to open a new discussion. Vininn126 (talk) 09:22, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested deletion: sexatrigesimal

You should be made aware of Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/English#sexatrigesimal and the matching request on sexatrigesimal, due to lack of verifiable citations. – .Raven (talk) 03:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Requested deletion: undevicesimal

You should be made aware of Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/English#undevicesimal and the matching request on undevicesimal, due to lack of verifiable citations. – .Raven (talk) 07:09, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Have you ever heard of "Google Books"? It's this great website where you can search thousands of books, and find words just like these! It only takes a few seconds, whereas getting confirmation of words via RfD takes substantially longer. kwami (talk) 07:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Wonderful! Then you can add the citations of the RSs you found to the "Citations" tabs of the pages you create. It's not anyone else's job to look up those citations for you, especially if you've already found them. Pages with no citations can simply be speedy-deleted. Instead I've used the slower process, RfD, to give you time to add those cites to the pages, preventing their deletion. Do you not intend to add the cites? Should I request speedy deletion instead? Please advise. – .Raven (talk) 07:55, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@.Raven I'm aware this is a reasonably old thread, but you are incorrect on both counts: a lack of cites should be raised at WT:RFV, not WT:RFD, and it is not a valid reason to request speedy delete. Wiktionary is not Wikipedia, and I strongly advise you to learn how things work here before lecturing others again. Theknightwho (talk) 05:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested deletion: ducentesimal

You should be made aware of Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/English#ducentesimal and the matching request on ducentesimal, due to lack of enough verifiable citations. – .Raven (talk) 09:22, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

On your reversion of ꞌ

I have no clue how I was removing content. I was restoring the previous content on the page, which had more information on which languages had the letter. CitationsFreak: Accessed 2023/01/01 (talk) 15:53, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

You removed the only language that had the letter, changing a language listing to a general comment about being used in "some languages". Of course, if you know of any other languages that use it, by all means please add them. kwami (talk) 18:57, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Language names

Hi Kwami, please use only the canonical language name at the L2 level (between == ==), otherwise it throws off the display. If you're not sure what the canonical name is, you can write {{subst:\|xxx}} (where "xxx" is the language code) and it will convert that to the canonical name. If you think we ought to change a canonical name, you can request it at WT:RFM. Thanks! —Mahāgaja · talk 10:16, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Will do. I might suggest some. kwami (talk) 11:48, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

э in Teuthonista

Isn't it ϶? I would be extremely surprised if it was the Cyrillic letter. Same goes for any variant of ɜ. Theknightwho (talk) 13:42, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, let me fix that (give me an hour). Thanks for the catch.

Still trying to figure out all the Teuthonista symbols in Latin Extended-E. Some are pretty obscure. kwami (talk) 20:37, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

"upper" or "uppercase"

Re Special:Diff/73403345: we do not have this sense at upper. J3133 (talk) 10:06, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I get so confused as to how to word things. Why can't all the templates use the same parameter names, rather than e.g. head|mul|symbol parameter names generating errors at symbol-mul and vice versa? It shouldn't be difficult to create a bot to make things uniform. At the very least, they should be accepted as alt names. kwami (talk) 10:11, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Symbols tagged for deletion

Hello, I see that you have tagged a number of symbols for immediate deletion with the comment "no content". Some of these were simply descriptions of the symbols and those likely should be deleted (most have been), but others are mathematical operators and are defined as such, those should perhaps not be deleted. If you think they ought to be deleted can you propose them at {{rfd}}, or start a discussion at Beer Parlour or elsewhere about whether such entries merit inclusion? For now I am going to remove the {{d}} template until it is clear that they should be deleted. Thanks! - TheDaveRoss 12:33, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

The way it works is that, if you believe they should be retained, then you replace the template with {rfd}.

It doesn't matter IMO if they're mathematical symbols or not. If there's no content, they should be deleted. If Unicode says it's a Misc. Math symbol, and we simply repeat that it's a math symbol, we're not adding any content. kwami (talk) 12:49, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

For instance, one is defined as 'circulation function'. But 'circulation' and 'function' are linked separately, so that conveys no information about the meaning or use of the symbol. Not even a WP link. kwami (talk) 12:52, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Also, we know that often the Unicode names are misnomers. In such cases, repeating the misnomer as if it were a definition is worse than having nothing, because it directly causes misunderstanding. kwami (talk) 12:54, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the way it works is that, unless the rationale for deletion is clear and inarguable, you should use RFD and not the immediate deletion template. These are not clear and obvious, so please do not use an immediate deletion template. - TheDaveRoss 13:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

The instructions are,

"If you think it should be kept, or at least discussed, then please edit this page, replace this template with {rfd} or {rfv} (as appropriate), and add a section to Wiktionary:Requests for deletion or Wiktionary:Requests for verification explaining why."

Follow procedure. kwami (talk) 21:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@TheDaveRoss is right here - WT:Page deletion guidelines takes priority: if your argument were true, users could nominate any pages they liked for speedy deletion for any reason whatsoever, on the basis that someone else should change it to a full RFD request if they disagree, which is not fair or reasonable to other users, and undermines the nature of consensus-based decisions. Theknightwho (talk) 03:36, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I was simply trying to follow the instructions on the {d} template.

DR agrees that pages with no content should be deleted. They just argue that somehow these are exceptions. They gives no reason, other than claiming that these are not "obvious" like the other pages with no content, and that somehow I'm supposed to know what they find not obvious. To me, these are just as obvious as the ones DR agrees should be deleted -- no content is no content, regardless of whether the symbols are mathematical. Indeed, DR deleted multiple mathematical symbols from other Unicode blocks that I tagged because they were without content. Is the block somehow relevant? I can't imagine how, or how I'm supposed to know that. kwami (talk) 04:46, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Removal of IPA definition for r̥

Is there a reason why you removed the definition on the entry r̥ as an IPA symbol for a voiceless alveolar trill? I'm going to re-add that definition, but I was wondering if you had done it intentionally or if it was an oversight... – Guitarmankev1 ^(talk) 13:27, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Just because it's trivial. We don't include other IPA letters with a voiceless ring, so I didn't see why we'd want this one, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to have it. kwami (talk) 22:21, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

About the articles you've tagged for deletion

Shouldn't you keep the articles that only contain Unicode description instead of deleting them? They should remain public instead of being tagged for deletion. Starlight Swirl (talk) 21:16, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The consensus is that articles without content should be deleted. That includes articles on Unicode characters, where there may not be enough data to create an article (e.g. spurious characters that aren't used for anything), but if there is data for an article, someone should add something. Having it as a red link in the appendices shows that still needs to be done; having it as a fake blue link obscures the fact that no actual article exists. kwami (talk) 21:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

E.g. your article on æ̀. That's equivalent to me creating an article "apple" and defining it as "a word spelled a-p-p-l-e." That's not a definition, it's just a description. (We use a secondary 'Description' header for such things.) If you know of languages that use æ̀ in their orthographies, then that is information that should be added, and it would be quite helpful if you were to take care of that. If you can demonstrate that it's actually translingual, then you should be able to add entries for at least a couple languages. kwami (talk) 21:28, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

If you want to delete these entries, sent them to RFD. Don't go around inventing headers that make no sense and removing information and then tagging them for deletion out of process. Thadh (talk) 08:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

You could fix them rather than making them worse. You have no evidence for your claims. If you're worried about deletions "out of process", then you could follow the very simple directions on the tag, rather than corrupting Wiktionary out of process. kwami (talk) 08:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

please do not make any more changes to Translingual single-char entries

Kwami, are you not getting my pings where I said you and Richard should stop messing with single-char entries until you've worked out a consensus and rules for how to proceed? I've asked you repeatedly to discuss rather than make unilateral changes. Only Richard seems to be respecting my request and attempting to communicate with you in the BP, but you're not participating. This sort of non-cooperative behavior is blockable here at Wiktionary, and I will block you if you continue in this vein. Benwing2 (talk) 06:56, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I finally, after much searching, found attestation of an unattested letter. Should I not add it? Do we really need a discussion and permission before adding information to an article that has none? Should I revert myself, provide the info on a discussion board, and wait for permission to add it to the article? I don't get it. kwami (talk) 07:00, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm getting tired of your intentionally disingenuous behavior. You didn't just "add" an "attestation of an unattested letter", you removed the Translingual sense several days after I specifically asked you not to do this. I asked you to work out with Richard and others in the BP the circumstances under which a letter should be identified as Translingual or not, and in the meantime not to delete any Translingual entries. You haven't been participating at all recently in these discussions even though Richard has tried to start several, and instead you're acting unilaterally after several admins have asked you not to do this. Don't do this again or I will block you. (As an aside, please understand that Wiktionary does *NOT* work like Wikipedia. We don't have a formal dispute resolution process so we depend on cooperative behavior; temporary blocks that increase in severity over time are the normal way of dealing with people who refuse to cooperate.) Benwing2 (talk) 07:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Disingenuous? You're arguing over literal nonsense! There is no dispute here, or at least there shouldn't be. You claim that Ʈ is Serer. It's not. You claim that the upper case of Ʈ is Ƭ and that the lower case is ƭ, also obvious errors. This isn't a matter of disagreeing with Richard about what should go into a translingual section, or whether meaningless definitions should be deleted. It was removing obvious errors and adding verifiable information. Is that really something to argue about? kwami (talk) 07:23, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Did you see the posting on my talk page? By reverting damage I'm not making any specific claims. Someone else already put it back to Translingual, as it should be until this dispute is resolved. I'll tell you again: If you change any more letter entries from Translingual to non-Translingual, I will block you for non-cooperation. It's that simple. Benwing2 (talk) 07:28, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Back on 22 July, in #Changing Translingual to a Specific Language, when I asked about making similar changes, you answered:

I don't know what you're asking. If you mean adding a proper dictionary definition to the entry, then yes, that's what we're here for. But if you mean adding more material under the wrong header, or trying to pass off a language as something other than what it is, then no, that's what I have a problem with.

You should apply a similar standard to yourself. Some of your entries for insular script letters are debatable, and as a member of the Unicode Consortium I should not let them stand unchallenged. Switching letter style by etymology is not generally accepted as plain text, though it's not just European - I have also heard of such a thing for Tamil and Sanskrit etymologies. --RichardW57m (talk) 11:57, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Your complaint is, once again, so vague as to be nearly unintelligible. After reading it multiple times, I'm still not sure I understand what you're trying to say. Perhaps you could give an example so there is a contextual anchor?

The insular script entries are certainly problematic. They're not simply insular letters, as they had been described before I tried cleaning them up, because insular script as a whole is not supported by Unicode. The acceptance of individual letters was justified on contrast within texts that needs to be maintained in plain text, and that contrast is often based on language (e.g. Norse vs Latin in mixed-language texts). If you have better explanations or examples I'm sure the entries could be improved. kwami (talk) 12:34, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you'll find that they're not meant to be used for the font alternations that you describe, though that particular discussion is not easy to find. A similar alternation (black letter via antiqua) can be found in early Modern English printing. Claiming that the insular script 'characters' have been used in Norwegian is dubious. Their separate existence is a Unicode artefact. I don't think the evidence for Welsh Ꞁ and Welsh ꞁ quite meets the requirements of CFI - it was one man's work. In all, very dodgy and hard to capture. Primary texts are https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06266-n3122-insular.pdf (and possibly more via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Extended-D, though I find the minutes of UTC meetings appalling) and TUS Version 15.0 Chapter 7.1 Latin pp302-3 section inline heading 'Insular and Celticist Letters'. It does look, though, as though the proposal can be trusted. (Everson got cleverer.) We are in difficult territory like telling whether a glyph is for Translingual a or Translingual ɑ. Welsh instances of the uses of INSULAR D are of that latter nature. The 'insular' names are fine for the glyphs, but determining the Platonic ideals of the actual glyphs is another matter. (What do you mean, Platonic ideals don't exist?) --RichardW57m (talk) 16:01, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Note that the characters are for use by experts, not theoretical L1-users of the languages. They may want to discuss different shapes without having to switch fonts, or use font-dependent font settings. They're not meant for normal writing, but for writing about writing. --RichardW57m (talk) 16:01, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

That's why I specifically added a note that they are not intended for normal text in insular typeface. Before I changed it, these articles simply said that these were the letters d f g r s t in insular script, which gave the misleading impression that if we're typesetting something in insular script, we should use these letters. As you just noted, and as I mentioned under 'usage notes', we should not: we should use normal ASCII letters and an insular typeface, just as we should for fraktur.

My examples came from the Unicode proposals. I figured that if the UTC accepted these characters based on the illustrations in the proposal, then those are valid illustrations of how the characters are intended to be used. I'm not wedded to them, I just thought we should have something to inform the reader that these characters are not intended for run-of-the-mill insular script, and what to use them for instead. If you have better examples, by all means add them to the entries.

Personally, I'm doubtful of the value of the original examples that are simply Old English set in insular typeface, but given the controversy whenever I delete something that obviously fails our criteria for inclusion, I didn't feel I should delete them outright. kwami (talk) 23:55, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

What you can do is record the desired changes in user space until the moratorium is lifted. It might be helpful to announce where you're keeping them, in case we lose you. That's what I'm doing where I've worked on a letter. --RichardW57m (talk) 11:57, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Hirayama (1966)

At Wikipedia's Amami Ōshima language, I see that you've added Hirayama (1966), Ryūkyū hōgen no sōgō-teki kenkyū. I was wondering if you still have this book by chance. I believe that Thorpe (1983) and Vovin (2010), etc? used this for Japonic comparative linguistics. Chuterix (talk) 18:25, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I do. (BTW, you don't need to ping me on my own talk page.)

I also have his 1967 Sakishima book, and 1964 on Yonaguni. If you email me, we can discuss getting them to you. kwami (talk) 20:26, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

OK! Email sent! Chuterix (talk) 20:36, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Also do you have 奄美方言分類辞典 (2 vols)? @Kwamikagami Chuterix (talk) 21:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

OK got the books. I asked you a question about if you have Nakasone (1983) via email. Chuterix (talk) 21:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami Or if you at least have Amami hogen kiso goi no kenkyu (A study of basic vocabulary in Amami dialects) by Hirayama Teruo (1986), please email me. Chuterix (talk) 21:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, no to both. That's all the Hirayama I have. kwami (talk) 22:03, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

OK. Chuterix (talk) 22:17, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2

No, I'm not requesting an unblock. I messed up at Ǹ. That's my error. I would however request that you restore my Yoruba addition, as that was worthwhile and is now a gap in our coverage. I also wonder if we really need a discussion to decide whether we should add translingual entries for alternative case forms of words, which was all that this entry was, and (apart from my addition at ǹ today) all that it is now: Should we for example have an analogous entry Spor, which only says "Translingual: alternative case form of spor"? (If not obvious from my tone, that's a rhetorical question, meant to highlight the irregularity of the current text at Ǹ.) kwami (talk) 09:40, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

You're being disingenuous. Before you struck on 2 June, there was a Translingual ǹ (letter); I suspect @Alefar didn't notice that the letter was gone when he added its capital on 22 July. You yourself have mistaken one-letter words for letters, so it's easily done. --RichardW57m (talk) 16:18, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Funny how one of your repeated methods of being disingenuous is to preemptively call others "disingenuous". I'm the one blocked here, there's no need for you to continue to argue in bad faith. kwami (talk) 21:22, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I have changed the "translingual" part to "yoruba" and changed the templates to have the ISO code. alex (talk) 09:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. The Yoruba stuff might not stick, and likely there are languages that use this letter, I've just been unable to find out what they are. kwami (talk) 09:57, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

to do

distant, reg. cancer, = Stage IV / metastatic. kwami (talk) 19:05, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

ẚ

'em also after vowels (cf. noseeum)

ǣ in Old English

Hello Kwamikagami,

This is in regards to your reverting of addition to the pronunciation of ǣ. This pronunciation [ɛː] is based off of Joseph Wright's An Old English Grammar 3rd. Ed, page 6, where he says that ǣ is the same as pronounced as in English air, and the è as in French père. Leornendeealdenglisc (talk) 13:43, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay, but that contradicts the key it links to, and also makes it look like ǣ has two different pronunciations, /æː/ and /ɛː/, when it only has one. kwami (talk) 16:45, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Getting Single Character Moratorium Lifted.

Do you wish to challenge the classification of อ‍ย as translingual? If you do, then please raise {{rfm}} to change the language. If that request makes progress, whichever language is selected, we will then be able to resolve the problem to the extent that we know to raise {{rfm}} to change the ascription to a Wiktionary 'language', e.g. 'Burmese', 'Thai' and 'Tanslingual'. I'm worried that it might be objected that WT:RFM is the wrong forum for such changes, as opposed to the renaming of pages. Notifying @Benwing2, Octahedron80 (Notifying Noktonissian): .

If you accept it as translingual, we'll have to ask Benwing2 to raise a move request on something else via {{rfm}} on your behalf.

Once we've established the process, we'll need to get {{rfm-sense}} set up.

The problem with claiming อ‍ย as multilingual is that I can only find usage in the two books cited, and it is then just used to represent Northern Thai in Thai script in a book written in Thai. It could in principle also be used to represent Tai Khuen (which seems to be rare nowadays) or Tham-script Lao. If you need more information, please ask at Talk:อ‍ย so that we can keep the information together. --RichardW57 (talk) 13:35, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't have any additional info, but if we can only attest to it in N. Thai, then IMO it should be listed as N. Thai. :I don't know why we'd want a move request if it's at the proper location. kwami (talk) 14:11, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Tea room - Move page Request for Old Tamil Entries

If you have seen this? If you haven't seen please see and then reply. Thank you Sriveenkat (talk) 14:52, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Vilamovian AO, ao → Å, å

Hi Kwamikagami. Regarding your change three months ago to {{list:Latin script letters/wym}}, what's your source for that orthography? Whilst I agree that would be an improvement to the orthography, is it actually used? Neither w:Wymysorys language#Alphabet nor Category:Vilamovian lemmas suggests that it is. (And FWIW, wouldn't a change to Ꜵ, ꜵ be less disruptive?) 0DF (talk) 17:34, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I believe I found it somewhere on Wiki, but if I got it wrong, feel free to change it. I don't know anything about the language myself. kwami (talk) 04:54, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

The plot thickens:

• 2016, Alexander Andrason, Tymoteusz Wiktor Król, A Grammar of Wymysorys, Duke University Slavic and East European Language Resource Center – SEELRC, § 2.2: “Orthography”, page 23:

  [a] […] ȧ¹⁰ […] mȧkja
  ¹⁰ In some older papers and publications, the grapheme å was used.

That, as well as six uses of måkja in declension tables on page 58 (in § 3.5.2: “Ordinal”) op. cit., is the only mention of Å, å in Wymysorys I've found. I would say it confirms the use, however. Interestingly enough, no mention is made anywhere op. cit. of AO, ao… Thoughts on a resolution? 0DF (talk) 22:04, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I just don't know enough about this to have an opinion. If the majority of recent sources have "ao" or "ȧ", then I suppose that should be our default. kwami (talk) 04:55, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

That's OK. What little research I've done shows that this issue in not clear-cut. I'll look into this further and come to some firmer conclusions when I have more time. Thanks for causing me to start looking into the matter! 0DF (talk) 14:02, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

dwarf planet

Tell me why you think "A world-like planetoid of the Solar system, that is smaller than the classical planets." should be included in the entry. Firstly, "planetoid" is a vague term that can mean any small object somewhat like a planet, secondly, "world-like" sounds wholly weird and sounds like an informalism (planetary mass-object would be more suitable for that) and warrants clarification and thirdly while dwarf planets are smaller than any of the classical planets, that's not what a dwarf planet is defined as. A westman (talk) 13:39, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Because that's the effective definition. At least according to Alan Stern, who coined the term. The supposed scientific definition is false: no-one actually follows it -- not the IAU, not NASA, not individual astronomers. It's simply a spurious way to make the concept sound objective. It's not: people don't call an object a DP because it fits the definition, they adjust the definition to fit the objects they've decided to call DPs. And they call them DPs because in their conception they're "worlds", not because of any objective characteristic like hydrostatic equilibrium. Not all the DPs listed by Alan Stern are even round, though it seems they're supposed to be. kwami (talk) 18:41, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

BTW, someone just emailed me about a similarly spurious definition in chemistry, for "transition element." The IUPAC Gold Book (and the IUPAC website) defines it with the objective-sounding "an element whose atom has an incomplete d sub-shell, or which can give rise to cations with an incomplete d sub-shell." But that doesn't work: any element from 21 onward can be ionized to have an incomplete d shell. This definition is universally ignored. Instead, chemists use the arbitrary definition found in the IUPAC Red Book, that a transition element is one found in groups 3-12 (or sometimes 3-11) of the periodic table.

Similarly, astronomers universally ignore the definition of "dwarf planet" that has been invented to make the category sound objectively scientific. For example, Ceres is a DP. It may not be in HE, but is considered a DP regardless. The definition for "planet" is similar: Mercury is a planet. It is not in HE, and so does not fit the IAU definition of a planet, but is accepted by the IAU as a planet regardless. There are a lot of fake definitions for amorphous categories in science, when the real criterion is simply "you'll know it when you see it." kwami (talk) 18:53, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I know that the HE requirement is loosened or ignored for if it was applied strictly Mercury and Venus and even Earth likely would not be planets (there is too disagreement on what objects are even in hydrostatic equilibrium and what are not), but "world-like planetoid¨ is vague and warrants clarification (I could stretch that to include Vesta or the Moon), a better definition would be something like "a roughly round object which orbits the Sun which has not cleared its orbital path of debris" or "a roughly round object which orbits the Sun which is smaller than the classical planets" or something like those. Alan Stern's opinion is not relevant here if his definition of "dwarf planet" is not in common use; you said that his definition included/includes objects which are not round; such objects are not included in either the common or de facto scientific definition of "dwarf planet". A westman (talk) 03:25, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

His definition is "world-like". An irregular body doesn't look like a "world". "Roughly round" is even vaguer, and no good because Vesta and Pallas are roughly round. kwami (talk) 04:30, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Again, Alan Stern's definition can be ignored if it is not the common or de facto scientific definition, which it is not. I can still stretch the definition of "world like and smaller than the classical planets" to include the Moon. Vesta isn't even roughly round and the best image we have of Pallas is a telescope one but that doesn't look round either. There is clearly some subjectiveness involved in defining this term so maybe this is a waste of time A westman (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

But it is the common and de facto scientific definition. kwami (talk) 23:23, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

"World-like" and "roughly round" seem about equally vague to me, though. Double sharp (talk) 17:29, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

"French Translingual"

You need to use a different label to avoid populating Category:French Translingual. Ultimateria (talk) 20:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what you're referring to. kwami (talk) 01:11, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

This has been brought up in Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2024/April#French Translingual. Benwing2 fixed the categorisation error. 0DF (talk) 16:03, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. kwami (talk) 18:53, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

On the Unicode characters

Hi, thanks for the e-mail. Sorry for leaving you confused (the rollback message is standard), but you can still edit your own talk page under the current block settings, and ping me on it.

I haven't blocked you for these particular edits (and definitely not to "prevent [you] from discussing them"), but rather because these edits are just a few in a range of undiscussed, massive edits that impact many languages. You have been blocked for this before, and I wanted to prevent you from carrying out even more such edits. Once your block expires, you should start discussing massive changes (on WT:BP, WT:GP, WT:RFM and similar forums) and wait until some form of consensus is reached.

As to this topic specifically, the two different characters are used by different languages, and the other variant/glyph is not recognised by the speakers (unlike with a/g). That is enough for me to make this move controversial enough to warrant a discussion. Thadh (talk) 23:10, 24 January 2024 (UTC)