Wiktionary:About Proto-Mayan

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. This is a draft proposal. It is unofficial, and it is unknown whether it is widely accepted by Wiktionary editors. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

These are guidelines for Proto-Mayan entries. Note that since Proto-Mayan is a reconstructed language, all entries should be subpages in the Reconstruction namespace.

Phonology and transcription

The following scheme is the canonical transcription for Proto-Mayan words and forms on Wiktionary, which is used within entries as well as the names of entries themselves (but see below on category sorting). Other spellings are permitted, but should redirect to the canonical spelling.

• Voiceless stops: *p *t *ty *k *kʷ *q *7 (7 is used here to denote the glottal stop, not an apostrophe)
• Glottalic stops: *b' *t' *ty' *k' *q'
• Affricates: *tz *tz' *ch *ch'
• Fricatives: *s *x *j *h
• Sonorants: *y *w *l *r *m *n *nh

• Short vowels: *e *o *a *i *u
• Long vowels: *ee *oo *aa *ii *uu

Linking and entry names

In principle, the spelling guidelines outlined above apply to entry names as well. If you see an entry with a name that doesn't conform to the scheme above, feel free to move it and correct any links to it so that they point to the proper name.

• Surface (phonetic) forms of reconstructions should generally be used, and not the underlying (phonological) forms with or without separated constituent morphemes, unless it is the universal practice to do so
• Words should not be broken up into pieces. Write a word as one whole, without hyphens separating the parts.
• The language code for Proto-Mayan is myn-pro. Use this code with the {{der}} and {{inh}} templates for references in etymologies. When linking to Proto-Mayan reconstructions, you must add * before the word (to indicate that it's reconstructed) or an error message will be displayed.

Creating Proto-Mayan entries

Entries should normally begin with {{reconstructed}} to alert readers to the reconstructed nature of the entry and the meaning of the asterisk. Following that, in principle, PIE entries are laid out the same as other entries in the main namespace. So they have a language header, properly nested part-of-speech headers, and possibly also declension and conjugation tables, derived and related terms and other subheadings. You should try to keep to WT:ELE in general, but you can deviate from it a little bit if it's necessary. If you're not sure how to format an entry, you can look at existing entries.

Nouns

The following template can be used for nouns:

{{reconstructed}}
==Proto-Mayan==

===Etymology===

===Noun===
{{myn-noun}}

# [[]]

====Descendants====

Derived terms and descendants

Every entry must have either a derived terms or a descendants section, as this is important for being able to judge the validity of the reconstruction. After all, if something is reconstructed but nothing came from it, why was it reconstructed?

Because of the many languages that descend from Proto-Mayan, managing the list of descendants can be a significant task. In general, descendants are listed as an unordered list, with each language that descends from an older stage being indented one step further. Terms listed in a bulleted list, like descendants, should be linked using {{desc}} or {{l}}, not with {{m}}!

See also

• Wiktionary:Transliteration
• Wiktionary:Reconstructed terms
• Wiktionary:Etymology
• Category:Proto-Mayan language