Talk:---.. ---..

RFD discussion: September–October 2016

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---.. ---.., ...---...

There is no consensus to create these. They are not words. DTLHS (talk) 04:06, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Keep. There is a consensus to create those. See Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2016/August#Poll: Allowing Morse code abbreviations. Poll results: 7 support, 2 oppose, 0 abstain. (currently) --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:10, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

...---... is not an abbreviation, it is a prosign, which means it is essentially a single Morse code "character" that happens to correspond to a word rather than a letter (---.. ---.., however, is an abbreviation). I want to stress that if Morse code letters are to be allowed, then prosigns have to be allowed along with them. But abbreviations, not necessarily. --WikiTiki89 11:44, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

• Keep these two and any other Morse prosigns, abbreviations, etc., whose meanings are not obvious simply by transliterating Morse code into the Latin alphabet. I would not want to keep -.. --- --. (“dog”), for example. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:12, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• Keep ...---... as it's a unique Morse character, delete ---.. ---.. and move its contents to 88. —CodeCat 14:17, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• Keep There is a consensus to make these. You have to have more of an argument than that. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think "Translingual" is appropriate for things that only appear in Morse code. It's being used as a wastebasket category, isn't it? If we have these they should have "Morse code" as a language — but Morse code isn't a human language, it's an encoding of other languages, like ASCII. Comparable entries might be the \a through \z used as encodings for control characters in strings in C programming (and other languages). Not human language. Delete. Equinox ◑ 14:25, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Morse code is used by humans to communicate with other humans, and predates the invention of personal computers. Escape sequences like \n = new line, \t = tab, \\ = backslash, \" = quotation mark are used in computer strings. Braille (⠁ = A, ⠃ = B, etc.) is also an encoding system for communication with other humans, and we keep Braille letters and abbreviations. Unlike Braille, Morse code was discussed before entries started to be created, using the consensus from the discussion. Not to mention that normal letters (A, B, C) also fit the definition "an encoding system for communication with other humans"; but they are the "main" system; they are beyond question.

Morse code is not a language; it's a code. I added the script code "Morse" in the database (I mean, Module:scripts/data) and created Category:Morse code as a script category. You can signal "Hello, Equinox!" in Morse code, though there are plenty of Morse code-specific abbreviations you would use.

We are using the Translingual section because the "A", "B", etc. are used in multiple languages. I don't know if I would place Morse code for "Ñ" exactly in the Spanish section, and Morse code for "Ç" in the Portuguese section: treatment of Latin script language-specific letters is messy in many ways. A single Translingual section would probably be helpful for those, pointing to the main letter entry. Apparently, there are Braille encodings for Japanese hiragana/katakana. (w:Wabun code) These would merit a Japanese section. (Some Braille entries keep languages from many different scripts together in the Translingual section. I consider it very messy and disagree with that.) --Daniel Carrero (talk) 15:56, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe it's time we adopt Wiktionnaire's treatment of Translingual entries, and split Translingual into "Character" and "Translingual" (in Wiktionnaire, "Caractère" and "Conventions internationales"). See A, for instance. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:51, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Delete. I agree with User:Equinox, who writes "Morse code isn't a human language, it's an encoding of other languages"; specifically, it's a family of language-specific alphabets all constructed on the same principle; but then, so are the Braille, Latin, Cyrillic, Runic and Tifinagh alphabet families; so too are the Indic and Semitic abjads. A dictionary is only useful to those who can read it, so even a dictionary for a single language only needs have an entry for each letter of the alphabet (or alphabets) that it uses, because it is also a word naming that letter: a necessary element we use in both speech and writing to show, for example, how to spell other words. But since Wiktionary records all words, it seems - certainly much more than one language, where do we draw the line: Will we include Egyptian hieroglyphs and Maya ideograms as well as Japanese hiragana and katakana? Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese characters? The reserved words of several hundred active and obsolete programming languagess - including APL? Frankly, I would have expected Wikipedia to cover signalling systems such as Morse code and Semaphore, rather than any dictionary doing so. yoyo (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Actually, we have entries on pretty much every Unicode character that's been attested as used in text sometime in history. The only reason we don't have Maya ideographs out of your list is because there's no Unicode encoding for them (yet). We also tend to use the original script for words in most languages, with limited romanization entries in a few. We have, however, drawn the line on reserved-word entries. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

    It bothers me a bit that most of these things seem to end up being added because of Unicode fetishism. Having a chart appendix is one thing, but making entries for a lot of emoji and techno-scribbles just because they have code-points seems misdirected. Equinox ◑ 18:48, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Comment: As for User:Daniel Carrero's comment that we are "using the Translingual section because the A, B, etc. are used in multiple languages", isn't that wrong even on the face of it? The Y of French is not the Y of English; they merely look the same and share a common ancestry, but they're pronounced very differently. Try spelling a French word to a Francophone West African, say, using the sound of the English letter Y, and see how baffled they are! yoyo (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Keep. The IPA isn't an actual writing system either, yet we include IPA symbols that do not belong to any alphabet. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:51, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Doubting Are you guys sure about the language? I don't think morse code for "88" means "love and kisses" in awfully many languages. In which contest does one use this "expression". I'd also like to see the three quotes that we normally want. --Hekaheka (talk) 10:42, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

After thinking of it, delete as unattestable. I get absolutely nothing from my Google search. --Hekaheka (talk) 10:45, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

That's probably because Google does not allow you to search for punctuation marks. ...---... has to be attestable, although I'm not sure about ---.. ---... --WikiTiki89 11:02, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I get 1800 hits for di-di-di-dah-dah-dah-di-di-dit, but they look like mere mentions to me, not uses. It may be the same with "...---...". --Hekaheka (talk) 21:06, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

• Keep all: Per Andrew. We've kept Wingding characters in the past in this isn't really all that different from that. Purplebackpack89 15:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

• Wingdings is a font that replaces normal characters (like ABC 123) with "dingbats" (like envelopes or pointy stars). That's a totally different issue encoding-wise. Equinox ◑ 23:58, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you miss the point. Both Wingding characters and Morse code are ways to convey the idea of words without using letters. Purplebackpack89 00:06, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Kept as to ...---...; no consensus to delete' as to ---.. ---... bd2412 T 15:21, 27 October 2016 (UTC)