User:Marjan Tomki SI/To Do

What's to be done, what's in process

Making wiktionary use popular

For language novices

• Appendix:1000 basic English words
• I think some introduction to grammar shall be necessary, and shall see where I can find it, and add link to it. Might be at Wikiversity (and might need translations to languages not already translated to.)

I'll try to learn, and show, how to use wiktionary as everyday tool (if it - user interface etc. - shall need to be upgraded for that, and I find out how, I'll advise).

For users with interest in background

Here etimology, synonimes, thesauri etc. shall be of most interest; I'll learn how to use those and see If I can make such use more popular. Also, associations, links and traces of meanings and forms through different languages and eons shall probably be top topics; I suppose that's because it seems much (or most) of our memory is associative (represented by synaptic links). So if I want make (better: help) someone (or several someones) to remember something, I'try to make information influence most sensoric types possible (all but pain - which if working as needed, is warning to prevent damage), and when possible (often prerequesities, also with things already learned or abilities developed, must be met first), by also doing things, not only them having been shown or being done to them.

When and if that is the case, repetition is not necessary (and I find the old proverb "Repetitio mater studiorum (est)" wrong), unless 2,5 months old pupies (dogs) are less able to learn than humans of any age (I'll tell the story elsewhere, and when told, I give a link here).

For new editors

• Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion
• Wiktionary:Glossary
• Wiktionary talk:Glossary
• Wiktionary:Tea room

For serious linguists

This doesn't mean they have need to already having been trained, or trained formally, it only means they are seriously interested in everything about language(s). Both those trained and those not (yet) trained should also be aware that we might be in error about a lot of things we think we know.

• Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/bʰeh₂-
  

Looking at that reconstruction makes me suspect associations of phao to pharos (maritime lighthouse, lighttower, later any strong lightshource, farovi in Serbian for car lights, scheinwerfer in German, etc.). A joy to look up, even if much of possible connections is not documented and so only speculative.

Being done

• WD seems to be problem (data I have sources can't be entered, WP in different languages don't seem to communicate with WD as expected). Studying. Testing.
• Also, I (finally) got aware of Welcome templates and assiged them to my talkpages in different projects, and got to study links offered there. wkt is latest, and currently in study.
• I have also found several resolutions by poll (most with well argumented discussion before voting, but not all) and essay m:Polls are evil was usefull (and will be in the future, and not in WM space only).
• I have encountered a problem adressing other projects from wikt; help seems to be here: Interwiki links. Part of it might be that I capitalized (inapropriately) something that is case (lower/upper) sensitive.

Brainstorm stack

Professional linguistics problems

Some of them

Errors in official dictionaries, vocabularies etc.

Lingusits often make errors because they don't know subject matter (e.g. nautical, electrical etc. engneneering, history etc.).

• e.g. hidrogliser in slovenian is in common and nautical use for planning boat in particolar, in dictionary of Slovenian literary language (Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika) it is described as also foiling boat (boat on underwater foils). Problem is that people who patrol slo wikipedia rely on dictionary description in such a way it is asumed to be foiling boat exclusively, and so the WP description is plain wrong and misleading. It seem I need to go to Academy of Science and art (the publisher and maintainer of SSKJ) and clear the problem there first (would do if COVIV-19 problems didn't prevent me).
• errors in published oficial documents (library of law: regulations might, and often do, include terms and their definitions, and it might sometimes inlude litle senske, and sometimes be plain wrong. Sometimes (several times, if detected and proposedg soon enough) proposition of corrections of such had been accepted. If not, mistranslation gets mainstreem...

Errors by professional translators

Of these I'll create a subpage here.

Etymology stack

• fateor, lat - behind confiteor (confession), profiteor (professor, profession), fatum (fate), fama (fame, famous); related: Cognate to Ancient Greek φήμη (phḗmē, “talk”); weakly probably (a bit stronger than possible, but not much) onomatopetic (ph, pf... is the sound of wind through narrow passage, including labia of mouth, not only voice cords in larinx.
• Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/bʰeh₂- - possible root meaning speak, speak out... Weakly pgrobably (see above) also onomatopoetic (talk includes vovels and consonants, including pbt, that stop and release air stream, which this reconstructed word seem to mimic.

Etimology proces steps

Some of them

intergeneration

child learns spoken language (usually?) first, heuristically (try and retray loop), and effect evolves. Repetition is no perfect, but can stay and get transfered to next generations (e.g. :s:Alenka was spoken by the child as Eka, and remained as a name she used as adult as author (on several fields, including being poet, muslic composer, costumographer, scene and pupet and masks creator, and animated performances, films and series creator etc.)

interlanguage

two main streams: adaptation and translation; both can be performed several times on same object.

e.g. adaptation from lat arbor, ital albero, es? (chilean) arbo, sl jambor and jarbol (also Croatian) in the meaning of mast (nautical). Author of these adaptations is not known to me (it was already common use and predated my conscious interest in linguistic, and people who probably knew, mostly already passed away).

Adaptation of trumpet to trobenta (sl onomatopoetic - one of my teachers of music knew the person, who heard a child say trobenta instead tompeta (from german) and popularized it's use in Slovenian, but I found no reliable source and also don't recall details.

interwriting

changes at transliteration between writing systems.

• e.g. jp biru for en beer of sl vulgo pir
• e.g. Wu Kaxa or so (meaning something like perfection and beauty for respective symbol) as transliteration of name Wulf Katja on Chinese ID card (supposedly onomatopoetic)
• e.g. Tomkiewicz to Tomman, Tomc etc. (differet countries, reasons usually less administrative hassle)

rules of palatalization etc.

by my current oppinion rules accepted by science are statistically valid (it often or usually happens, but is not necessary, unless somebody commands it (regulation of standardization of language etc.).

Latin

Links

• Appendix:Latin third conjugation

Open problems

• Verbs for, loquor, eloquor seem to be defined as active only (missimg passive). By structure they are conjugated as ordinary passive, and missing active.

Olga Gnjezda and Silvo Kopriva (also coautor of Latin gramatics in Slovenan, with Rudolf Južnič), passed eminent classic linguists of my country and my Latin professors (and the book on gramatics we used an I mentioned above) agree that those verbs are passive only, lacking active voice use.

Those also have related expression in Slovenian (and those I checked in Serbian and Croatian, so at least some in some other Slavic languages.

If I recall correclty. the three above all have as one meaning to give sound, to express oneself by sound, and to express oneself is probably passive. That some Slavic languages close analogues: in Slovenian olgasiti se, izraziti se, in Serbian and Croatian izjasniti se, which are all in passive form meaning something like express oneself in English, and of which several have no use in active voice, like I was taught about loqor/loqui. Form is the same as tegor, which is the example in appendix above, which also has normal active use: tego, I cover; tegor I am covered (by somebody else or also by myself).

Intend to crosscheck for other Slavic languages and more examples, and to find that Grammar book so I can cite it. I'll probably call attention on this to current crop of classic linguists and comparativists at University of Ljubljana, who should be up to date and more formally qualified for further discussion than me.

Miscelaneous to do

Loquor

Loquor (latin verb, to speak) is in Wiktionry declared to be active mode only, which by my training and several facts is passive only.

• conjugation is in form exactly like passive in the example of 3 conjugation in appendix.
• if taken literally, it would be I make myself heard
• several Slavic language have this form of passive, some also in this context
  • oglasim se (Slovenian, passive, literal: I make myself heard: e.g. I say something to let people know I am there)
  • natančno se izrazim (Slovenian, passive, literal: I express myself precisely; I speak to express my opinion so to be clearly understood
  • stidim se (Croatian, passive, I am ashamed)

I'll add more examples and comparison to other words with the same patteren (both latin with passive only that are here seen a active only, and others about talking and speaking expressed in passive. And also I'll see if I can find my book of Latin Grammar - for the moment this is just a reminder for me about this problem to solve.

Euphemismus

In sl Vikipedia there is an article Evfemizem whith defining by terms that are not defined, or are not familiar to lay visitor, of by examples that are not well chosen for a newbie. I'd like to add etymology, or to link to it's etymology here and/or sl Wikt where that already exists.

Terms used were figurativen (which derives from latin and greek); Evfemističen in SSKJ and in sl etimological is usefull, but not perfect.