Ikiaika

Babel

Greetings. For ease of reference, our key policies are WT:CFI (especially WT:ATTEST) and WT:ELE.

Could you add {{Babel}} to your user page? I'd appreciate it. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:08, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello Dan Polansky, did I violate those policies in any way or was it just a general note? Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 08:12, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

It was just a general note. New Wiktionary users typically receive a long welcome message pointing to these policies. I posted a short message instead. Welcome in the English Wiktionary. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:26, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky Okay and thanks. As for the babels, I hope you don't mind a little joke (it's really just a joke, no offensive or something like that). I simply can't judge the levels, and there are different types of native speakers anyway, like children, analphabets, less educated people, more educated people. So compared with 2-4 year old children, it might be a 4, compared with less educated people maybe 1-3, compared with more educated people a 0-1. Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, I do mind. I would like to see a reasonable Babel, which really is not all that hard to create. I won't be arguing about that with you since my experience divides users into two groups: those who, when presented with a request to add Babel, do the obvious reasonable thing, and those who don't. And arguing with those who don't hardly ever brings about a satisfying outcome. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:52, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky I see. I guess, I rather belong to the second group (sorry), but I've changed it. I hope, I'm now somewhere in between the two groups. Greetings Ikiaika (talk) 09:09, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. On a minor nitpick, aren't you a native speaker of German and English? That would be {{Babel |de|en|es-1|fr-1|...}} rather than de-4 and en-4. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:15, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky I'm just a native speaker of one language (German, so it'd be de). But I didn't want to state that and I hoped with that I'd be in between those two groups (the one which adds babels, and the one whcih doesn't add them babels).
In case of English, it might also just be en-3. I can decline thou, but I'm not sure if I can conjugate have (thou hast, thou hadst). But I'm also not sure, if natives can do that, or if that's required to be en-4 (actually I doubt that it's required, but I don't know). So maybe there should also be babels like en-5 for "better understanding than a native". Not that I'd be en-5, but in general, it should be possible that non-natives could have a better understanding than the average native.
As for the babels with 1, I've used it to mean "I (sometimes) can decipher texts in said language", "I've (partly) read a grammar book for said language" or similar.
As for the Japanese scripts, I should update the babel as I forgot small characters like ㇽ (normal form ル).
Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 10:27, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

{{#babel:en-5}} can accept en-5's. --Dixtosa (talk) 11:00, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dixtosa Thanks, for me that was quite interesting. Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 11:13, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

“"Afro-American" is a hyponym (not every black person lives in America)”

In the United States, people sometimes use the term African-American for blacks from any place. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:02, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV: So should it be something like "Hyponym: Afro-American (in the proper sense)" and "Synonym: Afro-American (in an improper sense)"? But the improper sense is missing at Afro-American too, while African-American has it labeled as "nonstandard, US". Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 16:18, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe nonstandard instead of improper. Anyway, I’m not sure about Afro-American; I can only confirm that African-American is used like this. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:20, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV: Like this, diff? Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 16:26, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks! — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:31, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Thing about Low German alternative forms.

Hey there. Since there is a certain overlap between the entries you work at and my watchlist, I figured I'd say hello rather than just communicate with you via edit notes. May we work together well.
The reason I'm opposed to the in some dialects label is that it's unclear information. "Ek" is not an "alternative form in some dialects", i.e. it's not that where "ek" occurs, it stands next to "ik". "Ek" is the only form in two large and sharply defined areas. Since Low German is a non-standardised language, almost everything is bound to some dialects, so we'd have to note that down to 90% of our entries, especially since that tag covers spelling too atm. But I would say that this is not as much a feature of the specific word but an underlying situation of the language. Thus, this information is not for dictionaries but for encyclopædias. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 08:33, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

@Korn: Hello, Korn. Thanks for your message.
Yes, it's unclear and a label which names the dialects would be better. But I only know that it occours in Eastwestphalian (Ostwestfälisch, Lippe) and Estphalian (Ostfälisch), and I can't say anything about Low Prussian for example. Also, as far as I know, ek appears next to ik in Eastphalian (e.g. the Minimalgrammatik at ostfalenpost.de mentions both, ik and ek), and in some way also in Eastwestphalian (Ravensberg ik, Lippe ek/eck).
IMHO it makes sense to have such a note, even when it just says "in some dialects" and not "(partly) in Eastwestphalian and Eastphalian", and even when such notes would be present in all Low German entries. Without the note, one could think that ik and ek occur everywhere next to each other, which is not correct. And with the note one can differ between different spellings of the same word (like ik vs. ick, mi vs. my, spellings with ao vs. å), and different dialectal forms (like ick/ik vs eck/ek, mi vs. müi vs. mick/mik). Maybe the notes could be changed to make clear whether or not different forms are used next to each other etc.? How about "in some Eastwestphalian subdialects; in Eastphalian besides ik/ick"? If it is also used in other dialects, then they could be added as well.
But as for Woort and ein/en, I can't say anything about the different dialects and can't improve the notes there. I've just seen other dialectal forms like oen (Ravensberg) and eun (Lippe), but I don't even know if they are attestable for Wiktionary (Kinder-Lippe is not durably archived, and grammar books and dictionaries could count as mentionings and not as usages, even when they have example sentences). Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 15:29, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I really don't know how to go about this. No option seems satisfactory. As I don't plan to get deeply involved in editing NDS, I won't advocate for any method over another. For languages with little attestation, the rules for inclusion aren't as strict. If you want to add Westphalian, you should ask about that at the Information Desk, I don't know how we handle Low German, but my guess is adding these should be alright. I would appreciate to see other dialects than this weird pseudostandard North Sea one we almost have exclusively. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 17:22, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

@Korn: nds:Woort for example mentions 16 dialects. But on the one hand the word might be the same in some dialects, and on the other hand some dialects might have different forms or might have subdialects with different forms. So the number 16 doesn't say much.
Different forms of normal mi (= English me, German mir/mich) that I've seen are my (old orthography), mui (Ravensberg), mui (Lippe, from older books), müi (Lippe, from the internet), mik/mick/mek/meck (Eastphalian), dative mey and accusative miek/miëck (Sauerland), mi'j/mi-j/miej (Netherlands). Wikipedia/Wiktionary also mention mie and mien (Netherlands), mie (Plautdietsch). If they are all attestable for the English Wiktionary, then it would be a mess, if there would be no labels. Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 20:02, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

You can split Low German in any number of dialects, depending on where you draw the lines. For Germany alone, for example, Wiesinger counts around 16 (different ones than on nds.Wiktionary), I would define either around 10 or 35, depending on level of detail. If you wanna be extremely nitpicky, you can probably come up to 50. I'm not a friend of looking at other Wiki projects to decide things like these, we should always go by reason.

Calling mi 'normal' is something I don't like. It's certainly not normal in much of the south, and we need to get away from this northern-centric view that most media has when dealing with Low German. I can see that tagging specific dialects would be helpful, I'm still not sold on 'in some dialects'. Instead of labels, there could be a template creating a collapsible table titled 'found in these areas:' or something and then one can enter all the regions/dialects where it appears, which automatically puts the word in the respective categories. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 08:15, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

@Korn Of course we should go by reason and should not just copy the habit of another Wiki project. But we can compare, how it's done in other Wiki projects.
I wouldn't use the wording "normal" in an entry. It simply refered to the 'northern-centric media view' and to the fact that mi can be found in several dialects, as mecklenburgisch-vorpommersch (Julius Wiggers' grammar), bremisch (W. Heymann's grammar), ostfriesisch (East Frisian), partly in Westphalian (e.g. in (west-)münsterländisch, cf. with Die Glocke, and partly in Ravensberg), while other forms often are restricted to a single dialect, as mui/müi is Eastwestphalian, miek is Southwestphalian, meck is Eastphalian.
Greetings, Ikiaika (talk) 11:54, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

RFV failed

Greetings. I see you post "RFV failed" to RFV even though you have no rights to delete the entry. That is not very helpful. "RFV failed" should be posted by people who can delete the entry at the same time. Otherwise, it superficially looks like it has been closed when the key closing step-deletion-was not taken. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:00, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Share your experience and feedback as a Wikimedian in this global survey

Hello! The Wikimedia Foundation is asking for your feedback in a survey. We want to know how well we are supporting your work on and off wiki, and how we can change or improve things in the future. The opinions you share will directly affect the current and future work of the Wikimedia Foundation. You have been randomly selected to take this survey as we would like to hear from your Wikimedia community. To say thank you for your time, we are giving away 20 Wikimedia T-shirts to randomly selected people who take the survey. The survey is available in various languages and will take between 20 and 40 minutes.

Take the survey now!

You can find more information about this project. This survey is hosted by a third-party service and governed by this privacy statement. Please visit our frequently asked questions page to find more information about this survey. If you need additional help, or if you wish to opt-out of future communications about this survey, send an email to surveys@wikimedia.org.

Thank you! --EGalvez (WMF) (talk) 22:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)