User talk:Saltmarsh/Archive 6

Archive for 2013

Module:el-translit

Hi, I have created Module:el-translit with which templates can automatically generate transliteration for Greek words, but it should be checked and tested by people who are more familiar with the language and its transliteration rules first. Could you please take a look? You can test it as follows: {{#invoke:el-translit|tr|Greek text here}} --Z 15:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I check this over the next 2-3 days — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 18:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

1. I have had to change Wiktionary:Greek transliteration with regard to ντ which transliterate initially to d (medial and final ones are correct > nt). The Library of Congress and the UN Working group both agree on this. I don't know how this one escaped the table. I don't think that thios is controversial! — I've been running tests at User:Saltmarsh/Sandbox4 and will try to look out some more. — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 20:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
2. I have yet to come across a Greek term with ηύ. And I know that our transliteration table gives éf/év as the Roman equivalent, however this is illogical (since ηυ > if/iv), so I think that ήυ should give íf/ív. (The sources are not specific, the only one which mentions ηυ (which it states is rare) does not mention the accented form ήυ (which will be even rarer). — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 07:03, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
3. The uppercase letters to not transliterate at all — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 07:21, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

1. All done. What should we do about η and ω? I think we should leave it as it is (i, o), since the current system is already irreversible. --Z 19:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• I was about to answer the above when I reread from a few years ago: Wiktionary talk:Greek transliteration and in particular Wiktionary talk:Greek transliteration#ISO843/ELOT743. Perhaps this needs rethinking. The 'old' transliteration scheme attempted to follow international standards (or what we thoughtthey were) but with an eye on ease of keyboard entry. So perhaps this discussion should be revisited - particularly if it will be possible to strip out old manual transciptions from {{l|el}} and {{el-l}}. If {{l}} is being redesigned perhaps this will happen anyway? — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 06:47, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

  Yes it's possible, and {{l}} will be eventually Lua-ized. Regarding Wiktionary talk:Greek transliteration#ISO843/ELOT743, transliterations (as opposed to transcription) which are fully reversible are usually used when the word (in its original script) is not represented, otherwise it would be pretty much pointless to mention it. What we usually add to Wiktionary entries are actually transcriptions, which are not necessarily reversible. ALA-LC has apparently offered an irreversible system, but it has used ī and ō. Maybe we should do that too? --Z 10:53, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

  But (if I understand you) Wiktionary:Transliteration and romanization says that foreign script terms should be followed by a transliteration, not a transcription - and this has always been the policy with Greek terms. — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 11:11, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

  I never understood why in Wiktionry we are calling this "transliteration", maybe the English word has a broader meaning. But based on this article, then what we are doing in Wiktionary (for all foreign scripts) is transcription, not transliteration. Imagine if we were going to transliterate (and not transcribe), then for example العربية (transcription: alʿarabiyya) would be ʾlʿrbyt (reversible letter by letter transliteration), which is just ridiculous! --Z 12:14, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

• OK! Perhaps we can go back to (2) above, and leave things as they are now with 'ήυ' > ív/íf. One advantage of the new system will be that it will not be set in stone - others will be able to change equivalences at a later date. cheers — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 05:39, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Greek links

Do you think a bot should replace {{el-l}} and {{el-p}} with the equivalent call to {{l}}? —CodeCat 12:20, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes - and "yes please" if someone could do it for me! — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 04:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

PS - and I'll do anything I can to help — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 10:44, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

A discussion regarding transliteration of Greek that you may be interested in

User_talk:ZxxZxxZ#What_to_do_when_automatic_transliteration_isn.27t_wanted.3F --Z 13:19, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

for

Why did you remove the latin alphabet translits of the Greek translations of for, as visible at the link in this subject line ? --Jerome Potts (talk) 19:43, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• Two reasons, firstly the template:t now transliterates automatically and argument:tr is ignored. And secondly "yá" is not a transliteration we would use (see: Wiktionary:Greek transliteration). — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 04:59, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

I thought I was creating Category:English causative verbs but forgot to type Category. It's one of those cases where you can't see your own absent-minded mistakes no matter how many times you look at it- I was having a devil of a time trying to figure why poscatboiler wasn't displaying properly, when it was blatantly obvious. Sigh... Chuck Entz (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Hope the deletion didn't lengthen your head scratching :) — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 05:44, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

gaslight and {{t0}}

FYI, {{t0}} is no longer needed; it's just a redirect to {{t}}, and when translation-templates are bot-updated, it gets replaced with {{t}}. (See Wiktionary:Votes/2013-09/Translation-links to other Wiktionaries.) —Ruakh_TALK 15:49, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Hermitd/Greek wordlist

Have you seen this? It might be helpful for you if you're looking for common Greek vocabulary that we still lack. Cheers! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:28, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks - it also exists at Wiktionary:Frequency lists/Modern Greek/5K Wordlist - where CodeCat has helpfully stripped out {{l|el}} which gives up the ghost after some 4k transliterations (I suspect). I already had a link to that page - perhaps I should do something about the red links! TALKING OF WHICH: there used to be a list of red links somewhere, do you know of one of Greek terms? Thanks again — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 18:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

  Not sure what you mean — we've Wiktionary:Requested entries (Greek) but there's only one redlink in there.

  Anyway, I just started reading a bit about Greek, and I realised that it's really a rather attractive language. I think I may add it to my list of languages to reach conversational ability in for 2014. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:55, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Somebody, some years ago, had a list of all the red-linked terms wherever they existed in Wiktionary. and Good Luck with the Greek! — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 06:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• I added a conjugation table to γράφω, but I'd like you to check it — I think the perfective singular imperative is wrong, but I can't figure out whether that's my fault or the template's fault. I want to help with adding inflection-table templates to Greek words, but the conjugation templates are so damn difficult to use. Couldn't we simplify them? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:18, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• I 'think' that your table (and the imperative perfective singular) is correct - i've added alternative forms. There were a number of reasons why I stopped developing the Greek conjuagtion templates - as you say they are too complicated (but perhaps that's unavoidable). Also my sources on the various forms often disagree. It might have been sensible to lower my sights and not automate imperative formation, leaving this and all text below out of the table (for later development in a separate table). The top bit is more straight forward and there are fewer variations. I was tempted to try using Lua - but my brief foray gave me more "script errors" than sensible output! — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 19:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• OK - instead of making the whole thing a module, we could try using Lua limitedly. Greek conjugation is really not that hard, as compared to some languages (like Ancient Greek)... So here's the point: if I told you to completely conjugate gráfo and all you knew was the stuff we put on the headword line (i.e. 1st person present singular and 1st person imperfect singular), you would be able to do it, right? AFAIK, all you really need to know is that the φ gets replaced by a ψ. So an ideal template would be able to be called as {{el-conj-1|γραψ}} and that would handle everything except maybe the alternative forms. And the template could assign the stress correctly, since that's pretty regular. Does that sound workable? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Of the top of my head (I was about to sign off) that sound right - the usual tenses make do with 4 stems γράφ-, έγραφ-, γράψ-, έγραψ- the augment is not always predictable (but >=3 syllable verbs are more straight forward) — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 20:13, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• (btw, Flyax fixed the imperative issue on gráfo) But έ- is by far the most common augment AFAICT, and we will have to specify that kind of thing for irregulars anyway. On a related note about Greek conjugation, we could make the table a lot smaller and more manageable by not listing periphrastic forms but instead having a line that says something like "to form the future, follow έχω with the dependent form" - compare the wording that the French and Latin conj-tables use for periphrastics. Would you be on board with that? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• I'm on board with anything that moved this forward — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 06:31, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

ΠΑΣΟΚ

I was wondering if we could reclassify these (proper noun acronyms) as proper nouns. I'd do it myself but since there's no gender listed I don't want to try and get it wrong. The reason is that 'acronym' describes the origin of the term, not its usage. Thanks, Mglovesfun (talk) 12:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

• Done - I'll have a look through the others later. — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 07:10, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Archive for 2014

γιώτα

Hi Saltmarsh. Can you tell me why the Modern Greek name has an added gamma that isn't present in its Ancient etymon, please? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:51, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I know little about A.Greek, but the w:Greek diacritics tells me that the diacritic on the inital I is a soft breathing accent - meaning I think that the "I" is preceded by an 'hhh' sound. I'll look further later. Saltmarsh (talk) 13:01, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

The opposite: the spiritus lenis marks the absence of a preceding [h] sound; it is the spiritus asper that marks its presence. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 13:17, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

With that suggestion demolished I cannot think of another - except that it had something to do with the way the word was pronounced at some point in its 2-3 ky journey! — Saltmarsh (talk) 14:10, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it's because an initial nonaspirated iota followed by another vowel shifted toward [j] but later became permissible again, causing a conflict in the orthography. In which case, the introduced gamma would serve to preserve the palatal consonant sound. But if you really need to know, Meta, I can ask a specialist I'm acquainted with. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:31, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

That makes sense, given the pronunciation of γ as [ʝ]; in what contexts is gamma pronounced [ʝ] rather than [ɣ]? Re your specialist-acquaintance, Μετά, I have no need to know beyond mere curiosity; so please, don't put yourself out. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 18:41, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

γι is often used to substitute for /j/ in modern borrowings. Like μαγιονέζα (magionéza). —CodeCat 18:48, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, interesting. When did that convention start? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

*λαγαδων

Hi Saltmarsh. It was suggested at User talk:Djkcel#*λαγαδον that *λαγαδων (lagadon) — with a tonos — may be a word in Modern Greek; can you confirm whether or not that is the case, please? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:52, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I cannot find an example of its evident use that I can translate - and most seem to have something to do with hunting (hares spring to mind!) - for example "λαγάδων" at [[1]] it's a genitive plural (translates to "The opinions of ???? divided on the usefulness of "). ut that's not a lot of help. You need a native speaker - I suggest that you try Flyax. Sorry I cannot be of more help. Saltmarsh (talk) 06:34, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

OK; done. BTW, I had no idea that you aren't a native speaker of Greek. Thanks. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 07:11, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Greek τολμώ

Hi,

could you create the entry τολμώ? It seems quite an important verb to me, and you would do this better than I. --Fsojic (talk) 23:52, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! --Fsojic (talk) 14:58, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi again (hope my asking here doesn't bother you). Could you expand the entry ξοδεύω (xodeúō)? Would it be the best verb to translate "to spend money"? --Fsojic (talk) 22:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

No problem - now expanded :) —Saltmarsh (talk) 15:20, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Template:el-noun

Would it be ok if I changed the parameters of this template, so that the redundant 2nd and 4th parameters are removed? —CodeCat 20:00, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

That would be excellent - thanks for suggesting it Saltmarsh (talk) 05:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I've made the change. The second parameter now gives the plural. —CodeCat 01:02, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks CodeCat ! — Saltmarsh (talk) 05:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Now someone has to take care of all Greek nouns, otherwise all plurals will be hidden or (worst) the remain transliterations will appear to be plurals (ie do something like that) --flyax (talk) 10:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Do you know if this is bottable? Saltmarsh (talk) 11:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it is. --flyax (talk) 12:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I already removed all the transliterations yesterday, so the 2nd and 4th parameters were guaranteed to be empty at that point. I then changed the template so that the 2nd and 3rd are simply alternatives, so either one works. There shouldn't be any problems like you described. —CodeCat 14:03, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Have a look at δάσκαλος. The plural is not visible any more. The empty parameter must be removed. --flyax (talk) 14:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. —CodeCat 14:40, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Thank you. --flyax (talk) 14:57, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both — Saltmarsh (talk) 05:42, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Manual transliteration, and old template

Hi,

don't you think we should ask for a bot to replace all instances of {{el-l}} with {{l}}? I do it manually when I can, but it is a tedious task. Besides, shouldn't we adapt the templates to remove all manual transliterations? When I do this, it breaks it (the aorist no longer appears). --Fsojic (talk) 13:16, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

That would be a good idea. Removing {{el-l}} would be easy since the arguments are consistent. I should have written {{el-verb}} with named arguments (which it now has see:αγαπώ) rather than positional ones. I looked at Wiktionary:Bots/Tasks some time ago with your suggestion in mind, but it seemed years since anyone had been there that I put off doing anything! Saltmarsh (talk) 05:57, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok, {{el-l}} has been orphaned and deleted by CodeCat. Now I don't know if the task of removing transliterations will be as easy as this... --Fsojic (talk) 17:52, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm planning to do that at some point in the future. —CodeCat 18:00, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

For Ancient Greek as well? --Fsojic (talk) 18:02, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

For all languages. —CodeCat 18:02, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Awesome :p --Fsojic (talk) 18:08, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks CodeCat —Saltmarsh 04:52, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

solicitor

Hello. Common law terms are not familiar to me, so I wonder if συμβολαιογράφος is a correct translation for solicitor. In Greece a συμβολαιογράφος is someone with a law degree who is responsible for writing contracts and keeping them properly without representing any of the two parts. This is their only responsibility, they don't give any legal advise. What do you think? --flyax (talk) 19:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pulling me up, I misinterpreted what I read in the dictionary - is the replacement OK? I plead guilty to being unsure of legal officers in England (and Scotland has different terms with different duties). —Saltmarsh 04:49, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The difficulty in translation is clearly due to the difference between legal systems. Wikipedia uses the term Civil law notary, but I hardly believe this is a good translation for everyday purposes. Maybe we could write something like (civil law) notary?--flyax (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

With this complication of different national usages perhaps a general term is better - I have added a usage note. Perhaps "legal clerk" would be more appropriate? —Saltmarsh 06:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I thought that a clerk is an employee; am I wrong? Συμβολαιογράφος is an independent professional, they hold a public office, they nonetheless operate usually—but not always—in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis (quote from Wp) --flyax (talk) 07:38, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes a clerk would normally be an employee (historically in England we used to have "town clerks" = now "chief executive") and "clerks in holy orders" = priests), but before I edit again!

I've changed "civil law notary" to "notary public" because the former seems to have advisory and court appearances in the job description. Hope that's OK —Saltmarsh 09:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

ΟΚ. My knowledge on the subject is limited. You could also see the website of the Hellenic Notary Association. Thank you for your efforts. --flyax (talk) 10:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Feedback about a user subpage of yours

In case Wiktionary:Feedback isn't on your watchlist, you may like to see Wiktionary:Feedback#User:Saltmarsh/Core Greek verbs. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

thanks —Saltmarsh 06:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Unknown etymologies and usex

I created a category for Greek terms with unknown etymologies via σουγιάς (sougiás) with {{unk.}}. I'm also looking for Greek language entries with example sentences that don't use {{usex}}. Any thoughts on that? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 05:40, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

(1) that is a good idea - I think that σουγιάς (sougiás) was the first time I had assigned an unknown etym.

(2) I know what Wiktionary:Entry layout explained says, but IMHO many entries can look 'ugly' when using the official format - they spread out to far vertically, especially with the extra space taken up by the transliteration. Hence I often (or perhaps usually! ) leave out the translit. Do you think I should fall into line? — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 05:55, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't mind the transliteration, even if it takes up some space. How about we look for some more Greek terms with unknown etymologies? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 05:59, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

(2) I've just revisited {{usex}} and notice that it has an inline variable so

τι θέλετε;

ti thélete?

what do you want?

becomes:

τι θέλετε; ― ti thélete? ― what do you want?

That encourages me to use it!

(1) I usually omit entymologies (reading the abbreviated dictionary descriptions strains my Greek!), I am presently trawling through nouns amending those without declensions - and have adjectives to do as well; plus I want to revisit conjugation templates sometime - so I'm not anxious to take on another task - BUT I will try to note those words that I come across with (in english) "etym. uncert." and use {{unk.|lang=el}} — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 06:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Category:Greek verb inflection-table lacking imperative forms

Hi, could you fix this category? It should either be created, or emptied. Thank you. —CodeCat 22:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

It was part of an experiment which I had forgotten about. The reference to it remains in {{el-conj-test}} which is no longer called. — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 05:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Can I delete that template? —CodeCat 16:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

done — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 05:20, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

wiki links > external

Hey, Does our policy or any logical reasoning support this edit ?--Dixtosa (talk) 17:24, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

1. I see nothing illogical - Wikipedia is external to Wiktionary.

2. Sorry if you don't like it, there was a discussion (don't ask me for the ref) some time ago.

3. This is "my" standard place to put that link, as do many others. The first 12 pages that link to Template:projectlink/Wikipedia give the following stats for positional headings: "See also"=2; "External links"=5; "WikiBox"=1; "References"=1; "SeeAlso + WikiBox"=2; "External links+WikiBox"=1. While the stat sampling may not be robust - it shows the trend. — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 19:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

φωνήεν

Thanks for answering the {{rfe|lang=el}}, but are you sure that the Classical etymon is *φωνῆηεν (phōnêēen), and not φωνῆεν (phōnêen)? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting the typo, it's a good job someone is taking more care than me! — Saltmarsh^{απάντηση}

'Sno problem. I'd never seen a word with two consecutive letters eta† before, and when it got no Google Books or Web hits, it raised my suspicion that there was typo. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 20:13, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
† It looks like they do exist, however. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 20:17, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Psaki

Hi,

I believe this is a Greek surname, could you add the etymology, please? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:23, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry - I can't be of much help in confirming that it is definitely Greek and it's certainly not common. Google is flooded with references to w:Jen Psaki. My brief look at a telephone directory only pulled out two names which couldn't agree on the diacritics (1x Ψάκης and 1x Ψακής). Since expats are liable to change spellings I'm reluctant to say more :(   — Saltmarsh^{συζήτηση-talk} 06:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. So, Ψάκι is possibly only a re-transliteration of anglicised "Psaki" back into Greek? Please confirm. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:28, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the English "Psaki" is a transliteration of of the Greek Ψάκι/Ψάκη/Ψακή/etc - but I don't know enough about Greek surnames to be sure about the matter. If I were doing the entry I would say that "From the Greek" and be non-committal - unless we know how her father spelt his name (assuming that it came from her father!). — Saltmarsh^{συζήτηση-talk} 15:57, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I've changed as you suggested and removed a Greek translation. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:59, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Modern Greek προσέχω

Any thoughts on the verb προσέχω (prosécho) when it comes to expanding that page? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Is προσέχω (prosécho)/προσέχομαι (proséchomai) that what you meant? I'm not sure at present of the "passive past".   — Saltmarsh^{συζήτηση-talk} 17:23, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I only meant the conjugation and pronunciation. (Template and module el-IPA, anyone?) --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 17:36, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't do pronunciation but I've put the basic conjugation in place. I started on conjugation templates again at the beginning of the year - but reached an impasse in trying to reduce the number of aguments. I intend taking it up again sometime ...   — Saltmarsh^{συζήτηση-talk} 05:14, 19 December 2014 (UTC)