User talk:Stephen G. Brown/2011

bound form

User:Ddpy, in his/her creation of many new Mandarin pinyin entries, has been referring to certain usages of certain Mandarin syllables as "bound form" (which I believe s/he implies means that that particular definition cannot occur on its own, but arises only in combination with one or more other Mandarin syllables). See bái for an example of this. Note that s/he isn't using the term "bound form" to mean that the syllable cannot occur on its own, but only that that particular *definition* cannot occur on its own. I believe that this is not quite the same as an inalienable term in agglutinative languages (which I believe Mandarin is not), but if "bound form" is indeed a term used in linguistics, would you consider making a Wiktionary entry for bound form? I believe this term could also be called a bound morpheme. Thank you, 71.66.97.228 09:32, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

There are many "bound form" entries in Wenlin dictionary, such as bāo 胞, bí 鼻, bì 币, bīn 宾, bīn 滨, xuē 靴, etc. Ddpy 04:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

How does one find this dictionary and does it have a Web presence? Does it use the English term "bound form" or a Mandarin translation thereof? 71.66.97.228 05:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It use the English term "bound form". About Wenlin, please see Wenlin® Software for Learning Chinese Ddpy 05:45, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Upon reading bound morpheme (which I see we already have an entry for), I am now not convinced that bái could be considered as such, despite the fact that it only acquires some of its meanings in combination with other syllables. Your input, after examining the above entries, would be valued. 71.66.97.228 09:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I have never heard of "bound form" being applied to Mandarin and I do not think it is correct usage. I would be more open to prefix. In any case, I am against defining Mandarin terms under the Pinyin spelling, because it means that every word must have at least two separate pages, and edits that are made to one page will often (usually) not be made to the other and the two pages will diverge more and more as time passes. In my opinion, the Pinyin spelling should only give a link to the hanzi. Jamesjiao and A-cai are the best ones to deal with difficult Chinese issues, since they are experts in Chinese. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:14, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Your point is very well taken, especially in the case that, for Mandarin words with *more than two* syllables, they could conceivably be rendered in pinyin as a single word, as two words (with 1+2 or 2+1 syllables), or as three words. I'm sorry you haven't given your opinion earlier, because the creation of (toned) pinyin entries is taking place in earnest now. Toneless ones also exist, and have led to blocks, but many entries still exist (actually, they are easier to type in, but slightly problematic in that a given toneless pinyin entry can have multiple meanings according to tones). 71.66.97.228 02:01, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Your caution against privileging the pinyin forms when considering when a given syllable should be considered an affix (prefix or suffix) is also well taken. In the cases of the assignation of hyphens to pinyin syllables like "-dog" or "dog-," or "-shoes" or "shoes-," or "-white" or "white-," just because in pinyin the term is usually written together without a space between characters (when, in fact, all the syllables *and* words are written together, without spaces, as in Thai), I would advise against this, unless the syllable or particle really is a prefix or suffix. There was some discussion about this at User talk:Jamesjiao#xīnxié and hóngxié. I believe not enough editors are taking part in this conversation, in light of the recent active campaign to create these strange hyphenated pinyin entries. 71.66.97.228 02:20, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The "bound form"/"affix" issue has come up again at Talk:zhuāng. Could you help to develop consensus for how to deal with such Mandarin syllables, which apparently cannot be used on their own, but only as attached to other syllables? 71.66.97.228 05:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

A "bound form" cannot be used alone in Mandarin spoken language. Such as we have to speak xuēzi (boots) but not the "bound form" xuē. Ddpy 06:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, the toneless Pinyin have virtually no value at all and I don’t think they should be allowed, except in those cases where they have currency in English (such as tai chi, feng shui, or I Ching). Most of the toneless Pinyin can be useful only to Chinese natives, but this is English Wiktionary and the entries are intended for the use of English-speakers. If a Pinyin example does not show the tones, then it is useless to anyone trying to learn Chinese.

Ddpy, yes, we know what bound forms are and we understand why you are trying to apply the term to Chinese. However, I have never seen bound form used for Chinese and I believe it is the wrong terminology. We use bound form to refer to such things as the bound pronouns (as opposed to independent pronouns) in Hebrew and Arabic (قدمي = my foot, كلبه = his dog, ولده = his son), or the forms of a preposition with bound pronouns like ل. What you have in Chinese does not seem to be a bound form, but a matter of context. But this is advanced Chinese linguistics and I defer to the opinions of Jamesjiao and A-cai. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe some action needs to be taken. Please see this recent post:

Firstly, in Classical Chinese and its modern Chinese descendants, virtually every character is a (free) morpheme. Apart from -然, -子, -们, 阿-, 老-, -化, -家, -者, -头, -仔, 可-, -儿 which are both bound and free morphemes, there are hardly any characters that can be classified as bound morphemes/affixes. The fact that in modern descendants some characters do not appear to stand alone, is in most cases by no means indicative of their bound-morphemeness. Disyllabification of monosyllabic morphemes arose primarily from the need to disambiguate amongst monosyllabic homonyms, and to a lesser extent, from the need for further and more meticulous meaning clarification. But with non-monosyllabic morpheme-containing compounds, disambiguation is not a concern.

Secondly, Pinyin is not what written Chinese is supposed to be like. Acceptance of mere transcriptions or transliterations entries is unwarranted. --User:Wjcd 06:54, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

71.66.97.228 03:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with what User:Wjcd says. This should be dealt with in Wiktionary:About Chinese languages. I think it is useful to have Pinyin entries that link to the hanzi because it’s a good way for English-speakers to access Chinese characters if one does not know how to keyboard hanzi, but, as I said before, definitions, etymologies, usage examples and all the rest should reside on just one page, and not be duplicated on two or more pages. Our Chinese experts such as User:Wjcd, Tooironic, Jamesjiao, and A-cai should set the policy and that policy needs to be written into Wiktionary:About Chinese languages. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Can we alert them to this discussion, then? Nevertheless, this was not the initial reason for the discussion (that was a user's creation of hyphenated pinyin entries, the addition of "bound form" to pinyin entries, and the creation of numerous "derived terms" categories, some with hyphenated pinyin, rather than simply listing derived terms under a "Derived terms" header). Don't forget that we do usually, in the case they have a different spelling between traditional and simplified, two separate entries for each Chinese character or multi-character word. 71.66.97.228 23:16, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, of course. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:20, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Saodavid

This user tried to create two entries apparently in Khmer. Can you salvage anything useful? DCDuring TALK 12:56, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I could not find any entries or edits by this user. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

دوستان

Hi there. This word has been added several times with various rubbish, and subsequently deleted. Is a proper definition/translation possible? SemperBlotto 10:54, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

WP redirects

You haven't answered my question. I put it that you can't be using WP redirects as they simply don't work, there is no WP:CFI or WP:RFV. I can only assume you're typing WT and you're not aware of it. You've made comments on your own inflexiblity before, and I'd be surprised if you weren't underestimating yourself. I think if you can have a good knowledge of 20 o more languages, you can remember to type {{ru-conj}} instead of {{ru-verb}} (reference to a previous discussion). Mglovesfun (talk) 10:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I didn’t see a question. Language capability is different from programming capability. I can easily learn 20 new verbs including their spellings, conjugations, and cases governed in five minutes, but I have never been able to remember people’s names and have trouble recognizing faces. I’m good with languages but mystified by HTML and other programming logic. It is certainly possible that I could be typing WT when I mean WP, because my hands work subconsciously...when I switch between English, Arabic, and Russian keyboards, I am not consciously aware of the change. Sometimes this leads to problems because the Windows keyboard program switches by default between languages when you press certain keys (I think it might be alt-shift, not sure), so for years I had a problem staying in one script. I finally figured out how to change the Windows default so that I don’t switch unconsciously to other alphabets.

It’s just like the template tools such as {{bird}} and {{element}}. I can never remember what the correct term is, so one time I might type {{bird}}, the next time {{birds}}, and the next time {{ornithology}}. I used them to redirect to the correct term, whatever that might be. Since those tools are gone, I no longer add categories to Russian, Arabic, Khmer, or other entries. This is no different. You can delete the tools and I will adjust by doing something else. The time I save by not adding categories here turns out to be a benefit to other wikis such as Navajo Wikipedia, since I have more time to spend there. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Searches vor variant spellings

Hi Stephen,

Do you know who fixes the searches in Wiktionary, e.g. Russian весёлый and веселый and other languages with or without diacritics. I have a request for Arabic and Hindi - we have many variant spellings. I don't have tools avaialable from work to show what I mean but you probably guess what I mean, one example would be to find ख़ून if someone typed खून or Arabic words with/without hamza on/under alif, etc. Does this need a discussion somewhere? --Anatoli 00:33, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No idea. When I add a word like весёлый, I also leave a redirect from веселый. I don’t know who, if anyone, has the capability of adding rules to the search engine. (I think Mglovesfun may be deleting them when he finds them because he has no idea what they are. He tends to make a mess when he fiddles with languages that he does not speak.) —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:35, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I have asked TheDaveRoss. See mine and his talk page on the topic of Hindi and Arabic searches. We will still need redirects but with Roman and Cyrillic we have the ability to display both in the search window even before we hit the search button, like it does with many Russian words with "ё", even if there is no redirect page. Your input on languages needing this will be appreciated. --Anatoli 13:01, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Stephen. I'm currently brushing up my Hindi and Persian. I learned something new from the discussion (a zero-width nonjoiner) too. I missed ه/ة pair indeed. --Anatoli 00:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Namechanges

Hey, I forgot what Wiktionary page these requests were supposed to go under, but could you change User:Opiaterein Inflectobot's name to User:OpiBot and mine to User:Dick Laurent? I've been wanting to change them for a while now, but I couldn't think of anything to change mine to and wanted to get them both at once. Thanks :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a million :) — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 18:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Derë

Hi, Someone JorisvS replaced IPA, has you can see he added [dɛrə] who his pronunciation of derrë (pig), if you check this Page, you will observe that R is [ɾ] & RR is [r], so I think he make a mistake, how to correct please ? I'm sure that is [deɾə] & not [dɛrə] Gmazdên 22:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you also check Sandali, please ? I would like to add second definition to amë (Ivan Stambuk added unpleasant odour, but in my dictionary the meaning is matrix for tosk, also in Gheg it's means "but" from persian AMA & Ottoman turkish, how to add ? Can you help ?), but I don't know how to separate the two definition...

The definition look like :

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish اما (ama), from Persian اما (ama).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [amɑ̃]

Conjunction

2011

1. but
2. however

Thanks Gmazdên 22:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Derë

I noticed, that you corrected the R [ɾ] but not the E [e], has I said Tosk are neighboor of Greek, epsilon [e] exist in Greek Language & Alphabet, so its really astonished me if this sound doesn't exist in Toskian (like for Greek term), in Albania E & K have two valour [e/ɛ] & [k/q]... So please correct, has I tell you before, I'm sure of pronunciation it's [e] and not [ɛ]... Look this to : Albanian_alphabet. Thanks, can you unreverse my sandali add. Or are you verifying the word ? Gmazdên 10:36, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

If it's Tosk pronunciation add info next IPA [deɾ·ə] (Tosk) & [deɾ] (Gheg), in Gheg we don't pronounce the ending Ë [ə] Gmazdên 13:19, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi, correct JorisvS insult please, why he changed derë IPA ? Does he speak Shqip ? Language Babel isn't shown in his user page, don't insult my people please, I know it's [deɾ·ə] and not [dɛr]... Gmazdên 00:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

On the Albanian language pages such as Albanian language, it indicates [dɛɾə]. Gheg has many more vowels than Tosk: Gheg Albanian. Nobody is insulting anybody. I am sure that he has found that pronunciation somewhere on Wikipedia. This is what I have been trying to explain to you for years. You are not responsible for the Albanian language or for any other language. You are only responsible for what you write. You do not have to be overly concerned about the mistakes that others make in a language that you know, but you must be absolutely vigilant about what you yourself write. The mistakes that others have made here have not harmed you in any way, but the mistakes that you yourself made have damaged your credibility, and that is why nobody wants to listen to you. You need to ease off the mistakes that others make, and you must make certain that you do not make mistakes in a language that you claim to know. You will lose the respect of other linguists very, very quickly, but it takes a long time indeed to regain their trust.

One thing that we have all learned is that being a native speaker of a language does not necessarily mean that one speaks the standard dialect using the standard pronunciation in an educated fashion. Our biggest headaches come from so-called native speakers who are uneducated in their language, or who left their land as a child and only remember how to talk like a child, or who have no experience in grammar and phonology. The fact that you are a native speaker of Albanian does not count as sufficient credentials. You have to be able to describe it without errors. Sometimes this means that you have to fix errors in the Wikipedia pages. It means that you have to be very careful about adding anything in other languages, such as Arabic. You made so many mistakes in Arabic in the beginning that now nobody wants to listen to you. It will take a long time to fix that, if it is even possible. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

You right, I speak old Gheg, and those are Tosk (Orthodox) falsified Dialect. Don't matter let them insult them self. I forgot about them, it's not my problem anymore, I decided that I have to go to Mekkah to perform pilgrim and to learn the Qoran... Thanks for you help anyway. Gmazdên 22:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

bąąh and tábąąh

I noticed in your recent edit of the bąąh page that you removed the beach gloss from tábąąh under "Derived terms"; was that for stylistic or formatting reasons? This website lists beach as a meaning for tábąąh, by way of example. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 22:26, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

You don’t need to have the entire range of definitions and synonyms in the etymology, you only need the single appropriate meaning. If someone is interested in delving deeper, he can go to the word’s page and see everything that is there. It was correct just the way I wrote it. In the sections of derived and related terms, it is questionable whether there should be any definitions added there at all. However, since Navajo is so foreign to most readers, I can see that it is helpful to have a one-word definition next to them. We don’t need to copy the entire list of definitions from the main page to each term in the derived and related terms sections, we only put one definition and that is enough to identify the word in case anyone wants to click on it to see more. That way we don’t have to add extra layers of definitions to every page that carries related and derived terms every time we add something to the main page (or delete definitions from the related sections everytime we delete something from the main page. Only one (unlinked) definition per related/derived term, please.

Regardless of what single word some editor selected to put on his flashcard page, tábąąh means shore or beach, as I indicated. The word shore explains it very well and there is no need to have beach there as well. For full definitions, synonyms, related terms, and derived terms, please see the main page (not the hint placed for convenience in a derived-terms section). —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:19, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough about beach on the bąąh page, thank you for explaining your views. I was asking partly to ascertain whether the tábąąh page should be edited to likewise remove the beach sense. Though I cannot find where you indicated that tábąąh means beach? That meaning was apparently added when the page was first created by IP user 71.66.97.228. Perhaps that was you?

I'm not sure I agree with your stance on only using one gloss term; for tábąąh, beside and alongside are certainly related ideas, but semantically different enough to make it fruitful to point out that overlap of meaning, not least since Wiktionary is used by people looking up words to find information. Adding alongside to the etymology for tábąąh takes up no appreciable amount of room, and leaving it out makes the entry as a whole that much poorer, making me a bit puzzled by the parsimony.

Along similar lines, why the downer on links? Part of the joy of HTML is that anything can be linked to anything, increasing the ease and convenience with which people can wander through a site.

By way of reference, the Wiktionary:About_Japanese#Considerations_about_Japanese_language_entries section shows an alternate approach, where a term is followed by a short list of relevant glosses, all linked. Scroll down a bit to the "Kanji reading" section to see an example of this. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 01:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

No, 71.66.97.228 asked me about it and then created the page. He gets some information from a couple of books he obtained, some from Wiktionary:Requested entries (Navajo) when I add information there, and some from what he can gleen from the Navajo Wikipedia or from my discussions there (I am an admin on the Navajo Wikipedia and the only one who also contributes here). He did this entry about a year ago and I don’t remember where he got what information about it.

We generally do not have these gloss definitions in the related and derived sections for any other language (except for the occasional case where a new editor adds a little). We have the page for the entry and that is where all the definitions, grammatical notes, and related words go. Etymologies and (in this one language) related and derived sections get just what is needed, not a copy of the whole page. Even the translations sections, where many languages have different forms for different numbers, genders, etc., are supposed to only carry the basic form (normally, when there are other forms, this means the masculine singular nominative, or a particular verb form, and so on). The other forms such as feminines, plurals, genitives, pronunciations, etc., go on the word’s main entry.

We have had the same discussions about different forms of a word, such as American and British spellings, and whether to put translation sections in both forms (the two translation sections will inevitable differ and diverge) or to put a redirect from one form to the other so that all the translations will be in one single place. In any case, we do not need to copy the definition section into each and every related/derived section, to be added to and deleted from everytime the main entry gets edited.

The links on the Navajo entry pages are to look up Navajo words, not English words. We link key words in the definition lines and etymologies, but other than than, English words do not need links in the example sentences and hints to related and derived terms. If a gloss hint interests you, you can go to the main Navajo entry for that word and the key English words will be linked in the definitions. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Poll on formatting of etymologies

I would like to know your preference as regards the use of "<" vs "from" in the formatting of etymologies in Wiktionary, whatever that preference is. Even explicit statement of indifference would be nice. You can state your preference in the currently running poll: WT:BP#Poll: Etymology and the use of less-than symbol. I am sending you this notification, as you took part on some of the recent votes, so chances are you could be interested in the poll. The poll benefits from having as many participants as possible, to be as representative as possible. Feel free to ignore this notification. --Dan Polansky 10:50, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

a Yiddish question

Do you know the difference, please, between oyf and oyfn in Yiddish?​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

אויף (oyf) (oyf) can be either the predicate adjective awake or the preposition like German auf (on, upon, in, at, for). אויפֿן (oyfn) (oyfn) is the adverb on, on top, atop; אופֿן (ufn) (oyfn) is the masculine noun way, manner (plural אופֿנים (ufnim) (oyfanim)): אױף אַזאַ אופֿן (oyf aza oyfn), "in this manner". —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I was referring to the "on" senses. You say the difference is that אויף is a preposition whereas אויפֿן is an adverb, but I think I've seen אויפֿן used as an preposition, as in w:Oyfn Pripetshik?​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

You’re right. In this case, אױפן (oyfn) (or אויפן (oyfn)) is a contraction of אױף דען (oyf den), similar to German am, im, ins, zum, vom, and so on. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:49, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah! Thank you!—msh210℠ on a public computer 02:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Khmer Wiktionary - how to apply for sysop status?

Hi Stephen,

I need a favor and some help from you in expanding Khmer Wiktionary project. I would like to apply for a sysop status. But how and where can I apply for one? Thank you!

Regards, --វ័ណថារិទ្ធ (Vantharith) 13:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Vantharith. I can nominate you for admin status here, but I think you should first make some edits so that the other admins can evaluate your work. If you will first make 50 edits or more (new entries, correcting old entries, improving old entries, etc.), then I can nominate you. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Stephen! How have you been doing? I failed with my proposal for adminship at Khmer WIKT. Anyway, I am doing what I have now as an ordinary registered user. Anyway, I think it's not a bad idea to apply for adminship at English WIKT - cos it gonna be a great experience for me to get familiar with sysop duties, procedure, how-to and tools. Appreciate if you can nominate me so I can have a good eye on entries related to Khmer language. Thanks, --វ័ណថារិទ្ធ (Vantharith) 16:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I am surprised that you had trouble getting adminship at Khmer Wikt. What happened about it? Did you contact ArielGlenn? He is Greek but he speaks good English. As soon as I have time, I will nominate you for admin. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:26, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Stephen! Can you help voice your sound comment/support for my sysop request on meta? I need your support to achieve this request. Thank you! --វ័ណថារិទ្ធ (Vantharith) 15:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Spanish

Hey Stephen,

could you please translate the Spanish from this video for me? It's not much. Thanks in advance 81.68.255.36 00:14, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it’s quite a bit. He starts out saying, "tell him to pass the ball to me", but there is a lot more. It would be a lot of work to transcribe it, which would be necessary before translating it. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:46, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh really? I thought it were like three of four sentences. Could you then perhaps tell me what the general, erm, tone of their words is? 81.68.255.36 10:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Basically he was saying, tell him to pass me the ball. I don’t know anything about soccer, so I don’t know the significance of the conversation. We don’t play it in the U.S. and I’ve never seen a soccer game before. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:43, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Translations of inflected forms

You're right; I can't find such a policy. But it is customary not to. Such grammatical information should be found in the entries themselves such as French traduction should give a plural. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it really is not customary not to, it’s only that not many contributors have bothered. There are two big problems that translations of inflected English forms answers: (1) many languages have difficult or unpredictable counterparts (French and Spanish plurals are easy, Arabic, Hausa and Tamil plurals are not); and (2) many of these foreign-language forms do not even have redirects to the lemma, and often the lemma does not show these forms. They are very handy when somebody needs to look for such a form, and the only problem is getting people to contribute. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

It is customary not to; such entries appear on cleanup lists. I think Arabic plurals should be listed on Arabic entries, not English ones. The fact that we don't have some of these plurals as entries or even red links is not because of our substandard editing of English, but rather of Arabic, Persian, Tamil, etc. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn’t say anything about substandard editing of English. These forms are largely missing in the more exotic languages and this situation probably will not change significantly in the foreseeable future. Plurals and the many other forms should be listed on the relevant pages, and there should be redirect pages for each form with links to the lemma, but this is not the case. There are few editors for the more exotic languages, some of these languages have special difficulties that need special solutions, and the few editors are generally unable to find solutions that mesh with our format and policies, and besides are usually unskilled in HTML and bot creation, so that we probably will never get the sort of coverage for these languages that we have for French. This has been discussed a few times over the years and the result of each discussion was that these translations were fine if anybody wanted to add them. I’ve not seen anything against it. You just think it is customary not to because you want to delete the information, not because of any discussions and agreed policies. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you not care what other people think? As that's the impression I get. Why is that? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you not care? That’s the impression I get. You have shown no evidence that this should be deleted. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

There is a consensus not to include them. I am asking you whether you will adhere to that or not. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

You have not shown any evidence of such a consensus. Stop your wheelwarring. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, WT:Translations says nothing about not removing translations, so I'm not breaking any rules either. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am asking you if you will ignore such a consensus. What is your answer? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

You didn’t say a thing about WT:Translations, you kept mentioning WT:BP#February 2011, and nothing is there. As for WT:Translations, I don’t see what you’re going on there, either. Stop your nonsense. You have not shown any evidence of this consensus, I am not aware of any such consensus. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I'm mentioning WT:Translations now. Also, to show why having translations for inflected forms is such a bad idea I have split the entry by sense to allow translations to correspond to each sense rather than just a plural form. I do not believe you when you say you do not know of any consensus, as you can definitely read English. Therefore I believe you not to be telling the truth. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I looked at WT:Translations and don’t anything there that supports your position. I can read English, but you have not once pointed to any discussion that supports what you say. Either you are too inept to link to it or it doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t exist, you are the liar. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I assumed that you had read it; Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Translations_for_inflected_forms. BTW I don't see anything in WT:Translations that supports your point of view either. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I did not mention anything about WT:Translations supporting my position, you did. That makes you a liar unless you can point out the evidence there. No, I did not read or see Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Translations_for_inflected_forms and you did not mention it or link to it in your arguments. That makes you inept. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

You haven't mentioned anything supporting your position. I simply assumed you read the Beer Parlour often enough to know it was there. BTW I added quite a few translations for the second sense of translations which are now in the first table, not the second. You can either correct them, or leave it wrong. Up to you. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

After the discussion to delete many of the shortcuts, I don’t know what shortcuts work anymore so I have not visited BP. That’s why I didn’t update the ==month year== header at the beginning of February on all the project pages as I’ve done for so long. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not aware of this discussion, only the one about WP redirects, or do you mean that discussion? Anyway, may as well go ahead with the vote, now, as it's nice to have policies as long as they're uncontroversial, which this one seems to be. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the one about WP redirects. BTW, I did mention the support for my position, the support is in the form of discussions over the years in BP. They are in the archives and I have no idea how to locate them there. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Щедрин

Hi Steve, FYI - User_talk:Vahagn_Petrosyan#Щедрин --Anatoli 12:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Давай писать больше по-русски, Стив. Твоя помощь очень нужна. Спасибо за твой вклад! Вливайся в коллектив постепенно - всё больше пиши по-русски, мы поможем. Пожалуйста, не бойся делать ошибки. --Anatoli 14:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Я положил ударение; возможно ошибаюсь. К сожалению, у нас ещё нет надлежащего шаблона для этого имени, добавил вручную. —Stephen ^(Talk) 14:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Отлично, всё правильно! Одно маленькое исправление - я бы сказал "поставил", не "положил" (ударение). --Anatoli 23:14, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Да-а, "положил" это какой-то американизм. Много лет назад (т. е. в 1966 г.), моя русская учительница смеялась, когда я говорил, — его положили в продвинутый класс (или нечто подобное).

Если мы сказали бы "put" на английском языке, то для нас это "положил" в русском языке. Плохая привычка. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Tanwin

Hey Stephen! I might have missed the discussion about this probably years ago, but what is the reasoning behind the placing of the tanwin before the alif rather than on top of it? It looks somewhat unusual to me. --Dijan 20:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi guys, you must have noticed my edit of تقریبًا and the translation. I am still not 100% sure of which is right but I was told by an educated Arab a while ago - a forum moderator that it is a common mistake to place it after the alif. Persian must be following Arabic, especially in Arabic borrowings. Both ways are often used and attestable. Happy to change if proved wrong. --Anatoli 21:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm just curious why that is. I've taken years of Arabic (and Persian) classes and always been taught to place it on the alif. Although, I have noticed a few, not many, grammar books showing the tanwin before the alif. Is it orthographically correct to do so, or is it just a software/font viewing issue? --Dijan 22:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't know, some more evidence: Tanwin with Fathatain - not too explicit, though. When they write alif with tanwin by hand, they write above alif, not before or after and most of the time they don't write any diacritics at all. Qur'an transliteration site] writes tanwin after alif, Yamli editor also puts tanwin after alif, Sakhr dictionary before alif (type "often" in search window). Perhaps we need some authoritative opinion or source on this. --Anatoli 23:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

If other diacritics are shown, it does look quite odd, especially here on wikis. Look at يَوْمِيًّا (yawmiyyan) (as shown on Sakhr), it looks ridiculous. To represent a ya' with a shadda+fatha and then + tanwin stacked on top of it seems quite strange and it doesn't even show correctly. --Dijan 00:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

But we are talking about what's correct, not what it looks like? يَوْمِيّاً looks better, I agree. Some Arabs think that the only diacritic symbol that's important is fatHatayn, Yamli always adds it (but after alif). The word يوميًا is often written this way on the web but يومياً has more hits. --Anatoli 04:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Dijan, please have a look at this discussion. They suggest that spelling حيًّا is correct - "Proper sequencing is tanween, then alif, but unfortunately the reverse order is more common even in the Arab world, due to the incorrect notion that the alif is the "seat" of the tanween.". --Anatoli 05:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason, Dijan, is that it is just a type of vowel pointing. In تقریبا, you should not write تقریباَ because the final alif cannot bear fatha or other vowel points. Fatha, shadda, etc., belong to and are features of the consonant: تقریبَا. In the same way, double fatha is borne by the consonant, not by alif: تقریبًا. For those who would say that يَوْمِيّاً "looks better", it is all a matter of what you are accustomed to. To me, يَوْمِيّاً looks illiterate and it disturbs me. Prior to the year 2000 (approximately), almost no Arabic-speaker typed or could type Arabic, and almost all Arabic script was handwritten. Now most people can type it, but all those people are self-taught and did not study about the placement of the diacritics. This is why it is so often misplaced on the Internet. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason that يَوْمِيًّا appears incorrectly is that WikiMedia applies normalization, which means that the wiki software automatically re-orders the sequence of any compound diacritics (such as shadda-fatha), and it places them in the wrong order (fatha-shadda). The word should be written this way: يَوْمِيًّا

This is the correct sequence, but wiki software changes it automatically and incorrectly to the Unicode order, and in Unicode, the shadda (\u0651) follows fatha (\u0627). This mix-up is due to the improper sequence of these diacritics in Unicode. Shadda should have preceded the vowels. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Stephen. --Anatoli 11:05, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Stephen. It's not about what looks better; you're correct. But, what's more common or standard is what I'm asking about. I'm still not convinced as I have not seen an actual scholarly document stating how to write it explicitly. However, the standard for writing the fathatan in Persian is that it sits on the alif. Please see the Persian Academy website article with regards to the subject (unfortunately it's only in Persian, but if you would like a rough translation, let me know). They give a few examples and explain other types of fathatan as well (such as the one that comes on hamza, for which the spelling changes from that of Arabic). --Dijan 20:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

So, Persian differs from Arabic in this respect, even if those words are of Arabic origin? I wonder if it was the influence of incorrect spellings by Arabs. Should we make some rules for both Arabic and Persian as for the position of fathatan and alif? Let them be different if that's confirmed. We can also mention that common mistake for Arabic on the "About Arabic" page. Stephen, what do you say about Persian? --Anatoli 22:15, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Persian tanvin nasb sits upon the alef, not before it. It isn’t a native part of Persian grammar, so it isn’t subject to the same rules as Arabic. Not very common in most Persian texts, if I recall correctly. In Arabic, the more formal and professional a text is, the more likely that tanween will precede alif. I liken the recent Arabic internet spelling of alif tanwin to the difference between formal English "you" and internet "u".

I think it would be a good idea to mention it on the "About Arabic" page. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, again. Just a note - as discussed, the common mistake is too common and can be observed not only on the web. I have the book "Tales from Kalila Wa Dimna" by Munther Younes - very good quality reader with audio (3 CD's). The book doesn't have full vocalisation but tanwiin over alif is common. Will add notes to the "About Arabic" page later. --Anatoli 00:48, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Concerning Whitelist approval

Hi,

I've noticed today that BaicanXXX has been nominated and approved as an autopatroller.

I'm just wondering what it entitles? BaicanXXX has been blocked in the Romanian Wikipedia and he has also been proven to have a sockpuppet in the name of Wernescu. He has even been repeatedly blocked from the Romanian Wiktionary project; most recently, his contributions were deleted because they were copied from another source without having compulsory references.

I strongly doubt him being worthy of receiving any status upgrade, considering that I on a daily basis correct his incorrect translations and spelling mistakes.

Best Regards,

--Robbie SWE 12:35, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Autopatroller just means that he knows our formatting requirements well enough that we don’t have to check behind him. We have no way to evaluate his Romanian translations or spelling since we don’t have any other regular Romanian contributors at the moment. We sometimes get a contributor who introduces many mistakes in a language that we are not sure about, but eventually they get fixed. If you find significant errors in his contributions here, we may have to take some action. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll try to monitor him and contribute more regularly. Best Regards, --Robbie SWE 13:49, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

май

Can please you confirm that this is the Macedonian for May (the month) as while Category:mk:Months has 12 entries, two of them are for February (alternative forms) but we have no 'May'. --Mglovesfun (talk) 13:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we want мај (ili... косар lol) [1] — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 14:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I see now, what we're missing is октомври. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 14:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Right. Sorted. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Недоразумение

[2] Извините. Видимо, я не совсем понял цель этого шаблона. :) Большое спасибо за Ваш вклад! Я рад, что есть участники, желающие потрудиться над русскими статьями. Tempodivalse [talk] 03:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Ну, ничего. Ведь шаблоны могут быть таинственным. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Renaming, கலை to Kalaiarasy

Mainly, I'm a Tamil wiki contributor and I created the account with a username in Tamil. I had problem in using the Soxred tool 'cos of this Tamil name. Besides, I felt that it would be nice to have my username in English (that everyone can read), and thus asked for renaming in ta.wiki. My username was then changed from my old username கலை to my new username Kalaiarasy (that is my first name) in ta.wiki.
Even after the renaming, I faced a few problems and have been advised to change the name in all wikis which I'm linked to. So, I made a request in Wikimedia, Meta-wiki at Steward requests page. They helped me changing my name in wikis which don't have the local bureaucrats and asked me get the renaming locally in wikis which have the local bureaucrats. So, I'm making the requests in those wikis and the local bureaucrats complete the renaming procedure. I asked user:Paul G a few days ago. As I haven't get any response, I'm asking you now.
When I changed my old username கலை to my new username Kalaiarasy in my home wiki (that is ta.wiki), it autocreated the new account Kalairasy in some other wikis, including en.wikitionary too. You can see this here. I just want to confirm that both usernames are mine, and I now logged in as 'Kalaiarasy'. But I need the official renaming from கலை to Kalaiarasy. So please do the renaming in en.wiktionary and that would help me in a few things. If it's changed officially only, then I can merge the en:wikiquote too into my SUL as Kalaiarasy. See the links below too and you will find that both user names belong to me.

• User:Kalaiarasy
• My user page in Tamil wiki as Kalaiarasy
• My user page in Tamil wiki as கலை is diverted here to User:Kalaiarasy after the renaming

I wrote a message about my renaming in both my user pages. I wrote this in English as to inform all other wiki projects.

• The message given in the subtitle 'Renaming' in my new user (Kalaiarasy's) talk page
• My user talk page as கலை is diverted to talk page of Kalaiarasy

See these two pages too.

• [3]
• [4]--Kalaiarasy 00:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Stephan.--Kalaiarasy 11:15, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Arabic proper nouns

Do Arabic proper nouns have gender, if so, do al Arabic nouns require gender? The question is in relation to {{ar-proper noun}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, all Arabic singular nouns are either masculine or feminine. Plural nouns are considered by some grammarians to be feminine, but most of us ignore that idea and don’t assign gender to plurals. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, IMO, if we know it's plural, we should add pl, even if inanimate plurals are grammatically used as feminine singular and are referred to as هي - "she". The resources I have are not always helpful in finding out gender and plurality of nouns. --Anatoli 12:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Right, very few Arabic dictionaries treat either gender or number. It is a huge shortcoming, especially where plurals are concerned. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Arabic glosses in an English translation of al-Nadīm's Kitāb al-Fihrist

Hello Stephen. Please see this archived journal, specifically on the right-hand page, paragraph 5 and footnote 4. Please reproduce the four Arabic glosses, currently represented by question marks in these quoted extracts:

1. paragraph 5: “And ‘epistolary script’ (?) (was so named) because the language was current in it; and there were no diacriticals in it; and some of it was written in the tongue of the first Syriac in which the people of Bābil conversed³, and it was read in Persian; and the number of its characters was 33 characters. It was called ‘libriscript’ (?) and ‘similiscript’ (?)⁴, and belonged to the rest of the classes of the kingdom save the kings alone; and this is a specimen of it.”
2. footnote 4: “⁴ The hesitation of Flügel to connect this with ? seems unfounded; in Turfān Pahlavi hām occurs with this meaning (cf. Avesta hāma beside hama, and for Turfān instances see Salemann, Manichaeische Studien, i. Petrograd, 1908, 81–82).”

Thanks in advance. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 19:09, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

‘epistolary script’ كتابة الرسائد was written, but كتابة الرسائل was meant.

‘libriscript’ نامه دبیریه

‘similiscript’ هام دبیریه

footnote 4: هم —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Stephen. Now, should all the script templates used be {{fa-Arab}}? Also, would you care to create entries for those three red-linked terms, for interest's sake? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 11:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

No, the first one is pure Arabic (which probably accounts for the misspelling...in handwriting, it can easy to confuse the letters د and ل when it is a different language). The other three are Persian. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

OK. Thanks very much. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:57, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Autopatroller

Thank you for the confidence. --Erik Warmelink 17:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Danke

Danke, für das schnelle Verschieben und die Anpassungen im Artikel Страстная пятница. Viele Grüße aus Magdeburg. --Paramecium 18:22, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Bitte sehr! Über die Kapitalisierung waren Sie ganz richtig. Ich habe auch den entsprechenden Artikel im russischen Викисловарь fixiert. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

требуется перевод слова count на 3 языка

Привет, Стивен. Если не трудно и будет время, переведи, пожалуйста count по запросам, которые я расставил: на иврит, кхмерский и грузинский. Заранее благодарю. --Anatoli 09:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Сделал грузинский и кхмерский - выдрал из списков Свадеша, остался иврит, проверь пожалуйста. --Anatoli 10:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Сделал. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Спасибо. Есть такой глагол לספור (lispór) с тем же значением? Похоже, что у этого глагола много синонимов в иврите. --Anatoli 10:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Есть. ל- (li) = "to" (как ل- по-арабски), здесь не нужен. Остальная часть ספור — форма глагола .ספר —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:11, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Спасибо за разъяснения. Только что вернулся из командировки. --Anatoli 11:29, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

En referencia al verbo abolir

Buenas tardes, Sr. Brown

Le escribo en referencia a la reversión que hizo usted ayer de una edición en la plantilla del verbo abolir. Imagino que dicha reversión fue hecha debido a que consideró errónea la supresión de la etiqueta de defectivo del verbo, así como la modificación de las formas átonas, que pasaron de diptonguizarse ("ue") a mantenerse regulares ("o"). Y supongo también, que la consideración de error respecto a las modificaciones realizadas en la plantilla emanaron de la entrada abolir del Diccionario de la Real Academia Española de la Lengua, donde consta que es un verbo defectivo, y que únicamente se usan las formas cuya desinencia empieza por -i.

Eso no obstante, hay que tener en cuenta que el diccionario se encuentra en proceso de adaptación debido a las recientes normas ortográficas y gramaticales, que aún no ha incorporado en su totalidad. Supongo que es por esta razón que el Diccionario de la Real Academia no recoge en su entrada de abolir lo que sí consta en el Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas, obra que, como ya debe conocer, depende también de la RAE y tiene igualmente carácter normativo.

En dicho Diccionario (el DPD) se encuentra registrado el verbo abolir (consulte usted mismo directamente la entrada), y dice de él lo siguiente (las negritas son mías):

‘Derogar [una ley, precepto o costumbre]’. Aunque tradicionalmente se ha considerado verbo defectivo, ya que solían usarse solo las formas cuya desinencia empieza por i, hoy se documentan, y se consideran válidas, el resto de las formas de la conjugación: «Se abole la pena de muerte» (VV. AA. Grupo [Esp. 2001]); «Los nuevos poderes abolen la soledad por decreto» (Paz Laberinto [Méx. 1950-59]). Como se ve en los ejemplos, es verbo regular: abolo, aboles, etc., y no abuelo, abueles, etc.

Es por ello que yo tomé la decisión ayer de rectificar en el Wictionary el doble error que observé en la entrada de abolir (la consideración de verbo defectivo y la diptonguización que se realizaba en sus formas átonas). Viendo la reversión posterior, y a pesar de suponerla errónea por la razón ya esgrimida, me abstendré de revertirla yo mismo de nuevo, por si acaso hay otros motivos que desconozco, y que le han empujado a deshacer mis cambios.

En cualquier caso, sí le agradeceré una respuesta a este mensaje aclarándome como queda finalmente el asunto. Reciba un muy cordial saludo y mi gratitud, por anticipado, por la atención al mensaje.

Atentamente, --81.34.89.42 15:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Sí, es que me ha entendido correctamente en lo que respecta a las razones que he revertido la edición. Siempre he entendido que se trata de verbo defectivo y yo no sabía acerca del reciente cambio en la actitud de la RAE. Es evidente que ahora se considera como verbo regular y tenemos que aceptarlo como tal. Voy a restaurar su edición. Gracias por traerlo a mi atención. —Stephen ^(Talk) 15:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

صخر

Thank you for your help. May I create this article with what you indicated — as soon as I will be able to register, that is after Internet connections will be fixed —, and can tell if:

1. There is a verb صَخَرَ
2. This is only a root without meaning (in modern Arabic) dictionary as an entry?
3. It is used in the Coran (with what meaning)?
4. There is a corresponding adjective?
5. There are derived nouns with the usual prefixes or/and suffixes?

One more question, please, if you have some time: I had to sell my course books, grammar and dictionaries after my studies... Are there good online Arabic grammar and dictionaries? --78.126.127.156 08:09, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you can create an article for صخر. No, it is not a verb. Not a root without meaning, it is both a noun (Sakhr) and an adjective (Sákhir). The noun is collective, meaning that it is grammatically a masculine singular but is plural in its meaning (rocks, boulders, solid rock, rock formations). It has a singulative form as صخرة (Sákhra, rock, boulder, rock formation). It also has several explicit plurals: صخور (Sukhuur), صخورة (Sukhuura), and صخرات (Sakharaat). The plural صخور (Sukhuur) has the additional meaning of rock as a geological term. The adjective just means rocky or stony, and has the synonym صخري (Sákhriy).

The singulative صخرة (Sákhra) is found in the derived term قبة الصخرة (qúbbat aS-Sákhra), the Dome of the Rock (in Jerusalem).

I don’t know if صخر is used in the Qur'an, but it is likely.

I don’t know about any online Arabic grammars or good online dictionaries. I think you will need to buy the books again when you are able. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

pywikipediabot - Importing existing free-licensed database into Khmer Wikt

Hi Stephen,

I have came across a blog post somewhere about pywikipediabot in importing existing database from a free-licensed dictionary into Wikt. I heard that the Burmese project has been doing it.

Currently, there's 1-2 active users who devote their time to manually make each entry one by one into our Khmer Wikt. So, I need your help in exploring if this pywikipediabot can help make life easier with a great deal of time saved!

Thanks, --វ័ណថារិទ្ធ (Vantharith) 08:38, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Vantharith. I’m a linguist but not a programmer, unfortunately. I don’t know much about bots or how they work. You should ask about this at WT:GP. They are the ones who understand bots and programming matters. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

داليا

Is this one really masculine, or one of those few that switches with context? I see a lot of google uses with feminine-form adjectives, like (naturally) الداليا السوداء, which is the main reason I ask... — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 00:46, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it is about equally considered masculine or feminine. Typically nouns that end in -يّا (-iyya) are masculine, but this word should not have the shadda, and ends in -يا (-iya). That might account for the confusion, but I’m not sure it’s the reason. My feeling is that it probably should be feminine. Arabic also has many complex rules of accord, so that feminines and plurals sometimes take masculine singular verbs, particularly where the verb precedes the noun. I see that Arabic Wikipedia treats it as masculine. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Lol why does Arabic have to be so complex... I think I'll probably stick as much as I can to just Egyptian. Thanks for your help again. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 14:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Got another Standard Arabic question...

Hopefully this one should be easy, just need the plural of محنة. I can't think offhand of any similarly-structured words to compare... — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 23:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

محن (míHan) would be the plural. I would not spend too much time on details such as Arabic plurals or their transcriptions, because Mglovesfun has been deleting them. He wants to apply a new template that does not accommodate them. It’s why I don’t do any work on languages such as Arabic anymore. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm while I'm curious to see what kind of templates he has in mind, I have a vague feeling I may have to bloody him up. I wonder if he realizes how difficult it is to find Arabic dictionaries with any useful information at all... if he's deleting them, he's hurting us. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 02:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh I think I see what he's at... Well, I use {{ar-noun}} which has been around for a while but hasn't been remarkably useful. I can make it work with pl=, pltr=, pl2=, pl2tr=, pl3= etc... I see زهر lists about 5 plurals... so I'll go up to pl5 and pl5tr for now. Not entirely sure how I should handle the collective/singulative, though... I guess I'll figure something out. But I'm really not at all against using {{infl}} if our language-specific templates are lacking. Anyway... I'll try to do the pl thing tomorrow. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 02:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that’s the one. I don’t recall all the entries that got mangled, but these were a few: آلهة, جان, جبار, حريف, ريال, نهر. Besides the Arabic, there was a lot of data lost from Malayalam entries and Ojibwe entries. I thought about trying to repair them all but it’s an ongoing problem, so I closed the Ojibwe project as well. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Hm it looks like I'm also going to have to fix up {{ar-adj}}... You mentioned on Martin's talk page that there are Arabic adjectives that have more than one plural form. What number of alternatives do you think it would be reasonable to allow for in the template? I'll be going to 5 for {{ar-noun}} for now, since that's the most I've seen... but I don't think I've seen any Arabic adjectives that have more than one or two plural forms so far. But I'll definitely make sure not to leave out transliteration options. Waaaay too important for languages written in Abjads, especially ones like Arabic where finding the voweling can be difficult... — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 12:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Alrighty, {{ar-noun}} now supports up to 5 plurals, with the option for their transliterations. {{ar-adj}} will allow transliteration for feminine, plural and elative forms... Let me know if there's anything else that needs to be added with a quickness. Still haven't thought of a good way to handle collective/singulative like on زهر... — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 14:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It’s an improvement. The collective/singulative words make up an important segment of Arabic nouns. There are so many complications with Arabic, what with certain plurals applying only to certain definitions, the same spelling with a different pronunciation and/or a different gender having different definitions (and often different plurals), and the verbs being part of a derivative system where almost every verb root has multiple stem forms (Appendix:Arabic verbs). We began by listing all the different verb stems on the verb’s root page, but it created more problems than it met. Then we decided to use the etymology section for {{ar-root-entry}} and to put the various verb stems in the resulting link (like ك ت ب). Still very cumbersome and awkward, but an improvement. Arabic has these major problems and I feel like there has to be a simple, elegant answer somewhere that we are overlooking.

The Arabic verbs problem is similar to the Swahili noun classes problem. We were never able to come up with a reasonable template for Swahili nouns (not to mention the related problems with other parts of speech such as the Swahili adjective), so Swahili was likewise abandoned. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

When it comes to things like certain plurals or genders only applying to certain definitions, I just make entirely new noun sections... It may not be pretty, but it's an easy way to avoid ambiguity I think.

So far, all the parameters that {{ar-noun}} uses are named (like pl= and g=) so I think that if we were to do something like {{ar-noun|coll}} and {{ar-noun|sngl}} where it's basically 1= (probably not with those shorthands, though) I could probably make that work. It'd be the same basic idea as the traditional/simplified switch that the Chinese templates use, among a few other similar things for other languages. So far that's the best I can come up with.

That’s what I had been doing. I wasn’t repeating the header when I made new sections, though, I just skipped a space and started the new section with no header. Sometimes the same situation occurs in the verb section, where a verb with the same spelling has a different pronunciation and different meanings.

Occasionally another editor who doesn’t know anything about Arabic has inquired as to whether it was a joke. That makes me think that some editors who don’t know the language may revert or delete information (or may have already done so), or do other weird things to try to bring the Arabic pages more in line with the English pages. We used to have a prolific editor who was especially bad about doing that and who damaged a large percentage of the Russian pages. It was years before his well-meaning but misinformed Russian edits were finally fixed. There may still be some here and there, there were so many in a very short time. Editors who don’t know a language should be extremely careful about messing with pages in that language...unfortunately, some are not careful at all and don’t think twice about editing things they don’t understand. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Some of those who were more crazy about all languages sticking to one rigid format are seemingly gone now... I'm definitely going to use this opportunity to try make things better for some languages that just get fucked by those types.

In fact, I remember you once mentioning that Arabic مصادر should probably be treated separately from اسماء (or اسام - dunno if that's one with plurals specific to definitions), and I thought about that today and made {{ar-verbal noun}}. Can you tell me or think of any ways that {{ar-noun}}'s functioning should differ from this new one's? Pretty much all I've done so far is copy the code from ar-noun and changed the part of speech... But I want it to work specifically for masadir. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 02:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I can’t think of anything offhand. The masdar can be formed from each different verb stem form (example: جهاد, jihād, from form III جاهد, jāhada ... see Appendix:Arabic verbs), but I don’t see that it would be useful to mention anything about the stem form number since each derived verb form will have its own page (except for form II, which is spelled the same as form I), and therefore the masdar is already identified as far as its stem form is concerned. It’s only in verb forms I and II that there will be separate verbal nouns on the same page. Of course, the template should generate the appropriate category, which I suppose would be Arabic verbal nouns. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:15, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Dbachmann (talk • contribs) made some edits to جهاد after me last night, could you have a look at the Arabic section? I added {{ar-verbal noun}}, which not many pages are using so far. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 12:27, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Definitions under {{ar-root-entry}} should be reserved for that page. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:37, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

столичный & столичная

Hi,

could you perhaps create these two entries including the pronunciation, if that's possible? I am not sure about it. Thank you 81.68.255.36 20:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean the feminine adjective столичная or the proper noun Столичная? —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:04, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The vodka? Is it pronounced differently then? 81.68.255.36 11:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it is pronounced the same as столичная, except that it is a noun and has a nominal declension. The adjective столичная means metropolitan, while the noun Столичная means w:Stolichnaya. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Username change

When Opiaterein was renamed to Dick Laurent, all his contributions were moved to the new name. History pages were all updated. Can you please tell me why my old contributions are still under "Daniel.", if possible? --Daniel 06:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I don’t know. I used the same process as before. Perhaps it takes some time for it to take full effect. I looked at one file, Category:Japanese terms by their individual characters, and it was updated. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Apparently your hypothesis of delayed full effect is completely correct; new tests indicate that all my contributions have been moved to the new username. Thanks again. --Daniel 07:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Verbal nouns like اعتياد and اغتصاب

Do these guys have a regular pattern for plural-forming? (Also, should I be using إ for their page titles?) — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 01:54, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

اعتياد is from عاد (‎3aada, to come back) < ع و د. ‎اغتصاب (from غصب, ghaSaba, to take by force). I’m not sure if they have other plurals (many words have numerous plurals, as you know), but I have seen اعتيادات and اغتصابات.

Initial hamza is a sticky subject. I think where we finally are is putting the entry at the spelling with hamza, with redirects from the spellings without hamza. Of course, neither اعتياد nor اغتصاب has an initial hamza. The first letter is liaison (alif without hamza). But entries for words such as إلى should be spelled with إ. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:44, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a million :) I've run into one more verbal noun pattern that's causing me problems, تقصير... is (one/the) plural pattern قصور, dropping the ت and replacing the ي with و? — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 13:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

No, no consonants would ever be dropped to make a plural. قُصُور is the plural of قصر (qaSr, castle, palace). The only plural I know about for تقصير is تقصيرات. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:18, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The most common of the broken plurals are: (a) أفعَالٌ, (b) فُعُولٌ, (c) فِعَالٌ, (d) فُعُلٌ, (e) أفعُلٌ (these are the most common plurals for short nouns ... there are others, especially when the nouns are longer). Sound plurals are: خادمَاتٌ (especially for feminine nouns), and (for most masculine participles and a few nouns) خادمُونَ. —Stephen ^(Talk) 14:11, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I've seen a few of those patterns, but some are new to me... Gonna have to save these. Thanks Stephen :) — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 14:29, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

pyknosis

Hi Stephen, I've looked up the etymology of pyknosis in wiktionary to help me remember it and have hopefully succeeded. However I also found it a bit confusing, but am not sure how to improve it. Perhaps instead of "thickening" it should be "getting more dense"?? Eug 07:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi. πύκνωσις means thickening, compacting, crowding, getting close. It means getting more in the same space. By extension it can have other meanings such as condensation. Besides the physical aspect of thickening or compacting, it can also be temporal, as becoming frequent. It is easier to see the meanings by looking at πυκνός. πυκνός means thick, close, compact; well-guarded; crowded; frequent; strong, well made, great, mighty; careful, cautious, discreet. πύκνωσις means becoming those things, acquiring those descriptions. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:01, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Urgent - Addressing Chinese People

Hi, Stephen. This is urgent. I need to address a Chinese businesswoman in a formal letter. Her name is Կոայ Մին Պին. Which one is the surname (I think it's Կոայ) and how do I address her, Ms. Կոայ? --Vahag 08:22, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

You’re right, it should be Ms. ԿՈԱՅ. Her given name would be Մին Պին. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:50, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Now, how would you best translate the following sentence into English? «Действие свидетельства (Certificate) распространяется на всю территорию Республики Армения» --Vahag 15:53, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

"The validity of the certificate covers the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia." But I think it is more idiomatic to say: "This certificate is valid throughout the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia." —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

لا قسم

Hey Stephen, so I'm on the صخر dictionary and I'm looking up ساحرة so I can add it when I'm done with the Persian stuff derived, but where the part of speech usually is on the dictionary, it says لا قسم which I've never seen before on there or anywhere. I was thinking, does it mean the singulative? It actually lists two sections for ساحرة, one being that and the other being صفة with very noun-like definitions given. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 15:31, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not very familiar with the صخر dictionary site, but لا قسم means "no section". I suppose it means that when that definition was entered, someone forgot to indicate its part of speech. ساحرة (sorcercess, witch) isn’t a singulative, it is the feminine of ساحر (sorcerer, enchanter, magician, wizard, charmer). If ساحرة were a singulative, then ساحر would be a collective, but it’s not. ساحر is just a normal singular noun (also an adjective). The plurals of ساحرة are ساحرات (saaHiraat) and سواحر (sawaaHir). As the feminine adjective of ساحر, it also means charming, enchanting. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:25, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Nifty, thanks :) صخر seems to have some problems, but so far it's the only Arabic dictionary I've found online that shows vowels and part of speech, so I tend to use it as a reference for those things pretty frequently. Their English translations seem pretty good most of the time, but sometimes they have lists and lists of translations for one word that it can be really difficult to trust. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 23:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

WT:CHU

I just want to point you to my request. I'm by no means trying to bother you or anything, but it's been half a month now, and I have a feeling that you just missed it. -- Prince Kassad 03:47, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Future templates

So after thinking for a while about how to handle templates that show collective/singulative forms for Arabic, I think the easiest thing to do would be to give them their own templates so that {{ar-noun}} isn't bogged down with excessively complicated coding and usage. So basically, what I think is that I'll make {{ar-sing-noun}} and {{ar-coll-noun}} will essentially function in the same way as {{ar-noun}} except that the former will have a parameter that says coll= to show the collective, and the latter will have sing= for the singulative. Do you think that these templates need to do anything else that {{ar-noun}} doesn't do? — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 01:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Hm. Nothing comes to mind. Sometimes something comes up during use, though. I seem to remember making شجر several years ago, one PoS of which is a collective noun. I think it probably covers the issue. —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Two more questions, then... at least for now. :) Is the paucal listed at شجر common enough to warrant a parameter in the new templates? And, are collective/singulative nouns treated differently enough that they should be put under ===Collective/Singulative noun===? — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 04:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I think a paucal parameter might be more trouble than it’s worth. It would require a lot of expertise in the language, and I don’t think there are any written or online sources that would be helpful. Collective nouns with singulatives are quite common in Arabic, but there really isn’t anything special about them. The twist is that the real Arabic lemma (the collective noun) doesn’t link to the English lemma (a singular); but the Arabic collective noun links to an English form-of redirect, and the English singular links to an Arabic form-of. The question is whether to make the Arabic singulative a form-of entry that redirects to the lemma (the collective noun), of if both the collective and the singulative should be treated as separate lemmas in order to nest more comfortably with the English. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:20, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I actually do like that first idea, I can add a template like {{ar-singulative of}}... I don't like too much redundant information, and I do think the form-of entries have the potential to be quite helpful. Once I've gotten some new templates together, hopefully today, I'll try to fix up زهر (zahr) and زهرة (zahra) to see what you think. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 13:40, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I think a form-of definition is better than having separate lemmata, because singulatives differ in usage from their apparent English translations: sure, something like "I ate three figs" would use the singulative's plural, but "I like figs" or "we were eating some figs" would use the collective. (Right?) Treating the singulative as a normal singular will lead native English-speakers astray, even if we list the collective in the inflection line. (By the way, I think the Arabic collective noun and English lemma should link directly to each other, but I guess that's an issue for another day.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:07, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, the first running versions of {{ar-coll-noun}}, {{ar-sing-noun}} and {{ar-singulative of}} are in use on زهر (zahr) and زهرة (zahra), ready for notes. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 21:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I don’t have a strong opinion about how to link English singular lemmas to Arabic lemmas (the collective nouns) or to Arabic singulatives. The question has bothered me for years and I still can’t make a good case for or against any of the choices. As to زهر (zahr) and زهرة (zahra), I think they both look good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:16, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Navajo Templates

Hello Stephen --

I noticed your addition of conjugation tables to yicha. This is a most welcome addition.

I had been exploring the possibility of using templates and arguments to generate Navajo verb conjugation tables, based on the rules laid out in Faltz's The Navajo Verb, much as verb conjugation table templates are used for languages like Spanish or Catalan, only using more arguments and built-in logic as is done with the German templates in order to avoid having umpteen templates to cover each different case (as with Spanish). I'd started by reworking the Spanish verb conjugation table, using other templates as a reference, as laid out at User:Eirikr/Template_Tests/Template:nv-verbconj-ref. At the time, the limitations of the Wiki template syntax, combined with numerous obligations in real life, led me to put the project on the back burner indefinitely.

That said, I still think such a template engine could be created. I do not have the time right now to work on this, but in the hopes that the base template might still be of some utility, please feel free to repurpose in any way you find useful:

User:Eirikr/Template_Tests/Template:nv-verbconj

Kind regards, -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 20:18, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I too think it should be possible to make a template to handle Navajo verbs. It would require a vast knowledge of wiki template programming, which has been my biggest problem, but I’m sure it’s possible. The layout you made really looks nice. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:38, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, but most of the credit for the layout should go to whomever created the Spanish conjugation table.  :)

Your encouragement has inspired me. I do not have scads of free time, but my curiosity about implementing such a verb conjugation system is piqued (in part too by a programming class I'm auditing). I'll keep you posted if/when I get anything more usable pulled together. -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 17:36, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I've been known to make a pretty nifty conjugation template here and there. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know. — [ R·I·C ] Laurent — 19:44, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

We have discussed the possibilities of this template on the Navajo Wikipedia and we came to the conclusion that it will not be possible to do it. Faltz’s grammar is good, but it is really intended for the person who already knows the forms, so that he can see the logic in how the forms that he knows are constructed. If you apply all of his rules to random Navajo verbs, a large number of nonexistent forms will be generated. Navajo verbs are too irregular and erratic, and each form is going to have to be entered manually, the way I did with yicha (which, BTW, isn’t finished yet), and the way we have to do it with the Russian verbs. It’s disappointing, I know, but better to realize it now than to do all that work and then find it only works with a five or ten simple verbs. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

@ Dick -- Thank you, I appreciate the offer. I'll post more on your page later, once I get a handle on what questions to ask.

@ Stephen -- Good point about irregularity. However, I don't think there's any automatically-conjugates-everything template possible for most languages :), and that has not been my intent here either -- rather, I have been hoping to build something that would 1) automate the hard work of entering the table layouts, obviating the need to build the wikitables by hand each time, and 2) standardize table layouts. My thinking is that such a template would take arguments for the parts of the verb, as indicated here by the numbers in curly braces (this is the header of the draft table template I'm working from):

stem set	imperfective	-{{{1}}}	classifier	{{{6}}}
	perfective	-{{{2}}}	lexical prefixes	{{{7}}} ({{{8}}})
	future	-{{{3}}}	transitivity	{{{9}}}
	iterative	-{{{4}}}	perfective type	{{{10}}}
	optative	-{{{5}}}	plural shift	{{{11}}}

So just to use the template, you'd already need at least some knowledge of the verb's structure in order to plug in the verb's parts as values for the template arguments. Missing arguments would be interpreted as meaning that the verb in question does not implement those forms -- making it easy to use the template for Navajo verbs with more limited conjugations, like sizį́ for instance. Information about perfective type, neuter/non-neuter verbs, lexical prefixes, etc. would be indicated in a short list format in the verb conjugation table header as above (which is only a draft, and still needs neuter verb info), with fuller explanations of the whole mechanics of Navajo verbs available on an appendix page (ideally Appendix:Navajo verbs in keeping with the convention used for Appendix:Spanish_verbs, Appendix:German_verbs, etc. linked to from the top of their respective verb conjugation tables).

The template would thus be intended not as some automagic solution for generating correct Navajo verb forms, which would indeed be unrealizable in any sensible time scale, but rather as a means for someone who already knows the proper verb conjugation to more easily present that conjugation in a clear and standardized format.

I'll pull together a couple examples of how this might look tonight or tomorrow morning. -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 18:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Gah, it's been a while. Anyway, I've cobbled together some samples at User:Eirikr/Template_Tests/Sample. Note that this is based on the working copy of the template, so it might change from time to time, but I think I've got the layout mostly set. I could easily twizzle the personal pronoun layout, for example, to put plurality across the top and person across the left instead - let me know what you think. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 20:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I think they look very good this way. Of course, if the plurality were across the top, that would probably look equally fine. The only thing that I notice is that some of the forms of sizį́ have a double zz. Although this is etymologically and grammatically correct, it is normal in Navajo to reduce all Navajo double consonants to single consonants (both in pronunciation and in the orthography). So zz should be reduced to z. In pronunciation, they are always pronounced as single consonants; in writing, it occasionally happens that someone writes a double consonant (either to highlight and emphasize the underlying formation or just by accident), but usually (almost always) they are reduced to single consonants. So it is not a misspelling, but it isn’t the usual way to write. If you look at the table in sizį́, it shows the normal way to spell these forms. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'd meant to fix that double-z, but forgot. I originally just plugged in the form as given by Faltz, but then later realized that that's the only place I'd ever seen double-zs. And I'm glad to know the layout looks good to more people than just me. There's a bit more I'd like to do before putting the template up for general use (changing "plural shift" to possibly account for more things, like metathesis, long-vowel conjugations, n-imperfectives, etc.), but things do seem to be coming along. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 21:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

neeznádiin

I can't tell whether it's a cardinal numeral or an adjective. --Lo Ximiendo 03:39, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

It’s a cardinal number. neeznádiin = hundred (or 100), so tʼááłáhádí neeznádiin = 100; naakidi neeznádiin = 200; and so on. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Tea room#oka

Hi Stephen,

I wonder if you could take another look at this edit, and see if you still agree with yourself? (See also Wiktionary:Tea room#oka, which I wrote before digging in the entry's history.)

Thanks in advance!
—Ruakh_TALK 17:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, what I wrote there all looks right to me. It was a long time ago and I don’t remember this. I probably checked on the Arabic spelling, pronunciation, and meanings, as well as the Greek spelling. I probably did not check the chain of descent, since I don’t have a source for that information. I just know the old Arabic word and its meanings and the Greek spelling. What specifically do you disagree with? —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The change in the definition. You changed it from "now usually around 1.3 kilograms" to various values that are in line with Arabic وقية, but various English and French sources explicitly mention that its value is not in line with Arabic وقية. Some of these sources, by the way, conclude that وقية isn't (or at least, might not be) the actual Arabic etymon. (See Wiktionary:Tea room#oka for some details of the sources I looked at.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The English word (it was English, wasn’t it) may not have the same meaning as the old Arabic word. The values I put were those for the Arabic word in the regions mentioned. I doubled-checked with my Hans Wehr and the Arabic values are correct for وقية. When I edited the article, I was not asserting that وقية was the etymon of anything. That’s what I meant when I said I probably did not check the line of descent. I only checked the spelling and pronunciation of وقية, corrected the Greek spelling, and put in the values for the Arabic word. —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. I've made some edits to the entry; if you have a chance, please take a look, and see if there's anything you think could be improved. And if you have time to create an entry for وقية, that would rock. :-)   Thanks again! —Ruakh_TALK 02:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Perfect, thank you! —Ruakh_TALK 02:50, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Countries in Khmer with transliteration

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for adding Khmer transliteration. I also added Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, the first three don't have Khmer transliterations. I'm planning to add more translations of European countries. Do you mind fixing these three, please? --Anatoli 00:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Spain has it, sorry, Portugal and France only. --Anatoli 00:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:58, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Anatoli 01:10, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

ñ in Portuguese

Stephen, In the Information desk you said that the Latin counterpart of ñ is "nn". I've never seen that claimed anywhere before, since as far as I know "nn" is simply broken between syllables without any unusual pronunciation. Do you have a source for that, our did you mean "gn", as in magnus. --EncycloPetey 03:13, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

On an unrelated point, could you add the Russian (and Arabic?) translations for (deprecated template usage) incontrovertibly and (deprecated template usage) zealous? The first is a scheduled WOTD for later this wonth. Thanks. --EncycloPetey 03:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I studied it decades ago in college. Latin was spoken over a huge area and for a very long time, and many different Latin accents and dialects evolved. That’s why annus became año in Castile, but ano in Portugal. But it used to be customary in Latin to indicate the palatalization by doubling the letter. That’s where the letter ñ came from, since the tilde is just a superscript n.

I just glanced at Wikipedia and they say something about this at w:Ñ#History. It seems to be easy to find stuff on the Internet. At tilde origins, for example. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

They discuss the origin of the written tilde as a shorthand for a follwing nasal, with which I am familiar, and that the double "nn" in Spain came to be palatalized, but I don't see that it necesssarily follows that the double "nn" in Latin was pronounced that way. Allen (Vox Latin) says that "gn" was likely palatalized in Latin based on scribal forms written as "gg" in imitation of Greek, and he argues that "n" before a velar consonant may have had the sounf of /ŋ/, but I don't find anything about double "nn" being pronounced that way in Latin. --EncycloPetey 03:42, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

That’s why I said Latin was spoken over a wide geographic area for many centuries, and adopted by many speakers of other languages, distantly related or unrelated to Latin. Letters were not always pronounced in exactly the same way everywhere in the realm across the ages. In some places and at some times, annus was pronounced classically; in some places at some times, it was palatalized. Anyway, there seems to be an abundance of information about it on the Internet. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be true for Spain at some point, and possibly not until the Old Spanish period, so I don't see how that can be generalized to all of Latin. --EncycloPetey 04:26, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It wasn’t generalized to all of Latin. None of the pronunciations taught in modern Latin classes can be generalized to all of Latin everywhere from the beginning to the present. Latin was spoken over a broad geographic area for over two millennia, and was adopted as first language by many speakers of other languages. Letters weren’t pronounced in exactly the same way everywhere throughout time. You are concerned with the standardized pronunciations taught today in Latin courses, which are believed to reflect the pronunciation by educated Romans at a certain point in time. But a language spoken over such an area by such diverse populations for so many centuries develops other pronunciations, and these pronunciations become standard for those groups in those places at those times. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Catalan also has palatalisation in any, but Occitan does not as far as I know. I don't know if that's significant? —CodeCat 11:31, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that’s part of what I was talking about. Besides that, for many centuries a major population all across Europe was the Celts (including those who were referred to in the Bible as the Galatians, who inhabited Anatolia)...the Celtic tongues had an extremely different phonology from Latin, not to mention the Celtic lilt, or brogue. As the Romans subjugated the Celtic tribes, particularly in France, and invited them to learn Latin, they really brought a horrible accent to bear, which is believed to account for the unusual and un-Latinlike sounds of French. French vocabulary, spelling, and grammar are quite close to Italian, but the phonology is so divergent. In Spain, the Basque people had an unrelated language with a complex grammar, but the Basque sounds were not so different from the Latin ones, so the Basques could speak Latin very nicely. I think the Basques may have introduced some of the palatalization, but I’m not sure of that. I don’t know enough about Old Basque sounds. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:16, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Old Basque lacked /f/ as a phoneme, and this may explain why initial /f/ became /h/ in Old Spanish. There may be other influences as well: w:Basque language#Influence on other languages. —CodeCat 12:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Translation from Persian?

وسیع باش و تنها و سر به زیر و سخت!

A user typed this on the feedback page. I saw you know some Persian so if this is Persian, do you know what it means? —CodeCat 16:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It is an expression that people often put at the top of their blog, webpage, or letter. It means "Be great and lonely and docile and strong". —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Votes/2011-07/Categories of names

The vote Categories of names is going to end soon, after receiving contributions of only a few people. (it proposes a number of renamings, in this pattern: Category:en:Rivers to Category:English names of rivers)

It would benefit very much from your vote, even one of abstention.

I assume you would be interested in this subject, as I am sending this message to everyone who didn't vote yet, but participated in the discussion that introduced the vote, and/or in this poll, which received far more attention than the vote, and is closely related to the proposal in question.

Thank you. --Daniel 16:43, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

басмачество declension

Hi Stephen, I noticed you changed the басмачество declension type to countable, however to the best of my knowledge, this is not the case. Of course you have more technical knowledge than me so I thought I'd ask before changing anything! Duga3 18:04, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Duga3. I think it is countable. In «Полная акцентуированная парадигма» по А. А. Зализняку, it is shown as countable, and I can find a few cases of it, such as in История МИД Кыргызской Республики and НОВОСТЬ ДНЯ. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes Mr. Zaliznyak would constitute a reliable source… alright so long as it's not a typo (yes I realize I'm making all the typos around here but I'm working on it :) Duga3 19:24, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Citations

Ah Thanks. koavf 10:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

help?

do u need some help with your red links? --Koopawarwa2 20:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC) i'll try some nouns. --Koopawarwa2 20:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You mean red links for English words? Yes, we always need more help. You might want to read WT:ELE to see how we do entry layout. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

No i ment your russian words but never mind i will try and add different languages. --Koopawarwa2 20:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, yes, if you know Russian, then yes. When you start to add declension tables to nouns or adjectives, or conjugation tables for verbs, let me know and I will try to explain how they work. The adjective declensions are the easiest, but nouns are not too difficult. Verbs are pretty complex. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --Koopawarwa2 20:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Was that because it was sum of parts? --Koopawarwa2 20:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I deleted полицейский сканер. It is very unusual in Russian. Where did you find this term? It looks like a Google translation, which is unacceptable. Only enter words that you know in languages that you know, and where you are sure that you can find good citations for in the literature. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:57, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

http://www.freetranslation.com/ is this not acceptable? --Koopawarwa2 20:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

No, that is machine translation. Machine translation is extremely unreliable and it is not acceptable by any means. I don’t think any Russian would understand what that term means, unless he also speaks good English. You have to find your Russian terms in printed Russian books and magazines, and you have to be able to tell what the lemma form is and whether the term is archaic, modern, technical, a neologism, a misspelling, a borrowing, a fabrication, or a joke. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok iam stopping the translations. english is my language. --Koopawarwa2 21:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. If you learn IPA, you could enter English pronunciations. If you learn how to find and format citations, you could add cites for existing English words. There is plenty of work to be done in English, and you will find it very challenging. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Template:ru-adj11, masculine place names in accusative

Hi Stephen,

Could you change the template so that masculine place names (inanimate) using this template would have accusative = nominative? I think we don't need a new template for this but a note would suffice. See Николаев. A male person's surname (animate) would be Николаева in accusative but the city (inanimate) would be Николаев. It would apply for all such names where surname in -ев, -ов, -ин/-ын is also a city name, e.g. Борисов, Пушкин, Царицын. --Anatoli 04:13, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --Anatoli 02:43, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

педерастия

Hey man, I've got a problem here. Gramota gives the stress on the а, while the Russian wiktionary puts it on the и... What do you think? — [Ric Laurent] — 22:42, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

It’s pederástija. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Cool, that's what I figured... thanks — [Ric Laurent] — 23:15, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for butting in. This word is seldom used in the media or movies but more common in speech. In speech, we stress педерасти́я and that's way too common, even if it may be педера́стия officially. --Anatoli 01:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

sayakini

Stephen, you're familiar with an awe-inspiring number of languages — I was wondering if you recognised the term "sayakini" or "saya kini" from any of them? It either means "friend", but I can't tell in what language (most likely Catawba or another Native American language, or Japanese), or means something in Japanese, but I can't tell what. Any idea? — Beobach 02:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It probably doesn’t mean anything in Japanese. In the Catawba language, sayakini means "friend(s)". In Japanese, saya has several meanings, such as cleanly, purely; scabbard; pod, hull. Japanese kini has several unrelated meanings, such as orpiment; gamboge; or falsification, alteration. So I guess it could mean "purely falsification" in Japanese, but those two words, 明+雌黄 or さやきに are not normally used together. I’d say sayakini is only Catawban.

There are other languages that have saya and kini. In Filipino, saya kini means "it was fun". In Indonesian, it means "I, now". —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, it probably is a Catawba word, in that case. Thanks. :) I had tried to Google it to deduce the language, but the Filipino and Indonesian phrases you mention, which I knew weren't it, crowd out whatever other hits there might be. — Beobach 00:51, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks#section

Thanks! An editor since 8.28.2011. 14:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Netherlands vs Holland in Khmer

Hi Stephen,

I've just found out that in Khmer you can use both ហូឡង់ and ចាការតា. Could you please romanise and check Khmer translations for Netherlands and Holland? --Anatoli 05:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Done. Are you sure about ចាការតា? It means Jakarta. I’m surprised that they would also use it for Holland. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Oops, yes, you're absolutely right, it was a silly mistake of mine. It's only Jakarta, not Netherlands. :) Thank you for checking! --Anatoli 03:39, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Navajo color words

Navajo color words starting with łi- are stative (neuter) verbs, if I've got this right, and they do indeed take the distributive da-. Do they also take pronominal infixes, producing words like łishgai "I'm white" (as in, covered in paint or something, not bilagáana) or łinitso "you're yellow"?

What about color words that don't start with łi-, like niłhin or dootłʼizh?

Lastly, I've seen both łichíʼí and łichííʼ -- is that a dialectical difference, or a contextual change? NV WP has both, but only lists the former on the w:nv:Nidaashchʼąąʼígíí page. -- TIA, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 18:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I’m not as good with conjugations as Seb az86556. He’s much better with that, and I can understand what I read better than trying to write. That said, I believe that łi-, though it originates from the classifier -ł-, functions as a conjunct thematic prefix in these verbs. In the ni-imperfective, they have forms like łinishgai, łinígai, łigai, jiłgai, ałgai, hałgai; duals: łiniigai, łinohgai; plurals: dałiniigai, dałinohgai, daalgai, dajilgai. With yiigááh (to turn white) and yiilgááh (to be whitened) in the y-imperfective, you get forms like yiishgááh, yiigááh, jiigááh, iigááh, hoogááh, yiilgááh, biʼdiilgááh (he’s being whitened); dual yiigááh, woohgááh, and so on.

Or łinishzhin, łinízhin (I, you are black); łinishtso, łinítso (I, you are yellow); łinishchííʼ, łiníchííʼ (I, you are red); łinishkʼaii, łiníkʼaii (I, you are fat); łinishkon, łiníkon (I, you are flammable); łiniyin, łiníyin (I, you are oily); łinishkan, łiníkan (I, you are sweet).

When there are other prefixes, as in some other colors, forms are different, as they are with any verb that has various and sundry prefixes.

łichííʼ is the verb form, łichíʼí is nominalized. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:54, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Thinking about the łi- prefix then, as a prefix, it seems to express more the older Athabaskan / Yeniseian progressive sense (ongoing state) rather than the causative / transitive sense of the modern classifier infix -ł-. Interesting. So in terms of transitive vs. intransitive / passive, does yiigááh (to turn white) -> yiilgááh (to be whitened) then also imply yiiłgááh (to turn something white)? And are -gai and -gááh different modes of the same root? But then if both are imperfective, is some other phonetic shift happening here?

I'm curious too if you'd be opposed to the creation of entries for verb stems, like -gai, -gááh, etc.? I can imagine quite a bit of utility in such a page, giving a basic meaning gloss and listing all basic 3rd-person-singular verbs that use that stem with mention of the prefixes and infixes used, and listing related stems or stem forms.

And lastly, do you have any specific references you'd recommend? I've currently just got Goossen's Diné Bizaad beginner's textbook and Faltz's The Navajo Verb as a more in-depth reference. I'm in Seattle, not exactly close to the Dinétah, so I have to get by with books or audiovisual materials, or help from others online -- but I certainly do not want to become a pest with all my questions.  :) -- Many thanks again, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 17:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

yiigááh can be made transitive by adding the transitive classifier and object pronouns. -gááh (intransitive), -łgááh (transitive): yiyiiłgááh = he/she is whitening it.

atʼééd aghaaʼ yiyiiłgááh = the girl is whitening the wool.

yiyiishį́į́h = he’s blackening it (-ł-zhį́į́h > -shį́į́h); dayiishį́į́h = they’re blackening it; náyiishį́į́h = he’s reblackening it; but, yiishjį́į́h = I’m turning black (intransitive).

I’m not sure what the relationship between -gai and -gááh is. It’s probably a regular derivation of some sort, but there are many, many kinds.

I think the creation of entries for verb stems is a great idea. We also need many more prefix entries.

Anything written by Robert W. Young is excellent. I have always wanted his "Analytical Lexicon of Navajo", but I haven’t managed to get my hands on one yet. Young’s "The Navajo Verb System" is quite good, but very technical and (in my opinion) not well indexed. "Navajo/English Dictionary of Verbs" by Alyse Neundorf is said to be excellent, but I have not seen it. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank you! I've ordered Neundorf's Dictionary of Verbs and Young's Navajo Verb System; I looked for his Analytical Lexicon but could only find a few copies for sale, used, starting from $175 -- which is a bit beyond the budget at the moment. One copy in new condition is going for over $700! I do hope U of NM, or whoever has the rights now, sees fit to reprinting it. -- Thank you, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 15:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Tagyle

Hi Stephen,

could you perhaps tell me how to write the Russian word "tagyle" or something similar sounding like that? It is something to say when you're happy. Perhaps it's something of the youth, I'm not sure. I was wondering if you could help me out, thanks. 81.68.255.36 16:50, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I can’t even imagine what that sounds like. Maybe if you could spell it in IPA. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

/ta'ɡilə/, does it ring a bell? I'll ask Anatoli as well. 81.68.255.36 14:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

If the stress is on the /gi/ syllable, the preceding /a/ would have to be [ɐ], which is similar to the sound of the u in the English word but. (In Russian [a] can only appear in a stressed syllable.) If that were the case, that letter could be either an а or an о. The final ə could be а, о or maybe е. All that said... my Russian's extremely limited, and this word is completely alien to me :D but I hope this helps a little. — [Ric Laurent] — 14:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe something like or related to a town like w:Nizhny Tagil or the w:Tagil River? — [Ric Laurent] — 14:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it could start with до (do) plus the genitive of a masculine or neuter noun, but I still can’t think of anything that would fit. Apparently he has only heard it, so it’s possible that it’s rather different from what he thinks he’s hearing. For instance, the first word could even be для (dlja) or так (tak), and conceivably even по (po) or ко (ko). Or he might not have caught the first syllable and it might start with это (eto) or something. There is just too little solid information for me to go on. —Stephen ^(Talk) 15:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea what this word is. It doesn't sound like anything I know, apart from the city Ric mentioned. --Anatoli 20:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Stephen is right, I've only heard it. I really don't know how to write it. It was worth a shot I suppose. Thanks for your time, guys! 81.68.255.36 09:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi sorry for reading your posts but I was laughing when I saw the question about Tagil.

It's actually from a silly Russian comedy that most Russian’s are in love with. It is called "nasha Russia" which means "our Russia" anyway it's just a silly word that as Ric mentioned is a city and in this comedy as part of the sketch the actor is drunk, in Turkey and he screams out "TAGIL" as in the city Tagil meaning that it rules. it would mean the same thing if you were from Melbourne Australia and yelled out "MELBOURNE!!!" People now use it as just a one liner like you would from other movies. Those that watched "Nasha Russia" will understand what you are trying to say by yelling our Tagil when you are happy.

Oh, thanks. So it is Тагил, then. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:18, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Two German terms

Hi Stephen. Could you please tell me what Verszählung and c. mean? The context for the former is “Der Pariser Drucker und Philologe Robert Stephanus (Estienne) führte 1551 mit seiner griechisch-lateinischen Ausgabe die moderne Verszählung des N[eues ]T[estament] ein.” and for the latter it's “1655, Appendix, c. 2, S. 12–29 (eigene Paginierung)”. Thanks. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 08:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

c. is almost certainly the abbr. of a Latin word, probably capitulum.

Verszählung = verse count. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:56, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me.

So (deprecated template usage) c. = (deprecated template usage) §, yes? I notice that both caput and its diminutive form (deprecated template usage) capitum may be used synonymously to mean “section” or “chapter”; in the light of this, should one take (deprecated template usage) c. to be an abbreviation of both (deprecated template usage) caput and (deprecated template usage) capitum, or only of the latter? If only of (deprecated template usage) capitum, why?

Would “Der Pariser Drucker und Philologe Robert Stephanus (Estienne) führte 1551 mit seiner griechisch-lateinischen Ausgabe die moderne Verszählung des N[eues ]T[estament] ein.” be faithfully translated by “The Parisian scholar and printer Robert Estienne introduced in 1551 the modern verse count of the New Testament with his Greek–Latin edition.”? What exactly is meant here by “verse count”?

 — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

c. could be either one, as needed. Yes, it’s a pretty good translation. I’m not really up-to-snuff on my Bible studies, so it’s hard to be sure what it means. I think we number each sentence or two in the Bible (or maybe the verses can be longer than a sentence or two), so that Deuteronomy 7:6 means the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 7, verse 6. I guess he must have enumerated the verses at that time so that 7:6 refers to the particular verse that everyone todays understands it to mean. —Stephen ^(Talk) 15:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes sense. I've created entries [[c.#German|for (deprecated template usage) c.]] and [[Verszählung#German|for (deprecated template usage) Verszählung]]; could you check them for correctitude, please? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 18:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on (deprecated template usage) c., Stephen. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 09:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I've tweaked Verszählung a bit. "Count" seems to imply "how many verses are there?" in English, whereas this is more "which verse is verse number 3?" - -sche (discuss) 18:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, -sche. Would you mind also adding stress to the IPA transcription as well as creating an entry for Zählung? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The more I look into this, the more confused I am. The English terms ("verse count" / "verse numbering") are used in some opaque ways: for example, certain Bibles are said to have a "verse count" at the end of certain chapters; is this just a statement that "this chapter contains 21 verses"? (How is that useful, especially if the last verse is numbered Rev. 22:21?) The German term seems to be employed in slightly different ways in the singular vs plural (and by native vs non-native speakers). - -sche (discuss) 22:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. Are you sure that that "verse count" isn't one for the entire book, or at least for the entire book so far? For such a count would have some usefulness. Thanks for all your work on this. BTW, (deprecated template usage) Zählung isn't glossed as "numbering" anywhere in the entry for it; should its gloss in (deprecated template usage) Verszählung's etymology section therefore be changed? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 09:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Unicode fraktur

You may be interested in this: http://unifraktur.sourceforge.net/letterspacing.html .

Unicode, modern font formats, and currently available free webfonts have what it takes to display Fraktur without resorting to non-standard encoding. Web browser support is coming along. —Michael Z. 2011-09-22 05:47 z

That’s interesting, thanks. I’ve wished that we had embedded-font capabilities here for almost ten years. We must be getting close. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Recent Indonesian edits

Thanks for salvaging 'lho' for me! I just started today so have been experimenting. Now i've got one example of the layout of an Indonesian particle it will be much easier. Cheers!

You’re welcome. They were actually very good. It didn’t take much time to format them. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Arabic diacritics

Thanks for the information. It's helpful because I'm new to both Arabic diacritics and conventions on writing them on Wiktionary. I am curious, though — what is the laborious workaround for writing the shaddah and a vowel together? Is there a page explaining it or do you have time to explain? Erutuon 15:55, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Shadda+fatha = َّ • shadda+kasra = ِّ • shadda+dhamma = ُّ. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

gtroy

Dick blocked me again but is ignoring the beer parlour decision, what should i do? (ACDC rocks)71.142.74.66 22:03, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, the Beer Parlour discussion wasn’t a decision, it was just some individual opinions. We really don’t have much in the way of a blocking policy here, and even less an appeals policy. Usually the lack of official policy has not been a problem, because over 99% of blocks are for vandalism or for intimidation and harassment, and everybody seems to be in full agreement with these blocks. For the rare blocks that are due to personality clashes, we don’t have a separate process, and we should. Counting this one, I can only think of four cases of this in the last eight years. In the first case, one with an abrasive personality quit voluntarily. In the next one, the new guy was eventually blocked for a year (but he never came back). In the third, the abrasive personality got sick and died. You’re only the fourth. Wait, I tell a lie...there is another, the one we call Wonderfool. Wonderfool reappears here with a new name soon after each block...each time, he tries to change his credentials and interests to hide his identity, and several times he has managed to become a trusted admin. Then after a month or two of good work, he snaps and in a few minutes vandalizes or deletes a bunch of pages. One of his most recent incarnations was as User:Rockpilot...but somebody recognized him and he is blocked again. Sometimes he maintains two or more identities here at the same time, and even gets into arguments and disputes with himself.

My point is that we just don’t have a policy to handle these petty conflicts, and the only appeals process is to try to reason with whoever blocked you. But some of the admins here are not very easy to reason with, and since we don’t have an official policy to deal with this, it leaves you at the mercy of the blocker. I wish I could be of more help. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• (For the record) I ultimately gave Troy an indefinite block because he started weirdly threatening me with some restraining order shit. (Copy-pasting this to a few others.) — [Ric Laurent] — 23:03, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know about the legal threat. Such threats are very common in real life and are almost never meant seriously. But since those few cases where the threat was meant in earnest are so problematic for a large, international operation such as Wikimedia, we have little choice but to view all legal threats as serious threats. The problem with this is that new editors are unaware of this tender spot and are blindsided by the negative reaction to it. On Wikipedia, whenever an editor makes such a threat, he is blocked from all further editing unless he recants and forswears all future legal actions in regard to the project and its contributors, or until the legal matter is resolved in a court of law. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:25, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I've never threatened legal action against anyone for any reason, so I might just be biased toward thinking that his threat was entirely unreasonable... But reasonable or not, and whether he actually would have done anything, I'm sure he said it in seriousness. — [Ric Laurent] — 23:33, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

When I said "serious", I meant actual intent to bring a suit. All heated arguments are serious, but I wasn’t talking about that. Usually a threat is just a way of saying "leave me alone", and the anger is real and the desire to make a point is real, but the intent to carry out the threat is rarely real. That’s why a new editor who makes a threat like that is normally given a chance to renounce the threat. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah okay, I had a feeling that might've been what you meant, but for some reason that feeling wasn't reflected in the translation of my thoughts to my message... er, anyway. Yes... Not sure how seriously I personally would take an apology from him.... Naturally I'd have reason to doubt his sincerity. If he thinks just an apology is all he'd need to get back to editing without the constant threat of his new names being blocked, surely he'd do it - sincere or not. I'm generally pretty willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but something about him just stops that nice part of my brain from being the dominant part. — [Ric Laurent] — 00:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I do apologize for making that stupid statement and lowering myself to that level of maturity. I really would not have ever wasted my time getting a restraining order against you. Maybe if I knew you and we were friends and only as a joke if we pranked one another in that manner back and forth. But c'mon how ever would I have been able to serve you? You can't serve someone via IP address of wiki account. I would not have been even able to file one against you without knowing your name. Also you might as well live in China or South Africa for all I know, making it a moot point. The logistics would have been insurmountable and I don't have the time or money to hire a private eye or have you subpoenaed or extradited. Notwithstanding I am sure you would just love the attention dude and the court transcript would be hilarious and there would even be a movie deal. Block me unblock me but get a personality and find a reason to smile man lifes too short. I do seriously doubt you are in any way offended or in any way are capable of realizing how offensive and frustrating your plethora of insults directed at me are. I still wish you no hard. I hope you have a happy day free of bitterness and nothing but nice things happen to you and that your manner improves because of it so you have a lower stress level and no one gets cussed out by you and you don't waste your time doing it. I really do. Not to be quoting Catcher in the Rye or anything. -Troy.Catch22 09:11, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Votes/2011-10/Categories of names 3

Because you voted in Wiktionary:Votes/2011-07/Categories of names, I'm informing you of this new vote.​—msh210℠ (talk) 01:54, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2011-10/User:TAKASUGI Shinji for admin

Hi Stephen,

The vote has passed. Could you make User:TAKASUGI Shinji an administrator, please? --Anatoli 23:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:47, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. You're welcome to vote on Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-10/Mixed script Mandarin entries. --Anatoli 06:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

'рж

Hi. Shoudn't this be under ’рж? Currently the entry uses apostrophe (') instead of right single quotation mark (’) like in к’смет, ’рбет, ’рѓа. There are also entries with left single quotation mark (‘): В‘лтава, ‘рка. Which symbol is correct for Macedonian words? Maro 21:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

It’s a problem like the English and French apostrophe. It really should be right quote ’рж, but straight quote 'рж is more common because it’s easier to type. Some typing programs automatically put left quote ‘рж (because there is no space after it). See for example w:mk:Целијакија (with left quote ‘рж), w:mk:Грб на Карелофинска ССР (with straight 'рж), w:mk:Национален музеј на лебот (Киев) (with straight 'рж}, and w:mk:Р’жаничино (with left quote Р’ж and straight р'ж). One uses left quote ‘, three use straight ', and one uses right quote ’. I think we should use the straight apostrophe like we do for English and French words (even though all of them should use the right quote in formal text). —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The same symbol is often used in Ukrainian (e.g. "об'ява" (ob”jáva) - announcement), occasionally in Russian (instead of ъ, e.g. объявление = "об'явление"). The apostrophe (') is the most common and accurate but other symbols are used for greater readability or to avoid wikification (two apostrophes will make a text italic, three - bold) or (other unwanted effects on the web) ’ is used. The entry ’ could use the Macedonian section and some usage note. Agree that we should use apostrophe but hard redirects could be useful. --Anatoli 00:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we should use redirects to make these more accessible. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that spelling "об'явление" or "с'езд" in Russian is not considered standard but rather common - it's a result of overcorrection after 1918 reform's. (') is standard in Ukrainian, Belarusian where ъ doesn't exist and it seems with some other Slavic, Cyrillic-based languages as well. I've added some info on usage note on ъ#Russian. Ukrainian and Belarusian also use apostrophe where Russian ь is a "separation sign" (пьяный (ru)) = "п'яны" (be), "п'яний" (uk). --Anatoli 00:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

block

Thanks for unblocking me, again, I really appreciate it. And I hope you had a happy Halloween, and that I don't get blocked for leaving a message here, like I originally did. Either way, I hope you had a great day. I think some people have it out for me and I know when I am not wanted, so I am probably going to take a break from this, it seems there's a coterie of established editors that do what they want here and they're making it impossible for me to even abide by their customs. Take it easy.Acdcrocks 09:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I can’t say as I understand it either. The Germans call it Mobbing. It’s not something that I expected to see here. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, mobbing makes sense. I suppose this user just has a lot of allies or even undercover multiple accounts. I think people trust him and this has led others to be misled into taking actions and opinions against me without determining the situation for themselves. Also, well after just a few minutes of you unblocking me, Dick Laurent immediately blocked me for what he said was "stirring up trouble", what was in fact me just relabeling the topics on my talk page to make better sense of them, and I know I told you that I was planning on disengaging from here for the most part, but I would like to be able to edit once in a while or in the future and with a permanent ban that would mean I couldn't without sock puppetry. I think this is really uncalled for when he wants to control even how I use my own talk and user pages. And even if you unblock me, he will probably just reblock me due to "block evasion" but I have no other recourse and I am confused, is there a leadership here in any way?71.142.73.25 19:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Not really. It’s pretty much a free-for-all. We all seem to get along by sticking to our work, not socializing (some of us are particularly antisocial), and avoiding any sort of confrontations such as reverting one another or calling one another out. The pattern that I am seeing is that all of the serious editors that end up being blocked had been trying to socialize to one degree or another. Here we’re all pretty much just about the work. That’s why we don’t allow the user boxes and vanity user pages that are popular on Wikipedia. They’re an invitation to socializing, and that is anathema here. You might think about creating another persona and studiously avoiding these pitfalls which I think have led to your troubles. After an editor has been around for a long time, over a year, and established himself as a dependable and good editor whose work does not need to be checked or cleaned up by others, then a small amount of occasional socializing seems to be accepted. But the biggest sins, I believe, are trying to socialize, ever reverting a more senior editor, and making typos or formatting errors often enough that somebody must always check your work. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:15, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

And Troy, feel free to socialise with me. --Rockpilot 22:33, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

a priori

Hi Stephen! You answered a question on the talk page of this article a while back, a question whose answer I came to wiktionary specifically to find. I wondered if you would mind including that information you provided on the main entry? I imagine that, since at least two people now have been at wiktionary with this confusion, it's a common enough one to warrant including that additional information. I would do it myself, but since I am not familiar with wiktionary ways, and so was hoping that you could? I'm specifically referring to the information that priori is in fact ablative, rather than dative, because these adjectives sometimes have an -i for the ablative. Aside from this, I was wondering if you knew of any online resources which discuss the phenomenon of ablatives ending in -i? I only ask because you were the one who answered and thus you might have read it somewhere. If not that's no problem. Thanks! 68.54.4.162 00:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I’m sure there are lots on online mentions of this. A quick look finds this one, this one, and here. I’m not sure where I could include this information at the moment. Ideally, there needs to be a Latin language section on that page, and the information could go there. Since there is only the English section right now, I’m not sure it would fit anywhere. I thought about the etymology, but this goes beyond what etymology is for, I think. User:EncycloPetey usually creates the Latin sections, but he has not been very active here of late. When he gets around to it, I will try to remember to put a note there. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:08, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Possibly inappropriate Greek translations of each sense of love and I love you (surely αγαπώ is not always correct)

We now have three senses of I love you and numerous senses of love (noun) and love (verb), which seem to me to encompass erotic, brotherly and unselfish love, and probably some other types too.

However, σ' αγαπώ has been entered in translation of every sense of I love you, and αγάπη / αγαπώ for nearly every sense of love.

I know a few words of Biblical Greek, which suggest to me that most of these translations are wrong. However, I've no idea how the terms are used nowadays, so thought I'd better ask a Greek speaker to look at them, before someone using our phasebook entries gets an unexpected response! --Enginear 21:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It's been a while, but I remember always seeing σ' αγαπώ (or σ' αγαπάω) used for "I love you". Lovers, family members, friends.... I could be wrong, but that's what I recall. — [Ric Laurent] — 22:13, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Omnipaedista knows Greek much better than I do. In Ancient Greek, the divisions between the different kinds of love were finer; today, not so much. In Modern Greek, κάνω έρωτα is to make love, but πλατωνικός έρωτας is platonic love. Σ'έχω ερωτευτεί means I’m in love with you, but σ' αγαπώ is the common, generic form that seems to work for everything. Unrequited love is απλήρωτη αγάπη, but κεραυνοβόλος έρωτας is love at first sight. Loved ones are οι αγαπημένοι, and αγάπη προς τον πλήσιον means love thy neighbor. Αγαπιέμαι can mean either "I love myself" or "I am loved". Αν μ'αγαπούσες, θα με παντρευόσουνα = if you loved me, you would marry me.

Φαίνεται ότι αγαπάει τον σύντροφο της από την έκφραση του προσώπου της.

(You can tell she loves her boyfriend by the look on her face)

Φυσικά και αγαπάω τη μητέρα μου.

(Of course I love my mother)

Το μπάσκετ το αγαπάω.

(I love basketball)

Το μπαλέτο ήταν η πρώτη της αγάπη.

(Ballet was her first love) —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:03, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. Just as well I checked! --Enginear 14:36, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

сл. "указатель"

Указатель: спасибо большое, Стивен! --78.126.133.88 20:06, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Etym. question

Hey Stephen, I'm working on akraba and I'm having trouble figuring out the etymon. I've found قريبة and أقارب which are clearly related, but the Turkish government's Güncel Türkçe Sözlük lists the source as simply "aqriba", which... I can think of too many possible variants for. What do you think? — [Ric Laurent] — 14:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

They must mean اقرباء (aqribaa’, “relatives”), plural of قريب (qariib, “relative, relation”), from قرب (qaruba, “to be near”). —Stephen ^(Talk) 14:46, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks man, you've always got the answer I need :) — [Ric Laurent] — 14:59, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

{{ar-verb}}

Hey, I'm going to work on rewriting this template, trying to make it a bit easier to use, get some named parameters in there. Is there anything I should keep in mind, or add to what the template does now? — [Ric Laurent] —

I can’t think of anything. It was written over a long period of time, including by an Arab linguist, and I think everything had been thought of. For a long time, it only accepted three simple parameters (e.g., |II|كلم|kállama), so a lot of verbs only have those parameters entered at the moment. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:05, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Alright, the new template does all the same things, except that instead of the string of unnamed parameters (as in your example, |II|كلم|kállama) the parameters are now named, (like |form=II|head=كلم|tr=kállama). The others are impf= for the imperfect, impfhead= for the vowels and impftr= for the imperfect transliteration. You can also use Arabic instead of Roman numerals for form=. The old template is at {{ar-verb (old)}} and the bot's switch all the old entries over so nothing's broken. (Though it did break the 4 conjugated verbs we have, but I thankfully found and fixed them). I think at some point soon I'd like to work more on conjugation templates, Anatoli's offered to help so hopefully we'll be able to have more than just 4 conjugated verbs here :) — [Ric Laurent] — 21:32, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

troy here

dick has blocked me (luciferwildcat) again and for absolutely no reason this time, what should i do?

Sigh. I know I'm a loon, but "absolutely no reason"?

Anyway, Stephen, I stopped by to ask if there was anything that could be done to improve مكتوب — [Ric Laurent] — 01:54, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I added some to it. I think that should do it. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Thinking

So I've started working on new templates for Arabic conjugation, and I was thinking - I can get automatic transliterations from the parameters specifying the Arabic root-letters. However, if I were to make the template that switches the Arabic letters to a transliteration, I'd really like to not use the system we have at WT:About Arabic. I've talked to Anatoli about changing it, but I didn't want to start working on a new system without asking you what you think. — [Ric Laurent] — 17:23, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I would use one of the two systems that we used in {{ar-root-entry}}. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking that would be the easiest. I just hate the chatroom style... — [Ric Laurent] — 18:14, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Add me in. It makes us look unprofessional. -- Liliana • 18:15, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I really like the chatroom style for the PoS line, which is what it was designed for, but we wanted something more formal for the etymology template. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:18, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I talk odia. Thank you Jnanaranjan sahuJnanaranjan sahu

You are welcome! —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Got a question for ya. Looking at the table for كتب, some forms that end in alef leave off the vowel marker on the letter before (like كَتَبْتُما) while others include it (like كَتَبَا). Should there be a/ā differentiation for these? — [Ric Laurent] — 18:45, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Originally I had put those vowels in. I’m not sure why some of them were left out when the template was developed. In any case, yes, it’s katabtumā. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:54, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I'll try to make sure the vowels get in there. Thanks — [Ric Laurent] — 18:56, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Note that most of the alifs are alifs of prolongation, which implies the fatHa vowel whether it is written or not...but in a few that end in ـُوا, such as كَتَبُوا, the alif is otiose alif and it is silent. This word is pronounced katabuu. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:06, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I knew about those ones from Egyptian Arabic. Don't worry, anything I'm unsure of you can be assured I'll be asking you about :) — [Ric Laurent] — 19:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I've nearly hit my next stumbling point. Do the vowels specified by the current templates affect the vowels for passive forms at all, or are they always (or usually - I'll still be making everything able to be overridden) u-i for perfect and u-a for imperfect? — [Ric Laurent] — 22:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

There are some rules for making the passive, such as long aa in verb forms III and IV becoming a long uu, but I don’t know what all the rules say. When I started doing the conjugations, I did them like this, and I had to add the conjugated forms manually. When User:Beru7 made his templates, he included some rules, but I don’t know what they were or if they were complete and universal. That’s why I never conjugated any more verbs...I can only do them manually. If you can sort out the rules and figure out how to apply them easily, you’re a genius. For one thing, not all verbs have passive forms. For example, يقظ (to be awake), بئس (to be wretched), and إشتغل (to be busy) have no passive forms. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:47, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd brought that up with Anatoli, about some verbs not having passive forms. I think for now I'll leave off that part of the table with those passive forms. I hate to be incomplete, but I'd hate more to be inaccurate. — [Ric Laurent] — 23:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Ric, do you need more verb examples with full conjugations? Typing all forms would be pain in the butt (with vowels symbols) but I could make a full example for each group. If we have a working template for كتب, it would cover all trilateral sound verbs in form I (except for hamzated, hollow, doubled, weak) but other verbs will need a different template. Do you need the full conjugation for a different type of verbs? I could write out حب (form I), for example or a hollow verb, just let me know how I can help.

BTW, vowels in jussive and subjunctive are identical to indicative, no need to repeat parameters.

In case you're not familiar with the Arabic conjugator, here it is the Arabic conjugator. It's pretty good when you know what you're doing. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 08:03, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Is the first vowel in imperatives the vowel specified for the imperfective? yaktuba - uktub, yafhamu - afham? I'd seen that verb conjugator yesterday, but didn't save it til yesterday, and it doesn't have imperatives :( — [Ric Laurent] — 12:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It's "i" for verbs with "i" or "a" as the middle vowel, and "u" with "u". The rule is only for verbs where R1 is not waw or hamza, خذ (xuḏ) - take!, كل (kul) - eat! --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 12:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It may be confusing to look at form IV imperatives. The alif is not elided, so imperative from أرسل (ʾársala) is أرسل - ʾársil - send! --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 12:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Ehh We'll do the other forms when we get there :D I've gotta go change {{ar-conj-I}} now lol — [Ric Laurent] — 12:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

OH effballs, I forgot to ask, does each verb form have one specific verbal noun, or can one verb form get multiple verbal nouns? — [Ric Laurent] — 12:33, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

There can be multiple verbal nouns with the same or different meanings. BTW, the perfect example of "i" before "a" is إفعل (ʾífʕal) - do! So, now you have examples of imperatives with all middle vowels. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 12:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Check out فهم, just added the template there. — [Ric Laurent] — 12:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

✓ Great! If it's no trouble, could you change اِفْهَمْ to إِفْهَمْ, add "ʾ" (and all occurrences of hamza before kasra), it's more formal and common this way? Great job again. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 13:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

So the imperatives starting with a- have no hamza, but the ones with i- are 'i- and have hamza? — [Ric Laurent] — 13:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

No, you got me wrong, both need hamza. I was only checking the result, not the template. I saw that other forms already have hamza in front of a, like أَفْهَمُ - "I understand", so I only mentioned "i". --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 13:33, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Haha alright. I mostly followed the table for kataba, and the imperatives there didn't have hamza, so I left them off. I'll get on those #switches now :) — [Ric Laurent] — 13:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok cool, if that's it, {{ar-conj-I}} should be pretty much good to go. :) I think I'm gonna start working on {{ar-conj-IV}} now, I have a crazy weird urge to make sure أسلم is conjugated lol — [Ric Laurent] — 13:44, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Translate to arabic, persian and urdu if possible

Hey, I want to get a tattoo of one of these five phrases so I was wondering if someone could please translate them to arabic, persian or urdu if possible. Please specify which is which. Thanks in advance.

- Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future - Be the change you want to see in the world - How to save a life - Fix you - Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional

unsigned comment by User:Dsandoval234 01:33, November 27, 2011‎ (UTC)

This request should be placed at Wiktionary:Translation requests. I will copy it to that location. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:25, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

GedawyBot

Hello, I opened a voting to have bot flag. I hope you particibate. Thanks.--M.Gedawy 19:00, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Crone, Maiden

How do I singular only these?Lucifer 06:08, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Like this: {{en-noun|-}}. If you click on the {{en-noun}} template, you can see examples of how to do various possibilities. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

They're proper nouns, anyway, in the Wiccan context. — [Ric Laurent] — 13:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

That’s right, these are proper nouns, so you should use {{en-proper noun}}. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Arabic verb templates

Hi Stephen,

I wonder if I could ask you to join the efforts and help testing the verb conjugation templates Ric has been creating or maybe create/change some verbs using those? In any case, your suggestions and advice would be appreciated. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 22:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Getting the 'mahir256' account

For reasons unknown to me, the unified login 'mahir256' does not work on the English Wiktionary. According to Special:Contributions/Mahir256, it knows that I exist, but my password does not log me in at all (it shows my account 'unattached'). w:User:Mahir256 contains my userpage on Wikipedia, if you need me to prove myself. Can you please resolve this issue? All I want to do is get that account name back so it will work with the same password as my other Wikimedia accounts. Nothing else is working!!! --Mahir256

Not sure. Try logging in at Wiktionary:Changing username as User:Mahirtemp and make a namechange request there. I will change that name to Mahir256. Maybe that will fix the problem. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Didn't work; neither blank password nor my current SUL password is working. It says 'Mahirtemp' is not registered. What else can be done? --Mahir256

1. Register the account User:Mahirtemp.
2. Login as User:Mahirtemp
3. Post a message at Wiktionary:Changing username requesting that your name be changed to User:Mahir256
4. Login as User:Mahir256 using the same password you used for User:Mahirtemp. — [Ric Laurent] — 02:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

أحبة

Hey Stephen, is this the plural of حبيب? — [Ric Laurent] — 16:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, أحبة (’aHibba) is another plural of حبيب. Besides أحبة, there are أحباء (’aHibbaa’) and أحباب (’aHbaab). —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:01, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. We do have أحباب as a plural of حب (hibb), I'm guessing it applies to both? — [Ric Laurent] — 17:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Right, أحباب is also the plural of حب. —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Greek transliterations

You've put a fair bit of work into changing the transliteration of some Greek words, most of these differ from the guidance at Wiktionary:Greek transliteration - do we need to talk about changing the guidance, or have you got it wrong? —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 05:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I did not see that page. Yes, I do think it should be changed. Greek has not had a letter for the /b/ sound for almost 2000 years, and μπ is used instead (β = /v/, as I’m sure you know), which is exactly the way we use "th" for /θ/ in English. μπ usually just represents /b/, but it can represent /mb/. Often a word may be pronounced either way, /b/ or /mb/ (Ολυμπία = Olimbia or Olibia). I can’t think of any words with /mp/, but if there are some, they must be words that were borrowed from other languages.

It’s the same story with ντ, which is usually a /d/, sometimes /nd/, sometimes either way. For example, Ντέιβιντ = Deivid (David). (δ = /ð/ or /dh/, although it doesn’t bother me too much if it is transliterated as ordinary /d/, as a shortcut.)

A lot of entries were already transliterated as /b/ or /d/; it seems to depend on the editor.

I didn’t bother to change vowels, but it’s weird to see, for instance, υ transliterated as /y/, when it is just a plain /i/. However, the vowels didn’t usually bother me so much...it was the μπ and ντ that jarred my nerves. I found a lot of entries that had two μπ’s, one at the beginning and one in the middle, where the first was transliterated as /b/, and the second as /mp/. I can’t think how that could have happened. In a few cases, ντ was transliterated as /nvt/ (interference from Greek ν, I guess). —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Greek is one of those languages where transliteration is going to be useless. Letter-for-letter with no regard for pronunciation? 50/50 with some letter-for-letter and some phonetic transcription? I personally think that for Greek, a pronunciation based scheme would be the only way to go. But I doubt that will ever happen. lol — [Ric Laurent] — 11:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is a problem. But when I lived for a time in Greece, the feeling that I got was that μπ and ντ were almost considered separate letters of the alphabet, mainly representing /b/ and /d/. But almost every language has transliteration problems like this or worse. I’ve seen English addresses transliterated into Russian with the word "Road" spelled sometimes роуд, sometimes роад. I think many of us on Wiktionary place far too great a value on the importance and usefulness of Wiktionary transliterations. I think that they’re only marginally useful to the casual reader who just wants an idea of how the strange letters read. In Arabic and Persian, for example, all that’s really required in a transliteration system is to show where the vowels are and, more or less, which vowels of the three or four possibilities. Over the years, I have gradually come to feel that the systems used by the United States Board on Geographic Names are the best ones for our purposes, but individual variations should present no problems for anyone. If some editor wants to write /sh/, I think that’s fine; if he wants to go to the trouble of inserting ʃ or š, I think that’s okay, too. But I do not believe that the transliterations that we offer have any serious or broad use. Anyone who really needs a certain transliteration system can easily do it himself using the original script and the hints that our transliterations provide...and there are many different systems, and anyone who wants one will want one in particular, so we would never have just the right one anyway.

Of course, there are certain languages, such as Chinese and Japanese, that really have a set, standard way of being transliterated. But for most cases, the simple but intuitive BGN systems are best in my opinion. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure where we are going - Stephen says "If some editor wants to write /sh/, I think that’s fine; if he wants to go to the trouble of inserting ʃ or š, I think that’s okay, too." Do I understand you - people do what they can justify, and not have a standard system? The sources I used are given at the bottom of table of values is given Wiktionary:Greek transliteration#Sources ISO843 does recommend "medial μπ" = "mp" and "ντ" = "nt" I don't want to overdo stressing that transliteration is just that and not pronunciation. —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 19:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think if someone is too lazy to learn the Greek alphabet, that's their business. Having a system of transliteration for Greek that is letter-for-letter is doing no real service to the reader. In my personal opinion, a transcription that demonstrates the pronunciation - and only the pronunciation - would be much better for Greek. — [Ric Laurent] — 19:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I mean that if one editor likes to show a Slavic or Semitic /ʃ/ with the symbol [ʃ], what’s wrong with that? Or if another editor wants to show it as [š], and yet another as [sh], why not? Until very recently, there was a strong need for transcriptions systems that were faithful to the orthography, ignoring the actual pronunciation. The reasons were that most people, and most typists and typesetting companies, could not set texts in other alphabets. So it was important to develop systems that mirrored the native orthography.

Today, that is no longer the case. Anybody can copy and print out the original script. Transiteration systems that used to be needed for such a purpose are obsolete. Now, a lot of people have trouble reading and writing IPA, and only some users are able to use IPA. But everybody can read and understand a transliteration of Ντέιβιντ as Deivid. Ntéibint no longer serves any purpose, but only confuses those who are not in the know. It would be better to have no transliteration at all than to write Ntéibint.

Transliteration serves in different ways in different languages. In Arabic, the main purpose of 21st century transliteration is to indicate the position of vowels; whether the vowels are a, i, u; whether the vowels are long; and if there are doubled consonants. All the rest is simply icing on the cake. In Russian, the purpose of a transliteration is to show where the stress is. In Greek, the main purpose of transliteration is to show when ντ is [nd] and when it is only [d]; and when μπ is [mb] and when it is only a [b]. And when γ is pronounced as a [gh], [g], [y], or [n], or [ng]. And when certain consonant clusters are pronounced as a [ch] or [sh]. And when υ is pronounced [v], [f], or [i]. In other words, transliteration in the 21st century is and should be more about pronunciation, and not about orthography. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Dick may have a point - but the present principle was agreed some 3 years ago - and it is a system used by librarian/geographers. Is someone going to back-edit was has been done to date? —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 19:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It's already not entirely consistent. — [Ric Laurent] — 20:03, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

If it ain't consistent then it should be. Any inconsistancies in my editing are not deliberate. —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 06:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

(1) This is not the place to discuss a change in policy. I assembled the table of Greek transliterations over four years ago doing my best to follow our own guidelines - Wiktionary:Transliteration and romanization - there was no dissent at the time.
(2) Since then I have tried to apply that policy consistently - I think that we should all follow it until any changes are agreed.
(3) I think Stephen's changes should be undone. —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 06:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I’m sure your transliterations are consistent, but other editors have transliterated differently. I don’t do very much in Modern Greek, but when I do, I have been transliterating μπ as [b] or [mb] for years. I don’t believe there is any reason to go and back-edit, unless we get an editor who is hot on doing that kind of work. But it’s a good idea to fix them when we come across them. If I am editing a translation section and see Ντέιβιντ as Ntéibint, I’ll stop and fix it, but I usually won’t do any back editing. The editing I did the other day was abnormal for me...I must have been sleepy or I wouldn’t have bothered. If you want to undo my changes, it’s okay with me, but I think it is a system that is no longer of any use to anyone, but only cause confusion among those would actually need transliterations. If you’re going to undo the corrections, then I won’t transliteration any more Modern Greek, because I cannot bring myself to use the ISO843 system. I think we would be better off with no Modern Greek transliterations at all than to use ISO843. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

It must be getting on for 5 years since I looked at this, at the time I felt as you do about - for example - [μπ] and [ντ]. It was necessary use a recognised source :) —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 05:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

But (on second thoughts, and feeling quite strongly!) there is no point in having transliterations if we all transliterate as we want - surely they would be meaningless. If you don't like the current equivalences please let us reach agreement in a general forum. And we should each then follow what is agreed? —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 07:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Conjugation of حب

Hi Stephen,

Are you able to check the conjugation in the talk page, please? I'm a bit confused but I think أحب is more common and I noticed when people ask how to say "I love you" in Arabic, they actually use أحب, not حب. If it's form I, whouldn't it be ʾaḥibbak, rather than ʾuḥibbak with the same spelling? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 23:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It is difficult to follow the conjugation on the talk page because of the order: he, she, you, I, they, etc. I keep getting confused. But at a glance, it seems good (except for the order). Yes, I think it is more common to use أحب in that phrase (’uHibbak). At the moment, the definition there says, to love ardently, to adore. I would not have put that definition. I’d say that حب means to love or to like; and that أحب means to love or to like; also, to wish, want, or like to do something.

I think to adore or love ardently requires more words in addition to the verb: أحَبّ إلى دَرَجة العِبادة —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree that definition is a bit off. Hans Wehr seems to emphasize a bit too much. It was the same with نصح, perhaps not "to give sincere advice" but "to advise". As for the order he/she, you, I is normal with Arabic resources, since 3rd person is used as a sample. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 19:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have seen that order before, but it seems alien to me. I suppose that if I had learned that one when I was young instead of the usual order for most other languages, then it would seem natural. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The imperfect conjugation for حب ḥabba, which is indeed a form I verb, is ʔaḥibbu, taḥibbu, taḥibbīna, yaḥibbu, taḥibbu, taḥibbāni, etc. If it's pronounced "ʔuḥibbu", then we're not talking about the verb حب ḥabba anymore, but rather, the form IV verb أحب ʔaḥabba, whose imperfect conjugation goes ʔuḥibbu, tuḥibbu, tuḥibbīna, yuḥibbu, etc. This is the correct and current distinction done here at Wiktionary.--Serafín33 21:44, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for comfirming this. A while ago I manually added the conjugation of the verb on the talk page Talk:حب. Both verb entries have correct imperfect entries displayed. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 22:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Tu and você in Rio

I meant that, as in Brazil many final phonemes disappeared and the third and the second person are always obtained by adding "-s" or "-es", some people in Rio say "O que tu quer?" or "Tu é legal" instead of "O que tu queres?" and "Tu és legal", got it? :) Leefeni,de Karik 23:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so it means "use tu with the third-person singular verb"? I’ll make the change in você. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:27, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

execución, execucion

Could I please know why you did not just add these to Request‐For‐Verification? Have you even tried looking this up on Google Books? Have you seen these sources down here? --Pilcrow 23:21, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I left a message on the discussion page of Talk:execución. I think you are in way over your head with this and you should delete all of those "obsolete" words unless you are prepared to spend a considerable amount of time and energy understanding exactly what they are and how they have to be categorized. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:30, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

You think it’s not because the ex- form is more consistent with Latin? Fuck it: just speedy‐delete them all. I don’t care any more. I’m sorry I wasted your time. --Pilcrow 23:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If the ex- is being pronounced [ɛks-], it’s Latin. Also, the stress will fall on a different syllable, depending on which language the word is...Latin words do not stress the ultimate syllable, but Spanish often does. It isn’t Spanish unless the writer is pronouncing it [ɛχ-] and stressing the -cion syllable. Even with my experience with the language, I would not attempt to add these old forms. I can read the old texts, but I can’t determine what the language is, and, without weeks or months of study, I can’t tell if the words in question are being used as normal Spanish for that time or if they are Latin. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:47, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

My Spanish is no doubt very bad compared to yours, and I certainly can not comprehend Latin, but I thought the différences between Latin and Spanish were significant enough that one can tell them apart. Anyway, just delete them. I do not want to waste any more of your valuable time. You are twenty times the person I am. --Pilcrow 23:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Español contracciones

¶ Do any of these look acceptable to make as Spanish entries? Is it necessary to provide citations for them? I want your approval before they are made. --Pilcrow 03:41, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don’t think so. I think they are either a different dialect or language, like Bable or Extremaduran, or else they must be Old Spanish or Middle Spanish. The first example of their use in Spanish that I could find was by the author Pedro Hurtado de la Vera, who wrote in the 16th century. That’s in the Middle Spanish period. —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:24, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Could I have your permission to make them as entries for Middle Spanish & Old Spanish ? --Pilcrow 04:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but I only checked d'el, and only as far as Middle Spanish. You will need to investigate each term for each period. You may need to find out the policy concerning Middle Spanish and Old Spanish. As far as I know, there are no ISO language codes for either language. You may need to place them in the Appendix namespace. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:54, 31 December 2011 (UTC)