User talk:Stephen G. Brown/2015

Latest comment: 8 years ago by Stephen G. Brown in topic interpretation

Gender reverts edit

I believe that your rollbacks of my contributions to they and two-spirit are incorrect. Timeraner (talk) 09:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

I’m sure they are correct. Genderqueer is not in common use and not well-known. Besides that, two-spirits are not the same as gay, and a word like genderqueer does not belong there. —Stephen (Talk) 10:36, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Did you read what genderqueer means? Timeraner (talk) 11:04, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
The definition of genderqueer has nothing to do with Native Americans, which means it isn't a synonym of two-spirit.
Desist. — [Ric Laurent]11:09, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Example sentence on two-spirit page:

2010, Walter L Williams, The Guardian, 11 Oct 2010: Instead of seeing two-spirit persons as transsexuals who try to make themselves into "the opposite sex", it is more accurate to understand them as individuals who take on a gender status that is different from both men and women.

Definition of genderqueer:

Neither exclusively man nor woman; identifying as (has a gender identity which is) outside of the gender binary; rejecting cisnormativity.

Genderqueer is an umbrella term that would include two-spirit Native Americans. I did not write genderqueer as a synonym but it needs to be "see also." Timeraner (talk) 11:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Genderqueer is not widely understood or used. There are important cultural and practical differences involved and two-spirits already have enough trouble in their communities by being identified by white people as gay or queer. Definitions of and assumptions about two-spirits by white people are far off the mark. The definition of genderqueer does not cover two-spirits, in spite of what some non-Native Americans may claim. I do not wish to discuss two-spirits with you; please move on to something else, preferably something you know about by personal experience. —Stephen (Talk) 11:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
You are one revert away from an edit war, which will result in a block for you. —Stephen (Talk) 11:34, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Okay. I use "they" pronouns for my gender identity. Compromise on they for "unknown or irrelevant gender." My gender is known, it is genderqueer. Timeraner (talk) 11:59, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

We might be able to compromise on they as long as you don’t use genderqueer. Please stop trying to push that word on us. —Stephen (Talk) 12:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
It has multilingual academic support on the Wikipedia article and other language Wiktionaries. What do you suggest alternatively? Timeraner (talk) 12:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
I suggest that you stop bothering me with genderqueer. I don’t use that word, I don’t know anybody who uses it or understands it. If you want to call yourself genderqueer, be my guest, but please stop bothering me. I am not interested in your weird word. —Stephen (Talk) 12:58, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
תודה על זה סטיבן. :) Myself being a nonhetero, I get tired of all these people trying so ferociously to pigeonhole themselves and demanding everyone around them respect their choices. Centering your entire identity around your sexual oddities is some kind of insanity. You gave me a little extra hope today. — [Ric Laurent]16:03, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Stephen, I am going to edit the article to say "whose gender is unknown, irrelevant, or does not fit the gender binary." Timeraner (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Comment "genderqueer" is actually almost as common (or as rare, if you prefer) as "two-spirit" itself, according to ngrams. I don't think it's a problem to list it in the See also section (and "genderqueer" has nothing to do with sexuality), but I'm not going to push that issue. (What I might do is make a list template that would contain a collapsed list of all the various gender-related terms, which could then be deployed to the See also sections of all of them.) - -sche (discuss) 04:57, 16 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
Maybe they are uncommon/rare because they are terms coming from tiny minorities. — [Ric Laurent]12:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Ejaculation revert edit

Hi Stephen, you reverted my recent edit of this article. I added a video iaw Wiktionary policy to include appropriate images within definitions to improve understanding and I subsequently amended the text to improve the definition. I understand the view that amendments on this term may be vandalism but I assure you my adds are not and are appropriate. Please advise on your reasons for the revert so I can adjust my adds accordingly. BigBearLovesPanda 22:09, 26 January 2015 ()

That video is unnecessarily graphic. Some people are offended by such videos. I know that Wikipedia often accepts videos and images of that type, but I don’t think there is any need for it here. We only provide simple definitions to words, and the definition for this is not so cryptic that film clip needs to be provided. If someone needs a more detailed explanation, they can use the link provided to go to Wikipedia. —Stephen (Talk) 23:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

guion edit

Please see comment at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User_talk:Mr._Granger#gui.C3.B3n --128.148.231.12 23:54, 4 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Request a little help edit

Hi Stephen. I saw you handle quite good the arabic and french languages. Can you patrol the contributions from this IP on the fr.wiktionary. He added few arabic translations but all were revoked by a patroller... and somes of them seems to be good for me (the 1st one : اللسانيات per linguistic as exemple). So can you merged the that can be restored. Thank you. V!v£ l@ Rosière /Whisper…/ 05:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi. It is difficult for me because I do not know the policies of the fr.wiktionary. Most of his entries consisted of multiple words (such entries are often considered to be SoP, « somme des parties »); most of the entries included the definite article; and some of his entries included vocalizations (vowel pointing). I don’t know if the fr.wiktionary permits such entries. Most of them would not be accepted here on the en.wiktionary. Apart from these problems, the entries are good Arabic. Depending upon your policies, they might be good entries, though perhaps with some modification. —Stephen (Talk) 06:57, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, we don't accept locutions unless they are considered as "frozen" like bite the dust & co. But if it's standard Arabic it's a good point, then I'll try to find out if it has this "frozen" trait. Anyway thank you for your answer. V!v£ l@ Rosière /Whisper…/ 01:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
This revoke] was wrong. To make them work need to do {{trad-|ar|ذكر|ذِكْر|m}}, since French Wiktionary doesn't support delinking diacritics. Same with Persian but Persian could be without diacritics, just "ذكر". See our Arabic entry ذِكْر (ḏikr). Pls. note that diacritics are removed on the link in the English Wiktionary. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:58, 6 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, French Wiktionary doesn't seem to support alternative views, I ended up using "ذكر" for Arabic as well, the form "ذِكْر" uses diacritics but should link to the entry without them. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 02:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
@Atitarev Hi, if by "support alternative view" you mean "orthgraphic variations" yes we support it and included it on French wiktionary. But fact is we don't have any Arabic language specialist and also no discussions and no consensus about the treatment of these diacritics, so it's quite a pioneer foggy area. Thank for the help, I restore that one. EDIT : Didn't saw you've already done it. ;-) V!v£ l@ Rosière /Whisper…/ 08:48, 7 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

łééchąąʼí edit

Hi! I was just wondering about this edit to łééchąąʼí, in light of your comment on the talk page which claims that the opposite is the case. Did you find a better source on the etymology of the word? Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

It is sometimes difficult to uncover the true origins of some words such as this because a lot of people today are bothered by the idea and they want to promote a more romantic explanation such as "crying horse" (łį́į́ʼ yichaʼí). In my Navajo language group, we have over 15,000 members, most of whom are fluent speakers, and I also have much better printed resources now, and after six years of studying the language and culture, I have a better grasp of the language than I did in those early days. —Stephen (Talk) 12:37, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
No problem, thanks for the explanation. I must admit, I'm a little disappointed that it's not because they're "shitty pets" compared to horses, but it's definitely better for Wiktionary to be right than romantic on this sort of thing. Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:42, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Khmer នំបុ័ងវែង / នំប៉័ងវែង ("baguette") a word or just SOP? edit

Hi Stephen.

In case you hadn't notice I'm finally in Cambodia trying to learn at least a bit of Khmer.

None of the dictionaries I have or can find online have an entry for baguette though of course such bread is extremely common here. I finally found out today from a native speaker fluent in English that they call baguettes "long bread", so នំបុ័ងវែង (numbុ័ngvɛɛng) / នំប៉័ងវែង (num pang vɛɛng).

With your Sprachgefuhl for Khmer, would you say this qualifies as a "word" and therefore for an entry in Wiktionary? Or would you say that it's just SOP. It can be really hard to tell in monosyllabic languages and languages whose writing systems don't use spaces between words. Of course it can be hard to tell in any language. (-:

I also noted that there's three ways to write "bread" in Khmer in Unicode, due to order of and interaction between diacritics and vowel signs, and can't tell which is "correct". These two are much more common than the third way though so I didn't include that. — hippietrail (talk) 16:44, 10 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I figured that you were in that area. That’s a good word, since it is impossible to predict or deduce. Khmer is subject to a lot of variations in writing, because the written language is so very old and pronunciations today no longer match the spellings of a 1000 years ago, and because Cambodians tend to spell things in a way that is personally logical, not necessary according to a standard the way we do in English. Also, there are often different ways of writing that achieve the same result. Add to that the fact that some of the "legs" (subscript consonants) look exactly like another "leg".
Now you’ll have to learn to read អក្សរមូល (ʼaksɑɑ muul) (round script), which looks so different from អក្សរឈរ (ʼaksɑɑ chɔɔ) (standing script). —Stephen (Talk) 01:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

сагитировать edit

I made сагитировать a while ago. I wonder if you could check my edit. Thank you. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 03:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

And искриться, too. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 05:31, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
And I also reorganized аблактировать. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 06:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think they look good. —Stephen (Talk) 07:18, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 07:31, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

And I also made звереть. It is sort of a very unusual Russian verb. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:07, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
And восстановить. I think I made a mistake here. --08:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Also агонизировать. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:46, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
One more: веселить. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 10:47, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
@KoreanQuoter. Thanks for edits. I'll also check your Russian entries when I get back from my leave early in March. Thanks, Stephen! --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 04:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
Pls try using {{ru-IPA}} for pronunciations in new entries. It works for most cases, you can use |phon= for irregular pronunciations. Pls note pronunciation of "восстановить": IPA(key): [vəsːtənɐˈvʲitʲ] (usually no gemination in this case). :) --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:01, 19 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I also have a problem with the conjugation in чтить. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:09, 22 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Are you referring to the 1st-person singular "ччу́"? I think this is a problem with one of the Lua modules, which is improperly changing чт to чч. @Atitarev created the modules, and I do not understand Lua. I think we have to wait until Atitarev can look at it. —Stephen (Talk) 08:55, 22 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
Wow, thank you. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:56, 22 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
And I'm not sure about посчитаться. I think the meaning could be changed in the perfective form. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 09:34, 22 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
I'm also confused with this баллотироваться article. I think I made a handful of mistakes but I wouldn't know. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 10:03, 22 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think they are good now. —Stephen (Talk) 10:29, 22 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
Please wait when I get back go fix чтить and others. It's currently awkward with irregular desktop and Internet access. Verbs with incorrect inflections or requiring attention should be marked accordingly, anyway. Or request inflections. Pls don't leave entries with problems. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 18:50, 22 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

How about замерять and вибрировать? --KoreanQuoter (talk) 10:14, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

But one question. Does говорить have to perfective verbs? Or maybe each meaning have a different perfective verb? --KoreanQuoter (talk) 10:51, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
говорить has both сказать and поговорить as perfectives. сказать is the basic perfective, but поговорить is used as well. сказать and поговорить have slightly different meanings. The prefix по- (po-) often gives a connotation of "a little", or "for a while", and it adds this to the verb поговорить. —Stephen (Talk) 11:44, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Please check my [1]. I think the style should be slightly different. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:23, 7 March 2015 (UTC) Sorry, I edited again. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:26, 7 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the explanation. And I need your wise insight on these: наладить, больше не, согревать. Thank you. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 13:03, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
@KoreanQuoter Hi, I am back home. I'll go through your edits over the next few days, sorry for not being responsive lately (including my talk page). At first glance, I see that the entry "больше не" should be deleted, it's not an idiomatic word/expression in Russian. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 00:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Sure thing. I understand. I went through the process of organizing the больше entry and thought of making that entry. It was my mistake. But anyways, it's great to see you back into action. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 01:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Need to check выписывать, please, and thank you. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:44, 7 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

The very first verbal conjugation template for Sanskrit. edit

I made Template:sa-verb-pres yesterday. It's the very first verbal conjugation template for Sanskrit. This template only has the present tense. I based it on the famous Sanskrit textbook written by Robert P. Goldman et al. You can see the examples भवति, हन्ति, अस्ति, वदति, and भाषति, and enjoy looking at them. It's a very small template in terms of size. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 13:39, 23 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. There is a problem with it. The persons were listed from 3rd down to 1st, but the pronouns were shown from 1st down to 3rd. I corrected the persons to list from 1st down to 3rd (I know that Sanskrit is often listed from 3rd to 1st, but we have been doing it from 1st to 3rd, which is more familiar to most people). However, when I looked at भवति, I see that the verbs themselves are from 3rd to 1st.
In my opinion, it is better to keep the pronouns as you have them, and change the verb forms to 1st down to 3rd.
Eventually, I hope that someone who is familiar with Sanskrit and who knows Lua programming language will be able to create Lua modules for Sanskrit verbs, as we have done for the Russian verbs. Myself, I don’t know anything about Lua programming language or how to write verb modules. —Stephen (Talk) 00:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
The Russian modules were started off by me with only a basic knowledge of Russian grammar. I think if I can get a good idea of how things work and what is needed, I could make a start with the module, enough so that it's easy to extend even for someone with little experience in it. —CodeCat 00:32, 24 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
CodeCat, you can use Sanskrit.de to find a verb class (for exameple, class 1) and the root (shown between { _ }). Then if you go to Sanskrit.inria.fr, you can enter the class and the root (choosing Velthuis for Romanization, or Devanagari as needed), you can see the conjugations in the tenses and moods. —Stephen (Talk) 00:45, 24 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
What is mainly important for me is what information is necessary to generate a paradigm. That is, which forms or stems or other inflectional features can't always be predicted and must be entered as part of the template's parameters. —CodeCat 01:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Sanskrit verbs have very many irregular conjugations. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 11:47, 26 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes. I have no idea how to handle irregularities, except by entering the conjugations manually. —Stephen (Talk) 04:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I consulted to a person who knows about Sanskrit and I found out something important. First, Classical Sanskrit and Vedic Sanskrit are two very different "kinds of monsters". Both of them are rather grammatically different to each other. It's just that Classical Sanskrit is more of a "artificial koine" language that is influenced by Vedic Sanskrit. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 12:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Questions on Russian Grammar edit

I'm trying to put a Usage notes in the article, перед. I based it on a content from my Russian textbook (in Russian).

Using перед with a sense of time denotes an event that had ended immediately, while до denotes that there is a short interval between two events.

I don't think I explain it very well and I don't think I understand it quite well.I wonder if you could fix it? And while at it, I think I need some improvement from my edit. Thank you. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 12:44, 11 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Extra note: перед and до are rather confusing for native Korean speakers who are learning Russian. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 12:46, 11 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

When speaking about time ...
до (до момента) can mean quite a long period, whereas перед (перед моментом) means just before the very moment.
Давай встретимся до работы (let’s meet before work, which means any time between now and when we start work, and the meeting could be anywhere).
Давай встретимся перед работой (let’s meet before work, which means "just before we start work", "immediately before work", probably at the job site).
До города ещё далеко (the city is still far away, measured from here to there).
Я дошёл до перекрёстка (I reached the crossroads, going from here to there).
Перед союзом «что» ставится запятая (a comma is placed before the conjunction "что", meaning immediately before that word). —Stephen (Talk) 14:29, 11 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the explanation. I wonder if you could improve the перед article with a Usage note or something. It's because I found out that there are very poor explanations of articles pertaining to Russian conjugations. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 14:40, 11 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hello. I have a question. What is the difference between two conjunctions оттого что and потому что? --KoreanQuoter (talk) 12:46, 18 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

оттого что answers the question отчего; потому что answers почему. Nevertheless, a question introduced by отчего is often answered by потому что.

почему / потому что literally means "according to what grounds? / on the grounds that"; отчего / оттого что literally means "from what cause? / due to the cause that". Occasionally one sounds better than the other, as in:
Отчего́ сего́дня так темно́?Otčevó sevódnja tak temnó?Why is it so dark today? (from what cause?, answered with оттого что)
Отчего́ вы так бле́дны?Otčevó vy tak blédny?Why are you so pale? (from what cause?, answered with оттого что)
Почему́ вы говори́те э́то?Počemú vy govoríte éto?Why do you say this?, (on what grounds?, answered with потому что)
Почему́ он жела́ет ви́деть меня́?Počemú on želájet vídetʹ menjá?Why does he wish to see me?, (on what grounds?, answered with потому что)
But, generally speaking, оттого что and потому что are almost the same and quite interchangeable. However, потому что is far more commonly used. —Stephen (Talk) 13:56, 19 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Is it ok if I can use your explanation as a usage note? --KoreanQuoter (talk) 04:18, 22 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Okay. —Stephen (Talk) 05:10, 22 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Does French have neuter pronouns? edit

I’m attempting to think of some French pronouns that are strictly neuter. There are some in the Iberian languages (e.g. isto, esso, aquilo), but there’re precious few of them. The neuter gender mostly assimilated into the masculine one because of phonetic similarity (and probably not for sexist reasons, but I could be wrong). --Romanophile (talk) 06:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

le is a neuter object pronoun as well as a masculine one. In a construction such as this:
Si vous êtes satisfait, je le suis aussi.
...le is neuter.
ce and il can be neuter subject pronouns. When ce is a neuter subject pronoun, it governs a plural verb:
Ce sont mes CDs préférés. — They’re my favorite CDs.
Note the plural verb. Also, any adjectives or participles that refer to it are in the masculine. This is formal usage; in informal, colloquial speech, ce may take a singular verb.
Il est important de passer du temps ensemble. — It’s important to spend time together.
With neuter il, the verb it governs is singular.
In addition, ceci (this), cela (that), and ça (this/that, informal) are neuter demonstrative pronouns.
Ne fais pas cela. — Don’t do that.
Ça suffit ! — That’s enough! —Stephen (Talk) 07:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Slavic loanwords in Russian edit

Has Russian borrowed extensively from (modern) Slavic languages? Judging from our own categories, it doesn’t seem like it. --Romanophile (talk) 17:18, 29 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Russian has borrowings from (or via) modern or older Polish, Ukrainian and less commonly from other languages. It's not always easy to tell, if words are borrowed from such languages as there are cognates in Russian or similar regionalism. Loanwords from Old Church Slavonic often sounds like native Russian words as well and Russian shares a lot of words with Bulgarian from Old Church Slavonic. You can see the appropriate categories but they are obviously incomplete.--Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 22:23, 29 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
A lot of Orthodox Christian religious figures from the Slavic-speaking Balkan Peninsula moved to Russia and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the advance of the Ottoman Empire. Hence (Old) Church Slavonic was quite enforced in Russia. And you can look up Meletius Smotrytsky's "Slavonic Grammar with Correct Syntax" that was popular at that time. I would say that the "high-style" of Russian writing often employ (Old) Church Slavonic words. But based on my experience (my former university professor was a native Polish-speaker), East Slavic and South Slavic are more similar to each other than West Slavic. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 02:49, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I think User:Romanophile's question was more about loanwords. Yes, "high-level" words are often similar between Russian and Bulgarian because of the common literary past (Old Church Slavonic) but grammatically, syntactically I find West and East Slavic languages closer and hence easier to learn, understand, especially Polish and Russian. Slovenian seems the most distant. Ukrainian and Belarusian share much more common vocabulary with Polish and have much more borrowings than Russian. Nevertheless, Ukrainian and Belarusian are the closest to Russian in most aspects - grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, the way of expressing things. Overall, Slavic languages share about 60%+ common roots but pronunciation, usage, grammar make them sometimes not immediately mutually comprehensible, without some exposure. If gaps are filled in a short period, Slavic people are able to communicate with each other with various degrees of difficulty. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:02, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Learning "formal" grammar in the pre-modern past was more than learning syntax or morphology. It also included "how to use the right words" in writing in contrast to the commoners or to isolate from the commoners. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 03:22, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Not sure what you mean by this but (Old) Church Slavonic has affected Ukrainian and Belarusian as well. West (specifically) Polish and East Slavs had much more interaction (positive and negative) than South and East Slavs since. While Bulgarian shares a lot of formal vocabulary with Russian, it has a lot of older words, native Bulgarian words or Turkish loanwords. Plus grammar differences make Bulgarian and Russian less mutually comprehensible. Serbo-Croatian stands even further away, common Slavic roots also acquired different senses or other roots are used. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, I'm just going through the history how some of those "fancy words", that can be easily be traced in (Old) Church Slavonic writings, are used in formal writing in Russian.--KoreanQuoter (talk) 03:41, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
I see. The "fancy words" are not the core vocabulary, though, otherwise close languages would be less mutually comprehensible. Cf. Hindi and Urdu - basically the same languages but they have different literary traditions and often different "high level" languages, they prefer to borrow from. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:46, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
I would arrange major Slavic languages from the Russian point of view in order of their similarity to Russian (see dialect continuum) in this order (core vocabulary): Russian - Ukrainian/Belarusian (together) - Polish - Slovak - Czech - Bulgarian - Macedonian - Serbo-Croatian - Slovene. Literary forms would make Bulgarian closer but not enough to replace closer languages. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 04:13, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

More requests for reviewing edit

Because the last topic is enormous.

[2] --Romanophile (talk) 18:17, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

[3] --Romanophile (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

[4] is this the correct translation? --Romanophile (talk) 13:56, 21 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, como si. —Stephen (Talk) 06:15, 22 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

[5], [6] are these perfect? --Romanophile (talk) 04:48, 29 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

es:en tant que seems fine, but es:nawak should mention that it is verlan, a type of backslang (una forma de argot en la que se invierten las sílabas de las palabras, como en lunfardo). —Stephen (Talk) 05:30, 29 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
I altered the etymology of the latter to mention verlan. Is the Spanish grammar perfect? --Romanophile (talk) 16:53, 29 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

[7], [8] --Romanophile (talk) 04:08, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

[9] (I’m feeling paranoid tonight). --Romanophile (talk) 04:42, 15 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

[10], [11] --Romanophile (talk) 15:11, 20 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

[12] (not sure how good your Catalan is). --Romanophile (talk) 03:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

[13] perfect? --Romanophile (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

You’ve put "Sinónimo: en avance." Don’t you mean antónimo? —Stephen (Talk) 00:02, 3 June 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that was a bit careless of me. I just fixed those two errors. I hope that you like this entry now! --Romanophile (talk) 02:58, 3 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

[14] --Romanophile (talk) 16:14, 1 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Under the Portuguese adjective, you have faltante defined as faltante. I would change that to que falta, but "faltante" does not even appear in the editing window. —Stephen (Talk) 16:30, 1 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Okay, I fixed it. Is the entry perfect now? --Romanophile (talk) 16:36, 1 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
I don’t like to use the word "perfect," but I think it is good now. —Stephen (Talk) 17:02, 1 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

[15] --Romanophile (talk) 03:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

[16] & [17] --Romanophile (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

[18] (am very uncertain about the Old Italian section) --Romanophile (contributions) 06:02, 6 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

[19] (especially the Old Spanish section) --Romanophile (contributions) 00:56, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

[20] (mostly the grammar, and you can ignore the Spanish section, since it’s not mine) --Romanophile (contributions) 06:05, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks edit

Thank you very much Stephen for helping in the translation of EN to Latin. It is always good to know that still exists people in this world capable of helping others. I Wish you the best.

What separates good language from bad? edit

A few days ago, a French teacher told me that I use French better than some of his students. Tonight, a Spaniard told me that there’re native Hispanophones who write worse than I do. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talkcontribs) could probably chime in and confirm whether or not I use Portuguese better than the natives he’s seen. This got me thinking: What separates good language‐usage from the bad? Natives who use their language carelessly can probably still be comprehended by at least some people (unless I’m wrong), and if the goal of communication is to be comprehended, what use are language rules?

At the risk of sounding extreme, is there even a right way to use language? --Romanophile (talk) 01:33, 6 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

If I may chime in, I would have to say that language is a medium, and therefore should be thought of as a tool, philosophically speaking. Tools are specialised, and thus won't be as effective for every purpose, but they can also be used in different, even counterintuitive ways, and therefore it is impossible to say that any given tool has zero utility for any given purpose. One general class of purposes for which language can be used, and one which traditional philosophers have viewed as being the primary or only true use, is communication, and in that case maxims can be constructed to describe, with minimal subjectivity, "correct" use of language. Probably the best example are the Gricean Maxims. However, language is used for a vast range of purposes other than communication, such as social bonding and defining social groups (also a good example because there is a great deal of sociolinguistic literature that describes how this is studied). The point I'm trying to make is that if you want to qualify language use and rate it according to any kind of a scale, you must separate language uses out by the purposes to which they are tied, and if you do not, you are making comparisons among things which cannot be compared unless quantified first. [Disclaimer: This is my philosophical viewpoint, and I think it is fairly mainstream, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone here disagrees with a significant part of my argument.] —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:56, 6 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Language is complex and it includes many different registers and styles. When someone says your language is bad, it can have different meanings. Often it is a matter of being inappropriate for the intended audience. If you attend classes at Harvard University and write your class papers using spellings and grammar that is appropriate to texting, your professors would probably say that your language is bad and that you should leave school forever. But if you are texting your close friends and using language that is proper for a Harvard term paper, your friends will think you’re nuts.
Language has many more facets than just spelling and grammar. There is also taboo language, or avoidance language, and if you write or speak while breaking the cultural linguistic taboos (for example, using curse words), some people may be disgusted and declare your language to be very bad. In some cultures, if you break these language taboos, you may be sent to prison or even killed. In Spain, blasphemy was a jailable offence until Francisco Franco’s death in 1975. Until then, if you blurted out par de hostias (translation: I’ll slap you twice with the Host), you would be sent to prison. Just using the word ¡rediez! (a euphemism for ¡rediós! meant a long, hard prison term. In Mexico, these words are meaningless (blasphemy simply does not figure into Latin American cultures).
Another consideration is a person’s clarity of thought. Many people write with a kind of relaxed thinking, with blurred and ambiguous meanings, and their writing reads as if in a thick haze. A few people are able to write with great clarity of thought, and it comes through even when they write in a foreign language with numerous grammatical and stylistic mistakes. An example of this is w:Joseph Conrad (his Polish name was Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski).
When you study a language, you are (hopefully) learning the best and most generally appropriate words, spellings, and grammar. Native speakers know every possible range and register of their language, and often they are so inured to a certain relaxed, hazy style that they are unable to write their own language well, although they can recognize excellent writing and can read it with ease. Language is not a recent invention, it is like a living organism, and it has a symbiotic relationship with mankind. Language and developed and evolved right along with mankind, and language is as complex, emotional, spiritual, and deep as a human being. —Stephen (Talk) 02:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Matched-guise test might interest you. Also any kind of book on sociolinguistics. At my university, we used The New Sociolinguistics Reader (Coupland & Jaworski, 2009), which has quite a lot of diverse material in it on attitudes to language, etc. beyond the simple purpose of communicating. Equinox 03:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

PaulBustion87 (talkcontribs) edit

This guy asked me privately to review his unblock request or request an administrator to do so. Are you interested? --Romanophile (talk) 20:59, 11 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

PaulBustion88 (talkcontribs) has made a lot of people angry and created a lot of extra work, but has not done much of anything that could be considered useful or helpful on Wiktionary. Trying to reason with him results in these huge masses of text that nobody would want to spend an afternoon reading (I assume they are explanations or defenses, but I didn’t bother to read them either). I know that he wants to help, but he is either too young or too radical and eccentric to do acceptable work, and reasoning with him does no good. Unblocking him would only cause hard feelings among the regulars here, and he would just get blocked again. I would like to help him, but he would rather argue than listen. —Stephen (Talk) 08:57, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I guess that by ‘young’ you are referring to his biological age. (I was thinking that he was maybe ∼30, but I don’t have a good reason for that.) I was pretty young and considerably troublesome when I entered the project as well, but I like to think that I’ve mostly improved since then as both an editor and a person. (I think that SemperBlotto dislikes me, though.) I myself would soften the duration to a few years, as forever is an extremely long time and he could potentially be a completely different person in ∼5 years.
I selected you because you seem like one of the most amicable chaps on the project, but I can understand that you’d prefer to stay out of any drama. I myself am, quite frankly, manipulable, so maybe my opinion isn’t worth all that much in this case. --Romanophile (talk) 09:26, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I said in my unblock appeal that I would not insist on my point of view, and if others disagreed with my changes I would let articles stay as they were. I'm not a radical, I'm a conservative politically. And I'm not as young as Romanophile, I'm 27 years old. I have the impression Romanophile is between 20 and 23 years old. You say I contributed nothing to the project, but I wrote a lot of entries that were not deleted, such as [21], [22], [23], [24], and more. --PaulBustion87 (talk) 09:41, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Romanophile, yes, biological. A lot of contributors start at an early age, and some of them have been fast learners and done excellent work. Others have been a huge drain on everyone’s time. Wonderfool started out here around the age of 20, I think (he was taking university courses). He did great work, but then he would flip out and cause everybody trouble. We gave him lots of second chances, but they always ended the same way. Finally he was blocked indefinitely. Nowadays he’s back again, but we don’t trust him very much and he can’t have admin tools anymore. He’s older now, more mature, and he has not wigged out in quite a while. Even though PaulBustion88 is blocked indefinitely, that really does not mean forever. Wonderfool has been blocked indefinitely many times, and after a few months he always returns with a new account and promises to do better. Until his current reincarnation, he did not keep his promise for long. —Stephen (Talk) 10:17, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
PaulBustion88, you just seem to lack common sense. It’s not enough that in future you only have to be reverted once per article. After you learn our formatting, you should not have to be reverted at all. Nobody wants the job of following you around to check your work. After a few weeks, you should be at a stage where we can trust you and not have to examine your edits. Everybody here is trying to get some work done, and nobody likes patroling inexperienced editors. It’s drudgery. The regulars such as SemperBlotto now believe that they will never be able to trust you and that they will forever be saddled with watching everything you do. —Stephen (Talk) 10:17, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Ok, then I'll make sure I will not write anything that has to be reverted again. I have a feel for what would be reverted based on Equinox's criticisms of my editing.--PaulBustion87 (talk) 10:50, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think you should take a break for a while to let the other editors calm down. You’ve upset them. If you made just one more edit, somebody would block you again even if the edit was completely reasonable. —Stephen (Talk) 11:16, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
[25], on this project I managed to make over 500 edits without being disruptive. I even asked the administrator there, Hydriz, if he felt I was being disruptive and he said no. And I did not insist on my own view of things. For example, even though I personally favor the traditional definition of rape over the politically correct version where women can rape men, when I was reverted on that entry, I did not revert back or even argue about it, [26], and in the pedophilia entry, even though I favor the medical definition of an adult who is sexually attracted to prepubescent or early pubescent children over the popular definition of an adult who is sexually attracted to or has sex with any minor, because everyone at English wiktionary had disagreed with that viewpoint, I heavily modified how I wrote the entry on simple English wiktionary so it would look more like what BoBoMisiu, Equinox, and my other critics would want, I put the popular definition in, and even made it the first definition, [27]. I did that without being told to do that by anyone on simple English wiktionary. I also corrected my mistaken edits on simple English wiktionary stating the term British Isles was obsolete after Equinox and others corrected me about that here, and reversed those edits on simple English wiktionary, again without anyone on simple English wiktionary even asking me to do that, [28], so that shows that I have become better and more neutral in my editing. PaulBustion87 (talk) 06:45, 15 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Contributions and status on other wikis are irrelevant. They don’t mean anything at all here. You should not have to ask if you’re being disruptive. If you are being reverted, you’re not fitting in. —Stephen (Talk) 08:56, 16 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Ok, well if I agree to go by common use of words from now on, instead of my opinion, or the medical opinion, or whoever else's opinion, could I be allowed to come back? For example, with the rape entry I insisted on the historical definition of a man having sex with a non-consenting or unwilling female instead of the popular gender neutral use of the term, and with the pedophilia entry I insisted on the medical definition of adults attracted to prepubescent or early pubescent children instead of the popular definition of adults being attracted to minors, and with the British Isles entry I mistakenly said that term was obsolete based on what Irish government officials said ignoring its popular use. But I stopped insisting on those viewpoints before I got in trouble, and I will not insist on them in the future, so as long as I stop insisting on obscure use of words and accept that I have write about actual usage, not my opinion, doesn't that solve the problem? PaulBustion87 (talk) 10:11, 16 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
There is no central command for these things. Everybody is an independent editor. As I mentioned above, you have some regular editors upset with you. If I unblocked you, it would likely cause hard feelings among them, and any one of them will probably immediately block you again. If they don’t block you, then they will be saddled with the unpleasant task of checking your every edit for the foreseeable future.
Once you get a reputation for unacceptable entries that need repeated reverts, it is hard to move beyond that. You have a bad name and the editors who must patrol your work are not very likely to listen to promises to do better. —Stephen (Talk) 10:31, 16 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Does Navajo use ethnic slurs? edit

I wondered this about an hour ago. Nonetheless, I’m doubtful since I figured that race is (mostly?) a European concept. I think that Native American culture is much more egalitarian, but they might still resent Europeans. --Romanophile (talk) 18:14, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Not really. They call some people by a word that can mean enemy, but its basic meaning is simply "other than Navajo." Some of the words the Navajo use for other countries and peoples would be considered slurs if we used them in English, but in Navajo they are not intended as slurs. A common word for black people, zhinii, has taken on a derogatory meaning, but that is a recent cultural borrowing from English. Binááʼádaałtsʼózí dineʼé, meaning Oriental, means Slant-eyed people. Binááʼádaałtsʼózí dineʼé bikéyah (Japan) means Slant-eye country. Tsiiʼyishbizhí Dineʼé Bikéyah (China) means Braided pigtail people’s country. However, in Navajo these are not slurs. Navajo did not even have any obscene or rude words at all until recently. Over just the past 50 years or so, obscene connotations have been adopted from English and applied to what were once innocent words.
Some ordinary words such as daaztsą́ (he/she died) may be rude and insensitive in many cases. They prefer to say that someone has walked on. It is considered to be extremely disrespectful to speak of certain things at the wrong time of year. For example, stories about coyotes can only be told during the winter. It is disrespectful and blasphemous to tell them at other times of the year. It is extremely disrespectful to point with a finger. Some natural phenomena such as rainbows can only be pointed at with the thumb. Most things may only be pointed at with the whole hand, or with with lips. —Stephen (Talk) 18:45, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

gracias edit

Thank you for always being nice to me. --Romanophile (talk) 00:26, 17 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

You’re more than welcome. Thank you for being interested in things. —Stephen (Talk) 06:34, 17 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Medieval Latin edit

Is Mediæval Latin pretty unpopular? At least on‐line, there seems to be a bias towards Classical Latin. I would be very surprised if there were still any schools that taught it as opposed to the classical version. --Romanophile (talk) 10:55, 18 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

  • <butting in> I only attempted to learn Latin in order to read medieval and early modern texts (parish registers and similar documents mostly). </butting in> SemperBlotto (talk) 11:06, 18 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
    • I think most students in the U.S. study Classical Latin. Serious students who go on to major in Latin will also take Medieval Latin courses, among others. It should not be difficult to find schools that offer courses in Medieval Latin. —Stephen (Talk) 11:33, 18 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Ah, I see. Would you say that that variant is stigmatized? --Romanophile (talk) 11:37, 18 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
No, it’s not stigmatized. —Stephen (Talk) 11:44, 18 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Can you confirm if homo is attested as a pronoun in Latin? Is it restricted to mediæval texts? --Romanophile (talk) 09:24, 7 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

It was used like a pronoun (even in Classical Latin), but I don’t think it is considered to be a pronoun. It’s like the way people use the word people as a pronoun today, but it’s really a noun. —Stephen (Talk) 11:58, 8 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

venir del latín edit

¿Hay gente que dice que el castellano, el francés o sea lo que sea, no se derivan del idioma latino? --Romanophile (talk) 14:46, 19 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Nunca he oído hablar de cualquier persona que lo negó. —Stephen (Talk) 14:49, 19 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

French learners of Spanish edit

Are there any difficulties that Francophones have when they first learn Spanish? Are there sounds that they can’t pronounce, or some other difficulties? --Romanophile (talk) 05:17, 4 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, they especially have trouble with Spanish r, rr, d, and z (Castilian). The Spaniards have far more difficulty trying to pronounce the French (especially the r, ch, v, z, and many of the vowels). —Stephen (Talk) 05:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi Abusive permanent Bock edit

Hi Stephen, I have been permanently blocked by Vahagn Petrosyan for stupid reason, just because I added some comparing terms... Can you help me please ??? I even reverted Tjetër that you allowed me to add...

All of them were sourced... And for tjetër I asked you...

I say that a talk on my page about nonsense/gibberish, well I explain how the Semitic / Latin / Qrêgu language is composed and it is some explanation of my research. It is the revelation that I had by studying the faith and this is my synthetisation, I plan to make my own database for Gheg & about this, all web page are already done I just need to find a way to MySQL & PHP, because I don't know nothing about...

This guy have a problem with me I think, I don't know why he act like that... I think it is because he is Armenian, and the hate the Ottomans because they were in war with them, so he don't like me because I'm an Albanian muslims... Also he erase all comparing and cognating vord from the Greek... But he keep Latin (Armanian = Rman Roman), why I doesn't like the Greeks ?

Thank, you can reach me at my email address that you can surely find in profile or contact me at FaceBook Pro‑file that you have surely, or here, help me please... I even blocked my capacity to write PM to others admins than him and to edit my talk page, at least allow me to write PM to you thank and to talk in Talk Page (I have the right to explain my theory about languages and freedom of religion, though & expression is a Human Right Article 18 & 19), and allow me to edit for my Albanian languages, he erase all content from me, he is not fair (even those with source, what is this political ???)...

I have made donation to wiki in the past, so I have the right to contribute, as well for my Gheg Albanian languages (even vords from antique, medieval & Ottoman era), even if some racists discriminators doesn't like that and want to erase our culture by using theories of the Russian Vladimir Orel... If wiki doesn't want to allow the truth about origin of my peoples, it is very bad & sad. Blocking me is useless because I can edit hidden, but it is ridiculous because the time I spend here should be known & my vorks registered for the history... I'm going to contact the U.S & Albanian and Turkish Human Right administration for the way of abusive censuring of this admininstrator & for not allowing my Gheg languages to exist in Alternative Forms (and I have the source), also Gheg is recognized by U.S.A with the code ALN... 91.180.195.193 (talk) 10:55, 3 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Allowing well-attested romanizations of Sanskrit edit

I think it inappropriate for a vote to be closed on the same day on which a vote was cast that brought the balance just above the 2/3 threshold. That is especially so if the vote was already running for 5 months. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:55, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

I see you have not only reverted my post to the vote but also protected the vote page. I don't know what to say. This a very bad administration. It now makes a pattern on your part. These are sad days. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:59, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I acknowledge your sadness. There is no rule about extending a vote for a specified time after the last vote is cast. The voting time expired and the vote was decided. There was no basis for another extension. The vote had been open for five months already. —Stephen (Talk) 15:12, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
There is no rule. There is a principle. Principles are not rules. The principle is that the vote should not be closed on the same day on which a vote was cast that brought the balance just above the 2/3 threshold. The principle is based on the notion that the bringing above 2/3 can, statistically speaking, all too easily be noise. That principle is the basis for extension. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:19, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
In fact, the vote had to be extended in order for your vote to be valid. Before my extension, the vote was scheduled to end on 5 July. To vote in support on 6 July, day after the nominal closure day, do so without extending the vote, and then close the vote on that same day, that to me is pretty spectacular. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:22, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Votes are rarely closed at the designated time, and votes are permitted until the vote is finally closed. Maybe you should draft a set of rules for voting and have it discussed and voted on. —Stephen (Talk) 15:27, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I am all for sound principles. I object both to the rule mentality and the accompanying "there is no rule" mentality. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:30, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Dan Polansky - in fairness, votes are not closed purely on the numbers. A frivolous or poorly argued vote can be discounted by the closing admin. Given the proportion of oppose votes made without providing any reason to oppose, an admin could have closed this as having passed even without meeting a precise 2/3 numerical threshold. bd2412 T 15:31, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

That's a fair argument. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Help request edit

I must thank you for the help extended to me; whenever I needed. I would like to work for sometime here once again; I need help from nice people like you. Is it worth spending the precious time here or in Omegawiki. Kindly advise me.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:26, 11 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

I’m glad to help when I can. I have never heard of Omegawiki, sorry. —Stephen (Talk) 12:17, 11 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
This is link for OmegaWiki [29]. Kindly advise me whether it is better than English Wiktionary or not. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:19, 12 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
OmegaWiki seems very strange. It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t see the advantage of it. I doubt that most people will find it useful. —Stephen (Talk) 14:49, 12 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
User:Chuck Entz has created Telugu verb inflection tables. Does it help it creating the Telugu Verb declension tables more easily. or does it have any other purpose. Kindly see this entry ఫలింౘు. There is some error. What is the reason.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:55, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I created the category Category:Telugu verb inflection-table templates, not the items in it. Categories make it easier to find things, but they don't have any effect on the process of creating them. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:25, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
As for the error with ఫలింౘు, I'm guessing that it started when you added the alternative form section to ఫలించు- it looks like you mistyped the word there, and then clicked on the redlink to create ఫలింౘు. All it will take to fix the ఫలింౘు entry is to move it to the correct spelling. You can do that yourself, but it would take an admin to move it without leaving a redirect behind. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:46, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Rajasekhar1961, the error in ఫలింౘు (phalinĉu) is caused by the transliteration module (Module:te-translit). It does not include the letter . I have left a note at User talk:DerekWinters#Telugu module. He will be able to include it. —Stephen (Talk) 12:07, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
There is also another letter also ౙంకు in the earlier Telugu language. Kindly request him (DerkWinders) to add this also in the Telugu language module. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you very much User:Chuck Entz and User:Stephen G. Brown for the help in Telugu module.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 04:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Could you do me a favour please? edit

Hello, I was just wondering if, when you have a moment, you could delete this edit of mine from some time ago: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kaixinguo~enwiktionary&diff=prev&oldid=31268139, and then also this request. I asked other people to do it but they didn't do it for some reason. Thanks :) Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Done. —Stephen (Talk) 22:09, 14 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
You deleted the harmless edit summaries, but not the edits themselves. I fixed it for you. --WikiTiki89 13:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I did not know you could delete an edit like that. I thought the edit summary was all that could be done. —Stephen (Talk) 14:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
There are three checkboxes for what you want to hide: "Revision text", "Edit summary", and "Editor's username/IP address". --WikiTiki89 15:00, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, I knew I could rely on you :) I always thought you might be a small governmental translation department rather than an actual person, but it does seem like you are a person after all. Thanks to Wikitiki89 as well.
Whilst looking back over my talk page, I saw all the helpful comments that User:Robert_Ullmann made when I first started editing here :( Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 20:08, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
@Robert_Ullmann Bye, Robert Ullmann. See you. Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 20:43, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Telugu-English dictionary edit

I have been working in English wiktionary for sometime. I have added few thousands of definitions for Telugu language words. But the major lacuna in my work is the References. I know few online Telugu-English dictionaries, which according to some people are copyrighted. Quoting them here may be objectionable. Can you find me one online copyright free Telugu-English dictionary, which I can quote in my wiktionary pages. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:14, 19 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Here is A Telugu-English Dictionary which you can use. See also this link to its Creative Commons License. —Stephen (Talk) 18:06, 19 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I was using this Telugu-English dictionary earlier. Can you make one template for this; like the one currently used for Monier Williams Sanskrit-English dictionary, so that the link takes the person directly to the relevant page. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 08:55, 20 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I’m not very good at making templates. Hopefully this one at Template:R:te:CPB will work. —Stephen (Talk) 11:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you very much sir. After page number does the "/n" indicates the column in that particular page. I have used the template in ఎడ and ఎడబాటు pages.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 15:06, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that’s for the column. However, I don’t think that the CPB Telugu dictionary uses columns (columns are vertical spaces, while rows are horizontal spaces). I don’t ever remember seeing a page in the Telugu dictionary with more than one single column. So page 0184/7 should be written page 184 instead. There is no way to indicate the row or line. ఎడ is the 7th row on page 184, but there is no way to indicate that. —Stephen (Talk) 23:44, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think the columns are not necessary for this dictionary. Today I have added this reference to few Telugu words; unfortunately it is going to a wrong page. See: మత్స్యము. Can you find out what is the reason.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:14, 22 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
The dictionary has misnumbered some of the pages. For example, there is no page 920 in the dictionary. The dictionary pages go from page 919 to 921. Our template counts the pages accurately, so the page that they have numbered 953 is really 947. There is nothing we can do about that, it is a mistake in the dictionary itself. To go to the correct page, you have to put the page number 947. —Stephen (Talk) 08:06, 23 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have corrected by references according to your advise. But my doubt, if the DSAL website corrects their mistake, all my references would be wrong.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:48, 7 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Sometimes that happens. If it happens, we will just have to make corrections. Sometimes a website that we have links to closes down, and then we have to delete all of the links, or find other websites that we can link to. It is a risk that we have to live with. You should not worry about that. We will correct it if it happens. —Stephen (Talk) 05:57, 7 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you very much.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:05, 7 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Jupiter years edit

There are 60 Telugu years; the individual pages are already created by me. See: Category:Telugu years. They are derived from Sanskrit Jupiter years. A move tag is attached to them (I do'nt know the reason) Can you make a template similar to days of week.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:36, 25 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Are there similar Jovian years system in any other language or country.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:29, 25 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, the Jovian 60-year calendar is used in Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Tibetan, Thai, Khmer, and other languages of India and Southeast Asia. —Stephen (Talk) 10:53, 25 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have completed most of the work. Can you check them. Similar list template for Sanskrit words may also be helpful to these words. Few of the Telugu words are considered as borrowed words from Sanskrit. What is the difference between a borrowed word and an etymologically derived word.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:05, 30 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Quality of a language edit

It is a stupid question. Are there any parameters, by which we can assess the quality of a language. I would like to assess the Telugu language by these parameters.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Not really. We can use words such as colloquial, slang, obsolete, archaic, dated, formal, literary, figurative, vulgar. —Stephen (Talk) 11:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Some of these categories I have created for Telugu language. Can you give 1-2 examples in Telugu language for each category. I would follow those words to create the Telugu words in those categories.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 14:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I don’t think I can find examples in Telugu, but I can try to describe them.
colloquial = informal spoken language, but not usually written. "How are you?" is standard, but "what's up?" is colloquial.
slang consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular group of people, such as teenagers. Marijuana is standard, but grass is slang.
dated means old-fashioned. Wonderful is standard, and swell is dated (a word that my parents might use).
archaic means no longer in everyday use but sometimes used to impart an old-fashioned flavor. Malaria is standard, ague is archaic. Apart is standard, but asunder is archaic.
obsolete means no longer used, and people may not understand it. Alluring, enticing, and attractive are standard words, but illecebrous is obsolete (no long used and most people would not understand it).
formal means proper, the best language, educated usage. "I have a lot of things to tell you" is formal language. "Lots to tell you" is informal.
literary is a register of a language that is used in literary writing, and may be too formal for speech. Literary forms of Telugu include: prabandham, prakhyātam, utpadyam, mishramam, champu, kāvyam, padya kāvyam, gadya kāvyam, khanda kāvyam, kavita, śatakam, daśaka, avadhānam, navala, katha, and nātakam.
figurative means language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. An example is "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Of course, I could not really eat a horse, but this figurative usage indicates that I am very, very hungry.
vulgar means not having or good manners, showing poor taste, being impolite. Some examples are fuck, shit, prick, cunt. —Stephen (Talk) 15:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Telugu proverbs edit

Telugu proverbs are very few. Today I have created the page: అందని పూలు దేవునికి అర్పణ. I have a book of Telugu book with English translation by M. W. Carr written in 1868; available in google books: [30] can I create pages for some of these proverbs. Give me one correct example. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, you can. You can follow the example of без кота мышам раздолье (which is a Russian proverb). —Stephen (Talk) 22:47, 1 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you sir. In one of the proverbs అందని పూలు దేవునికి అర్పణ; the word అందని is negative form of అందు. How create it; in what category of verb forms.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:32, 3 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think you could do అందని like we do with English can't. —Stephen (Talk) 04:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

and edit

Hi Stephen. Thanks for creating these. Unfortunately, I don't understand what "double plus" and "triple plus" mean. Could you add usexes or something to those pages to elucidate their meaning, please? Thanks in advance. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:51, 2 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the usexes. So, am I correct in concluding that just means "+1", whereas means whatever a user wants it to mean? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 11:25, 3 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think that would be an oversimplification. I would say that means "make a number twice as big and then add __ to it", since other addends are also possible. While seems to be mostly used as an arbitrary user-defined operator, it can also be used in other ways, such as the 3n + 1 conjecture, where it can be used to mean “triple plus __”, or 3n+__. Essentially, means "double plus", and means "triple plus", and they may be used whenever you want to say "double plus" or "triple plus". Mathematics, being a vast and not yet fully explored discipline, may have many uses for "double plus" and "triple plus". Trying to pin them down to a single usage would be like trying to pin down the verb "to be", with all its various parts, to a single usage. —Stephen (Talk) 18:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Oooh, I see. So, are (× 2, + n) and (× 3, + n) both attested and correct usages? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, but it’s hard to find them. Google treats and as punctuation...that is, they are ignored. —Stephen (Talk) 05:48, 9 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, Stephen. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Just a tip, if a mathematical symbol is encoded in Latex (which I think these are, as \doubleplus and \tripleplus), you can search for its Latex notation on Google Scholar, searchonmath.com and latexsearch.com. You may need to tweak the notation you find to get it to display here in <math> tags (apparently different versions of Latex are not entirely compatible), but that's how I cited e.g. WT:RFV#⋖. However, these symbols seem to be pretty rare and get hardly any hits. - -sche (discuss) 20:22, 9 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
@-sche: Did you find anything citeworthy? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
No, although I also didn't look very hard for doubleplus. For tripleplus, I didn't see any uses at all (only a few mentions), so I'm not sure it'd pass RFV. - -sche (discuss) 00:10, 24 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
@-sche: Hmm. :-S I see. Any interesting mentions of ? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:26, 24 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Small doubt edit

In the new pages created by me, the transliteration in most of the templates are shown by default. Should I manually enter the transliterations under "tr=" again. Is there any technical way to add this automatically.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

I don’t think you need to enter the transliterations manually, unless the automatic transliteration is incorrect. I believe that the template that you use is what determines whether there is an automatic transliteration. If you use {{head|te|noun|head=తెలుగు}} or {{te-noun|head=తెలుగు}}, there will be an automatic transliteration. If you only use [[తెలుగు]], it won’t make a transliteration. If you do not get an automatic transliteration, then you could put {{l|te|తెలుగు}} temporarily, and that will give you an automatic transliteration, which you could copy and paste where you need it to appear. Then you would delete the {{l|te|తెలుగు}}. —Stephen (Talk) 07:09, 13 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you sir.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 08:48, 13 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

92.17.188.66 09:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC)Andrew92.17.188.66 09:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC) Thank you for your clarification as to the query about the etymologies of the different meanings of 'cat'. My due apologies for my ignorance as to the age of the enquiry. The page on CAT is now self-explanatory; and therefore no one need to raise that question again. Thanks also to whomsoever sorted this. Regards, 92.17.188.66 09:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC)Andrew92.17.188.66 09:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Telugu plurals edit

You have been very helpful since the beginning in clarifying many of my doubts. I came to know recently that User:Lo Ximiendo User:AxaiosRex, User:Embryomystic and some other persons are also helping the Telugu language developmental works.

I have some doubt regarding Telugu plurals. I have been creating entries for Telugu plurals of nouns. But now I see two templates for Telugu plurals as "plurals" and "noun forms". I came to know from the plural forms in different languages including English, that there is only one system. I want your opinion regarding the Telugu plurals; which system to follow.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:11, 20 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

I would use {{plural of}} for noun plurals. I think that "noun forms" (I’m not sure what the template name for this is) are useful for different noun cases, such as genitive, dative, accusative. —Stephen (Talk) 12:48, 20 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
It is {{|te|noun form}} template for some Telugu noun plurals.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:11, 20 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
{{|te|noun form}} is not a template, the template is {{head|te|noun form}}. That is, the template is {{head}}, and "te" and "noun form" are parameters that give information to the template. For plurals as well as other noun cases, you can use {{head|te|noun form}} (under the heading of "Noun"), and on the definition line you can put {{plural of|గాడిద|lang=te}}. —Stephen (Talk) 13:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Some bots like MewBot is creating Telugu noun plural forms as a separate category see: గాడిదలు. Is there any advantage by doing it. Many Italina and French plurals are regrouped into their noun plural forms. Is it necessary to do it for Telugu language.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 04:31, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
@Rajasekhar1961: This is just a standardisation change being made across all languages; you do not have to take any action. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 04:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for clarifying my doubts.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Telugu chemical elements edit

I have started preparing pages for all the chemical elements (ex: సోడియము) in Telugu language and link them to Telugu wikipedia articles. I remember you have helped me in template cardinal numbers. Can you prepare one similar template for this elements linking the page to other chemical elements.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:56, 22 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

I will try to do it as soon as I have time. My computer crashed last week and today I found out that it cannot be repaired. I have bought a new computer, but it will take me some time to set it up properly. —Stephen (Talk) 02:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
I am very sorry to note about your computer problem.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 03:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Soon I should have some time to work on this. For the cardinal numbers, there are two templates: {{list:cardinals from zero to forty-nine/te}} and {{cardinalbox|te|}}. What do you have in mind for the chemical elements? What is the template supposed to do? —Stephen (Talk) 11:04, 28 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
The template similar to the second one {{cardinalbox|te|}}. It is to help navigate from the earlier and later elements.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:17, 28 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Here it is: {{elements|Na|నియాన్|Ne|మాగ్నీషియం|Mg|lang=te}} —Stephen (Talk) 14:56, 30 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you sir, for taking lot of your valuable time in preparing the Chemical elements template. I have started using it today. Please check their usage for correctness.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 15:43, 30 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Dear Stephen, I have created about 20 pages about the chemical elements including their archaic names. I am adding the archaic names to this Caterogy of Chemical elements. I am not adding these names to their English names. I am adding the etymologies also. Can you please check them and can suggest me if any corrections.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 15:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Hi, Rajasekhar, I made a few minor adjustments, but they look good. —Stephen (Talk) 15:27, 12 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you very much sir.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:48, 14 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

пейзан, пейзанин edit

Hello! Would it be interesting for you to translate these words? I've found the definition here but I'm not sure how to translate it.--Cinemantique (talk) 11:40, 22 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Cinemantique. I will have a look shortly. Мой компьютер разбился, и сегодня я купил новый. Мне нужно время, чтобы настроить новый компьютер. —Stephen (Talk) 02:55, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Хорошо, понятно.--Cinemantique (talk) 05:31, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Telugu archaic forms edit

I have created శ్యామము as an example of Telugu archaic form. It originally means dark blue or black color. I found in two English-Telugu dictionaries of 1930s as the meaning of caesium. But it is not there in current Chemistry textbooks.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

អ្នកគិតលេខ edit

Привет, Стивен. Как нужно транслитерировать អ្នកគិតលេខ (калькулятор)? Транслитерация в словаре Sealang иногда очень непонятная. Ты не мог бы заполнить некоторые запросы в Category:Translation requests (Khmer), особенно важные, частоупотребимые слова? --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 04:00, 28 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Привет, Анатолий. Транслитерация является «neak kit leek» или «neak kɨt leek». Иногда транслитерация кажется непонятным, потому что многие кхмерские слова имеют более одного произношения. Я заполню несколько кхмерских запросов. —Stephen (Talk) 04:53, 28 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Спасибо, теперь я понял :) --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:04, 28 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
А как нужно читать សិល្បករ? Что значит "səlləpaʔ~səl kɑɑ"? "səlləpaʔ kɑɑ" или "səl kɑɑ"? --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:45, 28 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
Да, это значит "səlləpa’ kɑɑ" или "səl kɑɑ". —Stephen (Talk) 06:14, 28 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

A bureaucrat is needed edit

A bureaucrat is needed to enact the decision of Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2015-08/User:TweenkBot for bot status. --WikiTiki89 21:07, 4 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Telugu quotations edit

How to add quotations to the Telugu entries. I have done a few poetic stanzas ; but they are not in current usage. I have one work of Gurazada Appa Rao; who is a proponent of common man usage of Simple Telugu. See this link: Mahakavi dairealu. But there is no English translation. Can I use the sentences in some rare / common words. Telugu Wikiquote is in a very beginning stage to get quotations of famous people. Please advise me.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 15:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

You could place the quotations on the Citations tab (see "Citations" tab at the top of the page). On the Citations page, you would just add:

{{citation|lang=te}}

==Telugu==
  • {{quote-book|first=Gurajada|last=Appa Rao|title=Mahaakavi d'airiilu|year=1954}}
    ఈ ఫైలులో అదనపు సమాచారం ఉంది, బహుశా దీన్ని సృష్టించడానికి లేదా సాంఖ్యీకరించడానికి వాడిన డిజిటల్ కేమెరా లేదా స్కానర్ ఆ సమాచారాన్ని చేర్చివుండవచ్చు. ఈ ఫైలును అసలు స్థితి నుండి మారిస్తే, ఆ మారిన ఫైలులో కొన్ని వివరాలు పూర్తిగా ప్రతిఫలించకపోవచ్చు.
    ī phailulō adanapu samācāraṁ undi, bahuśā dīnni sr̥ṣṭiñcaḍāniki lēdā sāṅkhyīkariñcaḍāniki vāḍina ḍijiṭal kēmerā lēdā skānar ā samācārānni cērcivuṇḍavaccu. ī phailunu asalu sthiti nuṇḍi māristē, ā mārina phailulō konni vivarālu pūrtigā pratiphaliñcakapōvaccu.
    This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.
    —Stephen (Talk) 01:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have added to పొడిగించు. Is it right.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 04:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Well, if you look at the top of the page, you should see several tabs, including entry, discussion, citations, edit, history, delete, move, watch. I think it should be placed in the citations tab (that is, in Citations:పొడిగించు). That’s what the citations page is intended for. And then on the పొడిగించు page, you can insert the following:
====Quotations====

{{seeCites|lang=te}}

However, if you prefer it the way you have it now, that is all right, too. You can do it either way. —Stephen (Talk) 04:34, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Is it ok now. What is the deference between the quotations and references.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, it looks good to me. "సెలవు వొకనెల పొడిగించితిని" is a quotation, and "1954, Gurajada Appa Rao, Mahaakavi d'airiilu" is a reference. —Stephen (Talk) 06:15, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Can I add the reference book link here itself.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:20, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, you can use it in place of the title: {{quote-book|first=Gurajada|last=Appa Rao|title=Mahākavi ḍairīlu|year=1954}}. —Stephen (Talk) 06:32, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Plurals in Template:table:chess pieces edit

Do you think all languages listed in Template:table:chess pieces should have the group name pluralized? I've been using the singular form but I noticed you edited Telugu and Persian. Or is using the plurals just a Telugu/Persian thing? --Daniel Carrero (talk) 03:34, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Well, the English uses the plural. Also, since this is the title of a table that lists the pieces, I think that only the plural makes sense. It would be odd to put "Chess Piece" at the head of a list of all the chess pieces. —Stephen (Talk) 03:50, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
OK. If it's not too much trouble, could you check these language versions for plurals too: Template:table:chess pieces/ja, Template:table:chess pieces/ms, Template:table:chess pieces/sh. Also, the plural of sakkbábu, which was mentioned as a synonym at Template:table:chess pieces/hu. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 05:14, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Japanese and Malay do not change. I edited the Serbo-Croatian. The Hungarian synonym is sakkbábok or sakkbábuk. —Stephen (Talk) 06:05, 17 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Could you check these two other templates? They are lacking the translated titles.

--Daniel Carrero (talk) 07:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

All looking good. —Stephen (Talk) 22:54, 11 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

incorrect translation edit

Hi

May i ask whether you used a source for this incorrect Finnish translation or whether you just made a mistake? If you used a source, it would of course be important to check other edits it was used for because it's obviously an unreliable source. --Espoo (talk) 19:28, 25 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, that was almost seven years ago. I have no memory of it. —Stephen (Talk) 07:42, 27 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Different meanings of the same word edit

How to separate the etymology, and references of the same Telugu word; for example: కారు, బీరు, రమ్ము etc. Can you help me please.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:52, 26 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

I never add references, but for etymologies, just number the etymologies. If a spelling has two different etymologies, use ===Etymology 1=== and ===Etymology 2===. If there are more than one etymology, but you only know one of the etymologies, you can still add ===Etymology 1=== and ===Etymology 2===, etc., and insert the information that you know for one of the etymologies, while leaving the other etymology blank for the time being. —Stephen (Talk) 07:51, 27 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Municipalies of India edit

I have started entering the pages for Indian Municipalities. Category:te:Municipalities of India. It is giving error. Can you correct the problem. I would expand the group statewise. Is it advisable or continue for the entire country. Kindly advise.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:35, 1 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

It is a harmless error. Proceeding should be okay. (It seems that the template checks category names against a list of names it knows, and "Municipalities of India" is not yet on the list.) —suzukaze (tc) 06:55, 1 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Can I create the pages for Indian Districts Category:te:Districts of India either State wise or other.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I think it is good. I have seen Category:zh:Districts, which is for Chinese. —Stephen (Talk) 14:48, 1 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Can you help me creating Appendix:Districts of India from the list available in English wikipedia: w:List of districts in India. It will be useful for all the Indian languages to create and expand their pages in English wiktionary. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 14:46, 4 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have put the Wikipedia list at User talk:Rajasekhar1961/Districts in India for you. You should be able to find what you want there. —Stephen (Talk) 14:01, 5 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Can you prepare an alphabetical list from this link using some program short way (just to save some time). I have created about 40 pages in this Category of Indian districts. Advise me if there are any errors.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 15:07, 5 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
I don’t know which names you want to have. You can use the following table to alphabetize a list of districts. Just add the two lines "| [[]]" and "|-" to make the list as long as you need:
District
[[]]
[[]]
[[]]
[[]]
[[]]
[[]]

—Stephen (Talk) 15:40, 5 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Playing cards edit

I have created a template from English version about playing cards: Template:table:playing cards/te. Can you check whether there are any mistakes.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

It looks good. —Stephen (Talk) 21:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Proper nouns edit

Some proper nouns like Janaka is a patronymic for Janaki. Similarly some Telugu surnames are derived from the place their ancestors lived in. And some male proper names are derived from their fathers or other ancestors. Is there are any good way to link them with their lineage.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Patronymics can have a category similar to Category:Russian patronymics. I think you could also have Category:Telugu toponymic surnames for surnames that are derived from places. I suppose that male proper names that are derived from their fathers would be patronymics. —Stephen (Talk) 22:58, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have created Category:te:Patronymics and Category:te:Telugu patronymics. Both of them are giving error messages. Which one is correct. Kindly help me. Kindly check సాలూరి for the Category:Telugu toponymic surnames--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:05, 15 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Just Category:Telugu patronymics. I made a minor edit to సాలూరి. —Stephen (Talk) 17:55, 15 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Initialism vs acronyms edit

I have created NIN as initialism for National Institute of Nutrition. Is it OK. What is the difference between the initialism and acronyms. Can I create these pages in Telugu language.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:14, 2 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Initialisms are pronounced as if one were reading the individual letters out loud ("en ai en"). Acronyms are pronounced as single words ("nin"). In English, html is an initialism, and radar is an acronym. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:06, 2 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Some people call them all acronyms, others make the distinction that Chuch Entz described. Both approaches are "correct" and acceptable. --WikiTiki89 17:33, 2 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, initialism is a new name for abbreviation (సంక్షిప్తం). Examples of abbreviations include etc. (etcetera), R.S.V.P. (répondez s'il vous plaît), and P.S. (postscript). Abbreviations (initialisms) are pronounced letter by letter: R.S.V.P. = ar-ess-vee-pee. Examples in Telegu are: క్రీ.శ. (A.D.), బి.సి. (B.C.).
Acronyms (సంక్షిప్తనామం) are abbreviations that are pronounced as if they were a normal word: NATO (N.A.T.O. = North Atlantic Treaty Organization), radar (R.A.D.A.R = Radio Detecting And Ranging), laser (L.A.S.E.R. = Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation). An example of a Telugu acronym is అరసం (అభ్యుదయ రచయితల సంఘం). —Stephen (Talk) 02:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
This is clearly understood as far as English language is concerned. But for Telugu language, the script and the pronunciation are the same. Then how to separate them. for example: తితిదే for తిరుమల తిరుపతి దేవస్థానములు. Whether you consider it as an acronym or abbreviation, pronunciation is same. Kindly advise me about how to separate them or not. Then the other problem is about యునెస్కో for UNESCO. Which category to keep it. Whether to use fullstops (.) in between the letters for abbreviations.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 04:33, 3 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Well, క్రీ.శ. (krī.śa.) means క్రీస్తుశకం (krīstuśakaṁ), so it is really an acronym. So, keep the Acronym category. As for fullstops, use whichever method is preferred in Telugu. —Stephen (Talk) 05:10, 3 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Telugu logic edit

There are some Telugu logic words derived from Sanskrit. I have created two pages of that nature: మర్కటకిశోరన్యాయము and క్షీరోదకన్యాయము. In which category to keep them; Are they nouns. Kindly help me.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:26, 16 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Possibly మర్కటకిశోరన్యాయము could be called a proverb (నానుడి) (Category:Telugu proverbs). But I think I would just call them nouns. In English, the terms deductive logic, inductive logic, formal logic, informal logic, symbolic logic, and mathematical logic are all nouns. —Stephen (Talk) 14:24, 16 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Google? edit

The translation for this template is the best so far. May I ask which translator/software you used for that particular one? Afka hooyo (talk) 10:55, 28 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

That was translated by Mohamed Mimursal (so:w:User:Mimursal). But Mohamed Mimursal is no longer here, he left over 3 years ago.
I think that, for Template:User so-3, he put this: Isticmaalahan wuxuu Soomaaliga ugu hadlaa si aad u fiican.
For Category:User so, he put: Isticmaaladaan waxee ku hadli karaan af Soomaali.
I have found these translations on the Somali Wikipedia:
so = Isticmaalahan Soomaaliga waa afkiisa hooyo.
so-4 = Isticmaalahan wuxuu Soomaaliga ugu hadlaa sida afkiisa hooyo oo kale.
so-3 = Isticmaalahan wuxuu Soomaaliga ugu hadlaa si aad u fiican.
so-2 = Isticmaalahan wuxuu Soomaaliga ugu hadlaa si dhaxdhaxaad ah.
so-1 = Isticmaalahan wuxuu Soomaaliga ugu hadlaa si aad u yar.
so-0 = Isticmaalahan waxba kama yaqaano af Soomaaliga (ama wuxuu ka yaqaanaa wax aad iyo aad u yar). —Stephen (Talk) 11:19, 28 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Turanian language edit

I have created a page తురుతు with CPBrown reference. But etymological linking to Turanian language is showing an error. Kindly clarify what is the code for this language and how to link it.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 14:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

I believe Turanian refers to the supposed w:Ural-Altaic language family, which has been pretty much abandoned for at least 50 years. At one time it was widely accepted, but that was before anyone seriously tried to work out the details. Even those who think that there's an Altaic language family (a minority of modern linguists) and who also think that it's related to the Uralic language family don't think that the relationship is any closer than either has to other language families. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:06, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Chuck is correct, Turanian is obsolete as a language name. It was never a specific language, but used for the Ural-Altaic language family (which is now also obsolete, I believe). Sometimes Turanian referred to the Mongolian language family (which included Finno-Ugric, Turkic, and other Asian languages. That’s why there is no language code for Turanian. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any way to tell what language CP Brown meant when he used the word Turanian in etymologies. We just do not know what the etymologies really were. —Stephen (Talk) 15:41, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you Chuck and Brown for clarifying about the Turanian language. I would delete the etymology section of this word.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Nahuatl days of the week edit

Why did you move these back to pagetitles with macra? If you look at Category:Nahuatl nouns, you'll see that existing practice for Nahuatl (as well as Classical Nahuatl, which has had a lot more work done on it) is that macra should not be used in pagetitles. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:29, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

I have never seen Nahuatl written in formal texts without its macrons. As far as I know, the Nahuatl macron is as necessary as the Maori macron or the Spanish acute. I have not heard about an existing practice for dropping the macrons. —Stephen (Talk) 01:45, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
That standard was Ptcamn's doing; it can be changed, but then we ought to move all the pages. @Koszmonaut might have an opinion. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
It looks like User:Ptcamn~enwiktionary has not been active for eight years. —Stephen (Talk) 02:00, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
The current system is basically the system in use for Latin, where macrons are integral to the entry but do not appear in the head word, though I'm aware that Latin more often “drops” its macrons, whereas, as you mention, that is not the case for Classical Nahuatl. I admittedly hadn't thought much of it until now, though. It might have to do with the fact that many of what are now entries in Classical Nahuatl, Mecayapan Nahuatl, Tetelcingo Nahuatl, etc. were previously —and wrongly— mashed together into umbrella “Nahuatl” entries and therefore had to encompass several possible pronunciations. Certain Classical Nahuatl words are considered to have uncertain pronunciations vowel length-wise too, so maybe that played a part? In any case, Stephen's point is one to consider. —K  (talk / contribs) 12:42, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
The terms under Category:nah:Days of the week are actually a good example of (part) the problem in question. What particular language variety they correspond to within the Nahuatl dialect continuum should, ideally, be clarified. —K  (talk / contribs) 12:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
The days of the week are in the same dialect that the Nahuatl w:nah:Huiquipedia is written in. —Stephen (Talk) 12:57, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
To my understanding, the Nahuatl Wikipedia uses many of the conventions of Classical Nahuatl for broader readability (as modern Nahuatl varieties aren't always mutually-inteligible) while incorporating neologisms and other deviations from Classical Nahuatl norm as necessary, thus the use of .nah. Where that leaves us, though, I really don't know. —K  (talk / contribs) 13:03, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes. I cannot narrow it down further than that. —Stephen (Talk) 13:05, 7 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

interpretation edit

Stephen, do you have any experience with interpretation as a career? --Romanophile (contributions) 04:52, 23 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I was a professional translator/interpreter from 1966 until 2007 when I sold my company. —Stephen (Talk) 03:53, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Do you have any advice on acquiring a career in interpretation, preferably for somebody without college experience? --Romanophile (contributions) 07:50, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
I don’t think anyone would get very far as an interpreter without a college degree. If someone wants to become an interpreter, he has to do at least two things: spend several years in the country of his second language, included some semesters at a local university; and select at least one important field to specialize in, such as finance, medicine, or engineering. Finance is one of the best and most needed fields for this kind of work. You have to know both the English and the foreign-language terms for everything. Everything you learn in English, you have to learn in the foreign language as well, and vice versa. Also, remember that technologies, laws, and best practices change over time, so you have to keep up with continuing education every so often for your working lifetime.
If the person who is interested in becoming an interpreter does not have English as either his first or second language, he probably needs to add English as one of his main languages. If he lives in Europe, he could get by without English so long as his two languages are important European languages, such as Spanish and Dutch. If a Czech speaker wanted to learn Japanese and become a translator or interpreter, there is very little work available between Japanese and Czech. The Czech speaker would need to work in Japanese and English.
If the person wants to work in the U.S., there are no special certifications required. However, in many other countries, including Europe and Canada, it is necessary to attend an approved translation and interpreting school and pass the certification exams. It really is quite a lot of work before you can enter the field, and that’s why translators and interpreters are well paid. In the U.S., there are no laws, rules, or oversight for aspiring translators/interpreters, and anyone may present himself as one. In Europe, translators and interpreters are considered professionals, just like doctors and lawyers, and there are strict laws and oversight bodies just like the American Bar Association for lawyers and the American Medical Association for doctors. —Stephen (Talk) 09:04, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
The main reason why I excluded college education is because college requires a high school diploma or a G.E.D. I have neither, because advanced mathematics is difficult for me and it’s also difficult for me to maintain interest in it. (I passed almost all of the G.E.D. tests except for maths.) You could suggest some potent solution for my mathematic deficiency, but I doubt that it exists. I was thinking that I could just take a test to receive a certificate or whatever to verify my Spanish skills, or I could do some volunteer work and wait for somebody to consider hiring me. If none of those are reasonable, well, I could always jump off of a building because American interpreters need to comprehend advanced mathematics. --Romanophile (contributions) 12:41, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
That could be a problem, all right. You might check with some of these approved translation and interpreting schools to see what their prerequisites are. There are some colleges in the U.S. that do not have a math requirement (or there used to be), but if you find one, I’m pretty sure they will require at least a G.E.D.
As I said, in the U.S. it is not absolutely necessary for translators and interpreters to have a college degree, but it is difficult to imagine how you would be able to learn Spanish well enough, including a field of study such as engineering or petroleum, without attending some college courses. There is so much technical language, and there are very few good technical dictionaries for any given field. The technical dictionaries that exist are really expensive (like $100 to $300 or more per book), and they still have only a fraction of the terms you will encounter.
At the very least, you would have to select a field to specialize in, and then find and subscribe to (buy, borrow, or steal) all of the periodicals, journals, magazines, and publications put out for the industry that you can get your hands on (both English and Spanish). And then you’d have to read all of them carefully and gradually try to absorb the technical vocabulary for both languages, and try to determine what everything in one language corresponds to in the other language. Without some college-level courses in the selected industry, it will be very hard for you to develop the understanding and vocabulary in both languages, but I think it is possible.
Since there are no laws or authorities in the U.S. that cover translators or interpreters, you can legally work here if you can find work. You still need to get certification eventually from the American Translators Association, which will require evidence of at least five years’ work as a translator or interpreter (evidence may include either of the following: Letters of reference from clients or supervisors showing five years’ work experience; or Copies of records of business activity such as Schedule C tax forms, corporate tax returns, 1099s, invoices, or work orders) before you will be allowed to take the certification exam. The trick will be finding work for five years when you don’t have a degree or previous work experience. I think it could be done, but you would have to have an excellent command of technical Spanish and intimate knowledge of at least one good field of specialty. —Stephen (Talk) 13:42, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, my plan is to volunteer somewhere, maybe at a hospital, until they consider hiring me. If they’ll never hire me, the work experience will at least help me acquire some type of certification, with or without a G.E.D. or diploma. Still, I’m going to need to have to acquire some technical vocabulary, and I don’t know if the Internet alone can supply that. If all else fails, I’ll probably either live with somebody who likes having me around, or commit suicide. --Romanophile (contributions) 15:08, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
As far as I know, the internet does not supply the technical vocabulary except showing where to find some technical dictionaries. For a while I considered adding a lot of technical terms here on Wiktionary, but some editors here have indicated that they do not want to see such terms added here. You might give it a try a some local hospitals, but ideally you should try to develop relationships with some translating companies. Hospitals probably will have sporadic and infrequent work, but translating companies (who would have more frequent jobs) will already have a list of interpreters that they work with. They probably would not call you unless all of their listed interpreters were out (sick, on vacation, on other jobs, etc.). That’s what it usually takes to get started with a translating company. When you finally get a call for a job, if they see that you are very available and easy to work with, and if they think you’ve done a good job, then they will start using you.
But if all else fails, I’m sure there is other work that would prove satisfactory. In some cities such as Houston, TX, they have a healthy steel industry, and you might try your hand at nondestructive testing (NDT). Nondestructive testing is used by those kinds of companies, and it includes various kinds of testing, such as radiology, magnetic particle inspection, ultrasound, and so on, on their steel products to make sure they are not defective before shipping to their customers. It’s pretty easy to learn and it pays well. There are untold numbers of interesting jobs around...it’s just a matter of discovering them and going to a city where they do it. —Stephen (Talk) 15:38, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Stephen, about: "For a while I considered adding a lot of technical terms here on Wiktionary, but some editors here have indicated that they do not want to see such terms added here."
What kinds of terms? Do you have a few examples of unwanted terms? Because I can't speak for the others, but I would like to see more technical terms around here. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 15:44, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
For example, legal terms, business terms, petroleum technology, medical terms, aircraft terms. I did try adding some aircraft terms and legal terms, but some of them were deleted because some editor thought they were SOP or unattested. Some good legal terms in Spanish might be derechos absolutos, derechos accidentales, derechos acuáticos, derechos aduaneros, derechos ajustables, derechos al valor, derechos civiles, derechos consulares, derechos de las acciones, derechos de entrada, derechos de exclusividad, derechos de exportación, derechos de fabricación, derechos de guarda, derechos de licencia, derechos de patente, derechos de propiedad, derechos de quilla, derechos de represalia, derechos de salvamento, derechos de secretaría, derechos de sello, derechos de subscripción, derechos de sucesión, derechos de terceros, derechos de timbre, derechos equitativos, derechos esenciales, derechos estatales, derechos expectativos, derechos hereditarios, derechos impositivos, derechos jubilatorios, derechos judiciales, derechos limitados, derechos para renta pública, derechos personales, derechos políticos, derechos portuarios, derechos precautorios, derechos protectores, derechos reales, derechos relativos, derechos reparadores, derechos reservados, derechos ribereños, derechos secundarios, derechos singulares, derechos subjetivos, derechos sucesorios, derechos y acciones. When the other editors began deleting them, I stopped adding them. —Stephen (Talk) 16:02, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
@SGB: Most, though not all, of those are SOP. We do want technical terms, and I've done a bit of work on adding Spanish scientific terminology, but these are probably not appropriate.
@Seth: I can say from experience that not only are college courses extremely helpful (and sometimes well nigh irreplaceable), but people didn't value my actual abilities as being something worth paying for until I had taken courses and gotten a degree that proved I could do it. You can solve the first half by asking professors at a local university if you can audit their classes, but not the second, which is critical to a career. If you accept that the high school-level maths are beyond you, then this will be an unbreakable barrier, but if you choose to attack it, I am sure you can get a GED and go on to community college (and ideally, subsequently transfer to a four-year institution). There are many free resources, including prep books and free tutoring, available at public colleges and universities that you can take advantage of even as a non-student. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 19:20, 24 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the list, Stephen. It's more that I asked for, and I appreciate it. It's true that (AFAIK) these terms are SOP and thus not accepted here. But I wonder if a person could translate all these terms accurately by translating their parts: derechos absolutos = absolute rights?; derechos accidentales = accidental rights?; derechos acuáticos = aquatic rights? If they can be translated that way in all cases, it would seem fine. But if they can't, then it would seem that Wiktionary is a poor bilingual legal dictionary by design, unable to reach the quality of good printed technical dictionaries that would have those terms. Correct me if I'm wrong about something, as I'm no professional of law. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 01:54, 26 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Some of them can be translated accurately by their parts, but you will not know which ones are translated correctly unless you already know the term in English. If you don’t already know the English, then you cannot know whether the translation is correct. The ones you did are absolute rights, qualified rights, aquatic rights, so you got two out of three. The others are customs duties, flexible tariff, ad valorem duties, civil rights, consular fees, stock rights, import duty, exclusive rights, export duty, patent royalty, custodian's fee, license fees, patent royalty, property rights, port dues/keelage, retaliatory tariff, salvage money, court clerk fees, stamp tax, stock rights, death duty/inheritance tax, rights of third parties, stamp tax, equitable rights, absolute rights, government fees, expectant rights, hereditary rights, duties, pension rights, court costs, qualified rights, revenue tariff, personal rights, political rights, port duties, preventive rights, protective duties, federal taxes, relative rights, remedial rights, all rights reserved, riparian rights, secondary rights, absolute rights, civil rights, inheritance tax, rights and actions.
The problem stems mainly from two things. First, a lot of people do not fully understand the meaning of the word term (they feel that term refers to a single word that does not contain word spaces). The other is the meaning and usage of the word space itself. It is easy to see that every simple word (single words which contain no spaces or hyphens) are terms and that they belong in the dictionary as long as they are/were used in the English language and are correctly spelled); but people are confused by terms that contain word spaces. In order to define which space-containing "words" are dictionary-worthy, somebody came up with the idea of SOP, and that has been our fatal flaw. Somehow, thank you and come in are accepted (even though they are SOP), but export duty is rejected. All of the above-mentioned Spanish entries are all terms used in legal documents, but, since they contain word spaces and since some of them are SOP (even though there is no way to know that they are SOP unless you already know the English translation), they are banned as SOP. That points out another huge problem here: most people have a difficult time seeing other perspectives (such as derechos de salida from the perspective of a person who knows what it means in English, as well as from the perspective of a person who does not know what it means in English).
Difficulty of seeing other perspectives is what makes it so easy to enter a complex underground cave system (no problems from the cave entrance until the cave ends...there are no wrong turns), yet so dangerous to find your way back out again (every time you come to a point where you can turn, only one way is correct, and the other ways are always wrong). —Stephen (Talk) 05:57, 26 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
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