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Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2016/December

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Fifth LexiSession: gift edit

Monthly trend topic is gift. This time, it was suggested by Cbyd on LexiSession Meta page. So, if you want to participate in this common task, let's try to discover what can be gathered around the word gift. Maybe not a thesaurus this time but verbs and related terms. I have no idea, it's a collaborative experiment with no guide no direction. You're free to participate as you like and to suggest next months topic. Hope there will be some people interested by this   Noé (talk) 14:45, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I actually added gift-giving as an idea for a focus week over at FWOTD before even seeing this; fits in nicely :) — Kleio (t · c) 11:05, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, in English to gift includes genetic or social inheritance, e.g. "Father's bequests were immaterial, gifting us with red hair, fiery temperaments, and poverty." - Amgine/ t·e 16:38, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See also German Gift. But I think the English examples are just irony. An example with a noun would be "The gift I got for Christmas was a black eye." --WikiTiki89 16:43, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Translations of places edit

I am curious to hear the current opionions/policies regarding translations of proper noun place names, with the example being Navarre and these translations added by a single anon. - Amgine/ t·e 03:26, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The same as any other translations (or entries)- usage or an external reference if it's a limited documentation language. DTLHS (talk) 03:29, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I may have been too abstruse: the user added translations in 69 languages. It seemes likely the user is copying from another reference work. How would one attempt to determine if the copying is a copyvio if we do not know the origin? Is there a policy directly addressing translation copyvios? WT:COPY would seem to guide, and it suggests raising the question in fora, like here. - Amgine/ t·e 03:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It seems more likely they were copied from the various Wikipedias. DTLHS (talk) 03:42, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is an Egyptian Arabic wikipedia? <weirds> - Amgine/ t·e
@Amgine: Arabic is a pretty broad language family--moreso than German, less so than Chinese. The Egyptian Arabic (Masri) Wikipedia was announced at a Wikimania in Egypt. And a list of facts can't be copyrighted, so it's not a problem for anyone to copy them. No one can "own" a list of U. S. state capitals. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:14, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
<nods> I am aware, barely, of the semitic groups. Being more knowledgeable of online communities than linguistics, I was surprised by there being a large enough active community to maintain a wikipedia, and that they had created an article on arz:Navarre. - Amgine/ t·e 17:06, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not under that name, obviously. It's at w:arz:نافارا. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:38, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting Monguor edit

Monguor, spoken by a Mongolic minority in Qinghai and Gansu provinces of China, is traditionally considered a single language with two macro-dialects: Huzhu and Minhe Monguor, henceforth Mongghul and Mangghuer. However they have been treated as two languages in most recent literature:

"Mongghul, or Huzhu Mongghul, is, together with (Minhe) Mangghuer, generally
referred to as ‘Monguor’ in the specialist literature. The Chinese nomenclature subsumes
the two populations and their languages under the designation Tu or Turen ‘Local
People’, and assigns only dialect status to the two varieties. Linguistically it is, however,
clearly a question of two separate languages. The traditional name Monguor, which is
nothing but a transformed shape of *monggol, is, strictly speaking, not justified for
Mongghul, since the syllable-final sound change *l > r characterizes, apart from
Mangghuer, only part of the dialects of the Mongghul language, notably the Naringhol
(more exactly, Narin ghuor) dialect. The shape Mongghul, on the other hand, is based on
the Halchighol (Halqighul) variant, which is territorially more widespread, has more
speakers, and is the basis of a newly created literary language."

~Stefan Georg in The Mongolic languages (2003)


"Mangghuer, or Minhe Mangghuer, is spoken in Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County,
at the extreme eastern edge of China’s Qinghai Province, just north of the Yellow River.
"Mangghuer has not usually been described as a language in its own right. Rather, it has
been treated as one of the two main dialects of the ethnic ‘language’ spoken by the
official ‘Monguor’ (Tu) nationality, the other dialect being (Huzhu) Mongghul, spoken
mainly in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County, also in Qinghai. However, Mangghuer speakers
and Mongghul speakers alike report that they are unable to understand each other. While
no comprehensive study of the differences between these two linguistic systems has been
undertaken, it is fairly clear that they are different enough to warrant independent treat-
ment. Since the two speech communities are not geographically contiguous, this ought
not to be surprising."

~Keith Slater in The Mongolic languages (2003)

If you want to see the difference yourself, check this paper out, it is pretty drastic, especially phonotactics. Neither of them is featured in print much, but Mongghul is a legit literary language endorsed by the Chinese authorities, with an orthography based on pinyin; while for Mangghuer "there exists an unofficial orthographical norm", which developed naturally due to Mangghuer phonology being quite similar to Mandarin phonology.

I don't know if we need to have a vote on this, but here's my case. Crom daba (talk) 09:17, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How would we implement this split practically? The code for Monguor is mjg. Would we keep that code for one variety (presumably the one with the larger published corpus, if that make sense in this case) and devise a new Wiktionary-internal code (presumably xgn-something) for the other? Or should we deprecate mjg and devise two new codes, e.g. xgn-hmo and xgn-mma? Could we use mgj as the basis for the new codes, and call them something like mgj-huz and mgj-min? These questions aren't necessarily for Crom daba, but more for users with experience in creating new codes, like CodeCat and -sche. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:38, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have much Monguor material here so splitting it either way won't be much of a headache. I'd advise for keeping mjg for Mongghul and perhaps using mjg-min for Mangghuer. Crom daba (talk) 16:47, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The codes should start with xgn. Pinging @-sche because they haven't commented yet. Personally, I'm on board with the split. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 04:48, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On a related note, I see that we already have the most obscure of the Mongolic languages, Kangjia. May someone with access to Module:languages/data3/k mark it as Mongolic (xgn). Crom daba (talk) 03:07, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  Done. By the way, Requests for moves, mergers and splits is where we usually discuss language treatment, though it sometimes gets discussed here, too. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:25, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion continues at WT:RFM#Splitting_Monguor_into_Mangghuer_and_Mongghul in a thread that will eventually be archived, probably to WT:LTD. - -sche (discuss) 01:01, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Romance reflexive verbs edit

How are we supposed to treat them? I've seen usage all over the place. See recoucher, an apparently reflexive-only verb with a non-reflexive conjugation table that isn't linked to from se recoucher. Then we have the mention in the non-reflexive form and also the page itself, as in atrofiar and atrofiarse. I've been avoiding adding reflexive verbs because they're such a mess. Not to mention the translation tables that reflect these inconsistencies. Ultimateria (talk) 16:45, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the language. In Spanish, reflexive verbs are one word so it makes sense to treat them as such. But in French or Catalan, they're two words, so it makes more sense to treat them as reflexive senses on the base verbs. The latter is how we treat them for Dutch as well, see vergissen. —CodeCat 16:49, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Italian reflexive verbs are, of course, handled perfectly - even having proper conjugation tables. See lavarsi as an example. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:50, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem is that "reflexive" is used to mean many different things. In Spanish there are "pronomial verbs", some of which are purely reflexive (must always use the reflexive pronoun), some which can be reflexive or not depending on context, some verbs which are "quasireflexive" and are used in passive constructions. DTLHS (talk) 18:16, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Recently, generally, with my Spanish reflexive verbs, I generally add a reflexive tag to a defn line. And link, for example, documentarse to documentar. But if something is only used reflexively, I give it its own lemma, like autolesionarse. --Derrib9 (talk) 18:21, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea of keeping the reflexive tag in the lemma unless it's reflexive only. So in that case you just create the page in the [infinitive]se form with something like "reflexive form of [inf]" and a conj table? Then link to it in the lemma as a...related term? Alternative form? Ultimateria (talk) 14:11, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Will the reflexive infinitive still receive its own inflection table? —CodeCat 15:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think we discussed this a long time ago; I'm in favor because although it's a logical combination of pronouns and verb forms, it's still helpful for language learners (plus things get tricky in commands) (and look at the cool pronunciation feature of the French ones!). The question becomes where does the conjugation belong. Look at cansar. It has a reflexive sense, a reflexive conj table, and a link to cansarse. I also like that cansarse is mentioned as "reflexive of cansar" followed by a description. However I also think it makes sense for cansarse to have the same table. The other thing is that unless the label in cansar says |reflexive|cansarse}}, the conj table labeled "conjugation of cansarse" doesn't mean much. Once again I'm thinking of the average American high schooler forced to take Spanish who doesn't have a clue. The struggle was real. Ultimateria (talk) 16:10, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Article creation wizard discussion edit

Hi all,

This proposal suggests WMF to fund the writing of an article creation wizard at Wikipedia, but with enough interest it may -- in my personal view -- be expanded to write an article creation wizards framework or library for use at non-Wikipedia wikis, such as here. If desired, please join the discussion before December 12.

  • What tools do we use here, now, to make article creation easier for newbies?
  • What requirements do we have for a potential implementation?
  • How would you like to inform the people of the article creation perks and difficulties on this wiki?
  • What else needs to be considered?

Thanks. --Gryllida 03:47, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Judging by the average quality of new English entries and requested entries, our bigger need is for quality-improvement processes and tools to make English articles better. But non-English entries may be helped. DCDuring TALK 12:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unavailability. edit

I'm going to be unavailable until December 14. Normally I'd joke that I'd like to see the dictionary finished before I get back, but this time I'd like to make an earnest plea for us to spend some time focusing on the projects of our departed friend User:Robert Ullmann, particularly User:Robert Ullmann/Missing, User:Robert Ullmann/Oldest redlinks. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not really related, but I have spent a lot of effort cleaning up after Robert Ullmann's Swahili contributions. The largest remaining technical hurdle is redoing his conjugation templates from scratch; if anyone Lua-competent wants to help me do that, I would appreciate it. (This may have to wait a couple weeks because of my obligations IRL, however.) —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 04:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also much appreciated. Robert Ullmann left a great legacy here, and I would like to see all of his projects completed. bd2412 T 20:28, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

English present participles edit

I have noticed that even though they are verb forms, this is deliberately not recorded, for example having a wank. Is there any particular reason for this? I can't think of one, and prefer to record them as verb forms (in line with other verb forms) as well as present participles. DonnanZ (talk) 12:28, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And the silly thing is, because the template used is "head|en|present participle", it is futile adding "nocat=1", it is still recorded as a present participle. DonnanZ (talk) 12:37, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Participles are verb forms, so they are categorised as verb forms, just indirectly. —CodeCat 15:05, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Since the main point of using a headword template is categorization, |nocat=1 would be silly. {{head}} allows for extra categories, so you could simply add "verb form" as one, I suppose. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:12, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there is a point to this. I'm not aware of any language where the normal practice for participles is to categorise them as verb forms and participles. —CodeCat 15:13, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem seems to be inconsistency, as "head|en|verb form" is used with {{en-third-person singular of}}, {{en-past of}} {which also records past participles), and{{en-simple past of}}; but not {{past participle of}} or {{present participle of}}. Forgive me if I'm wrong but this seems to be a CodeCat decision. All that needs to be done is alter "head|en|present participle" to "head|en|verb form" and remove |nocat=1 in every case. DonnanZ (talk) 15:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
But it's not an inconsistency, because those aren't participles. As long as CAT:English participles is a subcategory of CAT:English verb forms (and it is), the individual participles don't need to be in the "verb forms" category directly. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Use of {{en-past of}} makes a mockery of that idea, as it records entries in both Category:English past participles and Category:English verb simple past forms. DonnanZ (talk) 16:12, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
{{en-past of}} encompasses both past simple and past participle, so categorizing in both Category:English past participles and Category:English verb simple past forms makes sense. Compare grown, which is only categorized as a participle. Crom daba (talk) 16:40, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it makes sense, they are also recorded in Category:English verb forms, which doesn't happen with other participles with the present set-up. DonnanZ (talk) 16:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you mean. Perhaps participle categorization should only take place in definition templates rather than headword templates.
On the other hand I'm guessing the only reason you care is because our category browsing display can't show a union of subcategorized entries, and I'd like it if our communal anguish grew great enough for someone to implement this rather than constantly making workarounds (our recent derived/borrowed categorization change is another example of this.) Crom daba (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree about the latter point, that's a real mess too, with countless terms listed as requiring etyl cleanup. Not a lot of joined-up thinking. DonnanZ (talk) 21:00, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Petscan may interest you. It's a WikiLabs project, it can do most set operations, works for Wiktionary and has a nice interface. —Enosh (talk) 11:32, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It looks as though the only way of dealing with participle entries is to do it yourself. There's only (!) 25,000-odd present participles. As for etyl cleanup, that's being left to the dogsbodies and could take years. DonnanZ (talk) 14:59, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Deprecated labels edit

We have a number of deprecated labels (see: Category:Entries_with_deprecated_labels). I don't know that we have a process for deprecating labels, so I am not sure how they came to be deprecated. Some of the deprecated labels have suggested replacements (and I have replaced most or all of those). The ones which do not have a suggested replacement (singular, plural, ordinal [and really cardinal, but there is a typo]) probably should have. The questions are: 1. how should labels be deprecated? 2. should the currently deprecated labels be deprecated? 3. what should be the replacements for the four remaining deprecated labels? - TheDaveRoss 21:49, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Much confusion about {{given name}} in parameter |from= edit

As seen in Category:English male given names, the parameter |from= can be:

  1. Name of a language (Category:English male given names from Ancient Greek)
  2. How the name is generated (Category:English male given names from coinages)
  3. The place of origin instead of the language name (Category:English male given names from India)

The editor who included that functionality is already inactive, so the decision can be made by you.

As for me, I would probably keep the first two, and replace the third type with the language name.

--kc_kennylau (talk) 11:16, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm done with fixing these edits edit

diff. I've tried to make a solution, it was reverted. Tried to discuss a solution, nothing changed. If nobody wants to do anything about it, neither will I. —CodeCat 18:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Did you link the wrong diff? That edit had nothing to do with you AFAICT. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 19:01, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Template_talk:sense#CodeCat.27s_and_DCDuring.27s_edits_to_this_template_on_May_21.2C_2014--Dixtosa (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:table:seasons edit

I only just discovered these cool table things. Where can I find a list of all the different types of tables? And is there a table for the planets (Earth, Mercury, Venus, etc.)? ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:57, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Tooironic: Ok, I created Template:table:Solar System/en. I kinda wanted to include the moons, so I had to choose among including zero, some or all moons. I included some. Also I linked to the Sun. The table could probably have less or more objects, so feel free to discuss or suggest changing the table in some way. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 16:15, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Making wiktionary more visible to search engines edit

If you were trying to find a dictionary of a particular language via search engine, you might type in in something like "Hungarian dictionary" into a search query. However as it happens, at least for Google the search results pages don't have anything on Wiktionary at all for at least the first seven pages. This is in-spite of the fact that this site ranks among the top 600 websites globally. Perhaps what I'm suggesting is that there should be pages titled "(language name) dictionary", that search engines can more easily find and associate with search queries looking for exactly that, and these pages. Maybe pre-existing articles like Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek, Index:Swahili, or Category:Georgian language can be retitled along those lines?--Prisencolin (talk) 10:02, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

However, if you search for a Hungarian word (such as csirke), Wiktionary is one of the first results. --WikiTiki89 14:42, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would oppose any SEO scum tricks that try to make our pages sound more relevant than they are. We could quite possibly improve our rankings a little without going that far, though. Equinox ◑ 14:44, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For example, I could imagine putting "taxonomic name" and "scientific name" in the metadata (Is that where it goes?) of every page that had {{taxoninfl}}. Would that help or do Google and others already do something similar? DCDuring TALK 13:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's essentially SEO... but it's also not a terrible idea, to be honest. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 18:00, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are some very basic things which we don't do. For instance, we don't set meta keywords. I am not sure if we even can. It would probably make sense to have all of our definition pages contain keywords like "dictionary, definition, language, word, translations, etymology" etc. - TheDaveRoss 18:39, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Google's Matt Cutts has said that "Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking" (no doubt because SEO scum ruined them by keyword stuffing). Equinox ◑ 18:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Shows what I know about SEO. I do note that other's are using them still, but it is nice to know that we don't have to worry about ranking lower because we can't modify them. - TheDaveRoss 18:49, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My suggestions are:
  • Find a way to tag definition lines as the main content of a page, especially the definitions of a word’s primary senses.
  • Link to Wiktionary from other sites more often (not in an advertisement-y way, but whenever a dictionary would be a useful resource).
— Ungoliant (falai) 19:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The obvious thing is to link from WP, Wikispecies, and any other WMF projects where it might make sense. Perhaps we should do a run against a file from the XML dump of English WP that identifies all the lexical tokens therein, lemmatize the tokens, and determine what subsets of those terms might benefit from a word-specific link of the form ''[[wikt:Rosa|Rosa]]''. It might be possible to do something more targeted at WikiSpecies, relating to either etymology or vernacular names.
In the case of taxonomic terms, unlike the case of real languages, we face the problem that the L2 header fails to convey the nature of the content provided, even in the broadest terms. At least a Hungarian L2 section conveys the language. DCDuring TALK 01:20, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Linking from the other projects is only helpful for search ranking if they do not use rel="nofollow" (another tactic forced upon us by the prevalence of spammers). I think Mediawiki does use that. Equinox ◑ 01:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think when people search for "Hungarian dictionary" they are expecting a single Hungarian / English or English / Hungarian dictionary. We have no unified interface for such a thing. Everything else will just be unwanted noise. DTLHS (talk) 01:39, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And we can take that in two directions: one, that we should focus on creating better interfaces for our content, something most people here probably don't have a lot of experience with or much interest in. Or, we can focus on providing data and not worry too much about how that data is presented. Then if the data is machine readable, other people will be able to use that data to produce more traditional dictionaries. DTLHS (talk) 01:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Voting limits edit

I edited and restored the previously-withdrawn vote Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2016-11/Voting limits per its talk page. Feel free to discuss/edit the vote. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 13:13, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New way to edit wikitext edit

Summary: There's a new opt-in Beta Feature of a wikitext mode for the visual editor. Please go try it out.


We in the Wikimedia Foundation's Editing department are responsible for making editing better for all our editors, new and experienced alike. We've been slowly improving the visual editor based on feedback, user tests, and feature requests. However, that doesn't work for all our user needs: whether you need to edit a wikitext talk page, create a template, or fix some broken reference syntax, sometimes you need to use wikitext, and many experienced editors prefer it.

Consequently, we've planned a "wikitext mode" for the visual editor for a long time. It provides as much of the visual editor's features as possible, for those times that you need or want wikitext. It has the same user interface as the visual editor, including the same toolbar across the top with the same buttons. It provides access to the citoid service for formatting citations, integrated search options for inserting images, and the ability to add new templates in a simple dialog. Like in the visual editor, if you paste in formatted text copied from another page, then formatting (such as bolding) will automatically be converted into wikitext.

All wikis now have access to this mode as a Beta Feature. When enabled, it replaces your existing wikitext editor everywhere. If you don't like it, you can reverse this at any time by turning off the Beta Feature in your preferences. We don't want to surprise anyone, so it's strictly an opt-in-only Beta Feature. It won't switch on automatically for anyone, even if you have previously checked the box to "Automatically enable most beta features".

The new wikitext edit mode is based on the visual editor, so it requires JavaScript (as does the current wikitext editor). It doesn't work with gadgets that have only been designed for the older one (and vice versa), so some users will miss gadgets they find important. We're happy to work with gadget authors to help them update their code to work with both editors. We're not planning to get rid of the current main wikitext editor on desktop in the foreseeable future. We're also not going to remove the existing ability to edit plain wikitext without JavaScript. Finally, though it should go without saying, if you prefer to continue using the current wikitext editor, then you may so do.

This is an early version, and we'd love to know what you think so we can make it better. Please leave feedback about the new mode on the feedback page. You may write comments in any language. Thank you.

James Forrester (Product Manager, Editing department, Wikimedia Foundation) --19:31, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I didn't realise the visual editor was already enabled here. Regarding the new text editor (esp. in the context of Wiktionary), I left some feedback over at MediaWiki. I've also begun to add TemplateData for some frequently used templates (Category:TemplateData_documentation). This will help new users in the visual editor as well as more experienced editors once the new editor can handle syntax highlighting and autocompletion. – Jberkel (talk) 11:24, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SOP translations edit

It occured to me that in many cases translations of English words into foreign languages may be phrases whose meaning is derived from the sum of their parts and thus do not deserve an entry by themselves. Do we have a way to easily enter such phrases into translation tables and have parts linked individually, and if not, how would you prefer we implement this? Crom daba (talk) 23:38, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, just link them individually inside {{t}} (won't work with the automatic translation adder). DTLHS (talk) 23:41, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say it's pretty urgent that someone makes this work with the translation adder! —CodeCat 00:55, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's line 727 in User:Conrad.Irwin/editor.js- it would be easy to remove the check but I don't know if it would break other things. Done? Revert if necessary. DTLHS (talk) 01:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I hope it works. DCDuring TALK 02:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Calques category edit

Could we make a separate category for "X terms calqued from Y terms" instead of lumping it into borrowings? Crom daba (talk) 18:04, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is this to everyone's satisfaction (double categorization aside)? Crom daba (talk) 23:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Forms of entries that do not exist edit

Just added this category to Module:form of- I can split more individual languages if anyone is interested. DTLHS (talk) 03:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe split off Japanese since Template:ja-romanization of's use of Module:form of and Category:Japanese_romaji_without_a_main_entry is currently creating a redundancy. —suzukaze (t・c) 10:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There seem to be something going wrong here — the category is also being filled with forms of entries that are not in mainspace (i.e. alternate forms of reconstructions). --Tropylium (talk) 16:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't working properly in other cases anyway, and didn't catch most of the things I hoped it would. Removed from the module. DTLHS (talk) 16:46, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books edit

Shouldn't we have the ones of Category:Wiktionary books (user books) out of Category:Books? Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 17:25, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Sobreira: Definitely. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:08, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Populate "Japanese terms spelled with (...)" with all members from "Japanese terms spelled with (...) read as (...)" edit

For example, I'd like to populate Category:Japanese terms spelled with 上 with all the words found in its subcategories.

Say, 坂上 would be a member of Category:Japanese terms spelled with 上, as well as Category:Japanese terms spelled with 上 read as かみ and Category:Japanese terms spelled with 上 read as うえ.

Rationale: When I'm looking for a new Japanese word spelled with a certain kanji that I don't know how to pronounce, I'd rather just see one category about the kanji than click on all the 11 subcategories to find the right word. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 10:04, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it would be useful, for learners especially, but could words be added to categories on such a massive scale and avoid clutter? 天人了 (talk) 08:51, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Currently Category:Japanese terms spelled with 上 itself (not subcategories) is populated with words with irregular readings and words for which {{ja-kanjitab}} is not filled out. What new category would these words fall into? —suzukaze (t・c) 09:00, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If we want to categorize entries for which {{ja-kanjitab}} is not filled out, then I suggest using a single category for all these terms. It should make it easier to clean up by adding the readings. I suggest creating either of these:
  1. Category:ja-kanjitab not filled out or
  2. Category:Japanese terms lacking pronunciation in the character boxes (I prefer this one)
If we want to categorize entries with irregular readings, we may want to create categories like this:
Feel free to suggest other ideas, including different names for these categories. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 09:18, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • We could do that easily if we committed to categorizing with templates only (not likely to happen). DTLHS (talk) 18:23, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Most of our categories in the format "Category:English ..." are already filled by templates, as opposed to many categories in the format "Category:en:..." that are not. Apparently all or most of the "Japanese terms spelled with (...)" are already filled by templates, although I didn't do a complete check. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Vote: Boldface in image captions edit

FYI, I created Wiktionary:Votes/2016-12/Boldface in image captions.

Let us postpone the vote as much as discussion requires, if at all. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:18, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Has there been any discussion of this issue at all? Is it something that needs to be voted on? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:04, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I found this: Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2011/March#Boldface in image captions --Daniel Carrero (talk) 20:22, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There's been no recent discussion, AFAIK. I expect the discussion to develop before the vote or during the vote, but I also expect this to be largely a matter of taste. This could have been a poll instead of a vote, and I have tried to set up the vote in a largely symmetric matter, but I think we can give it a try with a vote. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The voting form is incomplete.   Support has been left out. DonnanZ (talk) 00:17, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to be by design. There are two options that can be supported. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 20:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

V-spellings in katakana and other alternative forms edit

I added two alternative forms of loanwords spelled with ヸ, ヸタミン and テレヸジョン, however should all such terms be added? Considering the number as new loanwords from English are still increasing, this may not be possible. The two that I now added are definitely in use enough to encounter in the wild, some others are also, but theoretically any loanword can be formed with such hypercorrect respelling... I try to include as many alternative forms as I can think of at the moment or add later, which is why in the case of Southern Altai words I only list the alternative spellings or synonyms that exist in different dialects without the standardized variant, rather than separate entry for each variant to avoid clutter.

But Japanese is a major language of the world, unlike the Altai dialects or other Turkic languages etc. Others have added alternative spellings as both new entries and in the main entry, with no standardized practice I can see. The reality is with Altai that not many contribute to Wiktionary actively, and there is a political dimension, with Japanese this is different as Wiktionary is full of Japanese speakers. Should a standardized practice policy exist for alternative forms?

More importantly the concern is, could the addition of links to alternative forms be automated? To manually add all if such are included, not only is timeconsuming but impossible to avoid clutter. My proposal if possible would be an automation for links to alternative forms and synonyms to be added as expandable boxes, as with Chinese terms, so that alternative forms and synonyms can be added without cluttering the entry. But, this is only if alternative forms and synonyms are to be massively included as new entries and/or listed with possible redlinks, naturally. 天人了 (talk) 09:34, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese is a well documented language, which means any entry has to be citeable from at least three uses (not mere mentions) from independent, permanently archived sources over more than a year. If that's true of ヸタミン and テレヸジョン and any other forms with ヸ, they can be added. If not, they can't. I would therefore avoid using automation to add them, because it takes a human brain to determine which forms meet WT:CFI and which don't. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:45, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, isn't it more common to use ヴィ to represent /vi/ rather than ヸ? Are ヴィタミン and テレヴィジョン more widely used than ヸタミン and テレヸジョン? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:49, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, it is sensible to delete them as neither of the words is found in permanently archived sites. I'm sorry for adding them without first asking. 天人了 (talk) 16:08, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The entries should be speedily deleted and the user warned for making things up. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 10:58, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are right that they are not used enough in permanent ways online, then they should be deleted, but to call the entries "BS" and accuse me of "making things up" is not civil. You say this of Japanese but not Altai so I don't want to unfairly accuse you of politics. But, my suspicion is raised because as a Russian you say I should be "warned", sounds like an emotional reaction to suggest I am a vandal. Perhaps I am paranoid to suspect this an attempt to invalidize the Altai entries, but such is so very common in the real world by government policies, that it is questionable if politics has a part in your response... 天人了 (talk) 16:08, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
They needn't be found in online permanently archived sources. Print sources like books, magazines, and newspapers are acceptable too. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:00, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@天人了 My ethnicity or government policies have nothing to do with this. I care about the quality of the dictionary. I'm not suggesting you're vandal. Vandals are blocked, not warned. I don't know what Altai has to do it either and what I said about it. In any case, you have to prove that these spelling are used by using online or offline permanently archived sources. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 23:03, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Proto-Tupian edit

Hello! As you may see, I'm new to Wiktionary, in fact, English is not even my native language. Anyways, I've been wanting to add Proto-Tupian to Wiktionary but I need some help, as I don't know much about this. I have a lot of reconstructions to add and I would really appreciate if Proto-Tupian could be added to Wiktionary. Regards! --~𝔪𝔢𝔪𝔬 (talk) 23:19, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We'll need to add a code for the language to Module:languages/datax. Also are you planning on adding Tupian family entries in conjunction with their proto language ancestors? DTLHS (talk) 23:25, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also what books and letters will you be using? We'll need to document this at Wiktionary:About Proto-Tupian so that others know how to contribute in the same form later. Crom daba (talk) 03:14, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The code would have to be 'tup-pro', and the letters to be used are ɨ, ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ, ʔ, ˀ, ʷ and ʸ. --~𝔪𝔢𝔪𝔬 (talk) 17:03, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've added the code. I recommend creating a few entries and people will let you know if you're doing something wrong. DTLHS (talk) 17:15, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It also needs to be added to the Tupian family and made an ancestor of Tupian languages. Crom daba (talk) 17:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also we have a few Guaraní varieties not subsumed under Tupian. Crom daba (talk) 17:18, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've made you a template editor so I think you should be able to edit the data modules now. DTLHS (talk) 17:19, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Some Tupian languages apparently use the Mongol script... Anyone know what was meant here? Crom daba (talk) 17:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just a copy and paste error I assume. DTLHS (talk) 18:05, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hum. Is it Proto-Tupian or Proto-Tupi-Guarani (PTG)? Actually, I am a linguist working on a Tupi-Guarani language (siriono) and I've been part of a research team on PTG. We haven't described the protolanguage but established cognates to compare 33 languages (all TG but Mawé and Aweti). Our database is not published yet so I imagine you do not rely on this one. But, what are your sources? On how many Tupi non-TG languages are they based? Is it only a lexicostatistic study? Please add the references on every pages and not only on one main page not connected to the others. Noé (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Here's our first Proto-Tupian lemma. Crom daba (talk) 16:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Do you need help with making reference templates @Guillermo2149? Crom daba (talk) 16:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I found this work (in Portuguese) that has PT and PTG reconstructions if anyone's interested, but it uses a different spelling convention than Guillermo's lemma. Crom daba (talk) 16:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

bucketsful edit

Is it the case that the plural of nouns of the form "xful" may always be either xfuls or xsful? SemperBlotto (talk) 08:19, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I expect dialectic variance. cupfuls and cupsful would suggest the latter answer is no, in upper-midwestern, but not apparently in spelling locale of my computer. - Amgine/ t·e 17:40, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What about "buckets full"? DonnanZ (talk) 00:20, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
AIUI, "three buckets full" would refer to three actual buckets that are full, while "three bucketsful" or "three bucketfuls" is just a particular volume that would fill three buckets, though it might be in some other container right now. To answer Blotto's question: I've added a lot of these and I check both plurals in Google Books. Some have a -sful plural and some do not, in practice. Equinox ◑ 02:28, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"References" / "External sources" vote edit

Based on Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2016/November#Suggestion: Mention on WT:EL the fact that external links ≠ references, I created this vote:

Feel free to discuss/edit/whatever. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 19:11, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The vote is scheduled to start in a couple of weeks, just in case some people are not available right now because of the holidays.
In case people want to check the vote or maybe change anything, I'll ping everyone who participated in the previous discussion: @CodeCat, DCDuring, Equinox, Jberkel, Isomorphyc, Angr, Erutuon, Wikitiki89. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 12:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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