User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 25

Request for comment

Hi! I wanted to bring this change to your notice : Talk:Hindi#Hindi_image--Cubancigar11 (talk) 07:57, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Have to disagree, but it should be easy enough to compromise. — kwami (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Merkabah mysticism

I wonder if you could review the latest edits to Merkabah mysticism in which an editor changed the spelling of "Merkabah" to "Merkavah". CorinneSD (talk) 23:36, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

With simple spelling differences like this, there's no correct answer. For transliteration of foreign words, we generally go by what we've agreed to here at WP; for regular text (words assimilated into English), by what's more common in the lit. For the latter, a good place to compare is Google Ngram Viewer. If you plug in those variants with "mysticism" included, the spelling with a bee wins out; if you leave out "mysticism", it's closer, but in either case the vee form is closing fast. (Though Ngram cuts off at the year 2000 because of the lag in scanning in books, and the most you can extend it is to 2008.)

Our editor, though, is only arguing that the italicized transliteration should be changed. That seems reasonable at first – a vee is what we'd use for Modern Hebrew – but ISO 259 suggests that for Biblical Hebrew we'd use a bee. (See also Transliteration of Hebrew#Table.) I really don't know. Certainly the ref the editor used would appear to be irrelevant. You might ask at the help/ref desk or a biblical wikiproject which would be more appropriate in this case. — kwami (talk) 00:14, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thank you. At Google Ngram Viewer, where do you actually "plug in" variants? CorinneSD (talk) 00:29, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

In the search window at top. There should be an example there. No quotation marks, separate w unspaced commas. — kwami (talk) 01:32, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#WP:BOLDTITLE and election articles

I have started a discussion that may interest you at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#WP:BOLDTITLE and election articles. Anomalocaris (talk) 08:27, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

PUA

Running the dump file now, but Doabi dialect has some PUAs. I removed a few already. Bgwhite (talk) 06:35, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that they can't just be deleted without ruining the text. With the boxes, at least the reader recognizes that something is missing. I left a note on the author's page, asking them to clean it up. If nothing happens, I'll delete the section for being illegible. — kwami (talk) 06:59, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I have edited the article: thanks. (Malikhpur) (talk)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 09:35, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello Kwamikagami, I'm here onbehalf of WP:ORPHAN in which you are also a participant. So, we want your opinion to a WP:ORPHAN related matter. It is a proposal by Technical 13. Please have a look here. Your opinion (i.e support, oppose etc) are very much appreciated there. Thank you. By Jim Cartar through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:02, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what they're talking about. — kwami (talk) 03:11, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I haven't either... Peridon (talk) 15:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Redirects

Just a tip - when you CSD tag a redirect, make sure the tag goes above the redir code. If it's below, anyone visiting gets taken to the target (and is likely to think the problem's been sorted...). Tagging above cancels out the redir, so the tag will be seen. Peridon (talk) 15:26, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I purposefully did that so as to not disrupt the redirect. I didn't want to interfere with our readers. — kwami (talk) 21:47, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Barnstar

		All Around Amazing Barnstar
		Dear Kwamikagami, thank you for all of your amazing contributions to language related articles. Your contributions are making a difference here on Wikipedia! Keep up the good work! With regards, AnupamTalk 21:25, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 21:56, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

hi

Hi Kwami, I hate those tag things in texts so what exactly is the problem in the Georgian script article in those sections? Jaqeli (talk) 12:07, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

It means I literally don't know what those passages mean. I don't understand what a "closed circumference" could be on shapes that have no closed lines, or what it means for an arc to take their place on one side, or how you can have a "throat" (I assume that means circle) on a line that has no circle. I've fixed wording like that elsewhere in the article, but I can't fix something I don't understand.

Hey, I like the new image at the top. Very handy. It needs a gloss, though: the transliteration we use in the article, so people can tell what the letters are. — kwami (talk) 19:35, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Kwami, Georgian standard keyboard is not used by anyone and why do you keep inserting it instead of the universally used keyboard for Georgian which is Qwerty? And what's your concern exactly on the Georgian Qwerty keyboard template? Jaqeli (talk) 06:59, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

It's what all the typewriters are, and the default option in MS. This is a historical article, so we should follow historical norms, though we can merge the entire keyboard article if you like. Also, your version of the keyboard was inaccurate: you had the caps mixed up with l.c., and also with alt keys, and deleted several keys as well. — kwami (talk) 07:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

What caps exactly and which letters were wrong? Or which keys I've removed exactly? The keyboard was done exactly to the source. Jaqeli (talk) 07:18, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

What's your source?

The number keys and punctuation were ambiguous: you couldn't tell which was the shift value, except for , and <, . and >, / and ?, and | and ~, which were backwards. ტ and თ were also backwards, and the other letters were inconsistent. You left out N, «, », and ჻.

BTW, why would a Georgian keyboard include the letter N? — kwami (talk) 07:44, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

True, true. I don't know actually why would we need a Latin N there. Weird. Jaqeli (talk) 08:24, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Romang language

Should we move this back to Roma language do you think? All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 07:21, 10 April 2014 (UTC).

Don't know. It would have to be dab'd to st like Roma language (Maluku). The current name is unambiguous, but I don't know if it's better otherwise. — kwami (talk) 07:34, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

It always sits uneasily when the name at the top (without qualifiers) is different from the the name used on the infobox, first in bold in the lead and throughout the article, except in COMMONNAME cases. I will adopt your suggestion I think. BTW birthday cake available on my talk page. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 22:31, 10 April 2014 (UTC).

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Երևանցի ^talk 00:53, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Piri Reis

Hmm. It really makes sense. --Cobija (talk) 09:12, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Backlog drive

Hello Kwamikagami,

WikiProject Orphanage is holding a month long Backlog Elimination Drive to de-orphan articles which have orphan tags!
The goal is to eliminate the backlog of orphan articles. There are currently 53087 articles which have orphan tags. The drive is running from April 12, 2014 to May 12, 2014.

Awards will be given out for all editors participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive. To add your name in the participants list click here.
So start de-orphaning articles! Click here to see the list of articles need de-orphaning.
Visit Suggestions for how to de-orphan an article to know more!

Thanks. _{Opt-out Instructions} by Jim Cartar on behalf of WikiProject Orphanage through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:21, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I've already done the backlog of language articles, or at least all I can find. — kwami (talk) 21:21, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Mount Elbrus

I noticed an edit to Mount Elbrus in which an editor reversed the order of two modern language descendants of Elbrus/Alborz and added an additional sentence about Alborz. What do you think of these changes? CorinneSD (talk) 14:32, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't like the parenthetical, but I don't know what diff the order makes. It may be best to put the better-known language first, as they have. In fact, since AFAIK it's not a Kurdish-speaking area, why bother with Kurdish at all? — kwami (talk) 21:43, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Brazilian postalveolar sounds

They are palatalized postalveolar coronal by what it seems, altogether (I also produce and perceive them as such, and can tell the difference quite easily), but you said here that they are not quite the same of alveolopalatal – indeed, there is a source framing Japanese pronunciation of BP as somewhat exaggerated (it's still closer than the palato-alveolar to my ears though), and the Catalan sound is identical to ours –, so I wonder if I should follow the norm adopted for the nasal and the lateral in their respective articles, and instead of writing [ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ], use [ʃʲ ʒʲ tʃʲ dʒʲ] (or, as you used there, [s̠ʲ]) when indicating their palatalization, including given how the sources do not adopt the alveolopalatal symbols?

In the case you or someone else wonders, I am a bit afraid of editing the affricate articles, because their allophony is just much crazier than that of the fricatives (my source says folks have the Old Portuguese use of them instead of the merger even in Cuiabá, that's already 7 or 8 lines of Portuguese dialectal variations), and people get more passionate over the subject (so I can't just put it as if "well, that takes place in Brazil, the end"... or perhaps can, but not without second opinions), so I've been procrastinating over stuff I should've already done. Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 12:36, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, Ladefoged said that [ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ] is the same as [ʃʲ ʒʲ tʃʲ dʒʲ], and in effect that we don't really need the IPA letters ⟨ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ⟩, which is why I distinguished them as ⟨s̠ʲ⟩ etc. But this is a bit beyond me, and I've come across sounds in this area that I didn't know quite what to do with. — kwami (talk) 21:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Tin

In the first sentence in the section Tin#Etymology, we read, "Tin is Germanic; related words are found in the other Germanic languages". Since "Germanic" is a language family, I wonder whether the word "other" is necessary. Perhaps instead of "related words are found in the other Germanic languages", it should read, "related words are found in several Germanic languages". What do you think? CorinneSD (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

The existing wording is perfectly understandable, even if not completely logical. "Other" clearly means "other than English", though "the" doesn't work unless it's found in all of them. Your wording also works, though it could be read to imply that English isn't a Germanic language, as if it maybe borrowed "tin" from Germanic languages. Maybe we could say "Tin is an Old English word, related to the name (found?) in other Germanic languages"? It's found at least in Dutch, Frisian, High German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Luxembourgish, Old High German, Old Norse, and is reconstructed for proto-Germanic, so unless it's not found in Gothic (would we even know?), it's pretty safe to simply say it's found in Germanic languages. Maybe we could add that it's not found outside of the Germanic family, except when borrowed from a Germanic language (as in Welsh, Finnish, Polish)? — kwami (talk) 21:38, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed reply. In the interim, another editor re-worded the entire paragraph. It seems to me to be a great improvement. I left a note on his/her talk page asking whether "traced back to" might be better than "traced down to", but other than that, it sounds all right to me. What do you think of the way it is now? CorinneSD (talk) 22:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Moving pages

Please don't forget that when you move a page you should check for double redirects. You left at least two today. Thanks. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 07:18, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

There are bots to clean those up. — kwami (talk) 07:33, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Given that there was an almost 5 hour difference between your move and my fixing of the double redirects I suspect the bots are not working. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 08:09, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Tags don't solve the problem, you do

This is one of those situations when we need to be careful to not let the other misinterpret our position. You see, I am not against, I am pro. I am not booing, I am applauding. You pointed to something interesting. What if others interpret that the way you did ? So, let's do the following, let's make it better Kwami. Your knowledge of the topic is enormous. You can change that in a twinkle of an eye. That's more appreciated :) ! Krenakarore ^TK 09:08, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I don't know how to fix it, or at least I can't tell what was intended. There might density calculation in there, but if so, I don't know how to replicate it. — kwami (talk) 09:09, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh ! Well, maybe we could sort it out if you could make yourself more explicit. What is wrong there, once I can't see it ? By the way, your editing as of 13 April are all timely. Thank you for improving the article Kwami :) ! Krenakarore ^TK 09:22, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Explained on the talk page. — kwami (talk) 09:27, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Reversion of edits

I have opened a discussion on all three talk pages, Talk:Uummarmiutun#Unexplained reversion, Talk:Kangiryuarmiutun#Unexplained reversion and Talk:Inuinnaqtun#Reversion of edit. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 12:33, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

You think I'm being "petty" for reverting an admitted error that you "should not have made"? And you're duplicating the discussion on three pages? — kwami (talk) 20:45, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Mi'kmaq

See my post at Til's page. Dougweller (talk) 13:34, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

New language modules/templates

Please see here if you'd like to give me feedback on these. — lfdder 22:08, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation key for IPAc-pl

Hi there. Back in October 2013 I asked you for your help with adding pronunciation key to {{IPAc-pl}}. You suggested I gather some support first, I started a discussion at Help_talk:IPA_for_Polish#Mouseover_tooltips_for_IPA_template, I also advertised the discussion at WP:POLAND. So far I have one person supporting the idea (Piotrus) and no opposition, but I guess this is as much support as one can get for such a complicated topic. So, are you still willing to help? //Halibutt 10:44, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have said more about where to discuss this. We really should get feedback from the IPA folks, and evidently not many are watching the IPA-pl talk page. Maybe at WP:LANG or MOS:IPA? I have reservations about giving English equivalents for other languages. It's one thing in a key, but we've always discouraged this kind of thing in articles. They tend to devolve into bastardized pronunciations that are neither English nor the target language, which is unacceptable in an encyclopedia. What you're proposing is a bit different, because it would be set by a centralized discussion, and can be fixed universally if problems crop up, and wouldn't even appear unless the IPA is there, but still I worry that it might encourage bastardized transcriptions in the articles themselves. We're currently in the middle of a bad-faith, ad hominem dispute at Aram Khachaturian about including a bastardized pronunciation there, by an editor who is too ignorant of the situation to be able to distinguish English from Armenian, but who insists that he knows better than everyone else. The same thing could easily happen in Polish articles. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Rings of Chariklo

slakr^\ talk / 08:02, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Iranian classification

hey man, this is source about sivandi: http://www.ethnologue.com/language/siy/***EDITION*** , the sivandi is not southwestern, it is member of northwestern Iranian language!!! also semnani is northwestern Languages: http://www.ethnologue.com/language/smy/***EDITION*** caspian languages like the Mazandarani,gilaki,... are member of northwestern Languages, not distinct iranian branch: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:560728/FULLTEXT02.pdf , http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:560728/FULLTEXT02.pdf , http://www.ethnologue.com/language/glk , http://www.ethnologue.com/language/mzn — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pedrram (talk • contribs) 08:25, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Ethnologue is not a reliable source. The Iranian articles have been unsourced or poorly sourced for years, so I finally redid them per The Iranian Languages (Routledge 2009). — kwami (talk) 08:31, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what to do

I made an edit to Ruki sound law the replaced curly braces with parenthesis. You added three curly brackets in a row, which is a template variable. Did you mean parenthesis or curly bracket? Bgwhite (talk) 05:17, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I meant it as visible curly braces in addition to the template. Should've put them inside. I thought parentheses had other meanings, with curly brackets used for sets? — kwami (talk) 05:57, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Good, it got fixed. I haven't a clue what to do. Bgwhite (talk) 06:22, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Malta - I said it twice - Read the f...ing law !!!

Civil Unions Act

Article 1: [...] the Marriage Act, hereinafter referred to as "the Act" [...]

Article 6 (1): [...] with regard to a marriage celebrated abroad by two persons of the same sex, article 18 of the Act shall be construed in such a manner as to be applicable to such marriage.

---

Marriage Act

Article 18: A marriage, whether celebrated in Malta or abroad, shall be valid for all purposes of law in Malta [...] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knisfo (talk • contribs) 07:21, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

We're not lawyers. If RS's say something other than what the law appears on the surface to say, then perhaps they understand something we don't. — kwami (talk) 07:25, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

hotcat

Kwami, does your hotcat work? Mine does not. It's checked in my preferences but these couple of hours hotcat is dead in my system and does not work. How's yours? Jaqeli (talk) 12:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

No, mine hasn't worked since last year. I thought it had been disabled. — kwami (talk) 12:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Reenabled, still don't see it. — kwami (talk) 12:38, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Weird. It's now working. Can you check again? Maybe it will work for you as well? Jaqeli (talk) 12:46, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

No, still not working for me. — kwami (talk) 12:48, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Need help

Hi Kwami, I just developed this article, but its language section remains poorly written. looking at its contribution history, I see that you and a contributor named Stevey7788 are pretty good at linguistics and still active until now. Stevey7788 has stopped to edit recently though. I need you to improve the language section of the article and create a lexically comparative table between Nung sub-dialects, southern zhuang sub-dialects, laotian, thai, tai ahom and tai phake. Not sure if Tai languages is your interest? Psychoneuroimmunology (talk) 10:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, no, I don't have the refs for that. And it would be in a separate language article anyway. The ethnic article would be rather unbalanced with all that linguistic info in it and little on culture or religion. — kwami (talk) 17:55, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, OK. Thanks Psychoneuroimmunology (talk) 19:23, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Punctuation

Hi. I thought the point of these new marks was that the ole Q mark and E mark could only be put at the end of sentences so COULD NOT be used in the same way as the new marks that can appear within a sentence. Myrvin (talk) 11:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The proposer may have believed that, in which case they were wrong, or they may have intended the new marks to distinguish the two uses of the existing onse. It certainly is an intuitive proposal, but since capitalization indicates the beginning of a new sentence, it's not really needed. Exclamation marks in the middle of a sentence are quite common, and there are some examples in our article. Question marks less so, at least in English, but I added one example I found in a style guide. — kwami (talk) 18:08, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I've moved this to the article's Talk page. Myrvin (talk) 19:38, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Video

Kwami, how do you think is it possible to input this video into the Georgian scripts' article? It was published by the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia. Or maybe we can link it? Jaqeli (talk) 21:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

For us to upload it, we'd need to have the proper permission – it would need to be CC3 or whatever. There's also a size limit on uploads. But embedding it in the article would be problematic because of the time it would take to load. It could interfere with the article, especially for people on slow internet connections. It would make an excellent external link, though. I like the stroke order given at the end. — kwami (talk) 22:18, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind that I added it. I'd like to use it to improve the stroke-order chart. — kwami (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

What do you think about this video? Jaqeli (talk) 23:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Naw, that's intended for kids who already know Georgian words. It doesn't show you how to write them. I did find a video of a woman writing on ruled paper. That's quite useful. Also, the stroke order is a bit different than your first video, illustrating some of the variation we see. — kwami (talk) 23:32, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

See [1]. Jaqeli (talk) 23:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

See again TP on commons. Jaqeli (talk) 00:17, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

See TP on commons. Jaqeli (talk) 13:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

See TP on commons. Jaqeli (talk) 08:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

See TP on commons. Jaqeli (talk) 08:46, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

See TP on commons. Jaqeli (talk) 10:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

A user needs your help!

Hi Kwami,

Please see this edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kwamikagami/Archive_24&diff=prev&oldid=593356712 - I saw it while checking the user creation logs. --Slashme (talk) 12:41, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

He didn't post in in the archive, but here, and I asked for clarification, but never got a response. — kwami (talk) 18:17, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, OK, I didn't realise that! --Slashme (talk) 20:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Hafez

I'm in the process of reading the article on Hafez. In the first paragraph in the section "Life" there is mention of two individuals whose first name is Mohammad. I noticed that there is a dot under the "h" in the name. I looked at the article on the Persian alphabet and saw that there are two "h's", one ḥe(-ye jimi), which gives h with a dot under it but just "h" in IPA, and the other he(-ye do-češm), which gives h with no dot under it and just "h" in IPA. I guess Mohammad in Arabic has the ḥe(-ye jimi), but in Persian, I believe the two h's are pronounced the same. I just wonder why the "h" has a dot under it. How are English speakers supposed to know what that means? CorinneSD (talk) 15:34, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

You need to distinguish between phonetic transcription (IPA) and transliteration (DIN 31635). The DIN h is, simply, the Persian letter ⟨ه⟩ in the Latin script and ḥ is ⟨ح⟩ -- the IPA h is how these two letters are pronounced. Think of how though we write car and kinetic, they both map to the same sound (/k/). — lfdder 16:06, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thank you for that explanation. But that does not explain why the h is written with a dot under it (and how do you write that, anyway? It's not an option in the Special Characters drop-down menu, above.) in English. CorinneSD (talk) 16:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Because that's the letter the people who came up with this transliteration scheme chose. There's nothing more to it. The dot doesn't carry any meaning on its own; it's part of the letter. And it's not written with a dot under it "in English", but in the Latin script. — lfdder 16:47, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, c/k is a good analogy. These are distinct sounds in Arabic, but they got conflated in Persian, just as several other consonants did, and just as Etruscan c/k/q got conflated in Latin. When transcribing the Persian language, we use /h/ for both, because we're interested in pronunciation. But when transliterating Persian writing, we use the diacritic, because we need to distinguish the two letters. In Arabic, the transcription and transliteration are equivalent (for consonants, not of course for vowels), but in Persian they diverge because the alphabet is only imperfectly adapted to Persian.

Why a dot? In Indic languages, a sub-dot is used for retroflex consonants, in Arabic for emphatic consonants. Neither has anything to do with ⟨ح⟩, but I suppose it was used because it was available.

As for how to enter them, well, it just so happens that a couple years ago I added letters for Latin transliteration to the Arabic character box under your edit window. (Though I called them "transcription" by mistake.) This particular letter also appears in the Latin character box. — kwami (talk) 18:48, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both for your explanations. Kwami where is that Arabic character box? I'm still confused, though. I guess I don't understand the difference between transcription and transliteration. Also, if Mohammad with the dot is a transliteration from Persian, and Persian pronounces the "h" as we do, why is it necessary to include the dot? Is it just to show which Persian "h" was used in the spelling in Persian? CorinneSD (talk) 21:19, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, exactly, for your last point. That's the difference between transcription and transliteration. Transliteration is letter-by-letter (thus the "-liter-" in "transliterate"), regardless of pronunciation; transcription is reduction to writing ("-script-") more generally. Imagine we wanted to render English in Cyrillic for Russian speakers. "Team" could be written тийм (tijm), which would tell them how to pronounce it, or теам, which would tell them how to write it. If you write Mohammed with a ḥ, then you can look it up in a Persian dictionary. And since you know ḥ is just pronounced like an h, you can pronounce it too.

As for the character boxes, they were immediately below your edit window when you responded. Just below the lower left corner is a little window that might say something like "Insert", followed by a line of characters to can click on to insert them in your answer. At the right edge of the window, there's a little down-pointing arrow head. Click on the little window, and it will reveal other options. One of them is Arabic. — kwami (talk) 21:33, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Kwami. At the risk of annoying you, could you give an example of transcription and transliteration rendering a Russian (or Persian) word into English so that I can see the difference? Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 22:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, 'transcription' is a rather generic term, so it might be that in can include transliteration, I'm not really sure. I see the two used in contrast, but sometimes it can be ambiguous. I suppose it would be better to specify phonetic or phonemic transcription if you want to be clear.

The Russian word for "him/his" is written "его" in standard orthography. That middle letter is a gee (gamma), so a transliteration would be ego (or jego, depending on your convention for "е" vs "э"). But the Russian spelling is an irregular historical form: that gamma is not pronounced like a g, as it is in most words, but like a v. A phonemic transcription would therefore be something like jevo. If you were teaching Russian in the days before computers, and didn't have a Cyrillic typewriter, then you might want the transliteration ego, so that your students would learn the irregularities of Russian orthography. But if you're writing a Russian phrase book for tourists, who cares how it's written in Russian: you'd transcribe it evo (or yevó or whatever).

The only time transliterations differ from phonemic transcriptions is when the orthography is not phonemic. A pronunciation respelling is a phonemic transcription of English that uses the English alphabet (rather than the IPA) but ignores the original orthography.

BTW, there are different brackets to mark the difference. Angle brackets are commonly used for transliteration, slashes for phonemic transcription, and square brackets for phonetic transcription, so the word spelled "его" could be rendered ⟨ego⟩, /jeˈvo/, and [jɨˈvo].

Can't tell from your user page. Do you know any Mandarin? "Flower" might be transliterated huā-ěr, since that's the pinyin for the characters, but transcribed phonemically as huār, which is how it's actually pronounced. — kwami (talk) 23:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Kwami. From your examples from Russian, above, I wouldn't find transliteration (to ego) very useful. I read the first few paragraphs in the articles Phonetic transcription and Phonemic transcription. In the article on Phonetic transcription it describes the difference between broad transcription and narrow transcription. It seems that "broad transcription" is one kind of phonemic transcription and is less precise than narrow transcription which would use something like the IPA. (A bit confusing.) In your examples showing the different brackets, above, why is "IPA" in caps in the second one and "ipa" in lower-case for the third one? It seems to me that if one does not know the IPA symbols, the second example (/je'vo/) is more helpful than the third example.

I know just a few words of Mandarin, enough to know the tones, but I have studied Russian (quite a while ago) and a few other languages. CorinneSD (talk) 23:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The IPA has nothing to do with this. You're asking what's the difference between width and depth, and getting hung up on whether I give an example in miles or kilometers. Both phonetic and phonemic transcriptions can be given in IPA or any of dozens of other systems, just as distance and depth can be given in meters or leagues or li. For the 3rd edition, the OED switch from their in-house system to IPA, but the level of detail is the same. So, for the 3rd Russian example above, I could have transcribed it [yih-VOE]. Doesn't really matter, as long as you define your symbols. (Though English respellings of Russian words, like "yih-VOE", are never going to be very accurate.)

Broad phonetic transcription is often approximately phonemic, but it doesn't have to be. Narrow transcription gives more detail. For example, you may give a broad phonetic transcription that has those non-phonemic elements that an English speaker is likely to be able to hear, and thus might cause confusion, but ignoring those elements that they'll probably never notice. For example, you might transcribe Spanish /mismo/ (mismo) with a [z], [mizmo], but ignore the exact realization of the /o/.

Persian vocabulary

I don't know if you can help me with this, but you are so knowledgeable that I think perhaps you can. It is in the article Persian vocabulary. I had noticed the error back in September and at that time left a note on the article's talk page Talk:Persian vocabulary, but no one has responded since then. I just remembered that error and my comment yesterday; it took me a while to find the article. I checked again to be sure it is an error, and I am sure it is, and I added an additional note to my earlier comment on the Talk page. I could fix the English, I suppose, but I don't know how to fix the Persian. The Persian letter "g" is missing before the "i" in the final syllable in "danandegi". I know you showed me where to find "Insert Arabic" below the edit window, but Arabic doesn't have a "g", so I can't use that. Can you fix it? CorinneSD (talk) 19:42, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

You could copy & paste the گ from the full word, but user:lfdder gave a reason for not adding it. I have no idea if he's right, but it sounds reasonable. Even if he is right, it might be clearer to add the g in parentheses. — kwami (talk) 23:27, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

There are many words in Persian that end -gi. I don't think it's a consonant that is just added for pronunciation reasons (which is what Lfdder was referring to, I think; can't remember the word). I'll try to add the letter. Isn't there a Persian expert somewhere on WP? CorinneSD (talk) 00:53, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

"Epenthetic". Yeah, /g/ would be odd an an epenthetic consonant. More likely, assuming he's more-or-less right, it would be a historical form which has dropped in some environments, like the /n/ in English "an apple".

A couple places you could check: Wikipedia:WikiProject Iran, and anyone who has {{user fa}} (native speakers) or {{user fa-5}}, {{user fa-4}} (good non-native speakers) on their user page. Check the categories linked at the bottom of those templates for people using them. — kwami (talk) 01:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I've posted a link to a paper discussing Persian epenthetic consonants at Talk:Persian vocabulary. IIRC, the author says 'epenthetic' [g] occurs in derivatives of words that used to end with it. — lfdder 01:22, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Thank you for the information. I'm sorry, Kwami. When I replied just above a few minutes ago, I had not seen Lfdder's second comment. I just spent some time reading the material in the link he provided. (I had never seen such technical-sounding discussions regarding language before!) I skimmed the parts I could barely understand and got to the part about /g/ starting on page 159 and going for several pages. You are right, Kwami. Some scholars think it was part of the word in Middle Persian and just stayed on in some, but not all, forms. See page 160, the paragraphs beginning "Moreover," and "However,". I still haven't gotten to any statement that would explain why it is not written in that table, though. CorinneSD (talk) 01:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, because whatever grammar of the language the table's based on does not distinguish between an -i and a -gi suffix, probably (I think) for the reason that [g] is sort-of kind-of epenthetic (that paper calls it 'latent'). — lfdder 01:37, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Lfdder! I was just about to leave a note for you after your comment on the article's Talk page, thanking you for the information and the link. Well, I have learned a new word ("epenthetic"). And (sigh) from that paper I have seen how little I know about linguistics. CorinneSD (talk) 01:29, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like it would go on the root rather than with the suffix.

Some people use "epenthetic" that way, mostly just as a convenience. French liaison is essentially the same thing, but "epenthetic" really means that you can predict what sound it is and where it would go, like the "e" in the plural churches. If you can't predict it, like in French and Persian, then it's not really epenthesis. — kwami (talk) 01:31, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

All right (learned some more), but if the "g" is actually written in Persian, which it is, then how would leaving off the "g" in the table help anyone who is trying to learn something about Persian vocabulary? CorinneSD (talk) 01:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

What about adding it to the end of the root in parentheses? — kwami (talk) 01:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Persian alphabet

In the article Persian alphabet, there is a large table with the alphabet. I noticed several blue asterisks but could not find a key to explain the reason for the asterisks. Perhaps you could figure out what the key should be. CorinneSD (talk) 15:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Corinne, those are the letters covered in the "Exceptions" section directly below the table. I'll see what I can do to make it a bit more intuitive. VanIsaac_WS^cont 15:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it's clearer just to merge the cells. That makes it pretty obvious, doesn't it? I reworded the footnote a bit to match. — kwami (talk) 18:35, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a lot better, isn't it? VanIsaac_WS^cont 01:58, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is clearer. CorinneSD (talk) 02:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Barnstar!

		The LGBT Barnstar
		For your work over at Public opinion of same-sex marriage in the United States, the article looks vastly improved and I am happy to see there was an agreement made on the results. =) Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 00:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Loveclough

LOL I presume that this [2] is more than coincidence? Either way, although I know how to pronounce Loveclough I can only guess that your transcription is correct. Maybe you could enlighten me as to the usefulness of the IPA templates? I don't think they are required even at FA level. I'm not particularly opposed to them, but feel that the nett effect is to increase confusion. --Trappedinburnley (talk) 20:56, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

No, no coincidence. I saw your comment, and realized that I could only guess at the pronunciation of that name.

As for why we add the IPA, it's because many people want to know how to pronounce the things they're looking up. It makes it difficult to discuss them if you can only do it in writing.

As for why the IPA and not something else, for the same reason we use the metric system. Some Americans complain that metric measurements only make an article confusing, but we're an international encyclopedia, so we need to use international standards.

Besides, you're British! If you can use a British dictionary like the OED, you should be able to read the IPA.

That pronunciation corresponds to "LUFF-cluff", where the 'u' of "cluff" is a full vowel, like the first vowel in "unplugged" vs. the schwa at the beginning of "another". (Or like the 'u' in two pronunciations of "omnibus".) — kwami (talk) 21:11, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I’m not suggesting that they don’t have a use, just that the number of people who look at them and see info is massively outweighed by the number that think “what is that mess of squiggles?”. I don’t buy the OED IPA argument at all, I was taught the alphabet (and the use of a dictionary) as a small child along with both metric and imperial measurement systems. If afraid phonetics bypassed my education completely. Surely the whole concept is limited by people having accents? Is the IPA widely used in any part of the world?

While I can tell you that Clough is from Old English clōh meaning ravine. And is a little unusual this far north, a few miles further and it would be Gill from the Old Norse (thanks to a small Viking problem we once had). I’d guess you are correct there. However although early spellings seem to use “luff”, today it is just love (can probably thank the Victorians, they did love a systematic approach). --Trappedinburnley (talk) 23:03, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

An example that occurs to me is Bury, a town just 20 minutes drive away from me. I'd back you if wanted to change that transcription, but to people where I'm from they all talk funny! :) --Trappedinburnley (talk) 23:22, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

So if you encounter a word in writing you've not seen or heard before and its pronunciation isn't obvious, what do you do? I mean, other than throw your hands in the air and go make some tea? — lfdder 23:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Ha, if you don't have to discuss it, it doesn't matter how its pronounced! If somebody else isn't already using it in a conversation how often will you need to? --Trappedinburnley (talk) 23:22, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, say you're reading off a map and you want to go to Dalston Junction (a place you've never heard being said before) and you get lost on the way -- so you think, let's ask someone on the street. That's not a very outlandish scenario, is it? Also, let's not forget that most speakers of English are not native speakers, and they might've not wrapped their heads around the peculiarities of English orthography. The spelling of foot, for example, might lead a non-native speaker to think it's pronounced with a long 'u'. — lfdder 23:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What if it's something both of you have read about? Some people like to be able to say what's on their mind. (I'm one of them.)

Your argument, that providing information that some people are ignorant of is confusing, means that we shouldn't use the metric system – Americans find it confusing. And we shouldn't use UK decimal currency – old folks find it confusing. And we shouldn't use long words – high-school dropouts find them confusing. You may not be able to read the OED, but plenty of people can. And no, accents have little to do with it. We have a basically pan-English transcription system (though we can't accommodate Scots). It's not much different than whichever dictionary system you learned as a child: /ɪ/ is the vowel of "bit", /ɛ/ is the vowel of "bet", etc., regardless of your accent. — kwami (talk) 23:31, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

So you're saying that non-native speakers of English (in addition to native speakers) would be advised to learn the IPA in order to learn to pronounce any word in English? Should a guide to the IPA be included in all tourist guidebooks, telephone directories, newspapers, elementary, junior and high school textbooks,....? I think it would take longer to learn the IPA and practice applying it than it would to (a) learn English, and (b) learn to read the pronunciation guide at the bottom of the page of an English dictionary. "a" as in "cat", "a" as in "date", "a" as in "father", etc. You might be interested in a discussion about this very topic at WP:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 12#An idea/suggestion to change Wikipedia's pronunciation key. CorinneSD (talk) 23:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I saw a Czech–English dictionary, where English pronunciations were respelled in Czech rather than the IPA. But that would mean that we'd need a respelling for every language that a Wikipedia reader is likely to speak, which is obviously impossible.

But the IPA *is* the key at the bottom of the dictionary page! At least it is outside the US. In the US, Webster's has a different set of conventions than Random House, which has a different set that American Heritage. What you're proposing is that we toss out metric in favor of Imperial, and then start arguing over whether to use US or UK Imperial. We're an international dictionary, and we use international standards. BTW, I did create (or at least normalized, I forget which) both a US-dictionary-style key for illiterate Americans, and a respelling key, but neither are much used. The first is unintelligible to non-Americans, and the second causes problems with people misreading it because the syllables are spelled the same as English words with different pronunciations. — kwami (talk) 23:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

This is all quite interesting but it’s 1AM here so I have to come back tomorrow. I’d be interested in a response to Bury. Oh and lfdder that is a completely outlandish scenario, I’m a man and therefore can’t possibly ever be lost :) --Trappedinburnley (talk) 23:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

We have Bury pronounced like "berry". If there are multiple pronunciations of the name, it would be useful to provide them, though perhaps in a section on the name rather than in the lead. — kwami (talk) 00:00, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Being serious, I know English is a complicated language and pronunciation problems are reasonably commonplace, and we do all so hate to be proved wrong. The concept of a pronunciation guide obviously makes sense. However it does still seem that IPA is something primarily for the language geeks. That it doesn’t seem to be taught in either UK or US schools is surely an issue on English wiki? That said there doesn’t appear to be an obviously better solution (I’m not nearly qualified enough to have an opinion on if CorinneSD’s idea would work any better in practice). I wonder if more could be done in the help files to make IPA less daunting to the completely uninitiated? All I really need to know is where to turn if I encounter another transcription dispute? In fact maybe someone could get involved at Clitheroe before it gets to the edit-war notice board?

Bury is quite common in UK place names and as far as I’m aware is generally pronounced “berry” which I find a little odd as it supposedly comes from Burh. Coming from Burn-lee, I suspect that I’m in a tiny group that just can’t accept a syllable we’re so familiar with, being pronounced differently. Also I note a suspicious lack of IPA in Tomato :) --Trappedinburnley (talk) 18:39, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

We do have tooltips to help with the IPA. I tried something a bit more elaborate once, but the Wiki software wouldn't support it. I don't know what more we can do. If British dictionaries are now using the IPA, that would seem to indicate they think their readers can handle it. Maybe it's a generational thing. As for Americans not being able to handle it, well, we can't find Mexico on a map of Mexico.

Since you're local, you can help with Bury. It may be that it's pronounced differently than other towns with the same spelling, and that whoever added the pronunciation didn't know that. Or it may be that it is pronounced "berry" by the outside world, but differently by locals. Either way, that's info we should include. — kwami (talk) 18:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind learning the IPA if it were laid out all on one page, with example words in American English, or both American and British English, for as many words as possible. I don't know if there already is such a chart, but I haven't seen one. For some of the sounds which are not found in English, perhaps one or two example words that contain the sound that most nearly approximates that sound would be sufficient. It would be nice if readers could see the IPA pronunciation for a word or name and, if necessary, be able to open up the entire IPA guide I just described. In addition, it would be nice if readers could also click to see the pronunciation using a dictionary-type pronunciation guide. These guides can be made for the various types of English (American, British, Australian, Indian, etc.) This way, readers could look at either or both types of guides. The easy accessibility of the IPA guide with example words might even gradually introduce readers to the IPA system. Kwami, you said you had tried some things, but don't you think the technical people could come up with these kinds of links? CorinneSD (talk) 23:43, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

There is Help:IPA for English. Clicking on a transcription takes you there. — lfdder 23:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, /ɑː/ will take you to the English guide, French pronunciation: [ɑː] will take you to the French guide, IPA: [ɑː] will take you to the generic guide, etc. That's why the transcriptions are all blue: They're links.

Also, from the generic key, each of the letters is linked to a dedicated article, in case the "sounds like X" isn't enough to understand it.

I'd worry about learning the IPA for English or another language you know first. Leave the rest for when you're comfortable with the basics. — kwami (talk) 23:50, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. I had seen that article, but got bored by the paragraphs at the beginning and didn't even see the chart below them. I've been looking at the chart, and I am puzzled by a few things. Do you mind if I ask you about them?

1) In the first column ("Full vowels") under the "Vowels" section, it shows a kind of a: and then PALM, father, bra, then below that a kind of backwards a and LOT, pod, John. To me, all six words rhyme (with regard the the vowel sound) exactly, so I wonder why they are indicated as having a different vowel sound.

2) In the "Followed by R" column, it shows "flour" and "flower" with different symbols to the left. To me, these words sound exactly the same, so I wonder why the symbols are different.

3) "Boor, moor, tourist" are grouped together and have a collection of symbols next to them. In that collection of symbols, the first one is the curly capital U that is seen further to the left for "foot, good, full, woman". However, to me, the vowel sound in "boor, moor, tourist" is more like the vowel sound in "goose, food, fool, soon", which has the symbol of a smooth capital U. Why did they use the curly capital U?

4) "Borough and hurry" are grouped together, and "Nurse, word, girl, fern, and furry" are grouped together. But to me, the vowel sound in all seven words is the same, so I wonder why they have different symbols next to them. And besides that, that vowel sound sounds to me like the vowel sound in "foot, good", not the vowel sound in "strut, mud", so I wonder why the symbol next to "borough, hurry" is an upside-down V (plus r).

5) Finally, just above that, "cure" is listed with a collection of symbols beginning with "ju". I understand the vowel sound in "cure" being represented by "ju" + er, kind of like yoo-er, but to me, the vowel sound in "sewer" is not like that. It doesn't have the "yoo" sound. It sounds like the vowel sound in "truer", which is just above "cure". I remember my grandmother used to say "nyoo" for the word "new", but no one says that anymore. Now "new" is pronounced "noo". CorinneSD (talk) 00:49, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

See the footnotes on mergers. Some people pronounce the words "hoarse" and "horse" the same, some don't. Like Webster's or Random House or any other dictionary, we specify which word has which sound, and if you pronounce them all the same in your dialect, fine — you still know how to pronounce the word. Even within the city, some say "New Yawk" and some say "Noo York". It wouldn't matter if we switched from IPA to some other system, we'd still need to make these distinctions.

I had once planned to address all the gobbledegook above the chart, and forgot. I'll do it now. — kwami (talk) 00:56, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Karoo

Kwami, you might be interested in the latest edit to Karoo and the edit summary. CorinneSD (talk) 15:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Formatted. Also the etymology was rather meaningless, though the ref I added is old. — kwami (talk) 16:08, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thank you. CorinneSD (talk) 16:12, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Tacitus

What do you think of the latest edit to Tacitus? CorinneSD (talk) 15:40, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

We have template support for Latin if someone wants it, but that was supposed to be English, which takes priority anyway. — kwami (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thank you. CorinneSD (talk) 16:13, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Basically, if you add a template "IPA-xx", where the xx is the ISO 639-1 code for the language, we probably already support it. So IPA-la for Latin, IPA-de for German, etc. The commoner languages have separate IPA charts, while many redirect to the generic chart for now. Still good to specify the language, though, for future support. — kwami (talk) 16:17, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, thank you for this information although I probably won't add such a template myself. I know you added this note because we have been discussing the IPA, but don't you think that editor who changed the pronunciation of Tacitus to classical Latin would be glad to know that a reader could access the IPA pronunciation in classical Latin with just a click? Or do you think it is already clear enough? CorinneSD (talk) 16:28, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I should tell him. — kwami (talk) 16:34, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Sulfur

I'm in the process of reading the article on Sulfur, and I read in the section on Sulfur#Spelling and etymology that the word comes from Latin sulphur which comes from a root meaning "to burn" (and not from Greek), but it doesn't say which root or from which earlier language. I even looked at the entry for "sulfur" in the reference given, the On-line Dictionary of Etymology, and that doesn't say what the root was, either. Is there any way you can find what that root was and from which language? CorinneSD (talk) 19:40, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Clearly not Greek, since that is θεῖον, where we get the prefix thio- for sulfur compounds. Also not Arabic, which is كبريت, despite the fact that the Spanish form azufre / açufre has the Arabic article prefixed to it. (Maybe the Spaniards thought anything chemical had to be from Arabic?) It's odd we'd even have borrowed a word like that from French; most languages have their own word for 'sulfur'. I don't have a good resource, but WP-de says that the Latin was sulpur, which was hellenized to sulphur (I was wondering why it would have a ph if it wasn't a Greek loan!), and is ultimately from proto-Indo-European *sl̥p-ŕ̥, meaning something like 'ointment'. They say the Germanic root was also a Latin loan, not a direct pIE inheritance, and that it may have been altered via folk etymology under the influence of *swel "smolder". Thus modern German Schwefel. Maybe that's where someone got the idea that it means "to burn"? Or by association: Brimstone is just sulfur, after all.

BTW, our article says the ph form has been standard since the 14th c, which is nonsense: we did'nt have standardized spelling that far back, and we wouldn't have f in America if we did. According to the OED, ⟨sulphur⟩ and ⟨sulfur⟩ date to the 15th c., and ⟨sulfur⟩ was used in Britain through the 19th century. The Anglo-French (presumably meaning Norman) form, 12th c., was ⟨sulfere⟩ or ⟨sulfre⟩. As happened with other French words, we presumably restored the Latin ph spelling later. — kwami (talk) 20:46, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Wow! That's a lot of interesting information. Thank you. I noticed that the last two paragraphs in the section Sulfur#Antiquity discuss the use of sulfur in alchemy in India as early as the 8th century, and in ointments in Europe. Do you think that *swel "smolder" comes from

• the presence of sulfur at active volcanoes (perhaps in Italy);
• the use of sulfur in alchemy (the burning of chemicals, etc.); or
• the use of sulfur ointments to relieve burning (and/or swelling) on the body?

I hope you'll add that information about the proto-Indo-European origin to the article. CorinneSD (talk) 22:00, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I was going to let you do it, but I can too.

None of the above. There's no connection to *swel, except the words sounded a bit a like, and presumably because people associated sulfur with burning. A folk etymology (the OED calls it a "pseudo-etymology") is when people get confused about the form of an unfamiliar word, and change it into something more familiar, like agnail → hangnail, or asparagus → sparrow grass. — kwami (talk) 22:47, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh. O.K. I'm sure you're right, but the article said it came from a root meaning "to burn". Perhaps that should be changed. CorinneSD (talk) 23:01, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I could'nt substantiate the German WP etymology, and what I found has it as derived from a pIE word for 'to burn'. — kwami (talk) 01:33, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

What you added to the article sounds fine. I'm just wondering why there is no English word (other than sulfur) that is related to all those words from other Germanic languages that you listed. There's even an Old English word. What happened? It just dropped out of the language? CorinneSD (talk) 17:56, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

A lot of Old English words disappeared. Most were presumably replaced with Norman French equivalents. — kwami (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 20:26, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Guacamole

We give the pronunciation [ɣwakaˈmole] for guacamole in Spanish, but surely that can't be right? — lfdder 01:20, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Correct. [ɣ] is the intersonorant allophone. It would be pronounced that way after the definite article. — kwami (talk) 08:05, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

SSM Litigation

I've responded to your comment you left on my talk page; the response is there. I will be listing here any pending SSM cases that are not yet on your map so you can add them. MarkGT (talk) 18:48, 27 April 2014 (UTC)\

Just added Inniss v. Aderhold, class-action case in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, filed April 22, and A.L.F.L. v. K.L.L., a Texas (state) District Court case that survived a motion to dismiss (stating plaintiffs lack jurisdiction) and the judge found the Texas Const. def. of marriage (which excl. SSM) unconstitutional. I will be working on adding Arizona (DONE), South Carolina, and Wyoming. No major suits in N.D. or S.D. and I believe Alaska and Montana. Missouri and Nebraska concern same-sex divorce and not marriage, and the Kansas case is for tax purposes, so those three are not significant enough. MarkGT (talk) 20:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC) (amended 28 April 2014)

Also added Barrier v. Vasterling, a Missouri (state) Circuit Court case, and Connolly v. Roche and Majors v. Horne, two cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona (federal). MarkGT (talk) 22:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Added GA, AZ, MO, and went ahead with WY (state) and SC & AL (district). No sure what's going on w MS. — kwami (talk) 23:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Picture

Actually it is. Finnish is spoken all the way up to the Norwegian coast. In addition, the picture has not a single bilingual or multilingual area in it. As such, it is fundamentally flawed and misrepresents the linguistic situation in these areas. -Yupik (talk) 20:41, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

No, there are Finnish-speaking communities on the Norwegian coast, but they're separated from the main Finnish area by Norwegian and Saami, as well as by an area that's uninhabited. — kwami (talk) 20:43, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Yet they are not represented *at all*. What about the rest of Finland? Why does the map clearly state that Finnish isn't spoken in those areas and why on earth should we even be putting such a map up in an encyclopedic article? -Yupik (talk) 20:49, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Because Finnish isn't spoken in those areas? Obviously Finnish is going to be a language you encounter anywhere in Finnland, but that includes the Swedish-speaking areas as well. Maps have to simplify, and two of the ways they do that is by restricting themselves to communities where people live and to where the language is the dominant native language.

It's as accurate as our other maps. No language map is going to be perfect. If you want to improve it, then improve it. — kwami (talk) 21:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you must not speak Finnish. The areas that are marked out in Finland as not being Finnish-speaking are bilingual or multilingual. The population of Lapland, which has been marked as not speaking Finnish, speaks Finnish. That's not a simplification, that's a falsehood. -Yupik (talk) 21:12, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Then present your sources and fix accordingly. The sources I checked support the map, at least approximately. Maps differ on the population density required to include an area, rather than leaving it white as uninhabited, as well as whether they map the ancestral or intrusive language, or both, in bilingual areas, etc. These are common simplifications, only "falsehoods" in the sense that all maps are falsehoods. — kwami (talk) 21:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Tacitus

Pronunciation guide was changed back to Tak i tus. CorinneSD (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

He didn't change it back, he added the Latin. — kwami (talk) 20:37, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I see that now. I'm sorry; I didn't notice the first pronunciation. CorinneSD (talk) 00:09, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Any reason for the revert ?

I see a revert here. Can you state a reason please ? I see the revert without any reason.--J Sahu (ଜ୍ଞାନ) ^talk 09:37, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't mean anything. — kwami (talk) 12:40, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Have you read what I've written ? How can you say that doesn't mean anything ?--Jnanaranjan Sahu (ଜ୍ଞାନ) ^talk 17:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

It says "Odia is among the the first language from the Indo-Aryan linguistic group", right after we say that it's Indo-Aryan. That has no meaning. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Kwami, would you mind if I phrase this in a way that might make more sense for this editor?

Jnanaranjan Sahu, the sentence right before the sentence you added, which is the first sentence of the article, is:

"Oriya..., officially spelled Odia, is an Indian language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family."

You wrote:

""Odia is among the the first language from the Indo-Aryan linguistic group".

There are at least three different problems with your sentence:

1) You wrote "the the". No sentence needs two of the same definite article in succession.

2) The first sentence gives at least four different pieces of information about Odia. Yours gives one, and what you wrote mostly repeats part of that first sentence, although you used "Indo-Aryan linguistic group" and the first sentence says "an Indian language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family". Your phrase, "Indo-Aryan linguistic group", does not match any of the phrases used in the first sentence. The first sentence locates Odia in the Indo-European family tree in a much more precise manner than your sentences does. Also, you are not using the right words and phrases in your sentence.

3) It appears that the main point you were trying to make with your sentence is that Odia is "among the first" -- that is, one of the first of several languages in (not "from", as you wrote), the Indo-Aryan branch (not "linguistic group", as you wrote). I'm not an expert in linguistics as Kwami is, but I believe that it is probably nearly impossible to say definitively which of several languages in a branch of Indo-European was "first". First in what sense? First in relation to what? For you to say that it was one of the first, you need to define "first", and then provide (a) a clearly stated claim or hypothesis that has been made by a scholar, and (b) provide proof, or support, with an extensive, detailed, clear argument and many scholarly citations. See WP:RS, WP:REF. You can't just insert that kind of statement in the lead/lede of an article without providing the citations. Note that, later in the article, there is a detailed section on the history of Odia.

So, to summarize: Your statement

• somewhat repeats information stated in the previous sentence;
• uses imprecise terms;
• contains word usage errors; and
• vaguely makes a claim to being first in something without defining "first" and without providing reliable sources.

It is probably for these reasons, and possibly more reasons, that Kwami said that your statement does not make sense. CorinneSD (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

The OP means "First Indo-aryan language to be accorded classical language status." All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC).

It would seem so. But we already say that it's "classical" two sentences down, and the claim that it was first is incorrect: Sanskrit was. — kwami (talk) 18:58, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Rich. I'm sorry I didn't get that, and I apologize if I went on a bit too much. CorinneSD (talk) 19:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

kwami Thank you for the Insight. I've tried to add "among the first languages". CorinneSD Thank You for the elaborated explanation. While you people have given broad ideas about the mistakes in the sentence, Lfdder and Rich have solved the issue and improved the article by adding what I wanted to add with some beautiful sentences and citations . Thank You very much Lfdder and Rich. I came to know about my mistakes and learned more about writing styles. Thank You all.--Jnanaranjan Sahu (ଜ୍ଞାନ) ^talk 08:54, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Question

Wait...what do you mean I don't understand polls. Is there something you really feel i don't understand or are you just being rude?2600:1002:B02C:C24F:FCC2:CF1:2016:A065 (talk) 23:39, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Polls seldom reflect actual public opinion. Certainly public opinion hasn't shifted 10 pts in 4 months. One or both of the polls is wrong. We should therefore show both, and let the reader decide. — kwami (talk) 23:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok, but that would be changing the format of the chart. Previously, the most recent poll was the one that was shown on chart. If the format has changed, then more polls should be added.

Several states are listed for more than one poll. If the polls agree well, then we just use the better or more recent one (though sometimes I've added the figures from an older poll in the last column, as for Texas, to show that they're in agreement). Also, if it's been years since the last poll, we just use the recent one, because public opinion is changing so fast. (We'll need to replace or remove Missouri next month, it's getting near our age limit.) But if recent polls don't agree well, we use both: Utah, Virginia, South Carolina, etc. (So far only two per state.)

That's somewhat arbitrary and not set in stone, but it appears to be acceptable after lots of discussion while redoing the map.

Sorry if I was rude, I assumed you had looked over the chart, and had seen the map, not that you were returning without seeing the recent discussion. — kwami (talk) 00:13, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Fonts

If you go in Firefox's settings, Content, then 'Advanced' under 'Fonts & Colors' and pick 'Other Languages' from the dropdown, what's the sans-serif font? — lfdder 01:42, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I just checked there. It was "sans-serif". No idea why that would be a problem, but I changed it to a specific font and it works now. But still: Why would that be a problem? — kwami (talk) 02:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, because "sans-serif" isn't a font. I imagine it expects an actual font there. I don't know how it came to be set to "sans-serif" for you. — lfdder 02:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Odd that it would be an option if it's interpreted as s.t. that d n exist. — kwami (talk) 03:03, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Corsica

If you have time, would you look at the latest edit to Corsica? I don't understand why an IP editor added Italian. CorinneSD (talk) 23:45, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

They didn't add it, they reformatted it. Corsican is arguably Italian, but we don't need both, so deleted. The real question is why Ligurian is in there. Also deleted. — kwami (talk) 23:55, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, evidently Ligurian is spoken in the southern town of Bonifacio. — kwami (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

O.K. I'm glad you figured it out. (What's Ligurian?) CorinneSD (talk) 00:14, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Boron

I've been reading the article on Boron and, while the more recent etymology is given in the first paragraph of Boron#History and etymology, the ultimate source is given in the second paragraph:

"Boron compounds were known thousands of years ago. Borax was known from the deserts of western Tibet, where it received the name of tincal, derived from the Sanskrit."

I just wondered if you felt like finding the Sanskrit word from which "tincal" was derived. (Also, I wonder what the ultimate root of the Arabic and Persian words is.) CorinneSD (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

The descriptions doesn't match the etymology in the OED all that well. Here's what they have:

"Boron" is derived from "borax", the mineral it was isolated from, by analogy with "carbon", since it is chemically similar to carbon. "Borax" is actually re-Latinized; Middle English was boras, from Old French boras, bourras. That may have been from medieval Latin baurach (another English spelling), borac(-/um/em), borax, or maybe directly from Arabic in the 9th c, along with Spanish borrax (> borraj), Italian borrace, and from there into Latin. (Or maybe Arabic > Spanish/Italian > Latin > French? I'm guessing.) The Arabic was (is) بورق bauraq/būraq "natron", "borax". Arabic dictionaries say that it derives from the verb "to glisten", which is spelled the same, but the OED thinks it's actually from the Persian بوره būrah "borax".

In English, "tincal" or "tincar" is crude borax, before it's purified, as mined from lake deposits in Tibet, Persia, and other parts of Asia. The word (pronounced "tinkle" or "tinker" in English) was adopted in the 17th c. from Malay tingkal and from Urdu/Persian/Arabic تنکار tinkār/tankār (thus the two forms in English). The Sanskrit is टांकण ṭānkaṇa, but I don't know which way the borrowing went. — kwami (talk)

Wow! That's quite an etymology! It's probably too much to add to the article, but I have to leave to you the decision as to what, if anything, to change in the article on boron. But thank you for finding and sharing all of that. CorinneSD (talk) 19:29, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Since the story is really that of borax, I'll move it to that article. — kwami (talk) 21:26, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I understand moving the etymology to the borax article, but I don't understand why you removed the entire paragraph about boron compounds. I've been editing articles about the elements, and in every one there is detailed discussion of many of the compounds which include the element. CorinneSD (talk) 23:55, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Because I didn't read it closely enough. I thought it was about borax. — kwami (talk) 00:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Hindustani officiality image

Hey, I was just looking at this image, and it's quite good and useful. The only problem is Pakistan's colouring - all of the provinces have to have Urdu as their first official language, for example in West Punjab there is no Punjabi immersion nor is one able to speak Punjabi in the provincial parliament. Only in Sindh is there a de jure second provincial language, and it's Sindhi itself - Urdu is the first official language. Thus, I think all of Pakistan should be coloured orange. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 09:24, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a source? — kwami (talk) 09:39, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes.

"...both provinces [NWFP and Baluchistan] adopted Urdu as the official language. ... The real problem was in Sind." "Pashto is not an official language in Pakistan as it is in Afghanistan though in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (which used to be known as the North-West Frontier Province), and Balochistan Province a total of 27 million people (or 15 percent) speak the language. ... Pashto was allowed to be used in schools as a medium of education for the first time in 1984. Even though Pashto has no official status, there is a long literary tradition of Pashto in Pakistan."

...Pakistan's ruling elite was mistrustful of Pashto despite the Pakhtun nationalist National Awami Party's (NAP) choice of Urdu as the official language of the NWFP...

"...In the end, national language policy, especially in the field of education in the NWFP, had constructed a type of three tiered language hierarchy. Pashto lagged far behind Urdu and English in prestige or development in almost every domain of political or economic power..."

"Because Balochistan is so ethnically and linguistically diverse, the province used Urdu as a link language internally. Using Urdu as the official language was a decision made by the noted Balochi nationalist Ghaus Baksh Bizenjo, a decision which some observers thought was designed to ward off Pashto or Brahui ascendancy in the province. ... In practice, education in the mother tongues ceased altogether in Balochistan..."

"While Indian Punjabi is a thriving written and spoken language, Pakistani Punjabi is fast becoming an oral language and is rarely written anymore. This may be partially attributed to the push for Urdu as the official language and medium of formal instruction in schools in Pakistan's Punjab."

...The language is the second most spoken in Pakistan; an official language in Sindhi province...

"...During Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Regime Sindh Assembly passed a bill declaring Sindhi as the official language of Sindh. ... Government rhough issuing an ordinance in favour of Urdu diffused tension between two groups."

Given this information, I think the map should be updating painting Sindh in light orange (cooficial Sindhi-Urdu) and all the other provinces in dark orange (Urdu only official language). saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 10:36, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Nastaʿlīq script

I noticed a new proposal to merge Persian calligraphy with Nastaʿlīq script. Out of curiosity, I looked at the article on Persian calligraphy. I saw what I thought were unusual spellings such as "Avestaa" and "Avestaee", "Pahlavits", etc., particularly in the History section. Would you take a look and review the spellings? Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 14:49, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Deleted the section. It was not about Persian calligraphy. It might have been relevant as historical background if it were supported references, but the only relevant ref was a dead link and probably not a RS anyway. — kwami (talk) 19:49, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks! CorinneSD (talk) 20:10, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Same-sex marriage

Please revert your recent edits to Same-sex marriage. You have changed all the dates from dmy to mdy: prior to your edits, the article only had *two* dates in mdy form (excluding those in refs and templates like the sidebar), so per WP:DATERET, it should remain as dmy unless a discussion agrees otherwise. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:25, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

There's a good reason for it: When ordering by date, you order by month before ordering by day. But we evidently can't do that when the article uses d-m-y format. Silly, IMO, but there you are. — kwami (talk) 19:29, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Dates in tables don't need to be reformatted; the {{dts}} template was created for this. {{dts|4 May 2014}} → 4 May 2014 and sorts as 02014-05-04-0000 --Redrose64 (talk) 19:40, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

But scanning dates first by year, then by month, then by day, is made more difficult by presenting the dates by year, then day, then month. — kwami (talk) 19:43, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say to put the year first. I said to put the dates back how they were, which was day first, but also to wrap them in {{dts}} which displays them in unchanged format - but they sort in the correct order. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

But the year *is* first. Year-day-month is a confusing format. Better to follow ISO year-month-day. Since the only way people will accept that is if we format dates in the text as month-day-year, that's a reasonable format. I'd be happy to restore day-month-year in the text, as long as we don't have year-day-month. — kwami (talk) 19:51, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Where is the year first? Consider the very first change in this edit. It was dmy; you altered it to mdy; neither is year-first. Then come several dozen where there was no year at all, then some more dmy to mdy changes. Not one of these was year first, either before or after. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:00, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Year is first for the majority of changes, in the table organized by year, then month, then day. Again, I'm fine with d-m-y in the text; that wasn't my objection. — kwami (talk) 20:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see, you're trying to go against Talk:Same-sex marriage/Archive 20#Dates where both myself and Alarics (talk · contribs) previously explained this to you. You need to revert your edits, and discuss on the article talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:20, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It's been over an hour now, and I see that whilst you have made one revert, it hasn't put all of the dates back to how they were. Please fix the rest, or I shall serve a {{uw-disruptive2}} and also rollback, which will undo your good changes as well as the bad. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:27, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Don't be a WP:DICK. If you want to revert, then revert. — kwami (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

PUA

@Magioladitis:. Only two PUA's this month.

Bhagat Sain {PUA} िनरंजनु कमला पाती ॥२॥tuheeN niranjan

Sogdia {PUA}􀀁2000 (p. 154 is a Chinese-language ren

Bgwhite (talk) 21:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Fixed the one that was left. I'm surprised there have been so few of these. — kwami (talk) 21:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Blanking articles

Hello. I see that you've blanked the article South Nyanza languages and the redirect South Nyanza with the edit summary that intended to delete the pages. However, please be noted that blanking the pages is not tantamount to deleting the articles themselves. If you wish to delete an article, the process should be either WP:CSD (if one or more of the speedy deletion criterion applies), WP:PROD (for uncontroversial deletions, but still requiring a rationale), or WP:AFD for the normal discussion process. For redirects, the avenue for discussion would be WP:RFD. I've restored the pages for now. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a message on my talk page. Thanks. KJ ^{«Click Here»} 06:48, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Language naming conventions

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at CambridgeBayWeather's talk page.
Message added 08:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Same-sex marriage links in lead

Hi, I don't think it's really misleading to have links to the jursdictions themselves. I agree it makes sense to link to articles on same-sex marriage in that jurisdictions, if there were articles that is (I really dislike a bunch of redlinks in the lead section). In any case I think it does not make much of a difference to the average reader whether the links go to the specific or general article. I would even say it is maybe less misleading if they go the the general jurisdiction articles. Regards, SPQRobin (talk) 00:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

There was more blue in the lead than black, and most of it didn't lead to anything particularly relevant. It's hard to pick out relevant links from a sea of blue. We also shouldn't use linking as a substitute for a dictionary. We have links to Mexico and its states at the top of the lead, but someone seeing Jalisco and clicking on it isn't interested in the state: They want to know what's going on there, and if that's not the article they get, they're going to be frustrated. — kwami (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Hindi image

Please reply here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hindi#Hindi_image--Cubancigar11 (talk) 11:41, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Versions of Chinese characters

Kwami, you might be interested in a discussion on using the two versions of Chinese characters on Fayenatic london's talk page. CorinneSD (talk) 17:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Sandbox2

PotatoBot has read your page and is checking links now. Please don't edit the page until it has been updated by the bot (probably in a few hours if all goes well) – your edits would get overwritten. Cheers, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 18:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Igor Grabar

I was skimming the article on Igor Grabar and came across something I wanted to ask you about. It is the second and third sentences in the section Igor Grabar#1930s:

"Grabar himself wrote: "I had to choose between the daily mounting administrative burden and creating ... I had no choice. A personal pension granted by Sovnarkom fastened my retirement."

I think "fastened" might be an error. The word "hastened" would make more sense here. Can you read the Russian note there? CorinneSD (talk) 19:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, typo for "hastened". — kwami (talk) 19:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

ANI

I've mentioned you and Skookum1s move wars at ANI.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

If you have a problem with my edits, it would be nice if you said something. This is a rather dickish move. Also, if you have an opinion on the discussion, it would be nice if you commented. We can't read your mind. — kwami (talk) 07:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Re: SSM cases map, MS should be green

I note you colored Mississippi "yellow" for a U.S. district court case; however, it should be "green" as the case, Czekala-Chatham v. Melancon is in the state court of appeals. Thanks. MarkGT (talk) 22:41, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

That was fast. Thanks!!! MarkGT (talk) 23:09, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure. — kwami (talk) 23:14, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Celtic languages

The edits that I've seen this evening seem to be about removing Insular Celtic as a group, or at least downgrading it as unsupported by sources (plural) and essentially replacing that as a family group with Transalpine–Goidelic–Brittonic. Now as far as I know the latter is theorized only by Eska, and I don't see any significant change in support on the Insular Celtic hypothesis. We don't even have an article on a group such as that. What's triggered your edits? Could you spell out the sources why you are doing this. I had posted on the talk page of Common Brittonic that request and that would be a good place to answer. Thanks. DeCausa (talk) 22:18, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

In language info boxes, we tend to not include controversial nodes unless immediately ascending. With Insular, the fact that people are still debating it suggests that the problem isn't going away anytime soon. I'm not sure how to best treat it: Should it only be for Goidelic and Brittonic, analogous to what we do with Altaic? Should it be in all the children articles, in parentheses like we do for Tibeto-Burman, or with a question mark like we do for Nilo-Saharan? Should it simply be listed as if there were no dispute?

Yes, I have been following Eska, as Max Planck judged him to be a good reference for classification. Perhaps you have better? I was trying to get the articles in line, since some were classified as Continental/Insular, and some as Q/P.

The main problem I have is with the clearly invalid families Continental and Q Celtic. Those should definitely be removed from the info boxes, or at best placed in parentheses as a non-family. — kwami (talk) 22:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Ahem... you seem to have mixed up Cagwinn with Jembana (RIP) on Cuchullain's talk page. I can't receall him talking much about Tartessian at all. I thought I'd better mention this. Paul S (talk) 19:51, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but I was basing this on recent behaviour (though I may well have mixed them up in the back of my mind). Cagwinn currently seems primarily concerned with Koch's ideas on Tartessian. He hasn't said anything else that makes sense to me, so if that isn't what's motivating him, I'm at a loss to understand his hostility. — kwami (talk) 23:37, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Article on Central Solomons languages

I have seen that you have edited most of the article on the Central Solomons languages. There is a table of reconstructed pronouns that refers to Ross' article, but I have been looking up Ross' article and there is no such table. Could you tell me where have you taken this table from? It's not only to write the right reference, I'm doing a research on the matter.--Toni P. (talk) 06:33, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. Sorry bout that. — kwami (talk) 06:43, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Kwami. Anyway, the reference you have put now seems to be the provisional title for the reference that you deleted, which is the one that is published. The pronouns table seems not to be published. Maybe you know something else on the matter? --Toni P. (talk) 08:50, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't follow. The ref I added is the one with the pronouns. — kwami (talk) 17:50, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Kwami. I found it finally. The reference you added was the provisional name of a book that was finally published with another name: the one with the reference you deleted after I told you. The right reference with the reconstructed pronouns is Ross 2001, "Is there an East Papuan phylum? Evidence from pronouns", in The boy from Bundaberg. Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. I borrowed the book from the library and the pronouns are there, so I'm going to write the right reference in the article.--Toni P. (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks. You might want to do the same for the other families that cite it. — kwami (talk) 18:03, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

This is good, you thank me and ask me to do the same in other articles, and then you undo what I did. I wonder if you expect me to do a lot of changes to undo them all. I continue this discussion in the talk page of the article, which is the right place for this. Pleas see there what I have to say.--Toni P. (talk) 18:23, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

When the author revises a reconstruction, we should of course use the most recent one. I didn't realize you would change the recent one to an outdated one, I thought you were just going to correct the ref. — kwami (talk) 18:33, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Dari (Persian dialect)

A day or two ago, an editor made some changes to the very beginning of the article on Dari (Persian dialect). I left a note on Lysozym's talk page asking whether he/she approved; he/she responded that they're not bad. But I still wonder. The very first one changed the first words in the article from "Dari is" to "Dari Persian is". Since the title of the article is "Dari (Persian dialect)", shouldn't the first words in the article be just "Dari is..."? I don't know about the rest of it. I just thought, since you were so knowledgeable about languages, you could evaluate these edits (made by Metalman). CorinneSD (talk) 17:06, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

The common name is "Dari", not "Dari Persian". The rest of the lead makes it obvious enough that it's a Persian dialect, so the change is not necessary. More problematic is the claim that "Dari" is the Persian name of Afghanistan, which AFAIK is simply wrong. Reverted. — kwami (talk) 17:16, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Another thing: that editor added the phrase ("in terms of accent"). I am pretty sure that Dari differs in more than just accent from the Persian spoken in Iran. They use some verb forms that are considered "old-fashioned" in modern Persian. CorinneSD (talk) 17:11, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

And if it were just an accent, our article dab would be wrong. — kwami (talk) 17:16, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the revert and the explanation. CorinneSD (talk) 20:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Words without consonants

• Why remove ué?
• éon, eóo and eoa have /ɔ/, not /o/.
• iam has /w̃/.

Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk) 22:20, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Ué is an interjection. I guess we don't say explicitly those are excluded, so we could put it back. I wasn't sure about iam. Many sources transcribe am with a final consonant, but almost all also say it's a diphthong. The two possibilities are not distinct in Portuguese, so I don't know which is more accurate. — kwami (talk) 17:23, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

OK. A correction to the above:

• éon, has /ɛ/, not /e/.

Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk) 22:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

"Kazakh-nogay" languages

Where you find kazakh-nogay languages? 46.251.216.72 (talk) 11:59, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The clade, if not the name, is found in the Glottolog ref in the info box. I don't know where the names came from. — kwami (talk) 15:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Cendol

In the article on Cendol, in the "Etymology" section, a sentence ends:

"In Myanmar it is known as mont let saung or မုန့်လက်ဆောင်း."

I was wondering why I cannot see the word at the end of the sentence. I can usually see most words written in other scripts, but I can't see this one.

Also, the third paragraph of the next section starts, "The affluence of Singapore". I wonder whether it shouldn't be "The influence of Singapore". What does the relative affluence of Singapore have to do with cendol? CorinneSD (talk) 23:14, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I have the same problem, even though I have several Burmese Unicode fonts installed. I suspect that Burmese just has poor OS support. You can fix it by going to the left of your screen, down below the search bar, under 'languages' where the interwiki links are. You should see a gear by 'languages'. Click on it to get your WP language settings, go to the fonts tab, and check the box for 'Download fonts when needed'. Why this works when you already have the fonts you need, I don't know. You should now be able to see Burmese, but headers or other languages may get screwed up, so you'll need to play with it to see what works for you. This was intended to be rolled out as the default interface, but it's still too buggy. — kwami (talk) 17:30, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks. What about "affluence" vs. "influence"? CorinneSD (talk) 03:07, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

All fixed now. (Corinne asked me to take a look.) Rothorpe (talk) 00:18, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Revision on Filipino language

May I ask why you reverted my contributions to Filipino language? (See [3]) I believe what you did was a mistake. It was not vandalism, and all information changed/added were well-cited.

Regards. 舎利弗 (talk) 18:27, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

You were in effect claiming that Filipino has millions of native speakers who are not Tagalog speakers. Whether Filipino is a standard form of Tagalog, or an artificial language as proponents claim, it doesn't really have native speakers. With your edits, you're saying Filipino is the same as Tagalog, and should therefore be merged into that article. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Let's move this discussion to Talk:Filipino language for the benefit of everyone watching that page. 舎利弗 (talk) 19:20, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello, this is sort of a followup to what you said here on your talk page but I found a source that says that almost all Filipinos understood, spoke and wrote Filipino. I would appreciate your reply at Talk:Filipino language#Filipino language and the Filipino people. 舎利弗 (talk) 16:39, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

PUA

Israeli Jews has a a character in PUA and needs your attention. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:00, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Magioladitis, are you saying Jews have character issue? Isn't that a blocking offense? Really, haven't you seen Greeks? Boy do they have issues. Bgwhite (talk) 06:33, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 06:40, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I found one at List of language names. Bgwhite (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Where? It's a long list. — kwami (talk) 17:59, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I think there are other control characters in there as well. Error report only show first problem and it is, "{200E}* Spoken in: the [[Islamic Repub". Maybe Magioladitis can find those first. Bgwhite (talk) 20:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Next to "Avestan" and "Balinese" there are PUA characters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Those are assigned Unicode ranges you just don't have support for. (Me either.) — kwami (talk) 20:48, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami and Bgwhite: I fixed 3 out of 4 characters. Problem is now next to Klingon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:05, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Done. — kwami (talk) 21:15, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Emoji too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:59, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

That was fixed months ago; 'Bonding for Today' reverted it yesterday. — kwami (talk) 22:20, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Polabian language

Kwami, if you want a challenge, there's a lot of missing information in the article on Polabian language. CorinneSD (talk) 14:42, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The kurds population in the world

I don't understand why you try to underestimate the population of the kurds in the world? Why are you so eager to undermine the kurds population? Where did you find that the population of the Kurds in the world is 20 million? It's not up to you to decide how many kurds in the world. When people come to Wikipedia they seek facts and you have no right to mislead them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bergman Gotland (talk • contribs) 08:04, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Why would you want us to contradict ourselves? Besides, we're not talking about the number of Kurds. — kwami (talk) 17:00, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

What you are doing is vandalism, stop it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bergman Gotland (talk • contribs) 22:22, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

French language

You've made some errors in the page French language. I hear [oʁøvwaʁ] in the above recording. You must listen the recording before. 162.246.52.229 (talk) 19:34, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Generic phrases should have generic transcriptions, not narrow transcriptions of specific recordings. — kwami (talk) 21:41, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Mistake

Sorry, by mistake i reverted your edit, as i want to revert some older edits on Andhra Pradesh page. Actually i used the auto revert option link and used it on older version it also reverted yours.Vin09 (talk) 05:10, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

No problem. — kwami (talk) 05:14, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Revision on Okanagan language

ə is its own vowel sound but can never be stressed. In our current orthography words like skəmxist (bear) dont have an accent mark because i is your only option since ə is never stressed. Hope that helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.114.69.154 (talk) 22:13, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Not really. The passage seems to say that a vowel may be /a e i u/ (a full vowel) if stressed, and only [ə] when unstressed. But that would mean that a word could only have one full vowel, yet there are words which have more than one full vowel, such as incitxw 'my house'. Is it only one full vowel per morpheme? Also, we have /k’l/ in k’əl incitxw 'to my house', suggesting that the schwa is epenthetic. Are all schwas epenthetic in Okanagan? — kwami (talk) 22:47, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Reply

I've replied to you on my talk page. --Hordaland (talk) 01:48, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Parsi/Farsi

I believe the article already contains refs, and a cited explanation that: "Farsi is the Arabicized form of Parsi, due to a lack of the 'p' phoneme in Standard Arabic".

Prior to Arab Islamic conquest of Persia, Iranians referred to themselves and their language as Parsi. In fact, the Iranians who fled the prosecution to India are known to this day as Parsi people.

Today both Parsi and Farsi are used as endonyms.

As mentioned Arabic language lacks the four sounds "G", "Č", "P", and "Ž". The word "Parsi" is not the only casualties of this; the name of Pars Province was also changed to Fars. "Chatrang", the Persian word for chess, was changed to "Shatranj". Etc.

Parsi is the original non-Arabicized term, from which derives the English "Persian" (via Hellenic and Latin Persis and Persianus respectively). Ferdowsi author of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran, calls the language "Parsi". This term predates "Farsi" by thousands of years. Grinevitski (talk) 02:17, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 04:39, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Question

Could you tell me why is it on the Serbo-Croatian family languages written all the dialects? I mean, shouldn't it be only language groups and not dialects? Only enwiki promotes all the "families" of dialects, and I can't find it on dewiki, shwiki etc. I already asked JorisvS, and also I would like to hear from you. --MunjaWiki (talk) 23:27, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the question is. WP-de and WP-sh say that the national standardized forms of SC are based on the Shtokavian dialect, which is the same as what we say. — kwami (talk) 00:11, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

By this question, I mean look at Croatian language and all those categories under Serbo-Croatian at the right side. There is Shtokavian, Eastern Herzegovinian etc. They're dialects, not languages, so they shouldn't be there. --MunjaWiki (talk) 12:18, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

By that I mean: If we would write each dialect for i.e. English or German, then that category would be enormous. But mentioning dialects in article, beside info box, is fine. My opinion. --Munja (talk) 17:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I still don't understand. The English and German articles *do* have sections on dialects. — kwami (talk) 17:41, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

"Don't understand"

You say you don't understand what I am talking about, but revert my changes over those articles. You can't put some dialects in language family. --Munja (talk) 18:38, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

There is no language family. Nearly all of our well-developed language articles cover dialects.

As for your edit, you claimed that the three SW Slavic languages are Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and Bosnian, which is utter nonsense. — kwami (talk) 21:30, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the language family is Slavic. South Slavic is a probable branch, and it's conventionally divided into East (the Bulgarian–Macedonian dialect continuum) and West (the Slovene–Kajkavian–Chakavian–Shtokavian dialect continuum). Bosnian is a literary standard for the Shtokavian dialect. — kwami (talk) 21:33, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Fine. Let me ask you something. See this map:

File:Serbo croatian dialects historical distribution.png

Linguistics and politics should not mix together. Well name Serbo-Croatian is political and, in my opinion, it should not be used. Also, Serbo-Croatian is a term made recently (in 1945. or a few decades before 1945.), by mixing terms Serbian and Croatian. Oldest document in Bosnian language is Bosnian-Turkish dictionary by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi Bosnevi in 1632 (over 200 years before SC term). Also, looking at this map, you can see that Shtokavian was not based in Croatia fully, just in part of Slavonia. Also, calling Bosnian just as standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian is wrong, because of facts I already said. Term Shtokavian is older term than Serbo-Croatian, but I know what you want to say: It's same language. YES, it is, almost. But it's totally wrong to call it Serbo-Croatian. I was searching in many books for sentence "Bosnian is standardized variety of S/C", and came up with nothing. --Munja (talk) 22:23, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Correct about politics, wrong about the history. The term Serbo-Croatian dates at least to the 19th century. It is also the most common English name for the language, and therefore the name we use on WP. Bosnian was only recently invented; the Bosnian–Turkish dictionary is for the dialect of Serbo-Croatian spoken in Bosnia, and has little to do with the modern Bosnian language.

We've debated all this a dozen times, with nationalists who believe their standard or nation is original or superior or being contaminated or whatever. As you say, we don't give such political claims much weight. — kwami (talk) 22:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Two replies waiting for you at my talk page. Wikarth (talk) 22:36, 29 May 2014 (UTC) Hehehe... well, considering that you even dont recognize Serb and Croatian as two languages, I can see you have a problem with understanding Norway... Wikarth (talk) 22:36, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry, but do I hear fine? You are also calling (my) Bosnian language Serbo-Croatian. S/C term does date to the 19th century, but term Bosnian dates to 16th or even before (according to Bos-Tr dict.). About saying that 16th century Bosnian is different or so from modern Bosnian, I advise you to read Charter of Ban Kulin. He lived after 10th century, spoke on language almost same as modern Bosnian, and I really doubt that he would say: "I speak Serbo-Croatian." Also, term Serbo-Croatian could not be older than Serbian, nor Croatian, like it is case with Czecho-Slovakian. To make combined term you have to have two separate terms. They are make for piolitical reasons to put Bosnian nationality in bad position. --Munja (talk) 22:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

That's because the English name of the language is "Serbo-Croatian". We use English names for things in English Wikipedia. If you succeed in changing the name of the language, so that the most common name for the language of the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks becomes "Bosnian", then we will of course follow common usage and move the Serbo-Croatian article to "Bosnian". — kwami (talk) 22:51, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, South Slavic or Yugoslavian would be more common. And family-tree like here is nowhere to be found. On dewiki and bswiki, hrwiki, srwiki, shwiki etc. you can see: BALTO-SLAVIC >> SLAVIC >> SOUTH SLAVIC >> BOSNIAN; You're still putting dead language name as alive language and considering it more living than already standardized form. Term Serbo-Croatian is banned from all ex-Yugoslav republics, because of its nationalistic name. --Munja (talk) 23:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

No, "South Slavic" includes Slovenian and Bulgarian, and practically no-one calls it "Yugoslavian".

WP-de etc. are wrong, as you can verify with even the most elementary reference. The are also not a valid reference for us.

Serbo-Croatian is spoken by 20 million people; calling it "dead" is simply nonsense.

Wikipedia is not an ex-Yugoslav republic. — kwami (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

User:MunjaWiki is a Bosniak nationalist who already got banned under User:SuperNepoznat (and various of his sockpuppets with which he tried to influence votes). He was also IP-banned for two weeks but as soon as the IP-ban expired, he continued doing what he did before. Thought you should know before wasting more time on discussing with him. 78.1.143.200 (talk) 13:31, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Yep, see [4]. Technically, the block has expired so he's entitled to a clean start, but creating yet another account to do that is troubling from the start. No such user (talk) 14:46, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

He's technically permanently blocked for sockpuppetry. So any edits he makes are grounds for blocking, regardless. CodeCat (talk) 17:37, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Yiddish

I would like to see second opinions. Please propose the move of Yiddish language to Yiddish at talk:Yiddish language. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 12:04, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to take the time to debate it, but the language is pretty much the only use of the word, so there's no reason for a dab. — kwami (talk) 06:25, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Pali

Kwami, is the latest edit to Pali correct? CorinneSD (talk) 21:39, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Not my area, but Pali wasn't written in Devanagari, so I'd say no for that reason. The first spelling matched Nepali WP, but not Hindi, Sanskrit, or other WPs. I have no idea if it might be an acceptable be an acceptable variant, though. — kwami (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

O.K. I saw that you added "Ref?" CorinneSD (talk) 22:16, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

It would be nice if they supplied a ref. — kwami (talk) 22:22, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I know what you meant. CorinneSD (talk) 22:29, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Fiji

Are you watching Fiji? Do you agree with the latest edits? CorinneSD (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

How far back? The latest is closer to a standard transliteration of Devanagari. I suspect someone used "th" to mean a dental t rather than an aspirated t, but the transliteration isn't really enough to show you how to pronounce the words either way. — kwami (talk) 21:52, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I meant mainly the last one, but I thought you could just check to be sure the parentheses were correct in the one right before it. I don't know anything about how the info right at the beginning is supposed to be formatted. Re the last edit, which you addressed above, how do you know it is Devanagari? CorinneSD (talk) 22:21, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I recognize the script. Formatting's rather inconsistent, but I like to leave English pronunciations out of the parentheses when they're simple enough they don't bog down the lead that way. — kwami (talk) 22:35, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

"Macro-Swedish"

Regarding this,[5] it places "Dalecarlian", "Jamtska" and good ol' Scanian are back to separate language status under "Macro-Swedish". Similar dialects are all just plain Swedish, though. So where does this novel classification come from and why are we linking to it in infoboxes?

Peter ^Isotalo 07:25, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

But we don't classify those as Swedish either, so their Swedish corresponds to our Swedish, and that's the proper code for the link. We're linking it because as far as possible we're linking all languages to Glottolog, just as we do to Ethnologue. That way most languages will have at least two refs, and Glottolog provides a lot of bibliographic info. As for their source, that's given at the link: Patrick V. Stiles. 2013. The Pan-West Germanic Isoglosses and the Subrelationships of West Germanic to Other Branches. NOWELE - North-Western European Evolution 66. 5-38. — kwami (talk) 17:02, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

We do actually. See Swedish dialects or South Swedish dialects. Glottolog, on the other hand, makes the weird claim that Bornholmsk should be classified as "Scanian", which is quite dubious. Both are historically East Danish dialects, but modern classifications would consider them variants of Swedish and Danish respectively.

Stiles appears to be literally the only source here, but I can't access him right now. I need to get to the local library to check pages 8-10 (it's the same exact ref for every entry among the Germanic languages). It doesn't seem to like a fair representation of the consensus view on Scandinavian dialects. It seems more like a repetition of the oddball Ethnologue classifications, like the claim that Scanian is a separate language. Both Jamtska and Dalecarlian both rely entirely on Glottolog for the classification, which is pretty problematic.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:58, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

The Jamtska and Dalecarlian articles were written without any input from Glottolog. We can certainly change them to reflect the preponderance of sources. But that's not reason to delete sources. Glottolog isn't a ref for classification so much as a resource for more sources. We don't need to use their classification just because we link them from the info box, any more than we need to follow Ethnologue just because we link to them. There are also plans to update Glottolog so that distinctions between entries better reflect mutual intelligibility. — kwami (talk) 21:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Jamtska and Dalecarlian were written with reference to the older Ethnologue classification if I'm not mistaken. It was just as problematic back then since Ethnologue relied on highly selective sourcing, or just statements from individuals. The whole classification scheme for Swedish is actually just weird. The list of dialects under Swedish, for example, seems like a somewhat random collection of variants like "Svea" (Svealand dialects, apparently), "Eastern Swedish" (which includes all the varieties in Finland also listed) and even Standard Swedish, which isn't even a dialect.

Glottolog obviously isn't reliable as a source in itself, just like Ethnologue.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:37, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

We're not using it as a ref, but as a resource. If someone redoes the Swedish articles to incorporate Jamtksa & Darl, then we can change the glottolog code to match. Actually, it's not just Swedish but our coverage of all of Germanic that's a bit dodgy. — kwami (talk) 14:56, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

174567 Varda

Just wondering, where did you get the English-style pronunciation you put? (I added the Quenya one later, after wondering for a while how to handle the situaiton.) Double sharp (talk) 05:41, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

There are pronunciation guides for Tolkien's works, but in this case there's no other possible pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 14:57, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I was more thinking about the moon's name (Ilmarë), which (to me at least) doesn't seem to have an obvious English pronunciation. Double sharp (talk) 15:05, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Speedwriting

I noticed in the article on Speedwriting that the text to the right of the table is right up against the right-hand border of the table. Is there any way to put some space between the table and the text? Also, do you like the look of that narrow column of text? CorinneSD (talk) 18:56, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Nepal language, Nepali language, Nepal Bhasa

Hi Kwami. Hope things are well. Any idea if all this is kosher? Nepal Bhasa vs. Nepali language. They look like different articles but Nepal Bhasa also calls itself "Nepal language" and the infobox at "Nepali language" includes "Nepal Bhasa'. Bhasa is, of course, just another word for language. Any ideas? --regentspark (comment) 15:07, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

It's kosher. See Nepalese language. Not unlike "British" meaning both Brittonic and British English. — kwami (talk) 23:03, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Si5s

Are you watching Si5s? A bunch of information was truncated from the article by a group involved in one of the two development paths. Slevinski (talk) 15:30, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Rv'd as apparent COI. Some of the little info that was added may be worthwhile, though. — kwami (talk) 23:07, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Wayuu people

I have just finished reading the article on Wayuu people and have made a few edits to improve clarity. More work needs to be done, especially on the Religion section. I'll continue working on it tomorrow. But I have a few questions for you about the table in the section "Clans":

1) If you read the translation of the names of the clan territories, you will see some that look like they belong to one phrase (like "Plays a lot"), but there are two words, one above the other, in the box to the left of them, in the territories column. It looks like there are two territories, but it might be just one territory, translated by the phrase (instead of two territories, each translated as a separate word). Do you see what I mean? If it's really one territory, translated by a phrase in English, then it should be clearly shown as one territory. I don't know if there is anything that can be done, or should be done, about it.

2) If you read all the translations in the translation column, there are one or two that I think might be incorrectly written: 1) "the teeth of out eyes", and 2) "laing eyes", which might really be "lying eyes". What do you think?

3) I see the word "rancheria(s)" spelled both with an accent on the "i" and without (mostly without), throughout the article. Should it have an accent on the "i" in every case? I thought that, since it has apparently been adopted by the Wayuu people to name their houses, perhaps the accent was dropped.CorinneSD (talk) 03:46, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, no time now, don't know anything about the topic. 'Rancheria' is spelled w/o a diacritic in English. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

O.K. Thanks. CorinneSD (talk) 23:22, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

PUA

• Social Network for Assistance to People. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:47, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Deleted the refs as not needed and not worth fixing. — kwami (talk) 23:07, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

• Girl in a Coma -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:00, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Carbon

I think you might be able to answer a question posted at Talk:Carbon#Greek name origin. CorinneSD (talk) 22:30, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Sbreheny is correct, AFAICT w/o a ref handy. — kwami (talk) 05:13, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Verbal case

Hi, Kwami. Are you still interested to expand Verbal case? I don't know whether this treats a notable topic, or it lists loosely related concepts in the manner of WP:Set index articles. Cnilep (talk) 02:12, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I won't have time to get to it anytime soon. — kwami (talk) 02:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, I guess it'll have to stay on the back burner. Cnilep (talk) 03:35, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Et tu?

I would be most curious for you to explain to me why you should not be blocked for trolling and harassment if you choose to bait Skookum like this again in the future. Resolute 13:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

How in the world is that "harassment"? I thanked him for breaking from his usual pattern of disruption and making a substantive contribution to WP. He had engaged in yet another mindless edit war (though I didn't call it that). This time, however, he apparently thought better of it on his own, and made an intelligent edit. It was an edit to push his POV, which contradicts the majority of WP, but at least it was rational, and as long as he's rational it's possible to have a rational discussion. I know he's capable of this, but usually he doesn't bother, preferring rants, personal attacks, and straw-man arguments to actual discussion. It was nice to see that he resolved this on his own, without pages of vitriol. — kwami (talk) 01:25, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Uhh, yeah, no. One who is truly thanking another does not rely on snarky, dismissive and backhanded statements like "thank you for making an intelligent edit" and "I knew you were capable of it if you tried". If that is how you intend to "thank" editors in the future, I would suggest you are better off saying nothing. Resolute 01:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Granted, it is difficult to keep out the snark, since he's such a bad-faith editor (or paranoid, or whatever his problem is). But I was genuinely glad to see him address a conflict by making an intelligent/rational edit for a change. — kwami (talk) 03:06, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

::nachhiring::

I think the correct spell of the nachering is nachhiring. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gm420 (talk • contribs) 04:34, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

At ANI

See WP:ANI#Kwamikagami edit-warring at Gaulish language. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:09, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Nuclear Japanese language listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Nuclear Japanese language. Since you had some involvement with the Nuclear Japanese language redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. TheChampionMan1234 08:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Durian

Do you agree with the IP editor's statement in his/her edit summary regarding Malay being the language of both Malaysia and Indonesia, at Durian? CorinneSD (talk) 14:22, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Rongorongo Qr3-7 color.jpg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Rongorongo Qr3-7 color.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you object to the listing for any reason. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 17:13, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

On something else.

You'll remember me as the guy who kept inputting flags on List of languages by number of native speakers. I've given up on that, but I feel that instead of the list of areas in the "Mainly Spoken In" of the aforementioned article, I suggest we replace it with a prose, similar to that of the "Native to" section in the Language info boxes. It removes ambiguity and is, frankly, a lot more appealing than a disjointed list of areas which could clog up the cells, as in the case of Spanish. Would you accept? AlexTeddy888 (talk) 12:38, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Rongorongo T fluted Honolulu (color).jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Rongorongo T fluted Honolulu (color).jpg, which you've attributed to Shawn McLaughlin. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

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If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read the Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 23:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

PUA

• Serwan Baban. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:31, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

North America Marriage Map

Hey, do you think it's time to add stay colors to the North American map..? [6] --Prcc27 (talk) 05:59, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

tête

The former is [taɪ̯t] and the latter is [tɐɪ̯t] ? 162.247.124.85 (talk) 17:38, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Pali

Kwami, I need help understanding something in Pali. An IP editor removed my clarification needed tag and note to editors with an edit summary. This editor very possibly knows what he/she is talking about, but I still don't understand the connection. How can a language not be considered a spoken language...because it was archaic? How are those two things related to each other? CorinneSD (talk) 00:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I understand how Latin is not considered a spoken language today because it is a "dead" language. Maybe it's just that wording "not be considered" a spoken language by grammarians who lived much later. If it was like Latin is to us today, then I think it would be clearer if it said, "By the time of these grammarians, Pali was no longer a spoken language", or (if it is the case), "Pali was never a spoken language". CorinneSD (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Format for Guthrie codes

Hello. I noticed you use a format for Guthrie codes containing a period, e.g. "S.42" instead of "S42" (for Zulu). Is this common? Might it be documented somewhere? πr² (t • c) 04:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi? πr² (t • c) 02:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, been away. Not sure it matters. I think I've seen it both ways, but honestly can't remember, and don't have the resources with me to check. — kwami (talk) 03:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Changes in DejaVu fonts, Unicode Coverage

Hello Kwami -- I use Dejavu Fonts every now and then. I am much appreciative of the table you have shared on the fonts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DejaVu_fonts . Few days back I changed the version numbers of Dejavu fonts as it has upped from 2.32 to 2.34 . While it might have been a minor or major change I have no idea. I just changed the version info. as can be seen in the history of the article https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DejaVu_fonts&diff=613787792&oldid=613342109

You could either share how you are/were able to know how you tested the unicode coverage (some specific tool), or if not please update the table if any changes were observed therein. Looking forward to know from you. Either answer here or at my talk page Shirishag75 (talk) 10:46, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Don't remember, and don't have the time to try to dig it up right now. Sorry. — kwami (talk) 03:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello

I was wondering where you had gone! :-)

I wrote the current pages on period 8 element, period 9 element, and period 10 element. I've been thinking about putting all the info we have on hypothetical and undiscovered elements into extended periodic table, keeping it together and not having to break at E164 (which is annoying because it is the end of a period but is in the middle of an expected island of stability) and E172? Especially since our articles on E121 and beyond don't seem to say very much that isn't already covered in these period articles or not. I'm also thinking that perhaps all the period articles should be merged, as you said earlier.

So, as I stated at WT:ELEM, maybe we could merge all the period articles as well as the articles for elements beyond 120 (perhaps 119 and 120 could be spared because there have been so many more predictions made about them than any later elements).

What do you think? Double sharp (talk) 12:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Guyana

Hello, Kwami -- I just saw an edit to Guyana in which an editor removed West African languages from the list of languages that have influenced Guyanese Creole, with an edit summary saying that West African languages had no influence on Guyanese Creole. Even knowing nothing about Guyanese Creole I find that hard to believe. Is he/she correct? CorinneSD (talk) 19:26, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

No, of course they influenced it. To what extent I don't know, but to remove any mention seems biased. — kwami (talk) 03:05, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad you're back. Thanks for your responses to my queries. I put "West African" back in. CorinneSD (talk) 14:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Corsica

Can you review the edits just made to Corsica for accuracy? Thank you. CorinneSD (talk) 23:40, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I assume the Italian is correct, though I don't know that it's relevant. Whether Corsican is a dialect of Italian depends on the classification. The Corsican article lists it specifically as a Tuscan dialect and refs it as such. (I haven't verified the ref.) Glottolog classifies Corsican proper & Gallurese as close to Sardinian, and Sassarese as close to Italian; they give their ref at the link. Ethnologue classifies Corsican as close to Sardinian and Gallurese & Sassarese as essentially dialects of Sardinian. So the edit agrees w the language article, as it should, but I'm not sure our classification in the language article is justified. Not my area, though. — kwami (talk) 03:16, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Do you know any other editor who would know about this? CorinneSD (talk) 14:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Affricate

Template:Affricate has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 03:53, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Azerbaijani language article

What exactly is your problem with the Azerbaijani language article? Why are you constantly reverting the article to an older version from last month? --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 19:52, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I just left you a warning.

Because I wasn't here to revert you earlier.

Which part of Eastern Europe is Azeri spoken in, exactly? Unless you mean Dagestan, but that's hardly what people normally mean by Eastern Europe. "Caucasus" would be a more informative term.

I'm glad you now recognize that Azeri is spoken in Iran, and are no longer edit-warring over that.

Ethnologue is not a reliable source. Leave the population figures we have.

As for your IPA transcriptions, I assume they're accurate. I don't have a problem with them.

— kwami (talk) 20:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Kwami, please do not lie. You were here last month and I invited you to discuss the issues in the talk page, which you failed to do. You cant suddenly show up one month later and revert back to the last version you were pleased with just because you want to. Now it is up to you to discuss your issues in the talk page and have them resolved. In the meantime, please stop reverting a month's hard work, which others have also contributed to, as that is clearly disruptive and goes against the good intentions of an encyclopedia. Also, please do not attempt to redefine what is Europe and what isn't. Eastern Europe refers to Dagestan and small portions of Azerbaijan, while Western Europe refers to Asia Minor, parts of Azerbaijan and Northern Iran. I used this wording to give a better scope of Azerbaijani's extent. Now regarding Ethnologue, you'll have to show me why it's not a reliable source. Saying it's not reliable isn't enough. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 20:14, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, it must have been my clone you saw here last month.

Eastern Europe does not refer to Azerbaijan, but to the eastern part of Europe, and Western Europe does not refer to Anatolia. Anatolia is not in Europe at all.

Do we really need to say that Azeri is spoken where Azeri speakers speak Azeri? Isn't that a bit, well, uninformative?

I tagged the dubious claims. Please don't start edit warring over the tags. — kwami (talk) 20:17, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I meant Western Asia. Clearly it was a mistake, or did you really think I thought Anatolia is in Western Europe? Good grief, you need to tone down a little bit. Firstly, Azerbaijan is partially situated in Eastern Europe, whether you like this fact or not. Secondly, Azerbaijani is spoken even to the north of Azerbaijan's borders, which is undeniably in Eastern Europe. Thirdly, it's a fact that Azerbaijani is spoken in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The fact you have an issue with this is rather sad on your part. And yes, you were here last month and failed to discuss any of these issues in the talk page. This isn't your website, Kwami. Learn how to respectfully engage with others in a dialogue instead of just reverting articles to older versions that matched your tastes. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 20:26, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Somali and related languges

Hi, you seem to know a lot about languages; do you mine assisting me? What do you think of the recent changes on the Aweer, Rendille-Boni languages, and the Somali languages page (such as Macro-Somali)? Do you agree with such changes and classifications? How do you think the Somali languages should be classified? I kept my questions short since I am not sure if you can't assist me. If not, thank you anyways. AcidSnow (talk) 04:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Middayexpress copies a lot of bullshit onto WP. I don't have a problem w Tropylium deleting the stub on Rendille-Boni, though the reclassification of Boni is not sourced. Glottologue supports the split, but not the classification of Boni and Garre as Somali. — kwami (talk) 20:15, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Problem is that you can't find Aweer by climbing down the classification, because the links to it have been deleted. Also, we ref Ehret & Ali (1984) for the only mention of it in a superior node, and Ehret only pretends to be a linguist (or an archeologist, for that matter). — kwami (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

If he is pretending to be a linguistic why are we using his classifications? There are also some sources that disagree with Rendille and the others being closly related to Somali other than them being East Cushitic. They also state that Somali language's closest relations are with Afar and Oromo. AcidSnow (talk) 22:14, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Rhubarb

I'm wondering if you could complete the etymology in the last paragraph of the section Rhubarb#Historical cultivation in the article on Rhubarb. The etymology of "Rhu" is given but not the etymology of "barb". It says "barbarum" but does not translate it. Does it simply mean "wild"? CorinneSD (talk) 23:26, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Nepal Bhasa

You have no right to change the name of the language.

Before you move the name of a page, please have the courtesy to discuss about it in the Talk page or in the talk page of users who are editing it. It is completely absurd to rename "Nepalbhasa" as Newari. None of the official bodies of Nepalbhasa (including Nepalbhasa Academy and Nepalbhasa Parishad) have ever used that term in either English, Nepali or Nepalbhasa. Also, the term has a derogatory connotation, for which the Government of Nepal decided to use only the term "Nepal Bhasa" nearly two decades ago. Please see the following as well-

--Eukesh (talk) 15:43, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Governments do not dictate WP usage. We follow common usage, which AFAICT is "Newari". If you believe I am wrong, make a formal move request and present your evidence, rather than move-warring. — kwami (talk) 02:32, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

		The Trail of Tears Barnstar
		For your tireless contributions to unilaterally relocate Nepal-related articles, on the basis of ultra-legitimate "AFAIK" and "AFAICT" facts, with high disregard to the "non-dictating" facts presented by native regulating bodies, native governments and native wikipedians.--Eukesh (talk) 16:42, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

You do not dictate WP usage either. And if you disagree, you make a formal move request and present your evidence. Zulufive (talk) 12:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

There is citation from book published about the language from its regulating body (Nepal Bhasa Academy) in the opening line itself. Also, there is a discussion in the talk page. Common usage is clearly Nepal Bhasa or Nepalbhasa, including the official usage in Nepal. Please participate in the discussion in the talk page if you have concerns and evidence to support your stance. I am afraid that your actions are highly inappropriate and counterproductive. Please refrain from vandalism and revert the page. Thank you.--Eukesh (talk) 23:12, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Dutch Braille

Hi. I have just changed the phrase "differently than" in this article to "differently from". I notice that when I did this on an earlier occasion you reverted my edit. Unfortunately, the use of "than" in this context is regional (predominantly North American), while the use of "from" is internationally understood. In keeping with Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English, you'll see that "opportunities for commonality" are encouraged, and I have made the change in this spirit. If you feel uncomfortable with this, please let me know. Thank you. RomanSpa (talk) 10:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Turkish Language

Good morning,
actually on Talk:Turkish language there is a discussion of the same time that you are having about Azeri language. I would be glad if you could bring there your opinion. The problem there does not seem to be big one at first glance, but this edit is part of an agenda, pursued on different articles, to "Europize" different languages and peoples. Alex2006 (talk) 09:22, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Republic of Macedonia

I was reading the article on the Republic of Macedonia, and I came across something in the Republic of Macedonia#Etymology section that is not clear. Two sentences read:

"It was traditionally derived from the Indo-European root *mak- meaning 'long' or 'slender', but according to modern research by Robert Beekes both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology."

My question is, what are the two terms referred to in the phrase "both terms"? I assume one of them is *mak-, but what is the other one? Would it be the other half of Makednos? I think something might be missing here. CorinneSD (talk) 19:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like they mean both μακεδνός and *mak-. IE morphology would explain derivatives of the latter, unless Beekes is proposing that *mak- is not a valid reconstruction. Not clear what they meant. — kwami (talk) 17:41, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Azerbaijani language article

Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you.

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted or removed. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Administrators have the ability to block users from editing if they repeatedly engage in vandalism. Thank you.

Please stop your abuse of tags. Sources relevant to the article have been restored and the associated tags removed. Please use the article talk page to discuss any of the issues. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 23:00, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but if you write idiotic things in WP article, you're going to get reverted. Calling Azeri an Eastern European language is like calling Yupik an East Asian language.

Also, when your refs fail verification, you shouldn't delete the tags. That could be construed as vandalism, and in any case can get you blocked. — kwami (talk) 05:29, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I didn't call Azeri an Eastern European language. I said that it is spoken in parts of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Previously, the article only mentioned the language being spoken in Western Asia, which isn't the complete truth. It is in fact spoken in parts of Eastern Europe (i.e. Dagestan and European Azerbaijan) as well as parts of Western Asia (i.e. northern Iran, Armenia, etc). I provided sources to verify that Azeri is indeed spoken in what is defined as Eastern Europe. Removing sourced content and re-adding the dubious tag does, in fact, constitute vandalism and I advise you tread the article very carefully the next time you want to cause disruptive editing, lest you want to get blocked. I don't want any trouble but it appears that you do. As I've told you for the past month or so, you're more than welcome to discuss any issue with me in the article talk page, but you haven't so far. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 05:54, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

And it's also spoken in East Asia, Western Europe, North America, ... So what? The geographical description should give the reader some idea of where it's spoken. Saying it's spoken in "Eastern Europe and Western Asia" is not informative. Your sources have also failed verification, I tagged them as failing verification, and you deleted the tags. Try to improve the article, rather than edit warring over sophistry for no apparent purpose. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

No, it is spoken natively in parts of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, which is clearly different than your analogy, and the sources did not fail to verify. If you bother checking the sources online, you will see where it is mentioned that these languages are indigenous to some parts of Eastern Europe. Furthermore, I feel you're being disingenuous. You did not tag anything. Instead, you simply reverted the page and hence removed all the sourced content that was added, in addition to re-adding the tags, which constitutes as "abuse of tags", a form of vandalism. You are the one engaged in an edit war for no apparent reason. I'm simply restoring sourced content that was removed by you. We can discuss this issue maturely in the talk page, as I've invited you to do for the last month, and I assure you we can come up with a compromise. Or, you could continue your childish behavior and I'll see to it that you're reported to the administrators for disruptive editing, deliberate persistent removal of content and abuse of tag vandalism. Judging by your past record, it is in your best interest to discuss these issues with me in the talk page. We can come up with a compromise, or you can continue this childish behavior. Which one is it going to be, Kwami? Remember, I don't want to hurt you or any other editor. I prefer we settle it in a civilized way than to have admins taking over the issue. Please be reasonable and cooperate. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 06:31, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

How about this: "Azerbaijani or Azeri (Azərbaycan dili) is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken primarily in parts of Eastern Europe (the Caucasus) and Western Asia (northern Iran) by the Azerbaijani people..."? Is that okay with you? --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 06:38, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that works for me. The main problem was that when we say just "Eastern Europe", people think of Poland. I don't see what benefit there is to saying "Eastern Europe" and "Western Asia", but at least this way it does no harm. — kwami (talk) 17:30, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

@Kutsuit: Nadia, it seems as if you are trying to get into the article the widest possible chunk of the globe as the place where Azeri is spoken. Normally, in WP articles, the locations where a language is spoken is more specific than Eastern Europe and Western Asia -- even if you add "parts of" before those. Better encylopedic writing would say: "is spoken in the Caucasus region (or the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe) and in northern Iran" -- with links to "Caucasus" and "Iran" so that if readers want to know more they can click on the link. You have to ask yourself, and answer honestly, whether you are trying to aggrandize a language (or a people) at the expense of good writing or contribute well-written, accurate, encylopedic prose to an article. I also think you should try to be more respectful of Kwami who is extremely knowledgeable about languages and is an experienced editor. CorinneSD (talk) 22:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Nepal Bhasa

Cite your sources. Do not make stupid arguments. --Eukesh (talk) 04:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

You're making up names. It's up to you to demonstrate they are actually used. — kwami (talk) 17:48, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Also, saying that "Nepal Bhasa" is also known as "Nepal Bhasa" (in the info box) is rather idiotic, don't you think? — kwami (talk) 17:58, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, now that you are talking, lets begin the conversation with the initial action that started all of this- your initial move. You moved the page without a discussion in the talk, without citing sources and without any conversation with any of the users involved in maintenance of the page. Do you think that it was appropriate?--Eukesh (talk) 03:57, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Kwami, who's making up names? What names? You are the one who has been insisting on using a name that has never been used at any point in history. You have done wholesale vandalism by unilaterally changing the name across a series of articles without discussing it and "taking it to talk" which you are so fond of telling others to do. Zulufive (talk) 11:32, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Come on, this is silly. "Nepal Bhasa" and "Newari" are both common in the lit. AFAICT, from my own sources, "Newari" is more common, but that's subject to discussion. Calling it "Nepal" is just ridiculous, as is "Nepalbhasa", "Nepalbasa", "GoobyGoobyDoo", or whatever else you have in mind. Calling me a vandal for reverting those changes indicates either that (a) you have no idea what vandalism is, or (b) you're casting aspersions because you have no legitimate argument to make. — kwami (talk) 22:53, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Somali and related languges

Hi, you seem to know a lot about languages; do you mine assisting me? What do you think of the recent changes on the Aweer, Rendille-Boni languages, and the Somali languages page (such as Macro-Somali)? Do you agree with such changes and classifications? How do you think the Somali languages should be classified? I kept my questions short since I am not sure if you can't assist me. If not, thank you anyways. AcidSnow (talk) 04:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Middayexpress copies a lot of bullshit onto WP. I don't have a problem w Tropylium deleting the stub on Rendille-Boni, though the reclassification of Boni is not sourced. Glottologue supports the split, but not the classification of Boni and Garre as Somali. — kwami (talk) 20:15, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Problem is that you can't find Aweer by climbing down the classification, because the links to it have been deleted. Also, we ref Ehret & Ali (1984) for the only mention of it in a superior node, and Ehret only pretends to be a linguist (or an archeologist, for that matter). — kwami (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

If he is pretending to be a linguistic why are we using his classifications? There are also some sources that disagree with Rendille and the others being closly related to Somali other than them being East Cushitic. They also state that Somali language's closest relations are with Afar and Oromo. AcidSnow (talk) 22:14, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if this is unacceptable for you, but an archive bot archived this. So I hope you don't mined. Anyways, why do we have a view of a minority as it's classification when it's disagreed upon. I believe we should remove the classification from the infobox but keep it in the classification section as that is were it belongs since it's among the many views held. What do you think? AcidSnow (talk) 09:51, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I've got a lot on my plate right now, and don't have time to look into this. But if you follow the Glottolog link I placed at Somali languages, you'll see it's now been superceded. They've updated to Tosco (2012) for their classification. Maybe we should do the same? Tosco is most likely a better ref than Blench (2006). — kwami (talk) 17:44, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I see, well respond to this whenever you can. As for Tosco, I think we should keep both of them and removed the classification from the info box and list all of them in the spefic sections. From what I have seen it seems that 2006 is more accepted than the 2012 so far. AcidSnow (talk) 04:56, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

It would also be that the classification of East Cushitic -> Somali-> North, Benadir, Ashraf, and Sab is the most common classification and that Toscos classification is relatively new.[7] This classification is also ver similar to the one used by Ethnolgue[8] It also classifies Rendille as a completely different branch from Somali.[9] Is there something wrong with Ethnolgue? I am not sure but I think I remeber you disagreeing with them. AcidSnow (talk) 05:36, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

a certain Idea of Europe

Hallo kwami, I just read the Azerbaijani language article and its history. Formally, I notice that after the insertion of "Eastern Europe" in the introduction, you correctly reverted per WP:BRD, but your revert has been undone with a claim of BRD too. This is a classical case of WP:Disruptive Editing, and you should have asked for an administrator intervention. I had the same problem with the same user two months ago, at the article Largest cities in Europe, but thanks God an admin arrived. Below his comment at Talk:Largest cities in Europe:

Nadia, you refer repeatedly to WP:BRD here on talk and in edit summaries, but you're misconstruing it, as several people have been telling you. The onus was clearly on you to hold off reverting when your WP:bold edit was reverted, and of taking it to talk to try to gain consensus. (a summary of BRD rules follows) ... You've been edit warring to enforce your opinion about "Europe" and your misreading of WP:BRD. Please revert yourself, and don't reinsert your edit until you've gained consensus for it. Bishonen | talk 13:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC).

After one month, this problem spread to several articles (as far as I know, Turkish Language, Azerbaijani Language and Languages of Europe: I did not study her edit log) and other users, like you and Psychonaut noticed it. I see with regret that - despite previous administrator intervention - with this user we are still at the same point. I wonder if time came for some kind of more incisive action (ANI)? Alex2006 (talk) 05:34, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Hallo kwami, I reverted the introduction of Azerbaijani Language to its pre-edit war state and she was blocked. If needed, we can discuss on the talk page possible changes. I hope that this story is now finished... :-) Alex2006 (talk) 09:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Lead of Azerbaijani Language

Hallo Kwami, at Talk:Azerbaijani language there is a - very polite - discussion about the lead of the article. If you want to give your opinion, you are welcome (and this is not canvassing :-)). Bye Alex2006 (talk) 16:54, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

July 2014

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Nadia (Kutsuit) (talk) 16:25, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

US English Dialect Page Titles (revived?)

I think that might take an interest in contributing to this discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages#US English Dialect Page Titles (revived?). Wolfdog (talk) 14:55, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Non-linguistic Article

Should be deleted or redirect to main article. Pure BS: Azerbaijani language dialects. --188.158.111.68 (talk) 08:59, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Easiest just to redirect. — kwami (talk) 06:04, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Ebola virus

Could you please fix these trascriptions (also here)? Thanks.--Carnby (talk) 10:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. — kwami (talk) 06:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

PUA

Pages with characters in PUA

• George Siber bibliography
• Dahalo language
• Brendan O'Brien (record producer)
• Astrological symbols
• Apostasy in Islam

-- Magioladitis (talk) 06:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like you took care of them. I left a message on one of the contributors' talk page. — kwami (talk) 06:40, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

PUA - Tributyltin oxide

Tributyltin oxide Bgwhite (talk) 05:03, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Revisions and WP:BIRDCON

You might be able to assist in revising the articles in the three listed categories and in revising the eight individually listed articles at WT:BIRDS#Revisions and WP:BIRDCON (version of 17:14, 3 August 2014).
—Wavelength (talk) 01:22, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

What footnote?

Just saw you added this [10] to the old ANI archive. You are making some heavy accusations there. What footnote in what article are you referring to? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:07, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

From what I remember, the word Gaulish is only used in a footnote to explain why the author doesn't use the word in the article, so a text search of "Gaulish" should turn up the footnote. — kwami (talk) 06:07, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

In which article, dammit. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:45, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Whichever article is used as our ref. I don't remember the name, it was months ago. — kwami (talk) 06:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Then kindly retract your accusation that we were misquoting sources. The articles currently used to support that point do support that point. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

No. I was attacked for trying to be precise and not misrepresent our sources. I'm not going to retract my defence to continuing attacks (at ANI) just because someone else recognized that I was correct all along. — kwami (talk) 08:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

You made a concrete accusation, claiming that somebody (I suppose me included) severely misrepresented a specific source. You need to provide evidence what source that was, or I will get you blocked for baseless and serious personal attacks. Provide evidence or retract, in your next edit from now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:45, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Now at WP:ANI, again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:13, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

You're taking me to ANI for refuting allegations when taken to ANI? This is starting to look like a vendetta.

BTW, it was other editors on the talk pages who demonstrated that the sources didn't support them when I challenged them to support their claims. — kwami (talk) 09:19, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

• Kwami, you added your gloss of the situation to an archived ANI thread when it wouldn't be seen by others to respond? No? DeCausa (talk) 08:43, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

It appeared that people were continuing to comment on that page, and so the topic was still open. At least, I received notice that I was mentioned on the archive page, something that I wouldn't think would happen if no-one were mentioning me on the archive page. If that's incorrect (if it's not been modified since being archived) then go ahead and delete my comments. — kwami (talk) 08:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I believe Kwami is referring to Talk:Gaulish language#Dubious claims. It is certainly true that Eska's scheme does not even include the term "Gaulish" at all, and that Transalpine Celtic (which usually includes what is called "Gaulish", or at least most of it, except the traditional "Cisalpine Gaulish") and Cisalpine Celtic (which includes Lepontic) are on different branchings (Cisalpine Celtic branches off earlier) and hence Gaulish (as commonly understood) cannot be taken to include Lepontic at all, lest one might end up defining Gaulish so broadly as to include Insular Celtic.

Perhaps a little diagram might prove helpful:

Celtic

• Hispano-Celtic
• Nuclear Celtic
  • Cisalpine Celtic (includes Lepontic)
  • Core Celtic
    • Transalpine Celtic (includes Galatian, Noric)
    • Insular Celtic

However, it is also possible that traditional "Cisalpine Gaulish" indeed descends from Transalpine Celtic (i. e., "Gaulish" in the traditional sense, more or less), and that its similarities with Lepontic are due to contact.

I have sympathy, though, for Eska's preference to avoid the term "Gaulish", as it is just too ill-defined and ambiguous. For example, are Galatian and Noric part of Gaulish or not? Hard to tell. Some scholars might tend to include them, or one of them, others not.

Personally, I like Eska's scheme. It might look a little too neat and recursive, but that's what often happens indeed. Just think of Austronesian. An agnostic stemma would include Hispano-Celtic, Cisalpine Celtic, Transalpine Celtic and Insular Celtic all as separate branches. In such a scheme, however, Lepontic would still not be part of "Gaulish" in any reasonable sense and there would still not be a Continental Celtic branch. Kwami is completely right.

I hope I have been able to bring some clarity of thought to the whole discussion. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, no, this is not what this is about. Kwami was claiming that somebody was blatantly misrepresenting a certain article that allegedly contains a certain footnote (where some author not only doesn't use the term "Gaulish" but explicitly rejects it, and some wikipedia editor allegedly still used that specific article to support a claim regarding Gaulish). This thing won't be settled unless Kwami finally produces the ref to that footnote and the diff to where the editor misused that source. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:39, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Favour

Hello kwami. I need your help for the continuous issue. His claims about Amanjolov and nonstop edits (1, 2) are appropriate? because I really tired to fight with him. What do you say? Regards.Yagmurlukorfez (talk) 16:12, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Just FYI (not a filing against you...)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:09, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Calcutta2 listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Calcutta2. Since you had some involvement with the Calcutta2 redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. - TheChampionMan1234 05:46, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely

Given your abuse of multiple accounts and your continual edit warring, you have been blocked indefinitely. — Coren ^(talk) 15:41, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh god, please accept my apologies -- I managed to swap your username with that of the socker while I was tagging accounts! You are, of course, not culpable of anything! — Coren ^(talk) 15:52, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I just could not believe it, administrators should be more careful. Faizan 16:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey, mistakes happen, even when we try to be careful. — kwami (talk) 20:52, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Apparently faulty description on a map

Hi there! In the image showing status of Hidustani you have marked Punjab in ochre but Punjab has neither Hindi nor Urdu as its secondary official language. Hindustani enjoys the same status in Punjab as it does in Gujarat where Gujarati alone enjoys official status. --Babanwalia (talk) 15:42, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

That was probably based on what our articles said at the time. If our articles are wrong, please correct them, or ask that they be corrected (on their talk pages), and then do the same for the map. A source to demonstrate you are correct will probably be needed. There has been endless debate over which Indian languages are official where, and I don't understand how people could not know their own country, so I'm not a good person to ask to resolve this. — kwami (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Regarding Hindi, Hindustani, Urdu, Khariboli

Hi, I am a native Hindi speaker and I have studied history of Hindi in school. Khariboli should be above Hindustani. Also Khariboli originated from Shauraseni Prakrit and Hindustani vernacular came out of Khariboli These articles has wrongly mentioned Khariboli originated from Hindustani.In reality, Hindustani originated from Khariboli, when Khariboli started to spread as a vernacular with the name Hindustani and taking Persian, Arabic and small amount of Turkish loanwords in it. There are other dialects of Hindi like Brajbhasha, Awadhi, Marwari, Mewati, Bundelkhandi, Kumoani, Gadhwali etc. I saw your name there so, can you help me correct it. Can I post britannica link here.

Ashok4himself (talk) 17:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you're mixing up Hindi with Hindustani. Hindi isn't even a language, not the way you're using the word. Awadhi, etc. are not dialects of Hindustani. Kumaoni isn't even Hindi, it's Pahari. — kwami (talk) 20:55, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello, My point is that Hindustani came from Khariboli thus Khariboli should be above Hindustani in those chart, non-Hindi speakers are embarrassing me posting that wrong information, Khariboli originated out of Shauraseni Prakrit, so correction is needed in all these articles, I tried to change it with references but it was reverted and I got warnings. Yes, Awadhi is the dialect of Eastern Hindi from Awadh region since all dialects of 9 Hindi states are put under the tag of Hindi in modern nomenclature, dialects of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are called Pahadi, Pahadi is 'group of dialect' of Hindi. Ashok4himself (talk) 15:56, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

According to our sources, Khariboli is the prestige dialect of Hindustani. That may be wrong, but you need to demonstrate your claims, not merely put them in bold font as if that somehow makes them reliable. — kwami (talk) 23:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Sir, Khariboli is a prestigious dialect on Which Hindustani 'vernacular' is based, you have misinterpreted it.

1. The reference of the book mentions in all those wikipedia articles i.e. "Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World" mentions on page no 498.

i)" First after the establishment of Ford William College,by the British, 
 prose begin to be written in the emergent Khari boli that form the basis of Hindustani. 

ii) It needs to be emphasized that the Khari Boli base of Hindustani was firmly established only in the 18th century. 
(its using Khariboli base of Hindustani, not Khariboli based on Hindustani)

2.Read this Britannica Encyclopedia reference:-Hindustani is based on an early dialect of Hindi, known by linguists as Khari Boli, which originated in Delhi and an adjacent region within the Ganges-Yamuna Doab (interfluve)

3.This one from Merriam Webster dictionary(America's most famous English dictionary):-Modern Standard Hindi is a lingua franca (as well as native language) of millions of people in North India & the official language of the Indian Union. It is effectively a continuation of Hindustani, which developed from KhariBoli

Ashok4himself (talk) 18:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Mbundas and Nganguelas and COI editing

Hi Kwami. I have just come across the series of articles on the Mbunda people/ language/ kingdom/ list of kings/ etc. I see that you tried to help the creator of these articles, and at times displayed your frustration with his methods. I am trying to understand what it was that was done on the Nganguela language, as I see references indicating that based on said editor's sources you would be redirecting Nganguela and Nyemba to Mbunda. Could you comment on that? Also, all the information on the Mbunda seems to come from the book commissioned by the editor's association, which is a collection of oral interviews with Mbunda people. I find very little on the editor, Robert Papstein and another author cited a number of times, Muḥammad Zuhdī Yakan. Other then WP pahges and WP mirrors and sites called wiki-something and something-pedia, these two names seem to be basically unknown. In the time that you tried to help the editor, were you able to find anyhing about these sources and whether they have ever been peer-reviewed or accepted by the academic and scientific communities? I have taken the issue to the COI noticeboard and would welcome your participation. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 13:53, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

PUA

1932 Kimberley rescue Bgwhite (talk) 20:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Astrology

There's a discussion on Talk:Astrology about when and how Hindu astrology began - Hellenistic 5th century BCE if you believe in evidence, 2500 BCE natively otherwise... would appreciate your thoughts. The article is currently corrupt. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I think (touch wood) we've resolved the matter for now. Sorry to trouble you. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Amharic

You may be interested in the following discussion at ANI: [11] Since I see you are on a break, I have used the most current diff that should make it easier to find later. The guy seems to be getting started to do something major to language articles, apparently in alphabetical order, starting at Amharic. Neotarf (talk) 22:51, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Category:Lists of language names from common sources

Category:Lists of language names from common sources, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 19:38, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Htangan language

In case Htangan language is not on your watch list, I want to call your attention that someone has made a major change which may not be supported by sources. —teb728 t c 06:09, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

You can go ahead and change it yourself, if the editor does it again. They falsified the sources we have, and regardless of whether they are correct in their main claim (which is unsupported OR), the pop. number they give is bullshit. — kwami (talk) 03:57, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Hindustani vs Khariboli

Hi, you didn't reply to the reference I gave you for supporting Hindustani originated out of Khariboli instead you deleted them without replying, I can tell you this a massive blunder because every Hindi speaker knows Khariboli gave rise to Hindustani. Aapko Hindi to samajh mein aati hi hogi, aapne jawab kyon nahi diya. Ashok4himself (talk) 19:40, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

PUA

Vasu Primlani Bgwhite (talk) 05:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

"Uyghur-speakers" vs "Uyghur speakers"

I changed

Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

to

Significant communities of Uyghur speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

You then reverted the change, with comment "hyphen is correct".

Why do you say that hyphen is correct here? I agree that hyphen would be correct in the adjectival form (e.g. "Uyghur-speaking communities"), but I continue to believe that "Uyghur speakers" is correct and that "Uyghur-speakers" is not.

A google search for

"English speakers" OR "English-speakers"

finds no occurrence of "English-speakers" in the first page of results. Pjrm (talk) 12:33, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I'm just being pedantic. An "Uyghur-speaker" is a speaker of Uyghur. An "Uyghur speaker" is a speaker who is Uyghur – say, an Uyghur commencement speaker at Lyons speaking in French. And there are Uyghur English-speakers: speakers of English who are ethnically Uyghur. Generally, [object + verb] + -er to change it into a noun takes a hyphen to show that it is pronounced as a single word: An alien-lover (single word, stress only on the "a") is someone who loves aliens (e.g., what Rick Perry might call someone who doesn't want an electrified fence between the US and Mexico); and alien lover (two words, stress on both the "a" and the "o") is Captain Kirk's green girlfriend. — kwami (talk) 03:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Internal classification of the Romance languages

What is the mainstream view of the internal classification of the Romance languages and which are the main points of dispute? There is a dispute going on about the placement of Gallo-Italic: how commonly are they placed in Italo-Dalmatian? --JorisvS (talk) 12:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, not my area. Most of what I know is from research to address disputes like that. Classifying languages in dialect contiua is inherently ambiguous, and Gallo-Italic issue seems to be a long-standing issue. — kwami (talk) 03:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Do you know what's with the prominence of Dalby on these pages? The only link given leads to a general welcoming page that is difficult to navigate, making these claims unverifiable at present. --JorisvS (talk) 08:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Update request for same-sex marriage in Nevada in the File:World marriage-equality laws.svg as it has been legalized on October 7th by a Court of Appeals.

Hello.

Can you update Nevada in the File:World marriage-equality laws.svg as same-sex marriage has been legalized on October 7th by a Court of Appeals? And can you also check File:Recognition of same-sex unions in the United States.png and "coordinate" them, if one of them has not been updated?

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.66.222.121 (talk) 13:19, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Category:Astronomical bodies with possible subsurface oceans

Category:Astronomical bodies with possible subsurface oceans, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 18:51, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Little boxes made of ticky tacky

Typographic ligature has a bunch of blank boxes instead of whatever the glyph it is supposed to be... example would be in the "Symbols originating as ligatures" section. Wondering if your magic extends to figuring these out? Bgwhite (talk) 06:51, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

That's the only sect. where I see unicode boxes, and then only in the last line, under alchemy. That's probably lack of font support. Everything else displays for me, and I'm not on a customized browser right now, just default-install FireFox. In the middle of other projects, so don't really have the time to delve into this. Which browser are you using? You could try adding {{unicod}} templates around the offending characters. — kwami (talk) 18:54, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Correction request for East Timor as a secular state from the incorrect classification as an ambiguous state in the File:Secular States Map.svg

Hello.

Can you correct East Timor as a secular state in the File:Secular States Map.svg, because Section 1 of Section (Article) 45 in the East Timorese Constitution, specifically states that "...religion and worship and the religious denominations are separated from the State." which explicitly classifies East Timor as secular state (and not an ambiguous one)? Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.66.222.121 (talk) 13:02, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Copied this to the img talk page on Commons. Don't have anything to edit an svg. — kwami (talk) 18:57, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

vert

Hello, you told me that you have difficulty to hear a diphthong before [χ], but do you hear [vɑɛ̯χ] here ? Fort123 (talk) 16:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Wow, it's like looking at the two faces forming a vase. Sometimes I hear a monophthong transitioning into the r, sometimes I hear a clear diphthong, almost an [ai]. Look at the spectrogram on Praat at see if the formants shift. — kwami (talk) 19:12, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Yoron language for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Yoron language is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yoron language until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. —Ryūlóng (琉竜) 13:49, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Interview for The Signpost

This is being sent to you as a member of WikiProject Orphanage

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Orphanage for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Thanks, Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (gab) @ 18:30, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Nusantaran languages

Some editor has unilaterally moved Malayo-Polynesian languages to Nusantaran languages, haaaaalp. Ogress _smash! 10:33, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Rengmitca

A language called "Rengmitca" is mentioned in Van Driem (2013)[12], but there is no redirect and the search function fails to find any mention. Can you find out to which language this refers and add a redirect? --JorisvS (talk) 10:32, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Looks like it may be a variety of Awa Khami/Khumi, which may be a variety of either Mro or of Khami/Khumi. Accounts are rather confused and may not be accurate; I'd check Peterson (2013) "Rengmitca: The most endangered Kuki-Chin language of Bangladesh". He's also worked on Khumi. — kwami (talk) 01:49, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Glottolog

Could you clarify your edit summary? The null hypotheses, "unrelated", are the same in both cases. --JorisvS (talk) 07:43, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

A language isolate is a language family of one. Glottolog is conservative in including languages in established families, or in establishing families of 2 or more, but liberal in establishing families of 1. Other accounts may accept affiliations Glottolog rejects, but not accept that Glottolog's isolates have been demonstrated to be unrelated to other families. — kwami (talk) 18:49, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Does Glottolog positively consider these demonstrated to be unrelated to other families, or rather unproven to be related to any other families and simply considers them isolates in the absence of more data? --JorisvS (talk) 10:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, but their "unclassified" tend to be unclassifiable. Regardless, they're rather liberal in their use of the term "isolate". — kwami (talk) 01:54, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi - can you assist?

Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Laz_people#Language_contradiction_-_need_a_Subject_Matter_Expert_here_.... HammerFilmFan (talk) 07:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons

Hey, I replied to the comment you left on my talk page. I found the poll you were talking about and I found a poll from North Dakota! :) Prcc27 (talk) 09:41, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

About this edit you did five years ago ...

About Template:IPAc-hu (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (521 tranc's), Template:ConvertIPA-hu (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (Redirects to #1; 350 transc's) you worked on back in 2009. First, do you still think {ConvertIPAc-hu} merits full protection? I'd say semi-prot would do. Second, is that Convert-name still to be supported, or should we deprecate it? From your editsummary, I understand it was a mistake name. The pattern does not follow Category:IPA language templates (note the -c- difference too). What do you think? -DePiep (talk) 09:15, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe this riddle can be solved first. There are two templates with content (not redirect):

1. Template:IPA-hu (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
2. Template:IPAc-hu (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I don't (want to) know the reason for this, but I see that {{ConvertIPA-hu}} ridirects to the -c- template. Strange and another confusion. Can you give an final situation we can work toward? -DePiep (talk) 11:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Going on memory, since I only have a few minutes here. IPA templates require IPA input; IPAc templates allow national orthography as input, usually with a pipe separating every phoneme. — kwami (talk) 04:46, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Useful already. Please write more when you're back. -DePiep (talk) 14:51, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The 'c' is for "convert", as in convert orthography to IPA. Or, in the case of English, convert respelling to IPA. I suspect that the number of editors using the Hungarian IPAc template is quite limited, but since it doesn't bother anyone else, I don't see that it matters. To bad we can't see the history of transclusions, so we know if a template is still being actively used. As for what to work toward, IPAc templates are nice because they enforce a common transcription, ensuring that transclusions match the IPA chart. Also, if we change the chart (say, we decide that /e/ is better written /E/), we only need to change the IPAc template, and all transclusions change to match. Regular IPA templates gather all sorts of crud over time, so transclusions need to be manually reviewed from time to time, and now that I'm no longer doing that, I doubt that anyone is.

Ideally, languages with lots of IPA transclusions, or with transcriptions that are highly inconsistent or being switched back & forth, would have IPAc templates, and a bot could convert IPA to IPAc. Someone is doing that with English IPA > IPAc, but the conversion isn't perfect. At least we can scan the transclusions for common conversion errors & manually review, though it would take a long time. — kwami (talk) 18:22, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

OK. Now that word 'convert' in {{ConvertIPA-hu}} makes sense. I won't touch it, nothing to be cleaned. -DePiep (talk) 10:25, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Public opinion of same sex marriage

Hey kwami,

I just noticed your additions to the public opinion on SSM polls and I was wondering if you could change the color to dark blue on Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois on the state chart. Thanks for the update! :)Michiganb2323 (talk) 07:30, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

All 50 states done. — kwami (talk) 07:34, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Hey! Awesome job! Glad to see a more current map. One thing though. PLEASE add Iowa to the list of dark blue states. They have a currently have a majority approval and would love to see an updated map. Great job!Michiganb2323 (talk) 08:20, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I already had. — kwami (talk) 08:22, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for inconvenience but could you update it? It's showing a mixture of colors. Thanks in advance. Michiganb2323 (talk) 08:29, 28 October 2014 (UTC)-matt

It's showing a mix of colors because recent polls give mixed results. Unless you have reason to believe that one of the polls is not reliable? — kwami (talk) 08:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Pls discuss your reasons rather than edit-warring. Consensus is that we give all poll results within the 6 mos of the latest, unless they're not comparable or imprecise. — kwami (talk) 08:34, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Diidnt mean to start any kind of argument. The new 50 state poll is the most recent poll and shows majority approval. The 53% poll is by far the most recent. Since I live nearby, happy to see approval. Didn't want to disrupt by updating map myself, so wanted to see if you would update first. Michiganb2323 (talk) 08:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I think this is something to discuss on the talk page. For other states, there are polls just as recent, and sometimes they diverge rather strongly. I suspect that one of the reasons is that the answers for most polls are just yes and no, and you actually have to not answer to get the 3rd category, whereas with the CBS/NYT poll there's an explicit option for 'not sure'. I think that's probably why the 'don't know' percentages are so much higher than in earlier polls. So yes, it might be best to compare like with like by using only this poll. On the other hand, do we know anything wrong with the other polls? Our consensus so far has been to only go back 2 yrs for a poll, but if we have a recent poll, then go back only 6 mos for conflicting results. That would include Iowa. If we're going to change Iowa, then we need to change other states too. But then what happens when we start getting more recent polls? Do we start deleting the CBS poll, thereby losing the consistency we now have? Or do we have two parallel tables, one for CBS/NYT, and one for more recent things? We have to be careful about cherry-picking our results, so I think it would be best if you started a discussion on the article talk page. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I see no reason to have a separate chart for the CBS/NYT poll. Many of these states (Idaho, Washington, etc.) probably won't even get polled again on this issue within the next two years. Updating the current chart with newer polls as they come should work fine. Michiganb2323 (talk) 08

48, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Mid vowels in a dialect of Bavarian

Hello. Do you know which paper describes the /ø - œ - ɶ/ distinction in the Amstetten dialect of Bavarian? I think I read it once, but don't remember the title anymore. Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 18:10, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I've got the answer: it's The Sounds of the World's Languages, pages 289 and 290. Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 18:36, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Gŭycan

Hello kwami, what does the word "Gŭycan" mean in the article Yanomaman languages (diff)? Thanks! — Sebastian 04:04, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

PUA

All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama Bgwhite (talk) 05:26, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

DJ Hollywood Bgwhite (talk) 01:30, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Cam engine Bgwhite (talk) 22:26, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Cannabis drug testing Bgwhite (talk) 22:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Management contract

Punjab Education Foundation

Hello, friend, could you controle this, please?

I think there are some vandalisms there. I please you controle it. Thank you in advance, --Gloria (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Arawakan languages (disambiguation)

The article Arawakan languages (disambiguation) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Per WP:2DABS, a hatnote is more useful in these circumstances

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Boleyn (talk) 19:14, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Dill

Hello, Kwami -- It's good to see you editing again. I just wondered if you agreed with the latest edit to Dill regarding etymology. (I don't know at all.) CorinneSD (talk) 22:27, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Sounds likely, but I don't have my sources w me. Not editing much. — kwami (talk) 00:49, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Katakana and Palauan?

Hey, regarding this edit and the corresponding edit to the Palauan language article: could you elaborate what McAuley says somewhere in each of the articles? A blank statement like that (especially a fairly WP:EXTRAORDINARY one) in an infobox, is pretty useless. I was going to remove it as a misrepresentation (or misinterpretation) of what looks like a decent source by a single-edit IP, but looking at the page histories it turns out to have been an established Wikipedian with a very long history of mostly constructive edits, so I decided to ask for clarification first. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:43, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

McAuley doesn't say a lot. Both orthographies were used on ballots when the author was in Palau in the late '90s. Palauans educated before 1945 learned kana. — kwami (talk) 00:57, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

A simple question regarding the description of tones in standard Mandarin Chinese

Greetings: You've contributed a fair amount of material to articles having to do with linguistic tones and pitch accent, so maybe you'll be able to answer this simple question: Are the 5 pitch levels used to describe tones in Mandarin supposed to be "equidistant"? Chao Yuen Ren's "Grammar of Spoken Chinese" gives (p. 26) a description of Mandarin tones in musical notation. If you take that description literally then the 5 pitch levels are not equidistant. But how literally can such a "musical" description be taken, and what's the relation between such a description and the description in terms of the 5 pitch levels? Contact Basemetal here 21:07, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, equidistant, but those are two different metaphors. Both are approximations - schematics of tone. Mandarin doesn't actually have 5 pitch levels. As in all languages, the pitch is a continuum, and in addition, in each utterance the pitch contours of the tones are going to be different - sometimes trivially so, sometimes radically. In both notations, a judgement has been made on what is fundamental to the tones, and that has been mapped onto a template; since the two templates (tone letters and musical scales) are different, the mapping has been "pixilated" in different ways. If you convert from one to the other, you'll introduce errors, like resizing a low-res jpeg, or like playing Egyptian music on an instrument with European tuning. — kwami (talk) 22:08, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation.

Since I've got you here what do you call a graph such as the one above?

What do you call the curves that show the variation of pitch with respect to time? (A "trace" possibly?)

And what do you call the electronic device that can plot such a graph (based on a microphone input)? Do you know of any freely available piece of software running on say Windows where I could plug in a microphone, utter some nonsense and see the pitch contour of that nonsense?

Incidentally, there's no indication of the units the pitch was measured in. If you had to guess would you guess it was frequency (Hz) or musical interval (e.g. cents)?

Finally maybe it wouldn't be bad if, in the article where I found this (Cantonese phonology) someone added the actual Cantonese pronunciation of the words whose tones this graph purports to show the pitch contour of. I know in Mandarin these words all have (leaving aside tones) the pronunciation "shi" but I don't know in Cantonese. Contact Basemetal here 10:52, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

PS When they say relative pitch, can we always assume pitch is measured in cents, never in raw frequency? Contact Basemetal here 10:55, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, they're called "pitch traces". Praat is the best freeware I know, very commonly used by phoneticians, and it generates publishable graphics. Display a spectrogram, and you can toggle pitch trace. Bit of a learning curve, though; I don't find it very intuitive.

You can check the Cantonese pronunciations on Wiktionary. I assume they're a minimal set.

Pitch is normally in hertz. No idea what "cents" are. Absolute frequency is nearly useless for lexical info, as it depends on gender, age, emotion, etc. I think "relative" just means that no absolute scale is provided. — kwami (talk) 00:46, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Contact Basemetal here 07:30, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

One cent is a hundredth of a semitone, or a frequency ratio of ¹²⁰⁰√2. Double sharp (talk) 06:35, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

And when you plot in terms of cents (or any other musical interval) the representation is logarithmic. Contact Basemetal here 21:10, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Ouranian-Barbaric

Hello Kwamikagami. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Ouranian-Barbaric, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: The reason given is not a valid speedy deletion criterion. Thank you. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 21:25, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Biblical clothing: phonetic spelling

It is not gibberish is useful information--called phonetic spelling-- from a cited source. You may not remove text just because of personal opinions or WP:OR.

See Template:Respell. tahc ^chat 05:10, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I wrote the template you're referring too. The respellings are unintelligeble and fail verification. The ref gives the Hebrew pronunciations, and we don't substitute foreign pronunciations with English, especially when the "English" is undefined or violates English phonotactics. — kwami (talk) 05:11, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

See Talk:Biblical clothing. tahc ^chat 05:36, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

A cupcake for you!

Thought you'd like it! Redflorist (talk) 00:37, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding your recent edit to Wantagh, New York

Hello there. I noticed that earlier you removed the pronunciation key from the lead section of Wantagh, New York. If my username doesn't give it away, I'm a native of Wantagh and I can personally tell you that the overwhelming majority of people I have met in my lifetime who are unfamiliar with the community have no idea how to correctly pronounce its name. Thus, I'm inclined to revert your edit, but I'm sure you have your reasons as to why you edited as you did, and I would really love to hear those reasons before I act. All the best. WantaghNY (talk) 07:15, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree we should have it, but the transcription we had was not possible for English – unless maybe it was meant as the local accent, which wouldn't help outsiders. Which common words have those vowels, and do speakers distinguish 'cot' from 'caught'? — kwami (talk) 19:33, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

When 'Wantagh' is broken down phonetically, 'Wan' has the same vowel sound as 'on', and '-tagh' has the same vowel sound as 'saw'. I did notice in the most recent revision history on the article that someone changed the respelling of the second syllable from '-TAW' to '-TAHW', and I'm not entirely sure why because that only adds to the confusion. As to the second part of your question, that can vary by individual speaker, but most distinguish between 'cot' and 'caught' by their standard English pronunciations. WantaghNY (talk) 20:58, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that was part of it. Maybe they were trying to correct from a "law" vowel to a "spa" vowel? Would the "spa" vowel be wrong in both syllables, or not distinct? — kwami (talk) 21:36, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

The 'spa' vowel is always correct for the first syllable. For the second syllable, a small handful of people may use the 'spa' vowel but much more commonly and properly the 'law' vowel is used. Those vowels are certainly distinct. WantaghNY (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going to assume that it's the 'on' vowel rather than the 'spa' vowel for those who make a distinction, since that's how 'a' after 'w' is normally pronounced (e.g. 'wand').

Which syllable is stressed? It looks like s.o. intended the -tagh, and it displayed as the Wan- by mistake. — kwami (talk) 01:38, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The "Wan-" syllable is stressed. WantaghNY (talk) 04:26, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Invitation

Hello. I invite you to this discussion about changes to Help:IPA for Dutch and Afrikaans. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 12:02, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Micha

Hi Kwami,

It's the same language, just that the AsiaHarvest entry and the Ethnologue entry give different information.

• http://www.ethnologue.com/language/yiq
• http://asiaharvest.org/wp-content/themes/asia/docs/people-groups/China/chinaPeoples/M/Micha.pdf

Plus I was at the Wikimania 2014 conference in London and met a few Wiki members, but I don't think you were there?

— Stevey7788 (talk) 20:18, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

No, I wasn't, unfortunately. — kwami (talk) 20:19, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

All right, no worries then. Also you might want to check your e-mail - we can talk more by e-mail. — Stevey7788 (talk) 20:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia genealogy project

Just wondering if you have any thoughts re: the idea of WMF hosting a genealogy project. If so, feel free to contribute to this discussion. And apologies if I have made this request before. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:28, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Gateme language and Kachame-Ganjule language talk page(s)

Hi Kwami, you may have noticed that I have just suggested to delete the Gatame language article, based on its scanty source situation, and the likelihood that it is really the same as the Kachama-Ganjule language. I suggested this on the Gatame language talk page, but just now noticed that also the talk page of the Kachama-Ganjule language redirects to the Gatame language talk page, as a result of an operation you did some years ago. In effect we have now two articles with one talk page. Regardless of the question whether Gatame language should be deleted or not, can you fix this talk-page problem? I'm not quite sure how to go about this. Landroving Linguist (talk) 07:21, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Talk page should be fixed soon. Went ahead and merged the articles. — kwami (talk) 09:45, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

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ISO codes for Common Brittonic

I had filled in the code for ISO 2. Then this was deleted and Glottolog was filled in. I can understand the addition of the Glottolog entry. The entry for ISO 639-2 is appropriate. Since "Common Britton" is not a language spoken currently, but only an historic language, it will not be given a code for ISO 639-3. I hope this is clear and convincing. I will not redo the info for Common Brittonic. Pete unseth (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

There is no ISO2 code for Brittonic. It's for all Celtic languages, and so would be appropriate for the article on the language family.

Historical languages are sometimes given ISO3 codes, but I don't know what the criteria are. — kwami (talk) 18:31, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You said you would not redo the info, but I see you have. Removed again. — kwami (talk) 21:50, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Conservation status

Hey, I noticed Ethnologue and UNESCO both give a language conservation status. Might it be possible for us to make a diagram similar to the endangered species one, and highlight the current status of the language in each article? -- user:Neddy1234

The Ethnologue criteria are diametrically opposed to language conservation. Ethn. is not a linguistic reference, but a missionary reference. Because a language needs to be vital to get funding to develop scripture, Ethn. is overly generous in its assessments. Linguists have been denied funding to document endangered languages because a check on Ethn. makes the funding agency think that the language is not endangered. I'd hate to propagate such misinformation.

As for UNESCO, I don't know the source well, but from what little I've seen, they have little idea what a language is, and it can be very difficult to identify what a language name refers to. I'd want a source that linguists agree is reasonably reliable before adding the info to WP. — kwami (talk) 20:39, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I gently disagree that the Ethnologue is not a linguistic reference. Bill Bright certainly felt otherwise, and said so in Language. The Ethnologue site asks for corrections where readers think it needs to be corrected. I suggest you send them a list of the examples you know so that they correct it. If we won't send in corrections, we forfeit the right to complain that the Ethnologue is in error. Pete unseth (talk) 21:37, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Not practical. The "correction" would be to remove the category entirely. Anyway, SIL is quite aware of the situation.

You're right: Saying Ethn is not a linguistic reference was too strong. Rather, it is a missionary's linguistic reference. In this case, the dual missions conflict: If you're a missionary looking for funding, you want a language to be as robust as possible. If you're a linguist, you want it to be as endangered as possible. Ethn. has designed the assessments to help fund missionaries. This according to SIL's own assessment of the situation.

As for forfeiting our rights, we don't use inaccurate sources with the excuse that it's our responsibility to improve them. It's not. Our aims do not align with SIL's in this case, so it would be inappropriate to adopt their assessments. — kwami (talk) 21:48, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we can also use the vitality provided at endangered languages.com. Also, Ethnologue is a missionary reference, but all of their information cites elsewhere - to either a census or another viable source of some kind. If you go back to archived editions, you can see the date and source for all figures and claims of language endangerment and vitality. As an aside, may I mention some languages have an obvious conservation status - everyone knows English is thriving, but in the case of Witchita which has one speaker the language is nearly extinct. Perhaps we will not yet make this "conservation status" diagram officially part of the language info box, but I think it would be wise to devise some kind of plan for it because linguists all acknowledge that languages do have conservation/vitality as do species. -- user:Neddy1234

I agree it would be nice to have. But no, Ethn. does not cite all of their data. Some of it's for the wrong language, some dates to the 1920's. Their recent info tends to be good, but it's not all recent, and it's a pain to tease out the recent stuff.

As for the obvious langs, we don't need to provide data for them. It's already there.

I don't know about using Google as a ref, though. Do we have any peer review suggesting they're reliable? Maybe the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ElCat) would be easier to justify. Probably best to bring it up for discussion at Wikiproject lang, for ppl who are familiar w the sources. — kwami (talk) 01:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that I am relatively new/inexperienced in editing wikipedia and all of my edits are in good faith but I think I will need support if I were to bring this proposition before the Wikiproject, and you are one of the more experienced linguists so I think if we proposed a conservation status section of language info boxes together, your word would have more weight as of now.

Also, I apologize for Cherokee language edits. I was not warring , but I work with the Cherokee people and their language is not endangered as many sources indicate. The tribe uses it all the time, but they exaggerate the extend of its endangerment to get sympathy and funding for immersion schools and other tribal needs. I'm sorry if I used an unreliable source, but the higher figure seems more likely despite what the Cherokee themselves may proclaim. -- user:Neddy1234

Since I am not familiar with the other sources for endangerment, I can't be of much help there. But there are several linguistic editors here that I respect, and if they feel that a source they are familiar with is reliable, I would take them at their word. If you want to start a thread at WP:LANG for how to proceed, I'd be happy to throw in my two bits if I think s.o. is making a good case, or a bad one. If we can get a DB from the source, we might be able to add the info w a bot, but that would require identifying our articles with the language names used in the DB, and that may not be easy. Amoung eucaryotes, there is a fair amount of agreement on what constitutes a species. There's much less agreement in the case of languages.

As for Cherokee, I'd love the number of speakers to be higher, but worry about wishful thinking. We also need to be careful about distinguishing speakers from native speakers. A source on "speakers" could be either. What we have now is census data, and census data is often unreliable. So I'm not happy with our current figure. (Census data tends to be too high for heritage languages. In Australia, for example, thousands of people claim to speak languages that are practically extinct, but perhaps Cherokee is an exception to that tendency.) If you can find a good estimate, not from some unreferenced website, especially not an advocacy site, but, say, a linguistic survey of the state of the language, I would support replacing the current estimate with it. Population estimates are notoriously tricky to get right, even for languages like English. Our Hindi data is decades old, because more recent data is less accurate. It's a real problem, and in most cases there simply is no good data available. — kwami (talk) 18:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I would like to second what user:Neddy1234 said about the usefulness & desirability of each language-related article having some indication of a language's vitality. It would be desirable for plural reasons to get these rankings from a single (or small set of) respected source(s), otherwise there are likely to be some wrangling among editors. What sources would you, or others, recommend? I realize editors will not always accept the status indications, but it would be useful to at least begin indicating it. Pete unseth (talk) 18:57, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The only source I'm familiar with is that of Ethnologue, and that's from complaints by linguists that it's inaccurate, and from admissions by SIL that it is designed to maximize funding for translating scripture. (There are many more endangered languages in Africa than Ethnologue indicates, for example.) I agree with you that it would be best to find a single reliable source, or we'll get edit-warring by editors cherry-picking sources, just as we do with population estimates. I suggested the Catalogue of Endangered Languages above, but am not familiar with it and cannot evaluate it. There are probably editors at WP:Lang who are familiar with some of these sources, and they may be able to recommend some. That's the direction I'd go, since none of us here seem to know ourselves. — kwami (talk) 19:04, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The Catalogue of Endangered Languages seems trustworthy. Information is collected from original research by the University of Michigan and the University of Hawaii. They are also specific in their definitions of each language conservation status. I though we could indicate vitality by highlighting the status on the diagram.

As an aside, here is my current idea about language conservation statuses we could have in the infobox: global (for international or national languages used for wider communication like English and French); developing (for littler languages that still yield considerable vitality; children are still learning them but they are not yet widespread and may have limited official/regional status); Vulnerable (the language is spoken by all generations but is a minority language, and it's use maybe restricted to certain domains); moribund (the language is no longer spoken/acquired by children as a first language, but is in use among the parent generation and older who could theoretically turn around and start speaking the language to their children); nearly extinct (only a few elders remain); dormant/dead (no first language speakers); extinct (completely gone)

I have written on the project page, hopefully we can look into some kind of diagram/chart indicating linguistic status-- user:Neddy1234

We would presumably need to follow the categories of our source. We should add a cat where only some children are learning it, like Navajo. Don't like the word "devoping"; seems both meaningless and misleading. — kwami (talk) 22:03, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Ethnologue has a category called 'developing' which is as I have described. If you like, we could change it to 'safe'; 'at lower risk'; or 'vigorous' which are all used by our sources. As for Navajo, it would most likely fall into the "Vulnerable" category according to UNESCO and Ethnologue. Yes some children are learning it, but it is restricted to certain domains (e.g. home) and is not really widespread.

I'd really like to hear your voice on the discussion page for the Wikiproject. I have garnered support from some users and attack from others, who claim the idea sounds like original research. I want to stress that it is not and would be based on ethnologue, Unesco, and Google's catalogue of endangered languages which categorizes language status. -- user:Neddy1234

Done, & moved to the talk page. — kwami (talk) 17:46, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Diphthong

Hello. I was trying to make the "Diphthong" article's pronunciations more accessible to most audiences. Can you tell me why you reverted my edit? I didn't delete any information--only added to it. 05:54, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

International conventions should come first. Maybe the respelling could be in the footnote. But I'm not sure we should have the pronunciation at all, per WP:NOTADICT. — kwami (talk) 17:17, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't feel that pronunciation damages the encyclopedic nature of an article. I'd be happy to put a footnote. Wolfdog (talk) 19:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

List of closed pairs of English rhyming words

I have started the article "List of closed pairs of English rhyming words", based largely on the discussion archived at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 February 13#Words with exactly one rhyme.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:47, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Cherokee

How does this source look?

http://www.ncdcr.gov/Portals/7/Collateral/Database/F05.Cherokee.language.pdf

I know you are concerned about wishful thinking but I have worked for the promotion and perpetuation of the Cherokee language in the Oklahoma and North Carolina communities, and it hasn't been too difficult. I hear cherokee among all the generations of the tribe naturally, and I don't think a figure as low as 10,400 is possible; this source seems more accurate. I will not put it in the article without your consent, though. --user:Neddy1234

He gives no ref, so he's not a RS. Obviously he didn't count speakers himself, and doesn't say whether they're native speakers. He quite possibly got the figure online, maybe even from an old version of our WP article, in which case we'd be citing ourselves. (It's happened before!) I've checked a few sources I have handy, but haven't come up with anything. You might want to ask at WP:Lang. There are several NA specialists there. — kwami (talk) 21:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Ruthenian language

Your material for future reference is being deleted by various editors. Letting you know in case you think it's worth retaining. Since I have collapsed it and WP is not paper the deletions seem to have some sort of pov. μηδείς (talk) 05:02, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Don't remember what that was deleted from, but thought ppl might find it useful. I doubt I'll do it myself, as I don't care much about European languages. — kwami (talk) 21:31, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal Greets!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

Hello Kwamikagami, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015. Happy editing, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:01, 25 December 2014 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

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ɜː UK problem

Hi, Kwami, I see in your comments on IPAc-en that you have previously fixed the issue whereby ɜː (UK) appears as ɜr. This is happening again. Could you please fix this again or point me at the code so that I can have a go at fixing it? Thank you.Ordinary Person (talk) 23:04, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

That's how it's supposed to display. If you want to give local pronunciations, you wouldn't use the IPAc-en template, but instead {{IPA-en}}. — kwami (talk) 04:59, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Latin in small caps

Hi! I started a topic relating to use of small caps for Latin in WikiProject Latin. You aren't listed on the Project page, but you discussed this topic in Talk:Latin spelling and pronunciation, so I thought I'd invite you to give your opinion if you'd like. — Eru·tuon 23:13, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

J, T, & K - please have a fresh look at Etruscan language article - isolate?

Hitting all three of you with the same msg - just recently had a look at this article, and it is mixing 'language isolate' (which everything I've ever known about it via historical sources says it is) with very recent published theories that it no longer is, or is confusingly seemingly stating it no longer is. Please look at the Classification section and correct or re-word it to make it more clear. Also, a couple of new studies has never in my field = "majority consensus opinion." Thanks. HammerFilmFan (talk) 22:47, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Glottolog

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You can remove this notice at any time.

ID for Urratjingu

Urratjingu is a Muruwaric language of the Pama-Nyungan family, but it does not have a language code in the SIL database if that is what you meant by ID? Very little is known of the language. I will keep my eyes pealed and contact Bowern for a clarification concerning this language and I will let you know if I find anything. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. -- User: Neddy1234

I think we need a reliable source before we go ahead and add a whole other branch to the Paman family. I've scarecly heard of this language; there's very little evidence for it and it may very well be a dialect of another language; but what I have found is that it was (supposedly) related to Muruwari. Merry Xmas! -- User: Neddy1234

this is all that I've found: http://pamanyungan.sites.yale.edu/sites/default/files/Australian-Languages-v1.2.xlsx. Sorry I know it's not much. -- User: Neddy1234

Ok cool I did not know anything about them really; maybe I was wrong about the language being related to Muruwari. -- User: Neddy1234

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	Good job Sit1101 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

With what? — kwami (talk) 19:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The figures should be updated

You know very well that the figures are correct because the information is a study of the most prestigious organization in the study of the Spanish language. --Spawn3000 (talk) 21:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Obvious bullshit is obvious bullshit. E.g., in Eq. Guinea only 10–15% have an "adequate" command of Spanish, yet we're supposed to believe that 90% speak it as their mother tongue. Even prestigious institutions screw up sometimes. — kwami (talk) 02:12, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Star Distance and Magnitude

Hello Kwami,

I am an amateur astronomer trying to do a simple thing: determine the distance and magnitude of stars.

The problem is: the figures for distance (LY) and magnitude (VIS) on the Wiki tables for constellations often, too often, differ with the figures for same on the wiki links for the individual stars.

For example Jim Kaler publishes the distance to Beta Herculis as 148 light years, which agrees with the 'list of stars' distances published under the constellation maps in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Hercules

However, when we click on the Wiki link for individual stars in the list, e.g.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Herculis

The page for the individual star reports a significantly different distance to the star (139 on 'star' page versus 148 on 'list of stars' page).

Which distance is correct?

Is there a source that has the latest most accurate distances to stars? (e.g. Hubble parallax)

Thank you for your assistance.

Mark 23.29.196.252 (talk) 00:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Try asking at WP:astronomy. They'll know more than I do.

Different editors have used different sources, and it would be a massive project to clean it up. (I think we should pull from a central DB, but that would require discussion.) — kwami (talk) 02:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)