User talk:Dijan/1-100

Adding links to languages

Hi, and thanks for the translations. They are really appreciated! However, I would like to ask why you make all language names into links? Usually we only make links of those languages which has not got their names from the country they are spoken in. So most of us would probably link Interlingua, Esperanto and Galego, but leave languages names such as German, French and Chinese unlinked. I know that many lists of translations still has links from every language name, but I think that most remove them as we stumble upon them.

But first and foremost, welcome! \Mike 08:33, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for the comment. I'm glad to be here and contribute. The reason why I added the links to the languages was because some people, like myself, like to browse and see how that language is said in another language. I just thought that it would be a quicker way to them. If that really is an issue, I won't add the links anymore. Sorry. :)

Serbian entries

Dobar dan!

I want your opinion on an entry style. On la.wiktionary we are trying to avoid "duplicate" entries like Četvrtak vs четвртак, and put all the information under one headword, with other forms pointing back to a main article...

On la: I have created odsutan as an example. What I have done with it:

1. Put both spellings in the title ("Odsutan, or одсутан"). (The Latin script I have put first because it is the native script of the language of the Wiktionary)
2. List both spellings in 'other forms' with the scripts in alphabetical order, and add a note (from a template) indicating the use of the various scripts ("the cyrillic script is now mainly used for the Serbian language, but formerly also was used for the Croatian and Bosnian languages. The Latin script is used for all three. See: bosnian alphabet, croatian alphabet, serbian alphabets")
3. put them all under a common 'bosnian, croatian, serbian' header. This is the least important part really... but currently there is no information on that page that is specific to one language or another.
4. linked одсутан back to this page.

Anyway if you could help me in finding what would be a good style for this kind of thing it would be most helpful. —Muke Tever (la.wiktionary sysop) 17:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, here are some of my suggestions. I would not suggest that you create a common serbian, bosnian, croatian header. This is because sometimes the word is not the same in Serbian and in Bosnian or Croatian and this is why there is a large controversy over whether these are the one and same language or three seperate languages.

I know they are not always the same -- if the spelling was different i'd certainly put them on separate pages. At any rate, they are marked as separate languages... there is an ISO 639 macrolanguage code sh / hbs that covers all three (like 'zh'/'zho' which covers thirteen Chinese languages, when special distinction between them is not made), which is the practice I was following. But if that would still be too controversial, it is easily changed.

I would also not put both forms in the title.

Why not? It is only the title, not the URL -- it does not affect any links to the page.

What I do with Serbian entries is create duplicate entries like Četvrtak and четвртак, but, this is why I do it: sometimes, entries might be the same, but the meaning is different and sometimes entries need to be different (for example: in Serbian, Wednesday is Sreda, while in Bosnian it's Srijeda).

Well, if the spelling is different, they would certainly be put on different pages—the Bosnian at Srijeda (marked as Bosnian) and the Serbian, marked as Serbian at Среда (or possibly Sreda, but certainly not both—the meaning is not different between the two Serbian spellings, is it?). I am trying to avoid fully duplicated articles. It is hardly a problem here and now when most pages are stubs, but when there gets to be lots of information it will be a chore to keep synchronized (compare the trouble this wiktionary has had between color and colour, and how la: handles a similar problem at sulfur). This will grow to be a large problem when incorporating information from languages with multiple scripts, without standardized spelling, languages whose standard spelling has changed over time, or those with regionally variant spelling standards, and I am trying to find good ways to solve it. —Muke Tever June 27, 2005 02:39 (UTC)

Peoples noun

What's a "people's noun"? Google gives me no information. 24 02:14, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, I'm probably not the best one to ask. I don't consider it a good idea rate now but I would like to see what the community thinks of it so I'm going to place them on rfd. 24 02:22, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Help with categories

Hi,

I'm kind of new to Wiktionary and I would like to ask for some help. I've been working mostly on Bosnian and Serbian entries for the past month or so. Anyway, the problem that I would like you to try to help me with is that in the following categories (I've seen this happen in categories of other languages as well) the words that start with letters not found in the English language (no matter if they're Roman or Cyrillic) do not appear in the categories. The categories that I work on and am refering to are Category:Serbian common nouns and Category:Bosnian common nouns. However, this is happening in all categories. The words starting with those letters do appear, but the little bold header does not. All the words starting with those letters will be located at the end of the list in the category. Can you please tell me how or can you please try to fix this? Thanks in advance... --Dijan 04:23, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Welcome! The way to correct an article's placement in a category is to use the pipe syntax. For example, to correct čimbala, at the end of that article I would add this category link instead:

[[Category:Serbian common nouns|cimbala]]

unless I've completely misunderstood your question. --Connel MacKenzie 04:33, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Serbian translations

I have a few minor points about adding the Serbian translations to English words.

1. Use *: instead of :* at the beginning of the lines for the separate scripts. This will avoid adding in the extra blank lines.

2. Normally script names are not capitalized in English unless they are based on a proper noun. Thus "Cyrillic" instead of "cyrillic" and "Roman" instead of "roman"

3. I think that "Roman" instead of "Latin" should be preferred for that script. This could be the subject of some controversy. "Roman" script is the usual British term, while "Latin" script is the usual American term. This would normally mean that you could safely use either one. In this case, however, there are ambiguities. "Latin" when used alone can refer to either the language or the script, but there is no "Roman" language, thus it seems reasonable to me that "Latin" should refer to the language, and "Roman" should refer to the script. To add a further complication "roman" without the capital can refer to the regular typeface as opposed to bold or italic.

My first point was a matter of practical effects, but I apologize if the other two make it sound as though we have as many problems with English usage as you are accustomed to find in the Serbo-Croatian complex of languages.  ;-) Eclecticology 18:37, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry, but when I re-read my point number 2, I can understand why it seems ambiguous. You are right to keep capitalizing these two scripts. Eclecticology 08:45, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

A question related to editing pages

Hi again.  :) Since you know a lot here I wanted to ask you something. When I edit pages, on the bottom of the box, "Save page" button, and under the "Templates used on this page:" there is a pull menu with different characters and scripts that you can choose from to use in the page you are editing. I just wanted to know how that pull down menu can be edited so that more characters can be added. I write and edit a lot of Serbian pages in Cyrillic script, however under the "Cyrillic" option in the pull down menu, only the Russian Cyrillic characters are displayed. And I wanted to ask if the "Croatian" option for characters could be renamed "Serbo-Croatian" because the script is not specifically Croatian-only and Serbo-Croatian implies Croatian anyway. If you know anything about this, please leave me a message on my talk page, and if you don't, could you please help me find more about this? Thanks... --Dijan 05:32, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Hello. There are two places to direct you to: User talk:Hippietrail and MediaWiki talk: Copyrightwarning. I know some people modify their own javascript pages (yours would be User:Dijan/monobook.js to force extra characters but I haven't been bother to myself, yet. --Connel MacKenzie 05:38, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi and thank you for that reply. It helped me understand this a little bit better, but I'm still a little confused. I've looked at MediaWiki talk: Copyrightwarning, User talk:Hippietrail, and User:Hippietrail/charinsert. So, if I add "some" code to my "monobook.js", the characters will display in the drop down list when I'm logged in and am editing a page, right? Now, what code do I put in my monobook.js? I really don't know what kind of code or what should be in the code. The User:Hippietrail/charinsert is an HTML code, right? I don't think that that would be a sample code, would it? I'm really sorry if this is a bother for you, but I do very much appreciate your help. --Dijan 06:25, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

I actually hoped you would add the characters you wanted on the request section of MediaWiki talk: Copyrightwarning so that I or someone could add it in there. MediaWiki pages can't be unprotected, so I can't just let you, or I would. --Connel MacKenzie 07:11, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Please take a look at User:TheDaveRoss/monobook.js and see if you can copy relevant parts to your own monobook.js file. --Connel MacKenzie 07:19, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Cyrillic

I think I added that alphabet correctly? --Connel MacKenzie 09:21, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Image upload

Dijan, You are welcome to upload an image, license permitting, but we encourage images to be uploaded to Commons for use across projects. It is also a good idea (required on Commons) to state the license status on the page with the image. It helps to distinguish those images that have a free license from those that are potential copyright violations.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. --Dvortygirl 06:43, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

školati

Hi,

I saw you put školati as a term used in Serbian. However, I am not sure if I ever heard that form, and Google test gives only Croatian and Bosnian sites. I made školovati entry, which is the form used in Serbia. Do you know anything more about that? --Dcabrilo 06:37, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi, you know, I'm really not sure. It sounds correct, but like you said, I have not found anything on that. I understand what you're saying. But if you say, for example: "Moram školati sina.", that would mean "I must put my son through school" (or basically "support my son"), right? But if you say "Moram školovati sina.", that would mean "I must educate my son". Do you see the difference? Maybe I'm wrong. What do you think? --Dijan 06:54, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your response! I had a chance to look into a couple of other dictionaries, this time Croatian and older Serbo-Croatian, and both go with školovati, for either meaning (Moram sâm školovati sina, or Moram školovati sina na skupom fakultetu). Školati is perhaps a colloquial term, but I never heard it used. At least according to dictionaries, it should be školovati/školovanje. And, while I am here: --Dcabrilo 07:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian

Would it perhaps be better to create one entry for all three languages, instead of a separate entry for each? Since conjugation and declensions will almost always be the same, it seems like too much work to copy/paste three different entries. The problem is also with ekavica/ijekavica, as Serbian really uses both? What do you think about this? --Dcabrilo 07:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I thought of doing that the first time joined Wiktionary and then I changed my mind because of four things. First one is, there is a separate Bosnian Wiktionary and Serbian Wiktionary and I think that since they're already separate ones, we might as well, just keep the entries here separate too. The second one is, since Bosnian "radicals" (I like to call them that), enjoy putting Oriental words (Arabic, Turkish, and Persian) into Bosnian standard language, those will not be found in Serbian. The third is today people consider these as separate languages and I know that to me and I assume you as well, these are the same languages with different "dialects" (ekavian, ijekavian, etc.). Plus, most other wiktionarians here will tell you that these are separate languages and should just be kept separate. The fourth thing that I thought about was that people of different origin (and I refer specifically to Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats) might not agree to put these together. At first, I though we could just put them all together and just call the language "Serbo-Croatian" again, simply because most entries will be the same and declension is almost the same for every word. But then I've been told that the word "Serbo-Croatian" is no longer in use and is therefore improper. To me it's a perfect word for combining the entries, but because of the named reasons above, this creates problems and isn't fun anymore. I really don't mind creating separate entries, just like I don't mind creating Cyrillic and Latin entries. So, if you suggest something different then just tell me, but I do prefer that we just leave it the way it is simply because it will be a strain on us and there are not many Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian wiktionarians here to make it a quick move. By the way, thanks for adding that correction on "auto"! --Dijan 07:23, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

You are welcome for auto :) It's one of those words, like bol (it can be both ta bol or taj bol). Also, I made a couple of other corrections, like: I moved nepče to nepce. If you think I made a mistake in correcting a mistake, just let me know :)

As for Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian thing, I see your point, and they are valid. But anyway, just so you know, I don't only make Serbian Latin entries because I am boycotting "other" languages, but just so I can have more time to work on other entries. :) Thanks for adding Bosnian entries! --Dcabrilo 07:30, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh yes, thanks for nepce. Sometimes online dictionaries are not the best tools because some don't display the č, ć, š, and ž properly. No problem, I enjoy creating entries in both scripts. I just think that without the other script one feels incomplete. But you can do what you do right now, I have no problems with it. I usually go after you and just add the Cyrillic version. If I have any problems with your entries, I will contact you first before making any major edits to them and I hope that you will do the same just like you did with školati. Thanks for that! --Dijan 07:36, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Autostop vs. auto-stop

Yeah, I wasn't sure about that. I looked here and there was autostoperski, without a hyphen. But now that I looked into it, auto-stop is "polusloženica" and there should be a hyphen there. Why don't you correct that one, and I'll take care of školovati? --Dcabrilo 08:06, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

You already did :) --Dcabrilo 08:10, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Hello, minor formatting changes

Hello Dijan,

Here on the English Wiktionary, we wikify-link all the senses of a term. So for a standard declention table, it is good to have each declention wikified, but not the column headings.

Also, for gender, the templates are preferred, as they have the "tips" when mouse-overed.

--Connel MacKenzie 11:12, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Category:Nationalities

We seem to be editing at the same time today.:-) I am still visiting my brother in Germany until tomorrow, or we would normally be in very different time zones. I have been puzzling over "people nouns" and "people adjectives" for a long time now, and think that I have a solution by simply using "nationalities" for both categories. I would also hope to restrict the full language names for most categories. Thus "bs:" would replace "Bosnian" in most cases. One effect would be to limit the use of Category:Bosnian language to words about rather than simply in the Bosnian language, or as a meta-category. Finally, I have always felt that any "proper nouns" or similarly named category to be virtually useless. They could get very big without telling people much of anything about the words in the list. I tend to remove it when the word has a better place. Leaving it tells me that the word needs more work. I hope that this does not create too big of a conflict for you since I know that your efforts have been very productive. Eclecticology 10:13:23, 2005-08-26 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I'm really sorry if I've changed your edits that day. I didn't know that you were editing at the same time, until the notice. About the Category:Nationalities, I agree, and I think it's a really good category. However, I think we should just keep the proper nouns category. This is because it can get very confusing if it's just combined with common nouns. In Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian, sometimes nouns that are proper in English and common in those languages. I think it's just better categorizing if we leave the proper nouns category the way it is right now. I think we should also keep the Bosnian language category the way it is right now, but I do agree that other categories inside it be canged to "bs" for simplicity. Bosnian language (the main category) should be left that way, because people who are not wiktionarians here, the people that come for information, might find it confusing and possibly can't find what they're looking for. So, the main category should not be changed, but categories that go inside it should be changed. I think that any entry that is about Bosnian language should simply be placed in the main Bosnian language category. I kind of like to think that the Bosnian and Serbian categories and entries belong to me and other language specific wiktionaries (and I know they don't). This is simply because I do put a lot of time into it just for the fun and for resources for myself and others, and it's kind of hard to see someone change what you're worked for really hard into something that you didn't want or into a format that you don't agree with. If you do not agree with me on anything I've said here, I'm sure that we can come to some agreement about it. Just drop me a line on my talk page about this if you agree or not and if you have any suggestions. Thanks for being so friendly! (Some people here don't seem to be very friendly, or maybe I just haven't had the time to get to know others here.) --Dijan 18:03, August 27, 2005 (UTC)  :)

I think that being friendly and courteous is very important to the project. Some of our colleagues have a lot to learn in that regard. I agree that with each language there needs to be a plain language category name that gives a way of linking to every category for that. For Bosnian, as an example, I've thought of reserving it for articles about the language only, but with a link in there to Category:bs:*Topics. The use of the asterisk there would guarantee that it remains the first item in the Bosnian list. That being said, I'm not in a hurry for that; I have too many other things to fix. :-)

I'm not ready for a big fuss about "proper nouns" even if I often find it useless as a category. While I believe that nobody "owns" the articles that they write here, the way that an other person's articles are changed needs to be respectful. Eclecticology 00:58:01, 2005-08-29 (UTC)

Bosnian

Dijan -

I really hate to mention this: but aren't the languages Cyrillic and Latin always capitalized?

Cheers,

--Stranger 01:50, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I am very glad to hear it's only a few old entries that need fixing. From what I can tell, you do a ton of work around this place, and I was hoping this wasn't an error in a template that you were using for each and every entry that you added; that would have amounted to a lot of work. Best wishes, --Stranger 13:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Gender forms template

Hi!

I changed some colors around on the template (Template:sr-bs-adj). I hope you don't mind :) Also, made a note that it's Nominative only. BTW... here is a good question: what should be the default form of adjectives we enter? Masculine, singular, nominative looks like a good choice, but just for the sake of political correctness, I would include neuter form instead of masculine? Of course, all forms can have their own entries, but not to waste time... What do you think? --Dcabrilo 04:29, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Grammar

Hello again today :)

I started this page: Wiktionary Appendix:Serbian grammar. I think we can reuse much of it for both Bosnian and Croatian (e.g. exclude cyrillic), so if you are up to it, let's put our heads together and see how well we can develop it.

Also, a personal question. Where in the USA are you? We might be close to each other :) Email me at dcabrilo@gmail.com if you want to. --Dcabrilo 06:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Adjectives

Well, I think creating singular masculine entries for adjectives is a good solution. Of course, the table with other forms can't hurt any. Now, for the colors: I think that plava is a correct color name. E.g. if somebody asks you: "Koja ti je omiljena boja?", you are likely to answer: "Plava mi je omiljena boja". It's something like the names of the languages. Just like "engleski" is a noun for the English language, even though it takes a form of an adjective in "engleski jezik", so should "plava" be the noun describing a color. So, each such entry will have two entries, one for the noun, other one for the adjective (feminine singular). --Dcabrilo 23:24, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

BTW. I'm in Kansas. --Dcabrilo 23:24, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Heraldic azure

Why did you delete the Croatian and Serbian translations from the azure page? Both words came from reliable sources. The Croatian plavo came from Eterovich's book on Croatian coats of arms, and the Serbian Плава came directly from the Serbian Wikipedia entry on heraldic tincture. --EncycloPetey 09:07, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

You're quite correct that the Serbian term shouldn't have been capitalized; that was my mistake. But what do you mean by "the sense in which they were used was not correct"? Could you explain further? I ask because heraldic terminology is my current project, and I'm working through all the heraldic tinctures (slowly). --EncycloPetey 09:13, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

So, is plavo the noun (substantive) form and plava the adjective? You've marked all the adjectival forms with a gender on the azure page. --EncycloPetey 09:21, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like the same situation as in German blazon, only different, if that makes any sense. I guess then that the Croatian word for argent should be srebra instead of srebro. Would you mind checking the page for argent for the Croat and Serbian words (and adding the Bosnian one)? Likewise, over the next few weeks, I'll be adding translations for the other Category:Herladic tincture|Heraldic tinctures and would appreciate your help with the SP-B-HR translations. --EncycloPetey 09:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The pages on the heraldic tinctures gules, or, and purpure are ready for you to look over the SP-B-HR translations, if you have the time. --EncycloPetey 15:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The pages on the heraldic tinctures sable and vert are ready. --EncycloPetey 09:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Did I do something wrong?

Hello. Did I do something wrong with odd lot or are you just rfd-happy? 58.147.74.6 10:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Nothing wrong. You didn't finish the entry. We've had a lot of vandalism lately. Sorry about that. --Dijan 10:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

How about me? --SarekOfVulcan 00:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello

Hello, welcome to Wiktionary. I'm one of the system administrators around here.

I'm glad we have an expert on a new language (I don't think we've got anyone else who's at level 4 for the languages of the former Yugoslavia). I see you've been putting in lots of new material, which is great. Thank you for that.

If you haven't seen them already, I would like to invite you to look at Wiktionary:Translations of the Week (and also Category:Check translations, which is a much longer list) and see if you can help out with the languages you are familiar with. Thanks. — Paul G 10:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Mis-translations

Please do not add translations for languages with which you are unfamiliar. I have had to fix some errors in Spanish and Dutch that you wrongly inserted into pages. Specifically, there is no Spanish word plataoargent -- you apparently took this from a dictionary without understanding what you were reading, which is plata o ("or") argent. The second definition in this case was incorrect, according to heraldic texts I have used and the Spanish wiktionary site. Likewise, you have done the same thing with Dutch text. Please refrain from inserting erroneous translations in languages you do not understand. --EncycloPetey 10:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

That's OK. You seem to me to be a person of real intelligence, with a strong desire to improve yourself through learning and then to share your learning with others. If you weren't that sort of person, I wouldn't have advised you to caution. --EncycloPetey 14:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

sr-decl

Hello Dijan,
I did not know that there is already a similar template to template:sr-decl. Would you be so kind to give me the link to it? --Red Baron 19:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. The table is nicer than mine :) I hope I can use it very often ;). --Red Baron 19:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

admin

Hello. What would you say to being nominated as a sysop? I've deleted a few of the pages that you have RFDed, and thought maybe you could do that yourself. I'll nominate you if you like. --Dangherous 22:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I have received your message. Best wish for your candidacy.--Jusjih 04:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Loss of session data

This very highly annoying error message starts to occur every time a squid server is rebooted, and the database servers get confused. The easiest way to get rid of the error message is to log out and log back in. A couple times I had to restart my browser to clear it. --Connel MacKenzie T C 12:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Please block the Dvortygirl imposter User:Dvortygirl'

S/He is a vandal. Ncik 02:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Argh. I though you'd been appointed already. Ncik 02:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. Ncik 02:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

rakia

Thanks for improving that. See also tears of wine out of interest. SemperBlotto 16:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, thats perfect!

Kassios 19:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Admin rights

This is to let you know that your nomination as a sysop has been processed. Welcome to the cabal. :-) Eclecticology 21:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Alshain

Hiya Dijan. You seem to know something about Persian, can you help me out with the ultimate source for this word? It doesn't seem to be native Arabic. Cheers, Widsith 09:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I don't quite understand why (Arabic) Template:ARchar does not also link to the page you created. Is it something to do with the fact you were using FAchar whereas I am using ARchar? Surely both Persian and Arabic entries should be on the same page - they use (as near as dammit) the same alphabet. Is there any way to fix this? I don't know if this has any bearing on what you're talking about with Stephen, but I am confused. Widsith 09:52, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Urdu as well now I see! This is crazy...there's got to be a better way...this must affect thousands of words. My head hurts! Widsith 10:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Admin task

As a new admin, could you unprotect my userpage? It was protected due to a spate of vandalism by a rogue vandal back in September, and I'd like to be able to edit it, if possible. --Expurgator t(c) 00:53, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Invitation to contribute

Hi,

You might or might not already be aware that there is now a new system in place for marking translations that need to be checked (those that are suspected of being incorrect or those where it is not clear which sense(s) of a word the translations apply to). (See Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Translations_to_be_checked_proposal here for the Beer parlour discussion on this topic.)

Translations to be checked are now categorised by language. For example, Category:Translations_to_be_checked_(French) contains a list of all words where French translations need to be checked. This is designed to make the checking of these translations easier to maintain and work with.

I'm contacting everyone who has either expressed an interest in working on translations or has indicated in Wiktionary:Babel that they have a good knowledge of a particular foreign language or languages.

Would you be interested in helping out with the translations to be checked for Bosnian? If so, please read the page on how to check translations.

If you want to reply to this message, please do so on my talk page. Thanks for your help you can provide.

— Paul G 10:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks for your interest, Dijan. You'll see that there aren't many to do at the moment. New entries could be added at any time, of course, so it would be great if you could check it from time to time to see if there are any new terms to be checked. Thanks again. — Paul G 10:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

PS - I see you know Croatian and Serbian too - looks like you're our Yugoslavian languages expert. — Paul G 11:42, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian?

Hi. I think this is a good opportunity for me to ask, as I've always been confused about it. To what extent is Serbo-Croatian (which you have now added to your babel) a separate language and different from Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian? The pedia article I checked is too long winded and full of irrelevance. Cheers. — Vildricianus 11:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

No such explanation can be too long; now I finally understand it. Thank you very much! — Vildricianus 11:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

reply

I replied on my talk page. I'm pissed that MediaWiki goes completely apeshit when switching from left-to-right to right-to-left character sets. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Edittools#Devanāgarī

Sure! Please confirm what I cut-n-pasted is correct (some of the character differences are invisible to me on this computer.) For future reference, remember to figure out where within MediaWiki: Monobook.js the link goes, then post your edit to that and MediaWiki: Edittools at as close to the same exact time as possible, if you ever feel up to it yourself. Also be ready to roll your changes back (to the proper version!) at the drop of a hat. Remember lastly that most browsers have overly-aggressive javascript caching, so you'll have to close your browser (all windows) whenever you do this, to test that it works correctly.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 05:08, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• Hi there. Do you think that you could also add a dictionary entry for each Devanagari character? (if you think it would be useful) SemperBlotto 10:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. --Dijan 10:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Drago

After he added roba, with an incorrect Italian and a transliterated Japanese entry, I blocked him for another day and gave him yet another warning. He has created a Category for Japanese Romaji - this seems fair enough, so I have left it. I don't know what languages he is proficient at - I have asked him to generate a Babel entry on his User page. SemperBlotto 13:49, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Transliterations?

I'm torn on whether keeping the transliterated versions is good. It seems there is a lot of scholarly work in Sanskrit done in the transliterated form to be script agnostic I presume. I'm cleaning up the entries from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion#Sanskrit contributions from User:8. The issue came up, and your input on whether to use the transliterated word as an entry or the devanagari would be good. And thanks for cleaning up after me, and improving entries, I appreciate it. - Taxman 20:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but what about the fact that Sanskrit uses more than one script? And what about also including entries at the transliterated form to help learners? - Taxman 20:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

No, it definitely is, see w:Romanization of Sanskrit. But my question below was how to get around the problem so I can see the font for all of them, not have you fix that one :). I guess I'll ask on that talk page too. - Taxman 21:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, any idea where I can get the font to handle something like prāṇa correctly. Funny enough in the back browser button in explorer it shows up as the n with a dot under it, but not anywhere else on my system. - Taxman 20:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

{{deleted}}

I try not to use the redirect/protect method when there are less than a half dozen edits/deletes. Big guns are for recurring problems only, I thought. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, no problem...it just wasn't apparent what was going on beforehand. Thanks for the quick response. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:54, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Serbain Cyrillic and Roman breaking list format

Hi Dijan. I just wanted to bring up something that's been bugging me about your very excellent contributions. It seems you've starting changing this usual formatting:

*Serbian:

*:Cyrillic:

*:Roman:

to this:

*Serbian:

:Cyrillic:

:Roman:

I suppose you're doing it to make it look better, but it actually breaks the intended formatting of the wiki operators. To make all 3 lines part of the same list item they need the intial asterisk. When you remove it it means less indentation which I guess is your aim, but it also means those items are not part of the same list. This means unexpected behaviour for any css, javascript, bot, or person, who expects the translations to be in a regular wiki and HTML list form. There's probably a way in your custom .css to reduce the indent level without having to break the formatting. — Hippietrail 17:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Please check your e-mail..

Please check your e-mail

--Monmajhi 01:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Hindi

For creating Hindi entries, you may want to consult Platts' dictionary. It is public domain, being written in 1884, and has quite a bit of the etymology. It's search takes some getting used to to find entries, sometimes you have to try with just the start of the word to find it, but it's very good. Also, you may be interested in User:Taxman/Vocab. It's probably possible to have a bot run through those and create automatic entries, especially if I add parts of speech for the words missing them, but I haven't pursued that because I want to include the information Platts has and hand re-check with my Oxford dictionary. - Taxman 13:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you know enough of the Urdu spellings that you could add that for each of the words in User:Taxman/Vocab? I don't have everyday access to a physical copy of Platts and I don't know the Urdu script so I don't think I could even copy it if I had the book in front of me. - Taxman 18:53, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Given name

Iskra isn't a given name? --69.244.123.182 18:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC) --VKokielov 18:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

iskra? Jon Harald Søby 18:16, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. --VKokielov 18:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

In what language? If you mean in Bosnian, Serbian, or Croatian, then "No", it is not a given name. --Dijan 03:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Imenik

http://www.tportal.hr/imenik/

317 results.

Well, maybe that's not the biggest list in the world...  :)

Allllll riiiight. I have a personal bias. --VKokielov 00:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Months and Days

Hi, Dijan. Would you mind having a look at the Appendices for Appendix:Months of the Year and Appendix:Days of the Week and be sure that both pages include the appropriate Bs, Hr, & Sr entries? Also, some of these basic entries may be missing from Wiktionary. Kappa has already helped to created the Korean ones, and I'll be looking for others to help in additional languages. Thanks for whatever help you can provide. --EncycloPetey 09:30, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. To clarify for second concern, note that the entry for nedjelja currently is listed only with a Bosnian sense, without a Croatian definition. If you could double-check each entry for the appropriate languages, it would go far in improving the basic content of Wiktionary. Thanks again, --EncycloPetey 09:53, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Units of Time

Hello again, and thanks for filling in the Bosnian and Serbian months of the year! It's so nice to see this information finally showing up on Wiktionary. Second, could you help fill in the same kind of information on Appendix:Units of time? If you know of people who could help fill in more languages, that would be great! --EncycloPetey 12:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Thnaks so much for your work! --EncycloPetey 09:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

kismet

I don't understand your reversion - are you saying it isn't an English word? It is in all my English dictionaries SemperBlotto 21:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

No, kismet (with a dot over the i) is English. kısmet (without the dot over the i) is Turkish. --Dijan 21:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

OK sorry - could you add "see also" links at the top of each, pointing to the other. Cheers. SemperBlotto 21:47, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Bosnian months

One way to handle it is to leave a single form in the Appendix table, and list the alternate spellings on the entry for that word, with a Usage note essentially explaining just what you said here. --EncycloPetey 19:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Bosnian language

Rijeci "avgust", "nedelja" i "ponedeljak" nisu standardi bosanskoga jezika. Problem je ocigledno, sto mnogi mijesaju bosanski jezik sa ostalim jezicima, koji su pored bosanskoga, sluzbeni jezici u bosni i hercegovine. Na drugu stranu, mnogi koriste rijeci koje su ucili u skoli, zaboravljajuci pri tome da je to bio srpsko-hrvatski jezik a ne bosanski. Te rijeci su naravno ispravne i standard srpsko-hrvatskoga jezika ali ne bezuslovno i bosanskoga jezika. U Bosni i Hercegovine se koriste sva tri sluzbena jezika i izbor kojim se jezikom neko sluzi je slobodan. Ako jedne dnevne novine npr. koriste rijeci "avgust", "nedelja" i "ponedeljak", ne znaci da je pogresno, vec samo da te novine koriste srpski odnosno srpsko-hrvatski jezicki standard. Na wikipediji je to malo drugacije. Wikipedije, kao i ostali podprojekti, nisu enciklopedije jedne drzave nego samo jednog jezika. Pozdrav. Elmir[demicx]

The standard which you speak of is not necessarily "the standard" of the Bosnian language because it is not considered as such by the government nor by many Bosniaks. In your definition of Bosnian language, you say that it is "jezik Bošnjaka i svih onih koji ga pod tim imenom osjećaju svojim". If that is true, then that standard that you're imposing needs to be changed. The standard that you're talking about is based on Central Bosnian speech, which is not spoken throughout the country by most Bosniaks. Also, I don't understand why many Bosnians consider the people of Sandzak to be Bosniaks, when they do not consider themselves as such. Please read in BH Dani. The fact that most national (not Serb or Croat, but Bosniak) newspapers, companies, schools, government webisites (and some Islamic websites) still use the Serbo-Croatian standard clearly states that S. Halilovic's "book" is not yet a standard and it should not be considered as such here either. The problem that I have with this standard is that some of the spellings proposed on Pravilno-nepravilno u bosanskome jeziku is that I've never heard of them nor has any other Bosniak (or Bosnian) that I interact with on a daily basis. I don't know if you (bs wikipedians) are trying to create a movement for standardization, but if you are, it should not be done here. I am definitely for standardization, however, this book cannot be considered as such considering that it clearly imposes standards of speech on people who have never spoken that way. It would be like imposing British English speech on Americans and Canadians and calling it a standard. Such thing will never happen.

I am a Bosniak and speak the Bosnian language. However, if the standard that you're imposing is considered to be the standard of the Bosnian language, then apparently I am wrong and so are many other Bosniaks that think of themselves as I do.

Considering that, I do not know how to be in agreement with you (bs wikipedians). I can only propose that your standard be included (definitely not excluded) along with what you call Serbo-Croatian. Which ever word gets to be written first can be considered as the main entry, while all other can be alternative spellings. If you do not agree with this, please come up with something better than this. --Dijan 17:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Ja nisam taj koji je pojedine rijeci odabrao i proglasio za standard. Ako se te rijeci koriste u skolstvu u bosni i hercegovine onda je vjerovatno negdje i od nekoga tako odluceno. Da li to svakome u bih odgovara? Vjerovatno ne. Zato i imamo tri sluzbena jezika i svaki se vladin dokument stampa na sva tri jezika. I ako na takvim dokumentima onda stoji "povjest", "istorija" i "historija" ili "august", avgust" i "kolovoz", znaci na sva tri jezika, onda je po mome misljenju august ili historija standard bosanskoga jezika.

Ako je definicija bosanskoga jezika "jezik Bošnjaka i svih onih koji ga pod tim imenom osjećaju svojim", ne znaci da svako moze da pise i govori onako kako njemu odgovara. Svaki knjizevni jezik ima standarde koji se moraju postovati. Mnoge rijeci koje su sada standard nisu izmisljene tek jucer. Te rijeci su se i u proslosti koristile na prosotrima BiH ali su tokom upotrebe srpsko-hrvatskoga jezika bile izbacene iz knjizevnog govora, tako da se nisu ni ucile u skolama.

Da za neke rijeci nisi nikada cuo, ne znaci da su pogresne ili da nisu standard. U mnogim dijelovima i regijama u BiH se koriste rijeci koje nisu knjizevno i pravopisno ispravne. Takve rijeci neces takodjer naci u prvopisu bosanskoga ili bilo kojeg drugog jezika. A ako ti tvrdis da je npr. "avgust" ispravna rijec na bosankom jeziku (ne u pojedinim regionima bosne i hercegovine), onda bi trebao da navedes i izvore (bh dani od prije pet godina su jos neaktuelniji nego za tebe sporni "pravopis bosanskoga jezika"). Da si ti to tako ucio u skoli ne govori nista o standardu ili pravopisu bosanskoga jezika, posto ti u skoli, kao i ja sam, nisi ucio bosanski.

Takodjer mi nije jasno zasto mijesas Sandzak i ljude iz Sandzaka sa ovom temom? Kako se oni nazivaju ili ih neko drugi naziva uopce me ne interesuje. I bosanski jezik srbi i hrvati nazivaju bosnjackim iako je u cijelome svijetu priznat i registrovan kao bosanski. Ni ja tu ne mogu nista da promjenim kao ni kod Sandzaka. Elmir[demicx]

air etc

Mm, interesting entries – have you seen akasa? Widsith 08:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Latin / Roman

Please reassure me that we should use "Roman" now instead of "Latin" for Serbian in the translation tables, is that right? —Vildricianus 22:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi there! Yes, we should only be using "Roman" from now on. There are many Serbian entries that need reformatting. If you come across "Latin/Roman" on an entry page, please change it to "Roman". If you come across "*:Latin" in translation sections for Serbian, also change it to "*:Roman". --Dijan 04:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Good, it happens now automatically as I edit pages. —Vildricianus 20:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Verb conjugation templates

Hey, thanks for the welcome. Do you know offhand where I can find a list of those verb conjugation chart templates? I've seen them on pages, but I don't know how they work, since there must be different ones for different languages? Thanks. - Torgo 21:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

opština

Is opština OK? I thought maybe opština is a plural noun, and so I am checking with a native speaker. --Dangherous 10:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Indexes

Thanks for helping with those fancy scipts! One index is still bothering me Index:Tamil. Do you have any knowledge of that script? — Vildricianus 16:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Hm, ok. I'd really think you speak all these :-). I'll ask Stephen. — Vildricianus 16:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

monobook foibles

One of the most aggravating things about adding minor features with Javascript is never knowing at which phase something needs to execute...for me at least.

Anything that looks at document.getElements.... needs to wait for the page load to complete, before starting to execute. So the "onload" action is the way to go.

The normal document.onload is problematic on wiki*s though. Because several separate Javascript files are being executed, some before page load, some after, whichever JS file overrides the "onload" directive last wins.

The work-around, is to attach functions to the document.onload event. MediaWiki:Monobook.js at the very end adds such an event.

The weirdness with the buttons is the result of wikibits.js. It adds the buttons via Javascript (so that users with javascript disabled are not frustrated by inert buttons.) To accomplish it, it must wait for the onload event...or else 'tooly' does not exist. So the later executing Special:Mypage/monobook.js has to be careful not to overwrite the newly created mediaWiki buttons.

My current Monobook.js adds one single "#R" redirect button. The last time I messed around with it, everything stopped working. Recently, sometimes it does not work correctly, either. I'm tempted to use the wikibits.js calls instead, if I have to wrestle with it again.

"Never wrestle with a pig. You'll get dirty, and the pig will just enjoy it." -I have no idea where I got this quote from.

Sorry I don't have anything more helpful, right now. Leave me a link to the bs.wikt: page you were referring to and I'll try to look into it. --Connel MacKenzie 08:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

---

Thanks Connel for the info. What I'm trying to do on bs.wiktionary is to place extra buttons into the toolbar, but also to place the "Edittools" special characters right below it (or on the same line) so that it appears above the edit text box and not below it. Right now, someone has been able to do that (I believe the code came from de.wikisource), however there is a problem with that. All the new buttons added to the toolbar function perfectly fine, but the regular toolbar (starting with "Bold" and ending with "Horizontal line") do not function at all. Edittools characters work fine. The code is not actually in Monobook.js, but in Onlyifediting.js. The code (I think) is being called by the Monobook.js to turn on the extra buttons. I don't know what the problem is. If you can, please take a look at the Monobook.js code as well as the Onlyifediting.js code at:

Monobook.js

Onlyifediting.js

Please leave any suggestions you might have on my talk page here. Thank you. --Dijan 19:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

1. In that monobook, the line window.onload = function() { exists. This immediately raises a red flag for me. The bs.wikt: also uses wikibits.js (view source) but it seems to be getting pooched by that window.onload. The correct way to do it is with addLoadEvent. No explanation is given as to why they think they need to do it the wrong way.
2. Several other problems exist there. Look at MediaWiki:Monobook.js here. The first line plus the last line does the <PRE> magic trick that makes the whole thing much more readable.
3. There are multiple function addLoadEvent()s defined. (Should have only the first of them.)
4. The last four lines of the bs.wikt: Monobook use "aOnloadFunctions" where they really must instead use "addLoadEvent". E.g. addLoadEvent( Annotations );
5. The (multiple!) sections with // BEGIN Enable multiple onload functions should each be removed.

--Connel MacKenzie 20:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I'll try to fix those things, although I know nothing about scripts. If you want, I could grant you sysop status on bs.wiktionary for the time being and you can try to fix it (you know more about this stuff than I do). --Dijan 20:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

While that would facilitate testing/debugging, I must insist that any such sysop flag be temporary (48 hours, max.) I can't even pronounce the language name properly, let alone pretend to understand any of it! --Connel MacKenzie 20:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I seem to have done some damage with my recommendations, so far. I had to turn off JavaScript in my browser, just to edit my brand new userpage there. --Connel MacKenzie 20:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hehe. How do I make a user into a "temp." sysop? Use the regular "Make sysop" page? --Dijan 21:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yup. And remove the flag on the same page when done. --Connel MacKenzie 21:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Erm, no. I think a steward has to be involved, actually. --Connel MacKenzie 21:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep. I can make you into a sysop (done), but apparently a steward will have to de-sysop you later. --Dijan 21:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

kitabu/vitabu

Hi, thanks! One of the things I like here is that one can add a new entry and get it mostly where it should be, and someone else will tweak it up. Then one has another example for the next entries. Question: what does ARchar do? I note the appearance improves. Robert Ullmann 22:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey! I was just making the same changes to Etymology on safari. (Now I know what an edit conflict looks like ;-) Why use "<" instead of ", from" ? ("this from" is wordy, I agree) Is there a style? Robert Ullmann 23:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"Kiswahili" is less common than "Swahili" in English, but is used frequently; a quick google test gives 8M hits, out of which maybe about half (at the top) are in English sentences or context. I'd say it is an English word; and it is useful in that it means specifically the language. I'll make a note to myself to see if Swahili should have a second sense to mean the people and/or culture or area (that's what it means in Swahili). And Swahili needs a Swahili section ... Not right now, it is 3 A.M. in Nairobi. Robert Ullmann 23:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Arabic "sister"

Hi! Nice entries. Just have a question about the word sister. Is the correct spelling: Template:ARchar? Or is it Template:ARchar. --Dijan 18:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dijan, sorry, you messaged me just as I logged off earlier! Er – yes, it is Template:ARchar – but I thought we didn't normally bother with the vowel markings? Widsith 20:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

jaconet

Me again. I wasn't entirely sure about the spelling of the place-name in this etymology – can you verify...? Widsith 19:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've corrected the spelling and fixed the etymology a little bit. You were almost close, hehe! One thing to remember is not to confuse Arabic and Urdu "h"'s. Although they appear very similar, they are different. In Urdu they can also take different shapes (which don't appear in Arabic) depending on where they are. Urdu has two types of "h"'s. One is the double-eyed "h" (ھ) and serves only as an aspirating companion to other letters. The other "h" is (ہ). --Dijan 06:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

OK cheers for that – interesting about the Hs, I didn't know that. One of these days I should probably just sit down and actually learn some Urdu, and stop trying to guess it! Widsith 07:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for introducing me to Wiktionary and formalising my Hindi edits. I am frankly not surprised who ended up doing as I must surely pop up in the edits of the articles that I created. My ultimate goal is to put the entire Hindi/Urdu dictionary on here and link them with their Latin spellings --71.76.48.79 00:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome!  :) One thing though about Urdu: make sure you use appropriate Urdu characters and not Arabic. For example, don't use Arabic "ya" for Urdu "ye" or Arabic "ha" for Urdu "he". They're different Unicode characters, even though they might look the same. Oh, and thanks for adding khūbsūrat. Oh, and please register for a user name (you can then copy this talk page to your user name talk page; plus it will be easier to attribute your work to you and to get to know you a little bit better). --Dijan 07:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure dude, Here it is -Ravi 15:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, By the Way..., could you help me a bit wih Urdu spellings? I know the alphabet Somewhat, but im not that good at exact spellings, its not as phonetic as Devanaagarii. _Ravi 15:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. You know, Urdu is not as complicated as most people think. I used to think that it was very hard to learn how to write it because it was not as phonetic as Devanagari. I've later found out that it is actually really easy and that each letter of Devanagari can be represented by Urdu. But, sometimes Devanagari cannot represent Urdu (because of the Arabic and Persian letters). But, yes, don't worry. I'll help you with it. If you want, you can look at Urdu - Devanagari for a simple comparison chart. It might be helpful.  :) --Dijan 10:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Alot For the Chart! but i do have a question. Where does Alef Template:ARchar Come in? or is it simply Ā? Or is it a non-Hindustani sound, such as æ? Also, how would I transiterate a V (व)? Also, from what little a know of Arabic, I see that you have ث as स, is this a scpecially Urdu modified letter? I also wish to know, when transliterating from Devanaagarii, which स should i use, س or ص or ط or ث ?im sorry if im a bit inquinsitive, but i want to learn ^_^ :Ravi 04:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC))

sorry i've been out but i had school. can you please proofread आलम for me? -Ravi 04:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I go to the International Baccalaureatte program at Wilson High School in Florence, SC, USA.-Ravi 09:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your oversight on my Hindi additions, I don't speak or read any Hindi at all, so the exactness of my entries is lacking. I appreciate your help. - TheDaveRoss 04:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem. You have added many, many entries in Hindi!  :) The only thing that I would like you to be careful with is the use of ्, which in Hindi is invisible and the letter preceding it takes a half-letter form. Also, can you tell me where you're getting all of these from? I'm asking because some of these words seem very colloquial (non-standard) and others seem to be very Sanskritized forms. I'm not too familiar with the Sanskritized forms and am very skeptical of them (especially when it comes to spelling). Colloquial ones are somewhat easier to correct and put into standard forms because most dictionaries do carry "vulgar/colloquial" equivalents with standard terms. --Dijan 05:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I got them from this page which came from the Hindi Wiktionary. They only have 1:1 translations, so that is as specific as I can make it. If there are some you question, perhaps we can come up with a template/category for Hindi to be checked, and try and find someone at the Hindi Wiktionary or Wikipedia who can come take a look at them for us. Thanks again - TheDaveRoss 05:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Patrol flags

On the "my preferences" page, on the "editing" tab, there is a checkbox for "Mark edits I make as patrolled", would you be so kind as to check that and reduce the number of !s that we need to click through ;) - TheDaveRoss 23:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

thing, वस्तु

I see you just added the gender for Sanskrit on thing. I noticed that you put {{m}} but the वस्तु page has {{n}}. Any ideas? — Hippietrail 06:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Platts' A dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English says it's masculine. --Dijan 06:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Hindi normally keeps the same gender (as Sanskrit) in Sanskrit words. There are some words in Hindi that are designated as masculine, but can be applied to female objects or subjects and that's why some people label them as neuter nouns. Same goes for some adjectives. Although, neuter does not exist in Hindi. --Dijan 06:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Bosnian and Serbian for listen

Dijan, would you mind filling in translations for the various senses of listen? I'm trying to turn that entry into a model page, and would like to get translations from a variety of languages in there. Thanks, --EncycloPetey 23:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello! No problem, I've just added the translations for listen for Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian. --Dijan 06:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you also create thorough pages for the translated forms? I'm hoping to make listen a model entry hub, such that it can be listed on the WT:ELE as a model for editors. I call it a "hub" because I want as many linked pages to also be of similar quality that they could serve as model entries as well. --EncycloPetey 19:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Done.  :) --Dijan 22:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

When I have some time (probably next week or so), I'll create verb conjugation templates for Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian. Then I can fix those pages up a little more. --Dijan 22:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Me getting blocked

• Just to let you know my intentions are good and when I put up that article for speedy deletion I was doing to try to fight vandalism. --Sir James Paul 00:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

जगन्नाथ

Hello again. Could you create the page for Sanskrit/Hindi जगन्नाथ (jagannātha)? It's relevant to juggernaut, which will be Word of the Day later this month. Thanks, --EncycloPetey 03:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much!

Thank you for supplying so many translations of Interlingua. I see you've contributed Hindi, Urdu, and many other languages. Please feel free to add any others if you feel so inclined. Have a great day! Matt 02:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Czech Kurva

First of all, the page of курва I have edited with the Czech meaning of the word. On Dutch Wikipedia I am known as Mallerd so if you want you can post reply there. Now I see you have turned 'kurva' into 'Курва' which makes no sense, because the Czech lagnuage is written in Latin alphabet. Second is that you changed the meanings of 'damn' or 'shit' to just 'prostitute'. Kurva means all of those words (I had some Czechs at my home for school and they used it in those meanings) and therefore I wish that the changes are to be reversed. Otherwise I would be most glad if you would post a reply at http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Mallerd, so please do if you disagree. 81.69.203.77 00:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC) Mallerd

Hello there. Apparently you are mistaken because you did not pay attention to what you did nor to what I did. You edited the term "курва" (in Cyrillic) and included a Czech header (implying that Czech is written in Cyrillic). Czech (you even said it yourself) is not written in Cyrillic but rather in Latin/Roman script. What I did was simply remove the Czech entry from "курва" (because it does not belong there), and I added a Serbian meaning of the word which does belongs there. The Czech term already exists on the appropriate page kurva. Next time, please pay attention to the whole edit and not just a part of it. --Dijan 02:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, yes I am sorry I was a bit puzzled by the fact that if you wanted to have a word spelled in a different alphabet than the latin one, you actually had to search it in that alphabet. Thanks for making that clear to me :)and good luck with your language studies too, I'm planning to do Russian :) До Свидания! Mallerd 21:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

deletions

Please be more careful about removing possible personal information from deletion comments (that are listed in the deletion log.) --Connel MacKenzie 07:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I must've goofed again

Thank you for cleaning up my mistakes from yesterday. Can you please take a moment to answer my question at Wiktionary talk:About Sanskrit? --Connel MacKenzie 23:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Japanese cuisine/Japanese food

I found you added the {{rfd}} to them. But you didn't yet leave the reasons to WT:RFD. Remebmer to leave the messages there. I would like to know your opinions first. Thanks.--Carl Daniels 23:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Xerxes

Question: Shouldn't the Persian part of the etymology be in cuneiform? It was taken during the time of Old Persian. Atelaes 05:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I would agree. However, I'm not capable of typing in cuneiform. I will try to fix it best to my abilities.  :) --Dijan 06:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If I can type it in cuneiform, can you double-check it? Atelaes 06:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I'll do my best. --Dijan 06:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm....I can't seem to find an inscription with that word. You don't by chance know which inscription this word is found on, do you? Atelaes 06:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe I've got it. It's 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠. I found it on [Livius.org]. There on a piece of text it shows his name and underneath is the transcription Xshayaarshaa. I was able to copy the cuneiform letters from Wikipedia article on Old Persian.  :) --Dijan 07:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure about that. The Wikipedia article says that Xšayârša is his name, but that the Greek derives from Khshayârsha, which is a title meaning "Ruler of heroes". Do you know anything about this? Also, I noticed that 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 usually ends in an 𐎶 (m). Do you have any idea if this is an object declension or something? Atelaes 07:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC) I couldn't find that title (Khshayârsha) anywhere on Livius (and I checked a lot of pages). Atelaes 07:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Old Persian declension. The best that I could come up with to explain the "m" is that it might be either the genitive or the accusative suffix (and in those translations, I believe it is translated or understood as "who, whom" or "of"). Anyway, line 12 (on the stone from Hamadan) on the link that I gave you earlier, is where his name is also mentioned in the text: 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 (Xšayâršâ) < this time without the "-m". There's also another inscription (from Lake Van) on Livius.org; again 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 (Xšayâršâ) (line 9). There are more royal inscriptions on [Livius.org - Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions]. All of them show 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 (Xšayâršâ). The article on Wikipedia, I believe, is again mixing Old Persian and Modern Persian (neither shows the actual transliterations correctly). --Dijan 07:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! Thank you very much. I created the page 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠. What do you think, is that going too far? I just thought it'd be freakin sweet to have a live link for that word. Also, perhaps I should have said this rather earlier and saved you a bunch of work, but you can feel free to just respond here. Not to creep you out, but I'm watching you :-). Atelaes 07:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL! No prob. --Dijan 19:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hey! Thanks for the reverts on pukka and jungle.  :)

I reverted for two reasons. One, the new guy removed some other stuff like categories and translations, and I didn't have the patience to reinstate them. Secondly, I trust your judgment more, having built a fair bit of Wikt street cred, if you get my drift. However, may I ask why Hindustani is preferred over Hindi and Urdu? I read a bit about them on the 'pedia, and they seem to be highly similar. So, obviously, there is little difference between saying Hindi and Urdu, or simply Hindustani. Then, what's the benefit? Just in case the guy starts asking me why I'm killing his edits. Thanks. Atelaes 03:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand. I was expecting you to reply with those questions. Understanding that you've read some of the info on pedia, here is the short reply. Hindustani is the neutral form of Hindi and Urdu. It is considered somewhat of a bridge between the extremes of the two standardized forms. As the middle, Hindustani contains vocabulary from Persian, Arabic (given preference in Urdu) and from Sanskrit (given preference in Hindi). (This is extremely important for scholars who claim that Hindi and Urdu are the same languages, with minor dilectical differences.) It is hard to determine (I would say impossible) whether a word has come from Hindi or Urdu (or even some localized form of either) into English. Therefore, it is safe to assume that a word has come from Hindustani rather than individual parts. Same applies to Serbo-Croatian. One cannot simply say that a word came from Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, or even Montenegrin (unless of course a word is strictly localized). It is however safe to assume and claim that the word came from Serbo-Croatian (the middle, or in this case until 1992, the standardized form of the four languages). Although here on Wiktionary we no longer list Hindustani and Serbo-Croatian as languages under the second level heading, in order to localize words and meanings, we do use it in Etymological cases. If you need more specifics, just ask! :) --Dijan 03:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

That answers my question completely and makes a great deal of sense. Thanks very much. Atelaes 03:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Any time!  :) --Dijan 03:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Jangal

I am feeling a kind of contempt for Wikipedia in your post. I do not trust Wikipedia, ‎‎especially on controversial topics such as Hindustani etc. Such topics are in control of ‎‎powerful political groups; hence, the material is extremely biased and questionable. I ‎‎stress on the usage of Urdu and Hindi because, when Jungle was introduced in English, ‎‎Hindustani did not exist but Urdu and Hindi did. The usage of Hindustani is a ‎‎provocative reference to pre-1947 India which is wrong in every way.‎ We should not create our ‎own rules and should follow the established rules of established dictionaries. I do not ‎think dictionary.com should be rejected with such force. It always cites highly credible ‎sources and combines them on one page.‎

By the way, I find your analysis of Urdu and its script a little bit flawed. I can read ‎‎Arabic very well, although I do not understand all of it. In Arabic, nasal n never occurs at ‎‎the end of a word; however, it often occurs inside words where a "jazam" (diacritic) is ‎‎used (not necessary to write, although its existence is always understood). Urdu script ‎follows the same tradition.‎ Muqaabil 09:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)‎

You have not replied about the real issue i.e. Replacing the controversial word "Hindustani" with neutral words of "Urdu and Hindi". Muqaabil 17:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

خوش

Hi, I am wondering whether there has been a consensus on which system of transliteration is to be used in Wiktionary for Persian words. I prefer the transliteration "khosh" because it is the system used in most textbooks, and gives a guide to English-speakers. "khoš" gives the reader no indication that there is a "sh" sound at the end. Also, I think according to that system, the transliteration would in fact be "xoš". For native speakers of English, "khos" is much more intuitive than "xoš". If the consensus is to use that system then I think the transcription of many of the words need to be revised. Pistachio 17:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I have created the page Wiktionary:About_Persian for making a draft policy on transliteration and other Persian-related issues, it would be great if you could help edit it if you have time. Is there a project page for Persian where I could contact the people who edit Persian entries the most? Pistachio 21:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello. At the moment, there is no concensus on the Wiktionary about transliteration for Persian. It is up to the contributors or editors to provide transliteration. "khosh" is fine. I have no objections toward it. However, my system of transliteration for Persian often intersects that of Urdu (which I must admit is not the best for Persian). I do not support the use of "x", simply because English also uses it for the sound "ks" in other certain transliterations. I hope that we can work together and develop a system for transliteration to be used officially on the English Wiktionary. --Dijan 21:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I hope that we can work on the draft and that an offical version will be created soon. --Dijan 21:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that would be great. Pistachio 21:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

"Sanskrit" terms in Urdu

Please do not remove terms derived from Sanskrit in URDU and claim that they're not Urdu. They are Urdu words, whether you like it or not! You claim that you're a native Urdu speaker, however you seem to be familiar ONLY with Persian/Arabic derived terms. Please, stop removing native URDU terms or you will be blocked for violations and vandalism. --Dijan 04:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Please stop imposing non-Urdu words on Urdu. If your claims are true can you provide solid references to support your claims? Only currently used words should be listed instead of a host of obselete Sanskrit words. Muqaabil 04:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I will give you a reference. For the word calendar, Ferozsons English to Urdu dictionary (printed in Pakistan, might I add) lists جنتری (jantrī) as the FIRST word! Also, words that might not be spoken as Urdu in Pakistan, are however considered as Urdu in Hyderabad, where many Sanskrit terms have been preserved. So, please stop removing those terms, as they ARE considered Urdu. --Dijan 04:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

کوه

Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me the difference between the Persian and the Urdu word please? I can see they are on different pages but I can't see the difference. I just want to check in case it is a similar issue to arabic and persian "yeh". Thanks. Pistachio 04:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi. The difference is in the script. The Urdu "ha" is not the same as the Persian or Arabic "ha". When in isolated form, they both appear to be the same. However, they are different code points on the Unicode chart. Also, please note that they do not have the same form in the medial or final position. However, Urdu does also use the Arabic/Persian "ha", but only in medial position and only in combination with several aspirated characters. The Persian variant is exactly like the Arabic one and uses the same code point, while the Urdu variant, because of its difference, has to use a separate code point. The same applies to "taa' marbuuta". Where Arabic and Persian use Template:ARchar, Urdu uses ۃ. --Dijan 04:12, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help ^____^ Pistachio 04:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Any time!  :) --Dijan 04:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Reminder

Check the following pages for correct gender:

• अदरक / ادرک
• माथा‎ / ماتھا

Check the spelling and meaning:

• دندانپزشکی
• دندانپزشک
• دندان ساز

Check and correct:

• 59.101.25.80
• 59.101.83.63
• 66.66.105.176*B
• 84.120.10.38
• 85.158.32.228
• 193.198.128.147
• 202.182.138.10
• 202.182.138.34
• 202.182.138.72***
• 202.182.138.82
• 202.182.138.114
• 202.182.138.171***
• 202.182.138.206***
• 202.182.138.235**
• 202.182.139.70
• 213.202.158.6

Fix all the "gender forms" entries in Entries with non-standard headers to "declension".

Thank you!

I did install support for the indic scripts through control panel>regional settings> languages> install files for complex scripts. Now the letters are better. Hope I didn't make too much of a mess while trying to correct the spellings. --Msddn 15:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the Sorani font support

Hi , I noticed the changes you made while I was downloading some Sorani Kurdish fonts from http://www.kurditgroup.org when my computer froze and I had to use system restore to fix everything. Now I have the fonts and my computer is working properly again. I noticed your impresive repertoire of languages on your talk page, my father has a phD in Kurdish phonetics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Please don't hesitate to ask if you need anything with Sorani Kurdish. Once again, thanks for the timely response.Gbeebani 06:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed that the Sorani Kurdish is not listed when uing Firefox. Gbeebani 06:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorani Kurdish Babel template

Sorry for the delay Dijan, here are the templates:
ku-0:
ku-1:
ku-2:
ku-3:
ku-4:
ku-5:
Gbeebani 23:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dijan, thank you for putting in the Sorani Babel template. I noticed that ku-4 has a gramatical error in it, you cannot say . I tried looking for other ways to say this sentence, hence the initial delay to reply to your request, but I can't think of any. The word needs to be omitted.Gbeebani 04:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Montenegrin

User:JoeyDeep is adding Montenegrin words (Special:Contributions/JoeyDeep), but isn’t that simply Serbian? —Stephen 18:56, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

See w:Montenegrin language. This is a tricky issue given the recent independence of Montenegro. My own sources (limited) call Montenegrin an ijekavian dialect of the Serbo-Croat group, while Serbian is ekavian. If correct, that would mean that there are more similarities to standard Croatian and Bosnian than to Serbian. --EncycloPetey 19:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right Stephen. Montenegrin is actually Serbian. EncycloPetey, Ijekavian is not a dialect, but rather a sub-dialect of the Shtokavian dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language. Montenegrin uses the Ijekavian form, the same that Bosnian uses, with minor differences. While Bosnian is recognized by the Bosnian constitution as a language in its own right and by some foreign states, Montenegrin is not. It is rather recognized as Serbian. EncycloPetey, Serbian itself is not strictly Ekavian. Ekavian only refers to Serbian as spoken and taught in Serbia proper, not Serbian in Bosnia or in Montenegro. No, being Ijekavian does not make Montenegrin necessarily closer to "Bosnian" or "Croatian" than to Serbian. The so-called new languages (Bosnian and Croatian) are considered as separate languages on the basis, albeit a political one - but that's a different story -, that they use different vocabulary. Montenegrin speech, on the other hand, uses most of the vocabulary the Ekavian Serbian does. True, some terms are different due to region or area and some very minor differences in speech. --Dijan 22:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. He put Montenegrin odit on the "to go" page and I changed it to Serbian, but then I thought I should ask about this. To my ear, the differences in ekavian and ijekavian are very superficial, and hardly even warrant being called subdialects. —Stephen 22:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, odit is not a standard verb in Serbian. The standard form is otići, which means to go or more correctly to go away. --Dijan 16:38, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Would it be useful to create a category sr:Montenegrin and place it in sr:Regionalisms? --Dijan 16:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks like it would be a good idea, since there seem to be some regional differences. odit and otići must be equivalent to Russian отойти, отходить, but the meaning of отойти is rather different (to recover, to be all right again). —Stephen 18:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

terai

Would you plase take a look at the "Hindi" section of the entry for terai? It needs a bit of cleanup, and probably a different alphabet for the spelling. --EncycloPetey 21:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Central Europe

Please, could you take a look at the Croatian and Serbian translations for Central Europe, and correct them if necessary? Thanks. --EncycloPetey 04:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Devanagari font

Hi there, just dropped in to say thanks for the tip about Devanagari fonts, and the link. :-) I still have problems in viewing the font correctly in Firefox, but it's working fine in IE. And sorry about that edit. :-) --NithinBekal 09:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

IJ ligatures

Hi,

EncycloPetey has said that you've previously said that we shouldn't use characters like "ij" (a common Dutch ligature) because they mess with the search software. Do you remember the details at all? Because the search software is being redesigned (see Wiktionary:Beer parlour#New feature on development branch of Lucene search), so whatever the problem was, we might be able to have it fixed.

Thanks in advance!

—Ruakh_TALK 19:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I use the Firefox browser and I have just now executed a search on this page for ij (i+j), and it found only the upper- and lowercase i+j instances. Then when I searched on the ij ligature, it found only the ij ligature. Neither finds the other. —Stephen 17:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

New inflection line templates for Bosnian and Serbian nouns

Hello Dijan, I have just created two new inflection templates for Bosnian and Serbian nouns {{bs-noun}} and {{sr-noun}}. I created these templates to help standardise the way the inflection lines are formatted in Bosnian and Serbian entries. Regards. --Williamsayers79 08:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

User 59.101.25.80

I have blocked this user for deleting etymologies and removing content from various pages, in some cases replacing headers like "Czech" with "Serbian". He/She seems to have a strong Serbian agenda, and I noticed that you had reverted some of his previous edits. I thought I might let you know so that you could look over his more recent edits to check them. --EncycloPetey 05:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

User 61.68.60.93 seems to be the same person. I have blocked this address and reverted the edits. --EncycloPetey 04:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

A favor to ask

This set of stuff appeared yesterday and none of the rest of us have any idea whether it's any good. If you have the chance to check over it, please do: [1]. Thanks! Dvortygirl 15:08, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Srednja Evropa

Would you please check (and correct) the entry I started for Srednja Evropa? Thanks, --EncycloPetey 01:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Declension template for Croatian nouns

Regarding the template {{sr-bs-noun}} that you made, and which apparently has been used for Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian nouns - in Croatian grammar books it is common for Instrumental case to follow the Locative, and here they're listed the other way around.

I would like to make {{hr-decl-noun}} template and start adding declensions to Croatian nouns, and since I haven't read any Croatian grammar in English, I'm puzzled with the proper ordering of cases. Are there any guidelines in the wikt docs on this topic? --Ivan Štambuk 18:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't found any actual help or guideline pages concerning declension templates. I created the new {{hr-decl-noun}} template and I've simply reversed the order of the two cases. You may change the template however you wish. --Dijan 21:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for help! --Ivan Štambuk 09:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Anytime! --Dijan 14:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

brat

Nouns brat and gospodin don't have plural forms. Instead, collective nouns (zbirne imenice) braća and gospoda are used. braća and gospoda also have only singular forms (some other collective nouns such as granje can have both singular and plural forms). Therefore, I think appropriate thing to do would be to make note that braća is used as a plural, but not list it in declension template. What do you think? --Ivan Štambuk 08:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You're correct. I only followed the Russian example, where there, too, someone listed the collective as the plural. Yes, we should remove it and definitely make note that it is a collective used for plural where the meaning is closer to English brethren. Thanks for catching that! --Dijan 19:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you think it would be a good idea to create a template (the same as the noun one) where we replace the "plural" with collective? That way we can include the collective declensions next to the singular ones. --Dijan 19:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Nah, collective nouns are separate category and should have declensions of their own (singular and/or plural). Listing singular forms of one collective noun as a "natural" plural forms of another noun would probably cause a confusion :) It's only those two nouns that have a collective noun as a natural plural (there's another one: vlastelin, but this one can have both vlastelini and collective noun vlastela as a plural), so creating a template would be too much of an overhead. Declension's for braća/gospoda are only one click away for interested reader.. --Ivan Štambuk 21:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

{{fa-Arab}}

I restored the un-redirected version of FAchar, and moved it to fa-Arab; same effect but it has the page history ;-) Robert Ullmann 17:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Serbian and Bosnian common nouns

Regarding these two categories:

• Category:Bosnian common nouns
• Category:Serbian common nouns

What's the rationale for having them? I don't see the distinction between "common" and "uncommon" nouns in other ones listed in Category:Nouns by language.

Freqency lists for specific languages are kept in separate namespace, with possible adding of categories like "100/0 basic Xxx nouns" and templates like {{rank}} that link the most frequent lexemes (i.e. the most "common" words).

I would upcategorize all the entries in these two categories... --Ivan Štambuk 08:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

202.182.138.216

Other new Serbian editor. Edits look reasonable, but I'm not familiar enough with the language. --EncycloPetey 15:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

And another: 202.182.139.70 I've already reverted. --EncycloPetey 05:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

thanks

thanks! ^-^ Pistachio 23:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Question

So if you're minoring in the language shouldn't you have more than a level 1 understanding of it? — This unsigned comment was added by 85.25.136.207 (talk).

It says "minoring", not "minored" - just started learning it. --Dijan 00:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

hayvan

Dorood :-) I saw you originally added hayvan as from Persian but I was wondering whether you know if it came through Persian or directly from Arabic, because the Turkish Wiktionary has it listed as just from Arabic. btw I don't know Turkish at all, I was just adding "descendants" thx, Pistachio 21:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Dorood bar to!  :) OH!! I cannot believe I didn't fix that yet. Yes, the Turkish term came from Arabic via Persian. --Dijan 03:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

descendants from Persian

Hi, how are you? I noticed that in entries for English words from Urdu/Hindi, the etymology is from Hindustani. Does that mean the Urdu/Hindi descendants in the Persian section should be listed as Hindustani as well? Pistachio 18:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I personally prefer Hindustani due to the fact that I'm of the opinion (like some scholars) that Hindi and Urdu are one and same language. It is not incorrect to say Hindustani, however, some people do not prefer that term, including some scholars due to its association with the British period. For reasons of simplicity, I say Hindustani and write the word in both scripts. However, if you would like to be more specific towards one "dialect" you may prefer to say Hindi (for Hindustani written in Devanagari script) or Urdu (for Hindustani written in Perso-Arabic script). You may choose whichever one! Just, make sure that if you do say Hindi only (rather than Hindustani) that you do use the Devangari script and if you do say Urdu only that you use the Perso-Arabic script. --Dijan 00:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I answered the question about begum on my page. Pistachio 02:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

begum

Dorud! What do you think is the etymology of this word? I've two conflicting sources. One states that the source is Indo-European (the one that is presently showing on the entry page) with purely Persian origins. It states that the term "beg" / "bey" (Turkish) is actually a Persian word related to Sanskrit "bhaga" (which essentially means the same thing). The other source claims it as Turkish. The argument for the second one is that it follows the same style as "khanom" from "khan", thus being Turkic. I tend to prefer the Persian one, but I would like to get more detailed information if possible from other sources. --Dijan 23:44, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

hi! I am not sure about the origins of this word, I have been going round in circles reading various different etymologies.

It could be that the origin involves both Persian and Turkic roots. If 'begum' is 'bey'/'beg' + a posessive suffix [2], then the Persian root of 'begum' might be in the earlier origin of 'bey'/'beg'. Several sources have 'bey'/'beg' as being Turkic in origin [3]The Encyclopaedia Britannica has 'bey' as an Old Turkish borrowing from Arabic: "Turkish Bey, Old Turkish Beg, Arabic Bay, or Bey," [4]. So it could be that 'bey'/'beg' entered Old Turkish from an Iranian language, or that they shared a common root.

-The Urdu English Dictionary, S. Sangaji has 'beg' as 'a Moghal title corresponding with the English "Lord"'. [5]

-The Indo-Aryan Languages, p.275 specifically mentions 'begum' as a being a Turkish loan in Urdu and Hindi. [6]

-The Hayyim dictionary has 'beyg' as of Turkish origin. [7].

Glossário luso-asiático by Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado has this:

Begue, beque. Titulo honorifico entre osmaometanos...O termo e persa-turco beg, originariamente turquestano. Crooke derivao do antigo persa baga e relacionao com o sanse, bhaga, senor. [8]

According to yet another source 'begum' is from beg/bey + Arabic 'umm' [9], but I think that seems unlikely.

So I'm not really sure. It would be interesting to know what a Turkish etymological dictionary would give as the origin of 'bey', or if someone familiar with older Persian languages would know more. Pistachio 02:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This is very fascinating. You know, I was going to agree with you about it being unlikely that it has any connection with Arabic, however after reading the source from the link above I remembered something from an Urdu dictionary (although, such source as the one above carries a very Orientalist point of view and I would not trust it 100%, but is good as a source to compare with). The source above states that the term "beğ" is Turkish. For this word, it is hard to say whether is it Turkic or Iranian that entered Turkic vocabulary in the early Turkic expansion period. I would say that I'm confident that it is not of Arab origins. However, for the ending "am", "um" or "ım", I have to say that it is quite possible that the ending is Arabic. The above source claims the ending to be Arabic from "umm", meaning "mother". This is what cought my eye. I remember reading in a Urdu/Hindi dictionary that the term from which "begam/bigam" came from is "bagam". Now, remember that western Persian (Irani) pronunciation of "e" and "ye" is different from eastern Persian (Dari and Tajiki). In eastern dialects it is pronounced as "i" and "yi" - an older pronunciation that corresponds with Arabic script and actual Arabic pronunciation - it has still been preserved in eastern dialects and in Urdu. Anyway, the Urdu/Hindi source said that the term "bigam" came from "bagam". It does not state what "bagam" meant in Persian, so I looked in Steingass' Persian dictionary (1892) and it does state that "bagam" "بگم" actually means "queen mother" or just "queen", while the term not "bag" or "beg", but rather an older spelling corresponding to "bigam", "big" - means "prince". However, it lists "big" to be of Turkic origins, but no further explanation is given. So the ending part is solved, but not the "beg" part. Whether "beg" is of Turkic or Iranian origins is the question now. Wow! I'm so glad we got the "begum" case solved, now how about "beg"? lol --Dijan 05:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

hmm I'm not sure at all...it seems the root involves some reborrowing between Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Hindustani. Is it certain that 'begum' came to English from Urdu? If, for example, 'beg' is of Turkic origin, and later bowrrowed into Urdu, where did the Arabic ending come from? Pistachio 02:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

My assumption is the following: Turks brought "bag" /"beg" into Persian, Persians then attached "umm" to form "bagam" - meaning "mother queen" (or as many dictionaries say "lady of the court" or "lady of high rank") or "queen, the mother of "beg" - literally, "beg" here meaning "prince" or "lord". Attachment of two nouns to form a compound noun is quite common in Arabic (and in Persian). "Umm" came from Arabic a few centuries earlier during the Arab invasions when Persian absorbed much of Arabic vocabulary. The attachment of course drops the "hamze" 'u and the "mm" shortens to "m". From Persian (during the Mughal period), Hindustani inherits the word. During the British Raj, the word becomes absorbed into Indian English.

But, that's just my assumption of the descension. --Dijan 02:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Words written with Arabic 'kaf' and 'yeh'

Hi, I just want to bug you with another question if you don't mind. I was wondering how you think Persian/Urdu spellings with Arabic style kaf and yeh should be dealt with. If there is eventually an Arabic word with the same spelling entered there, then there is no problem to have a 'see___' at the head of the page. But if there is no result searching for words spelled in that way, it impacts on the usability of the dictionary in the end. It seems like words cannot be entered as redirects, so would it a good idea to enter words like with something like 'see_____' to help people find the right word? There is a similar issue with words written without a zwnj. What do you think? Pistachio 02:17, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's like this. Because Persian and Urdu 'kaf' is a different code point on the Unicode chart, it is a separate/independent letter from Arabic 'kaf'. Therefore, all Persian and Urdu words have to be entered with "only" their own spellings. If there is a word in Arabic that is spelled the same way, but with the Arabic 'kaf' of course, then you may simply do the "See___" on top, as you have been doing (both on Arabic page and Persian/Urdu page). Same is done with other languages written in various Roman alphabets (these are just examples: "clik", "çlik", and "člik" - they are all independent entries in the Wiktionary; each will have its own page, but they will have "See ___" on top of each page. There's no need for redirects, unless 2/3 do not exist. Then, the other 2 can redirect to the one that does exist. However, if two exist, the the 3 just won't be mentioned at all and a redirect cannot be done.) I hope this isn't too confusing.

You may do a redirect only if there is no word in Arabic spelled with 'kaf' that looks exactly the same as the Persian/Urdu one. This is the limitation of the computer software. If this was a hardcopy (written), then it would be worth mentioning all variations (as most dictionaries do) - especially when it comes to derivations with same spelling, but different 'kaf's. --Dijan 02:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not only with "kaf", but with many letters. For example, look at شاهین. See the variations on "See ____" on top. Here, the "he" is different. Urdu language uses the "he" that looks almsot like hand written "he" or like a "be" but with an inverted "pish" instead of a dot. --Dijan 02:36, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

OK thanks. Pistachio 23:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Request for Consideration & Joining

Hello Dijan,

Its wonderful to see you working on many languages simultaneously. I am soon going to propose a new project for fast growth of wiktionary and would like to invite you if you can really do that. Please a keep a watch on the suggestion that I am going to make, do give your valuable suggestions, join the project if possible with other seriously contributing members.

Your positive response would be highly appreciated & would have a good share in systematic development of wiktionary.

Please see my new project proposal coming soon.

Thanks.

Shreehari 07:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hindi numbers

Hi, I've noticed that you fixed an error I made on one of the Hindi number articles. Thanks for that! I'm planning to add the first 100 numbers in Hindi because it is more complicated than in English (eg. forty + one = forty-one). Your userpage suggests you know the Arabic script. Can you add the Arabic/Urdu script to these numbers after I finish? Thanks! DaGizza 22:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I would love to. --Dijan 00:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)