User talk:Isatuwarx

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Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! Fay Freak (talk) 06:29, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Ask if you have questions, please. I have a comprehensive overview of the workings of Wiktionary as well as Semitic etymologies, but I am gone learning for the bar examination rather than writing about the science of language itself much, as in the next hour, and mostly observe and review users and new developments, spontaneously adding new ideas by dint of my great experience, so react on the occasion of an inquiry. Fay Freak (talk) 06:29, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I suppose my initial questions are (1) Where do I find the commonly used templates? I was just scavenging from existing pages I could find for templates, so I didn't see all the ones I would have perhaps wanted to use. Is this just something I'll pick up piecemeal or that I should ask on a case-by-case basis? (2) Is there any place where people discuss or posit things before making an edit? If I keep doing this, I would mainly be adding/adjusting etymologies (and sometimes adding dictionary definitions), so I mainly ask in regards to that type of change/discussion. If I understand correctly, it isn't required to discuss an etymological addition (unless some edit war ensues), but I imagine that sometimes it might be beneficial to discuss a theory first for other opinions or whatever. Isatuwarx (talk) 07:29, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Scavenging from existing pages is correct and reasonable, since editors are interested in keeping them up to standards, and for Arabic I avow that all are of highest standard, as I built my vocabulary while adding to the dictionary – Hebrew negative, those have questionable particularist formatting, and Aramaics too, mainly due to outdated concepts or templates, but I am not a coder, since from my miserly sovok parents in childhood I didn’t get a second computer to program operating systems and bootloaders, so I interpret nasty books instead, naturally on the watch for good arguments.

Particularly to help the memory of new Arabic editors I wrote Wiktionary:About Arabic#Templates pertaining to Arabic to note what is relevant in templates, and this section also contains the references that exist in the field altogether. You are mighty right about etymological additions, including where you added to or modified my etymologies, like on ح ب ب (ḥ-b-b), improvised as Semitic etymologies use to be. As for such a page, in the capacity of an advanced editor you should have checked “What Links Here” on the side bar to reconsider whether any noted linguistic data or observation could be preserved for the hub. I recommend Vector 2022 on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering, otherwise I also observe that your sidebar is not my sidebar, en.Wiktionary has not gotten around to change the default skin to the in my opinion preferable modernest one.

Discussions take place in WT:TR and WT:ES, the former about meanings and usage and the later origins; disputing existence of entries and requesting deletion in spite of it takes place in WT:RFV and WT:RFD. Advanced users can discuss technical questions at WT:GP and policy questions at WT:BP. Otherwise of course, discussing etymologies in the mainspace and reconstructions is our job, like that of the linguist and that of a lawyer (defendants did this and that, proof: …), WT:WINW. We don’t write biographies of living persons, interests in the wordhoards of dead languages reflects differently, so the concept of a wiki has turned out more reliable for Wiktionary than it has for Wikipedia. Also people appreciate it if you create a user-page (if only on Meta-Wiki like me) to show the languages you comprehend, rather than political convictions 😁. We are a list of editors remembering each other for having a clue in some areas. Fay Freak (talk) 14:52, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate the detailed response.

The initial page you linked (the one about templates) is helpful. I also made a user-page as per your suggestion.

And I think I see your point about the "What Links Here" for instances. To use the ح-ب-ب page you referenced as an example, what would have been the proper procedure there? I think the main thing that I broke so-to-speak was that I posited a different relationship between the "love" and "bulging" meanings and subsequently removed the parts discussing the idea of the "love" meaning deriving from a bawdry extension of the "bulging" meanings (to be clear, I did so because I believed that it was a firmly more reasonable assumption that the "bulging" meanings would instead be derived from the "bosom" meaning found in Arabic and other languages, which in turn is easily connectable to the "love" meaning...but I acknowledge that one may disagree). Since that was a section I was considering (and in this case, ended up) replacing, should I have brought it to the Etymological Scriptorium first to discuss, or perhaps the discussion page of the article? And if it were agreed upon to replace it, would I just be going to the related articles and removing the connections? Like, for example, I would go to Tigre ሐበ (ḥäbä) and remove the "See Arabic ح ب ب (ḥ-b-b), originally meaning either swelling, protuberating forward or winding forward." or otherwise adjust it so that it doesn't conflict with the ح ب ب (ḥ-b-b) page? Speaking of which, do you (or any one else) want to re-incorporate that original section that I removed as an alternative explanation (or perhaps, even revert my edit of that part and replace my suggestion with the prior one?), or is my replacing of that section accepted and I should go ahead to make adjustments to the linked pages?

I will admit, I don't understand what I am looking at regarding the Vector 2022 thing. And regarding the sidebar, I do see the "What Links Here" link; is there some other functionalities you think useful that I don't have on my iteration of the sidebar?

And to clarify "discussing etymologies in the mainspace and reconstructions", is the "mainspace" the Etymology scriptorium or is it the discussion page of the entry? Or both work? Isatuwarx (talk) 17:24, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

First of all there are not that many people to discuss, I don’t know how the few competent lexicographers scroll Wiktionary; the likelihood is that nobody will respond, if academics in the many orientalist courses around the globe feel above such menial tasks as to add to a dictionary and make connections between related terms to reconstruct past lexica: WT:AAR also wrote You might like a watchlink for Recent changes to Arabic lemmas, and you can change Arabic to Hebrew and what not there, to see who’s around.

I specifically acknowledged that your assumption is more reasonable, but I was concerned that you “left out a part” with the Tigre term in spite of it having the same root consonants and its page is still linking to the Arabic root, so instead of adding something myself I pointed it out to improve and enable your judgement, or to show you the trick for other similar cases, what ever I am or anyone is to prefer, having the energy to reassess the matter for a better result. Often it is only important to make sure to have said something to relate a comparison for the reader. Like when relevant facts for a case were offered in court they cannot be ignored in the formulated final decision, i.e. left without any express appraisal, right? The right to be heard. And of course, keep the “decisions” of the individual pages – we don’t even have to decide everything but may leave connections open to debate – in harmony with each other; unlike Wikipedia, we generally succeed in not contradicting ourselves across pages or leaving them out of sync.

Vector 2022 is also just a suggestion so that you might use the site faster eventually, only you can assess this, I enabled you; it has the same links as the previous designs of the side-bar.

The mainspace is all pages which have no prefix postceded by a colon in the title, Wiktionary:Namespace. There are some dark corners like Category:Unsupported titles, too, or Appendix:Gestures, all for evident technical reasons. If you see the system, you will enjoy the stay here and as well be convinced of your accurate treatment of your languages, within the limits of the technically feasible. Fay Freak (talk) 18:38, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I again appreciate the response and clarifications. I am getting a better understanding of these things now, noobie as I am.

And just to make sure we are on the same page and that I am not misunderstanding: You are saying that, for the sake of presenting all the facts and providing all etymological explanations for readers that could be of note, that care be taken to not remove potential explanations or details of interest. In this case, I had removed the Tigre portion because that part, at least as it was worded at the time, didn't mesh with the other explanation that I added. But just because it didn't mesh, doesn't mean it doesn't have merit as a potential etymological explanation that may be of interest to a reader (and that this remain true even if the explanation were deemed less likely than an alternative). Also, in this case, leaving the explanation in would also have had the added benefit of not creating a contradiction with some linked pages, where some of them allude to an relation with, or otherwise reference, the ح - ب - ب page, but now in turn are not referenced back. Isatuwarx (talk) 19:15, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Regarding reinstating the deleted part:

"In the Arabic love root, the sense of a bulge seems bawdily extended to mean love, regard the explanation of فَتًى (fatan, “youngster”). Remarkably Tigre ሐበ (ḥäbbä) apparently preserves the transitional sense “to wind oneself”, extended then in Arabic for amatory moves. (In so far as the Ethiopian Semitic root means love or friendship or the like it is borrowed from Arabic)."

Given that the "love" has cognates in other languages (including ones that certainly didn't borrow it from Arabic), how should this be phrased according?

Like:

"Alternatively, the "love" sense of the root maybe to derived from the sense of "bulge" bawdily extended to mean "love"-- cf. the explanation of فَتًى (fatan, “youngster”). Under this light, Tigre ሐበ (ḥäbbä) may preserve the transitional sense “to wind oneself”, extended to further to amatory moves. (In so far as the Ethiopian Semitic root means love or friendship or the like it is borrowed from Arabic)." ?

(I was trying to use blockquotes for these, but using double {} doesn't work it seems, or am I just doing it wrong.)

Speaking of فَتًى (fatan) by the way - in its article, the comparison to غُلَام (ḡulām, “boy”) is made in terms of the meaning "adolescent" being related "prurience" and related notions. I do not disagree with that comparison. However, as I recently mentioned in the Scriptorium, in the case of غُلَام (ḡulām, “boy”), I think that the noun was the primary and the other senses were derivative from that, which is the reverse of how I view فَتًى (fatan), where I think the verb is primary and the noun meaning "male youth" is a derivative. As a result, I am calling into questioning the "A parallel case of a particular age of man having been named in accordance with such reflections is غُلَام (ḡulām, “boy”) from غَلِمَ (ḡalima, “to be in rut”)." part. Isatuwarx (talk) 00:19, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

The formulation is possible, but your etymology is so good that my story is not even alternative in the sense of “equally possible”, so maybe we can incorporate it, I mean, the senses of “bulges” – note that my glosses of a root occur also with certain etymologies in mind, of course – are not that far off from the ideas you emphasizes, bosoms, sinus, bending, so there we have “to wind”, and can put the link to the Tigre term, isn’t it? An issue of articulation.

It does not look like we disagree about غُلَام (ḡulām) and فَتًى (fatan), as I reconnected the former in the Etymology Scriptorium, but have not updated its entry yet. Fay Freak (talk) 00:34, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Does adding it as

{Also related to Tigre ሐበ (ḥäbbä) "to wind oneself; to curve" via the notion of "curvature".}

work, or would you recommend it be formulated differently? Isatuwarx (talk) 03:26, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

This sounds good. Fay Freak (talk) 04:01, 14 November 2024 (UTC)