User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 16

Category:gd-noun 2

Hi, does the inclusion of this category in Category:Scottish Gaelic entry maintenance mean there's supposed to be something not completely right with the entries therein contained, or is it just listing them without indicating that any action is required, similarly to eg Category:Scottish Gaelic terms with IPA pronunciation? --Droigheann (talk) 16:41, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I have no idea what the category is for. CodeCat edited {{gd-noun}} to put certain entries into the category, under circumstances I don't understand, but didn't actually create the category, so the template was adding a red-linked category to a bunch of Scottish Gaelic entries. I just stuck it into CAT:Scottish Gaelic entry maintenance so the category would be a blue link and would exist somewhere. But I still don't know what this category is actually categorizing. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the code more carefully now, I think entries are assigned to the category if {{gd-noun}} is not being used with all three parameters g= (for gender), gen= (for the genitive), and pl= (for the plural). If that's true, then indeed there is something that needs to be cleaned up. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:14, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Nope, I've noticed the category when creating feòrag - it gets there despite having all three parameters. --Droigheann (talk) 21:52, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

The idea was to give {{gd-noun}} the same treatment as {{ga-noun}}, by switching over to numbered parameters. The category tracks entries that still have the named parameters. However, the numbered ones haven't been implemented yet. —CodeCat 18:16, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I see. Hope this means it'll help some bot changing the markup, as I suspect nobody'll be interested in dealing with 5K entries manually. (Maybe it's bloody obvious but woe is me for anything related to bots ;-).) --Droigheann (talk) 21:52, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be done with a bot. Of course only if it's actually wanted, otherwise the category can just be removed from the template and that's that. —CodeCat 21:54, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Judging by the template's talk page, Droigeann was ok with the change. —CodeCat 21:55, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Sure, what I said there holds, but of course I hadn't noticed the template had already been changed to put the entries using it into this category, hence my recent surprise. --Droigheann (talk) 00:03, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

dad

@Angr I do not understand how by changing "and/or" to "and", your correct "cog" form was changed back to the earlier formatting! Am very sorry about this; only just noticed it! Andrew H. Gray 10:07, 10 May 2017 (UTC) Andrew talk

French deverbatives

Do you consider French deverbatives such as dessin, maintien, dégoût and many others as back-formations? And do you think we should have {{deverbative}}, {{denominative}}? --Barytonesis (talk) 16:14, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but not necessarily within French. Etymonline, for example, says that design (and thus, by implication, dessin) is from Middle French desseign, from Italian disegno, which is deverbative from disegnare. So the back-formation took place in Italian, not in French. I think {{deverbative}} and {{denominative}} sound like a good idea. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:18, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, dessin probably wasn't the best example.

Ok, I made a rough draft of {{deverbative}} by copy-pasting the code of {{doublet}}. However, I see at least two problems with it: it's not particularly informative, since it gives no clue about the lexical category (deverbatives aren't necessarily nouns); and in its current form it's independent from {{back-formation}}, so we have to type the two templates; not a very elegant solution IMO. But deverbatives or denominatives aren't necessarily back-formations, so I don't know.

Makes me think about these discussions, btw: 1 and 2 --Barytonesis (talk) 17:05, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

No, in English, for example, denominatives like "to hand" and deverbatives like "a hit" aren't back-formations, so they're definitely separate things. And even in languages like French it's probably not always very helpful to categorize them as back-formations. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:14, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Ancient Greek determiners

Seeing this edit, I wonder, is there a way to coherently test for whether something is a determiner in Ancient Greek? I simply classed these words as adjectives because I was not aware of such a thing. If there is such a test, quite a few other words should be moved. — Eru·tuon 16:32, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: Mostly I go by semantics and whether the English translation is considered a determiner. Within Greek, if an adjectivy-looking thing is never a predicate (*ὁ ἄνθρωπός ἐστι τοῖος (ho ánthrōpós esti toîos)) and doesn't have comparative and superlative forms (the template automatically generates *τοιότερος (*toióteros) and *τοιότᾰτος (*toiótatos) but I bet you five euros they're unattested), and especially if its meaning is more grammatical than lexical, it's probably a determiner. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:13, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

@Angr: Okay, if there's actually different behavior, you're probably right. I haven't found anything on this (partly because my only grammar that covers these words is ancient: Smyth). — Eru·tuon 18:26, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Input

Hi Angr! Not sure if you're the right person to ask, but I could use your input to decide if this revision made by an anon is correct. I have a hunch that it's not and I'm tempted to revert. Do you agree? --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:34, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

@Robbie SWE: It looks OK to me; what specifically are you suspicious of? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:42, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

The anon changed some of the historical development. For instance, Italian was under Tuscan before and I wasn't sure if taking that away removed valuable information. --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:50, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think so. There wasn't anything else under Tuscan. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:51, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok then, I trust your judgement :-) Thanks for the help! --Robbie SWE (talk) 11:10, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Noun forms

Hi. Before I start adding the plural of -μα suffixed nouns on a regular basis, is this how you would format them? --Barytonesis (talk) 22:53, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@Barytonesis: Some people do it that way. I don't see the point in having separate lines for nominative, accusative, and vocative, especially for neuter nouns where they are always identical anyway, so I prefer to write {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|and|acc|and|voc|p|lang=grc}}. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:58, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

@Barytonesis, Angr: Another way is {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|p|;|acc|p|;|voc|p|lang=grc}}. — Eru·tuon 17:02, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I would prefer {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|,|acc|and|voc|p|lang=grc}}. —CodeCat 18:05, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

@CodeCat: So would I, except that the problem of the space before the comma hasn't been solved yet. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:10, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Poking @Erutuon some more then! —CodeCat 18:12, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I'll look into it. I'm Luaifying {{PIE root cat}} right now. I would want to add a serial serial comma (,), though... — Eru·tuon 18:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm... maybe we also want to support {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|,|acc|,|voc|p|lang=grc}} then and treat it as equivalent to {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|,|acc|and|voc|p|lang=grc}}. Both calls should display a serial comma if the user has it configured. However, what should be shown for just acc|,|dat for example? Is a serial comma appropriate in that case? —CodeCat 19:31, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

No, in that case there should just be a comma-less "and". I like the idea of commas translating to commas and serial comma with "and". Perhaps multiple "and"s separating labels with the same category (case in this instance) should be translated in the same way. So {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|and|acc|and|voc|p|lang=grc}} would display like {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|,|acc|,|voc|p|lang=grc}}, with a comma and then a serial comma with an "and". — Eru·tuon 19:37, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

That would be ideal, since that's how such entries are already formatted. At least, the ones created by me. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I'll use {{inflection of|παράδειγμα||nom|and|acc|and|voc|p|lang=grc}} then. --Barytonesis (talk) 04:47, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Another question: I see you're using {{genitive plural of|ἄλκη|lang=grc}} at ἀλκῶν (alkôn); is it preferable to {{inflection of|ἄλκη||gen|p|lang=grc}}? @CodeCat, Erutuon, what do you think? --Barytonesis (talk) 13:32, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I prefer the templates like {{genitive plural of}} when they're available and when an entry is just one form, because they involve less typing. But not all case/number pairings have a dedicated template, and some forms are syncretic, so for those I use {{inflection of}}. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:01, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Gael

Hi Angr, I think I remember your user from about a decade ago! You may have rescued certain pages I edited back in those days. I write with reference to your revision of my edit on Gael. Absolutely I accept the changes, I just wanted to know why you're keen to have the Irish word in addition to the Gaelic. I was basing my edit on the OED entry for Gael, which says that English speakers first encountered the word in the Highlands (rather than across the water), but as you may understand, I'm never completely sure who to trust when it comes to etymology, even the OED these days. Cannot the details about féni and fénechas also be useful to the English entry? (And on a completely different tangent, can I ask your age?) Gherkinmad (talk) 16:00, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

It just strikes me as unlikely that English would have gotten the word exclusively from Scottish Gaelic and with no influence from Irish. English speakers in Scotland got it from Scottish Gaelic; English speakers in Ireland got it from Irish. And there were English speakers in both countries before there was any meaningful difference between Irish and Scottish Gaelic anyway. I don't see how the bit about féni and fénechas is useful to the English entry; if anything it could be misleading as a reader might think we were saying that Gael replaced féni in English, which is of course not the case. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:40, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

But we did not adopt the "Irish" word Gael; the word is in origin an Anglicization, which predates the modern Irish spelling by almost two centuries. I think we're going to have to say the English word derives straight from Middle Irish or (my preference, given that the Norman invasion was in the latter part of the 12th century) from Classical Gaelic. Gherkinmad (talk) 22:26, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

The Irish word Gael is not an anglicization. It's just the modern spelling of earlier Gaedheal, no different from saol being the modern spelling of saoghal. We don't recognize a language called "Classical Gaelic" here; our choices are Middle Irish (mga), Irish (ga; including Early Modern Irish), and/or Scottish Gaelic (gd; including Early Modern Scottish Gaelic). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:19, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

That is exactly what I'm saying: the English spelling and the modern Irish spelling are completely unrelated, so I don't think it's wise to say that the English word derives from the Irish Gael. The English word will of course have in origin been a simplification of Gàidheal/Gaedheal/Gaoidheal, which is why I'd be happier if we said the English word derives straight from Classical Gaelic, or if my ghc suggestion is refused, that it derives from Middle Irish only. Gherkinmad (talk) 16:13, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

How old is the English word Gael? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:29, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Gaelic 1774 and Gael 1810. Gherkinmad (talk) 09:27, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Forgive me Gaelic 1787. Gherkinmad (talk) 09:50, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Then it definitely wasn't borrowed from Middle Irish, and barely even Classical/Early Modern. I just see no harm in saying it was borrowed from both Irish and Scottish Gaelic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:42, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

There is no harm in saying the word entered Modern English from Scottish Gaelic. There may be harm in saying (when we have no record) that the word might have entered Middle English from Irish. I don't like second-guessing these things. We have to describe the path by which modern English speakers first encountered the word, or else what are we doing? (first as noun Gaelick 1775) Gherkinmad (talk) 11:26, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we say it entered Middle English from Irish, when it isn't attested in Middle English! —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:08, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I suggested the ghc code because I thought you were thinking more diachronically. I meant and mean no disrespect. The New Testament was published in 1767, and the word first appears in print in 1775. So, with your permission, I will update the entry so it reads: In origin an Anglicization of Scottish Gaelic Gàidheal. Gherkinmad (talk) 13:34, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ How about this? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:43, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Irish readers will know the word has broadened in meaning. How about: First attested in English as a derivation of Scottish Gaelic Gàidheal, from Classical Gaelic Gaoidheal, from Middle Irish Gaídel, from Old Irish Goídel... Gherkinmad (talk) 15:11, 16 August 2017 (UTC) Gherkinmad (talk) 15:11, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

What's wrong with calling it a borrowing? And I want to avoid saying "Classical Gaelic" since that's not a language name recognized at Wiktionary. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:17, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Nothing just using own words. OK, as matter stands on ghc question: Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic Gàidheal, from Irish Gaoidheal, from Middle Irish Gaídel, from Old Irish Goídel... Gherkinmad (talk) 16:19, 16 August 2017 (UTC)f

I wouldn't say the Scottish Gaelic is from (modern) Irish, though; I'd say the Scottish Gaelic is from the Middle Irish. "Classical Gaelic" (ghc) is supposed to represent both Early Modern Irish and Early Modern Scottish Gaelic, both of which come from Middle Irish; one doesn't come from the other. I don't know if the spelling Gaoidheal was ever even used in Scotland; if so, I'd rather say "Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic Gàidheal, from earlier {{m|gd|Gaoidheal}}, from Middle Irish Gaídel...", or just leave the Gaoidheal step out altogether. It doesn't really add anything useful to the etymology. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

No it doesn't, all told. But Gaoidheal was first printed in Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh in 1567, and the language of this book and of Bedell's Bible was used in church in the Scottish Highlands until 1767. I've always thought of this as that Classical Irish was the "Sunday language" of the Scottish Gaels for two centuries, so in the strict sense, Classical Irish/Gaelic was (or continued to be) used in Scotland up until 1767 in some capacity. I don't know where that leaves English Gael, but if this is superfluous to the etymology of the word, I'd prefer simply to say the word is a: "borrowing from Scottish Gaelic Gàidheal, from Middle Irish Gaídel..." Gherkinmad (talk) 23:38, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Are there any Scottish texts from the 16th to 18th century available online? I'd be interested to see how much it looks like modern ScG and how much it looks like EMI. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:21, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Here's a link to the prayer book and to John Carswell. If I'm honest, I don't know of anything else printed in Scotland, but then again there wasn't too much printed even in Ireland until the Revival. It's just that this book is famous as the first typset Goidelic. The problem (or my problem) comes when one tries to say that this is the first printed book in Scottish Gaelic; it's not as easy to do as it would be for Irish. There is continuity between Early and Late Modern Irish in a way that there isn't quite for Gaelic. But have a look over the text - I'd be very interested to know your view on the language. Gherkinmad (talk) 21:46, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

From a first cursory glance it looks a lot more like Irish than like Scottish Gaelic: I see sé rather than e as the subject of a verb, I see go mbeanfadh with eclipsis after go, I see ní rather than cha as the negative particle. I suppose those features were found only in the literary language and that everyday speech was more like modern ScG. But if I were forced to name this language anything, based on linguistic features rather than the country of origin, I'd have to call it Early Modern Irish rather than Early Modern Scottish Gaelic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:12, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

It also features eclipsis as a mutation. And yet it was explicitly printed in Scotland, by Scots, for Scots. Which is the point I've been trying to make: if you can't tell whether a text is in one language or another without external context, why artificially disambiguate them? Before 1800-ish, there was less difference (in manuscript/print, at least), between Scottish Gaelic and Irish than there is today between Munster and Ulster Irish. --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 22:20, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Well *I* certainly don't object to calling the language of Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh Early Modern Irish and allocating it to ga, but in my experience Scottish Gaelic speakers get all pissy when earlier forms of their language are called "Irish". Some even want to call Old Irish "Old Gaelic", contrary to widespread English-language practice. But this is far from the only example: the only difference between Old Breton and Old Cornish is what country they were spoken in, as linguistically they're identical, but we consider them separate languages. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples too. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:48, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with calling it Irish either. But Scottish Gaels, like anyone else, have their own terminology pertaining to their own history, which may or may not have to do with Ireland. It doesn't surprised me that they might call Old Irish "Old Gaelic"; they don't like their own speech being called "Irish" because in the Highlands it implies that theirs is some off-shore "dialect" of a much more "cultivated" language. The point is that Gaels still want to claim as their own a form of Goidelic which we know could be said to be Early Modern Irish. But it just wouldn't occur to them to call it "Irish", because they may not even be thinking about Ireland. The usage is simply that the Irish generally nowadays say "Irish", whereas Scottish Gaels have always said "Gaelic". However Gaels still make a distinction which the Irish don't have need of, because "Classical Irish" is still very recognizably modern Irish. So ga can accommodate Classical Irish, but gd can't as easily accommodate Classical Gaelic. So yes I suppose a ghc code would be of most (or maybe even sole) use for Scottish Gaels who have respect for their old "Irish" but find that name distasteful. It says on Wikipedia that Scottish Gaelic derives from Middle Irish; no Gael could honestly say any different. But for Gaels there is an extra stage between that and the modern language which simply doesn't apply to Irish. Gherkinmad (talk) 15:37, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The thing is, if the Prayer Book you showed me is representative of written Gaelic of the time, then modern Scottish Gaelic doesn't really come from the literary language of the 16th to 18th centuries; it comes from the (presumably largely unwritten) colloquial Scottish Gaelic of the same era. People in the Highlands spoke Scottish Gaelic but the ones who were literate in any Goidelic lect apparently wrote in Irish (or a slightly Scottified Irish), so presumably educated Highlanders were diglossic, just like educated Swiss people are today: they speak an Alemannic dialect but they write Standard German that's barely distinguishable from the standard written language of Germany. Thus in a way it doesn't really make sense to say that modern ScG Gàidheal comes from "ghc" Gaoidheal, because it doesn't really: it comes from MidIr Gaídel through an (unwritten?) intermediary contemporaneous with the written form Gaoidheal. On the other hand, I think there are some late medieval/early modern writings that are closer to the colloquial language than that Prayer Book is. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Except that this would once have been a spoken, living language in Scotland. The prayer book was intended to be written in a language that the common people could reliably understand, or else what would be the point in printing the book? It may not have conformed to the colloquial language, but we cannot say Gàidheal doesn't really come from Gaoidheal, as this is an artificial, 'literary' form. Of course it does: a glance at these words shows a kinship, and since the Irish spelling reform this resemblance is even more striking for Scottish Gaelic than for Irish. Gherkinmad (talk) 20:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

My point was more that modern ScG as a whole language doesn't come from literary Classical Gaelic as a whole language; I shouldn't have used Gàidheal as a specific example. A better example would be that a modern ScG sentence like Tha e ann an Dùn Èideann doesn't come from ClG Atá sé i nDún Éideann, because even though the latter sentence could have been written in 16th-century Scotland, it isn't what people were saying. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:39, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Not then, perhaps. But the latter sentence could be written in 16th-century Scotland because it would have been the common spoken (not bookish) language in 12th-century Scotland, and was still considered intelligible enough to use in church services in the 16th. Gherkinmad (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Religion is notoriously conservative with language: think of King-James-Bible English in modern prayers, not to mention all the dead languages that are still in use in that context (Latin, Coptic, Church Slavic, etc.). The Celtic vernacular may be less unintelligible than Latin, but there's no reason to assume that it had to have been the latest form of the language. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:43, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

My point remains that Classical Gaelic will have been a living, spoken, vernacular language in 12-century Scotland, before it ever became a literary language. It may be a little too early days in the ScG hub on Wiktionary at this precise moment, and maybe seems irrelevant or even pointless, but I think it would be good practice as well as forethought to include a ghc code on here; myself I'd describe it as "a neutral term to describe early Scottish Gaelic word forms corresponding to Early Modern Irish, [but for which the term 'Irish' may be considered inappropriate.]", though I'll see what other people say, and see if we can refine the argument at all. The name 'classical' definitely doesn't help it, for sure. 'Early' would be a lot better. OK, over and out. Gherkinmad (talk) 14:06, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

American bison

Can you believe that it took 14 years for someone to fix this IPA? WF changed the z to an s in 2008, but it was otherwise untouched since the article was created. I guess we all compartmentalize things and don't see obvious flaws in the parts we aren't working with. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:32, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Re: History

Hopefully moderates tone a little. Tried to change an edit summary once and didn't work. Apologies. Gherkinmad (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

FWOTD

Sorry about the Old Irish word getting featured too soon — I try to have about one in every three FWOTDs be from extinct or minority European languages, but that is usually the least often nominated, so I jump on them when they become available. Considering that you are interested in a bunch of these languages, if you want better words featured in the likes of Irish (and its historical forms), or anything else, the key is to choose some that reach your standards and nominate them! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:33, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

It's not a big deal. It was nominated by someone else and then featured the very next day, all while I was on vacation away from the Internet. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:08, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm just begging for more usable noms... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:42, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

etyl cleanup

I notice that you created some of the subcategories. I created Category:etyl cleanup/nb yesterday but I don't know how to populate it - presumably entries have to be transferred from the main category. Can you help here? DonnanZ (talk) 16:17, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

You just have to edit Template:etyl and add the code to the list of language codes that populate such categories. Here's a diff showing how some other codes were added. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:37, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks; I would if I could, unfortunately the page is locked, and I can't edit it. DonnanZ (talk) 16:48, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Donnanz: I hadn't noticed it was locked for nonadmins. I've added nb to the list. The category should start filling up soon. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:20, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. DonnanZ (talk) 18:23, 1 September 2017 (UTC)