User talk:Medellia

Welcome

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Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! Widsith 09:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Italian verbs

There's an easier way to add conjugation tables – we have templates for them. See Wiktionary:Italian inflection templates. Widsith 09:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Welcome!

For someone "too self-conscious" to edit, you certainly are doing a good job, so far. Please don't hesitate to jump in anywhere we need help, which is everywhere. This is a wiki, and it was built for editing. Folks with as much language background as you seem to have are always welcome here. Please make yourself at home. Dvortygirl 02:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Redirecting

Please do not add redirects, that is, do not redirect pages in the main dictionary space. Each spelling gets its own entry, whether it is an alternative spelling, inflection, or what have you. DAVilla 03:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is counterintuitive, and many new contributors don't understand why, including myself a year ago. The primary problem is that a single spelling may have different meanings in different languages, and an inflected form in one language is sometimes a root in another. I'd guess that isn't likely for Greek, but this sort of thing can also happen in a single language, e.g. put + ing = putt + ing. DAVilla 03:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a single line will do, and templates can make that more standard. See Category:Form of templates as used on e.g. cuts. DAVilla 03:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Greek templates

I wanted first to thank you for welcoming me to Wiktionary. I have been writing Templates for Attic Greek nominal morphology; I was wondering if there were a way to create my own category and, on that page, to explain my system for creating templates and likewise what the names of said templates mean. Thank you! Medellia 01:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you can add them to the Wiktionary:Inflection templates page. We don't currently have any for Greek, so it sounds like yours might fill a gap! It's good to have someone working on ancient Greek, as I do a lot fo work on etymologies where such forms crop up a lot. Widsith 06:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Related terms

Hi there,

Please note that the correct title for the section for related entries is "Related terms" (capitalised as shown) rather than "Related Words". (This is because not all related entries are single words.) Thanks, and keep up the good work you are doing. — Paul G 06:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

romanisation

Hiya. Although it is good practice to include romanised forms of Greek words on a Greek page, it is not normal to wikify them or to give them their own pages. We try to keep such languages in their own scripts where possible. (The exception is Japanese, because it is often written in romanised form). Widsith 09:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear. It's been a little difficult to get answers to my questions because Ancient Greek (or at least the morphological side) is as yet fairly uncharted territory here on Wiktionary. Two things:

1. I know when I want to look up a word, I rarely if ever have my Greek language support on. I would think that it would simplify matters greatly, therefore, to have a searchable version of the word in Roman characters.
2. Were Romanization simply placed on the page, would it receive its own header? Or would it be preferable to simply place the Romanization below the {{grc-noun}} information?

Thank you for your help! Medellia 14:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, for languages like Arabic or Russian, the romanisation is simply given in brackets after the headword. However, you may feel that Greek deserves to have romanised forms as page titles as well – I don't really know the language well enough to disagree. Perhaps you should raise the issue at the Beer Parlour. Widsith 14:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Latin entries

Hi there. ALL entries MUST start with ==language== then ===part of speech=== then the headword within triple quotes, then the translations (each one starting with a #) SemperBlotto 07:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Latin "form of"

We haven't yet decided on a standard format at WT:AL, but it seems to me that it would be more helpful to identify inflected forms of Latin nouns both by case and by number, rather than only one or the other. --EncycloPetey 04:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I am in full agreement, though I must admit that didn't dawn on me until you mentioned it. I realize that it would create many templates, but it seems appropriate (at least to me) to create genitive plural and the like form_of templates. The biggest issue I forsee is adjectives; it would be perhaps a tad excessive to present gen-pl-f etc. templates for all 36 possible forms. If this is not a concern, I certainly don't mind fixing articles. Medellia 04:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I am hoping that we can create a single dynamic template for each part of speech -- one that accept parameters of sg/pl or gen/acc/dat, and fills in the rest automatically. User Rod A. Smith was working on a revised Latin noun template with similar functionality, but we're waiting for necessary new wiki code to be added to make it functional with macrons. That's been the real holdup (see the discussion at Template:la-noun). Once the templates can handle macrons in them properly, the rest is much easier. It's why I've not attempted to fill in any inflected forms for nouns yet. Once the basic noun is under control, adjectives and adverbs are the next goal I have in mind for setup. (Right now, verbs are an utter mess. The various verb templates should take their major components in order, but they don't.) For the time being, I'm puttering around with nouns, and trying to assemble a nice thorough user's guide for Latin entries, in the hopes that it will be good enought o serve as a model when we finally get going on Ancient and Koine Greek. --EncycloPetey 04:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That really would be lovely; for me, such templates are more of a concern for Greek. Until that time, I will use static templates for pre-existing articles, but will not add inflected forms so as not to create more broken forms to repair at a later date, if that seems acceptable. Medellia 04:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

As long as the static templates are used uniformly, and as long as they're only used for Latin, it shouldn't be so much of a problem. A 'bot could retroactively fix it all. However, once a template exists, it's hard to control its use. The one point I'll note is that you're templates don't seem designed to accept a macron-containing form. If you model after the current {{la-noun}} template, you'd have the link entry form (devoid of macrons, followed by the macron-containing form for display. Do you understand what I mean, or should I edit one of the templates to demonstrate? --EncycloPetey 05:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no issue of overlap with Greek; I'd really rather that they be used for Greek than for Latin! As for the macron: "genitive singular of cānus;" it appears to work with macrons, unless I am in fact misunderstanding what you're saying. Medellia 05:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

No, it's my mistake. I mis-read the coding for the ones I'd looked at. --EncycloPetey 05:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Lemma vs non-lemmata

BTW - Only the lemma form of a word should be categorized by topic, so the nominative plural of capra should not be categorized in la:Mammals. Only the primary form should be so categorized (usually the nominative singular for nouns, and the nom-sing-masc for adjectives). --EncycloPetey 05:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear. Again with me causing problems! Thank you for that. Medellia 05:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't take all the categories away! :O I was talking about Topics-related categories, not Part-of-Speech (see below). --EncycloPetey 05:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say that tonight is just not my night. Medellia 05:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like your help with input on Wiktionary:About Latin. What I mean by this, is to keep an eye on what's there, and to note issues or questions that arise while working in Latin entries. Some things I've already begun writing about (some of this is up on the page, but some is still in unpulbished draft), but there are other issues that probably haven't occurred to me yet.

For instance, it only occurred to me a short time ago (after your editing) that I would need to mention what to categorize and what not to categorize. Which reminds me, there's at least one school of though that would like to see all the lemma forms of nouns categorized as Latin nouns, while all the non-lemmata would be categorized as Latin noun forms, with other parts of speech categorized similarly. I'm not sure whether there's a community consensus on this, but it's one more thing you're likely to run into. --EncycloPetey 05:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I would not mind at all. Thank you for pointing me in that direction and for all your aid. Medellia 05:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

listen (in Greek)

Could you check my spelling of the (Ancient) Greek translations I give for listen? When I'm editing on the PC (instead of the Mac), I can't see the Greek characters with diacritics, so I have to remember what order I assembled them in my personal page. Sometimes I forget what order they're in. Thanks. --EncycloPetey 22:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

PS - Do you know about the WT:COW? (Collaboration of the week?) and the WT:TOW? (Translation of the week). Both are posted each week in the Tea Room, and you could casually assist by adding the Ancient Greek translations/roots each week. We really need people helping more in that department.

You didn't use the right character, but it was close and has been rectified. Out of curiosity, was there a reason you listed the compound version? The base word for "to listen" is ακούω. Regarding the COW/TOW, I am vaguely aware of them and will certainly aid however I am able. Of late, I've been fixing etymologies for words of the day. Medellia 22:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find my copy of Scott & Liddell to look up more info, and have to work from Vine's (the best of my Greek books that I could locate). If you think the root word makes a better translation, then certainly add it to the table. I always had the impression that ακούω was closer in meaning to "hear" (transitive) than to "listen" (intransitive). --EncycloPetey 23:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I feel your pain; I own only the Middle Liddell, which can sometimes complicate matters. You are right: as I now think of it, I have only heard ακούω as listen to, which hardly has the same effect. Medellia 23:19, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but I've moved

I need to update my WP page. I was a student at Cal, then worked as a lecturer, but I've just moved away in the last month to be closer to my new teaching job. My degree is in Biology, my hobby is Language, my profession is Mathematics. --EncycloPetey 23:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess this makes it my turn to be nosey. I can claim no affiliation with Cal save residence in its general vicinity (South Bay). If you'd like to meet for lunch-or-something between here and there, please email me. If meeting a wikistranger is not your cup of tea, I'll understand that, too.

Of course, you're always invited to "meet" others on this project, from all over the world, in IRC. We have, among others, one other contributor there who knows a decent amount of Latin and some Ancient Greek and who would probably be delighted to meet somebody able to compare notes. We have a few folks in Italy who come and go, too, and quite a variety of other languages. If you drop in sometime, I'll introduce you. --Dvortygirl 01:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

lumen format

Take a look at the changes I made to the Latin section of lumen. Two things to note:: (1) We usually put all the various definitions together. The usage notes are for explanatory text, not idiomatic senses. (2) I think you meant for all the forms in the table to have a macron over the u, as I have it now. Only the some of the Latin templates require a non-macron form right now, while others can't. One of my longer-term projects is to fix that, but it's lower priority for me right now. --EncycloPetey 01:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the information on the definitions; as far as templates, that was a total slip of the mind. Thanks for fixing it! Medellia 06:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Lemmata of Classical verbs

I've initiated at discussion at WT:AL about the lemma for Latin (and Greek) verbs on Wiktionary. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have, as one of the more experienced people here in Classical languages. --EncycloPetey 01:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

PIB

Produto Interno Bruto ... Portuguese for GDP ;-) Robert Ullmann 02:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, I'm so oblivious sometimes. I have the feeling that my entirely too busy weekend contributed to my acting on auto-pilot rather than thinking! Thank you for catching my blunder. Medellia 07:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Use {L.} not {la} in English etymologies

The template {{L.}} will display the word "Latin", link to the article about Latin on Wikipedia, and add "Latin derivations" as a category, wheres {{la}} merely displays the word "Latin" (which seems a silly thing to create a special template for). --EncycloPetey 02:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

D'oh. Thanks, again, for both your patience and aid. Medellia 02:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Uh, the template {{L.}} should only by used in English derivations, because that's the category it goes to. --EncycloPetey 03:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

So for Italian and the like, would simply stating Latin work, or ought I use the {{La}} template? Medellia 03:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I would just type the word "Latin" directly in, without using templates. The Latin source word would be included and linked, using [[#Latin|entry]] for an Italian entry whose Latin source word is spelled the same (and will therefore have the Latin section on the same entry page). --EncycloPetey 18:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

mostrare

Hi there. The second parameter in the Italian verb conugation templates is the auxilliary verb. Cheers. SemperBlotto 19:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't even noticed that the inflection wasn't functioning properly! I just added the etymology; that error seems to date back to the first edit of the page. Thanks for the heads up. Medellia 20:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary Policy &c.

I thought I'd ask your opinion...because of its polytonic accentuation, Ancient Greek requires more different templates than Latin. For nouns, it's a fairly simple process (given that each noun basically has a maximum of ten forms); with verbs, conversely, this is extremely problematic. I had constructed off site a verb conjugation template similar to that of Latin. The result, however, was that for a semi-complete synopsis, the template required an upwards of 12 different forms for verbs with all six principal parts. This is not only tedious, but very user-unfriendly for those who are not as versed in polytonic Greek.

Do I understand correctly that you've asking about a full conjugation table for Greek, and not just the inflection line? I'm not as familiar with Greek as with Latin, so a sample inflection table would help me understand the difficulties.

That would be it. I've made a sample table; only the "present" and "imperfect" sections are complete. The rest is more to give you an idea of general length. Medellia 20:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Side note: there is a Greek inflection line template very similar to that of Latin. Medellia 22:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I do know that there are some very large tables in use for Norwegian, Swedish, and Spanish. If you haven't looked at the conjugation templates for verbs in those languages, you might see what they've done. I've no idea, though, whether they'll be much help since their inflection patterns might be simpler. There are also sizable tables in use for Russian and Japanese verbs, but the foreign alphabets can make the coding tricky to interpret. --EncycloPetey 18:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

What I'm trying to get to is this: do you think it would be preferable to have say a different template for each principal part that produced the morphology stemming from that part alone, which would all for easier template creation, or rather to continue onwards with one large morphology template? Is it bad etiquette to start a policy page without bringing the issue up in some sort of discussion room first? Would it be unreasonable to start establishing Ancient Greek policy, given that there are so few users with knowledge of it? (My apologies for the vagueness of the questions and bothering you with it in the first place. I would really appreciate any insight or guidance.) Medellia 07:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I would say, "Go ahead and start a page for Wiktionary:About Greek (or Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek if you want it to be more specific). It's fine to be bold and start such a page as long as you keep the community aware by (1) categorizing the page appropriately (you can copy and paste the categories at the bottom of Wiktionary:About Latin), (2) notify the community that such a page is being started (in the Beer Parlour), and (3) label the top of the page with the Think Tank disclaimer (as on the About Latin page). I would alao recommend browsing the other About Language pages for ideas of what issues might be included in the initial draft. Greek has issues that Latin doesn't (such as the non-Latin alphabet) and some of the other pages treat such issues in some detail. --EncycloPetey 18:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

As time permits, I will start some form of policy discussion. Thank you for your time and advice. Medellia 20:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Since you're the only one seriously active in the issue, feel free to take your time! I've been working on the About Latin page for several months now, and still don't have text written many of the basic issues I'd like to see covered there. --EncycloPetey 22:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the encouragement! It all seems a bit overwhelming. Medellia 23:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

grc templates

Just checking, but have you seen Category:Ancient_Greek_inflection_templates? There are a number of templates already created. They may or may not be very useful, but I wanted to make sure that you knew they existed. --EncycloPetey 23:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've actually created all of those templates, so I'm sadly rather intimately familiar with them. (Bit of a side note and sorry to be such a nag, but did you get a chance to take a look at the sample inflection table? I'm rather concerned with its length, but such is the reality of Greek verbs.) Medellia 23:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I did. I'm not sure what would be best to advise in this case. You could stick it in as is, which would make your pages look much longer, fuller, and nicer. It would (of course) make it difficult to find the non-conjugation information. You might ask the community what they think. I can't think of any suggected fizes that I'd be happy with myself. --EncycloPetey 01:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me the table would pretty much tend to be at the end of the entry (assuming it was under L4 header "Conjugation", under "Verb", as done for other languages with largish tables) so that wouldn't be too bad. Robert Ullmann 01:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Except that the "Related terms" and "Descendants" would follow. --EncycloPetey 01:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

It's always possible to make it like Template:nav such that the conjugation table could be expanded by those who want to use it. Medellia 02:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

arancina

Thanks for that. It led me to the discovery of Sicilian Wikipedia! SemperBlotto 17:33, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Certainly! Out of curiosity, is there a reason you put that entry under the Italian header and not under a Sicilian header? (Or are there so few Sicilian entries here that it's just not used?) I was under the impression that it had an Ethnologue code. Medellia 17:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I shall correct that. Cheers. SemperBlotto 17:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

And thanks for the cat - you're too quick for me. I won't be adding any more as I can't speak the language (or even understand it when spoken!) SemperBlotto 17:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Certo! I am familiar with a tiny bit of Sicilian, but not necessarily enough to make any headway in that department. We'll see as time progresses... Medellia 17:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks from me too! I hadn't realized I could use the {wikipedia} template to link to versions in languages other than English. --EncycloPetey 01:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Greek

Hey, just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to start uncategorizing some of your genitive forms. It seemed to be the consensus of the convo at Wiktionary talk:About Latin that we should sort of stick with one primary form, which will be the only one listed in the categories and on the index. Certainly, I think we should have an article for each inflection of each word (perhaps at some time when you aren't the only one regularly contributing to the Ancient Greek section), but if we have the various forms of words in the categories and index, they'll both become to cumbersome to be useful. Let me know if you have any problems with this, as I'd be more than happy to discuss. And I think your idea for an expandable full conjugation template is a beautiful idea, although writing those templates is certainly a daunting task, which I have neither the linguistic nor programming capabilities for. Thanks for all your work. Cerealkiller13 08:31, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The "forms" templates are the perfect solution. Well done. Cerealkiller13 19:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I just thought of. Do you think it would be possible to create a bot to create articles for various forms? Because, ultimately, it's incredibly tedious and repetitive work which requires no real intelligence. All one would have to do is program a bot to read the template, and then go through and create articles with the various forms, saying: verb - XXXform of lema, and perhaps include the correct form template. I certainly don't know how to write bots, perhaps you do or do not. Any ideas who would? Cerealkiller13 19:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

That is goddamn beautiful, so subtle that it doesn't overwhelm the page, and yet so packed full of info. Now you'll just have to teach me how to use it. Cerealkiller13 22:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You truly are an artist, it looks incredible. I didn't realize the hide feature would be built right into the template itself. I look forward to seeing its variations. Perhaps you should list it on Wiktionary:Inflection_templates#Ancient_Greek (for some reason, this article takes a week to load, or at least it always does for me). Also, will there be a way we can use these templates for verbs with irregularities? Perhaps the template could be run, copy everything it spits out, and then put the whole mess in the article with the irregularities corrected? You understand the way these templates work a great deal more than I. Again, it's a masterpiece. Cerealkiller13 07:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering if you have any knowledge of the inflection of τέλος. I can only find sources with the dictionary form and τέλους. While I initially thought that it would be a simple second declension noun, Liddell says that its genitive is τέλεος. Now my understanding of inflection is far from complete, but wouldn't this make it third? However, it doesn't seem that a third could have τέλους. Any thoughts? Cerealkiller13 23:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Good call. I found a declension table for it, wrote it, and made the changes to the article about five seconds after you left the message. No idea about duals, but it's better than it was at least, and you're right, it follows the pattern of γένος exactly. Would you be willing to take a look? I've never written a template, and I have no idea if I did it right. It's at Template:grc-decl-3rd-N-escon. Let me know if I fucked up. Thanks a lot. Cerealkiller13 03:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If you have a naming system, by all means, please move it. And, in fairness, I didn't really write the template. I simply copied one of the other templates and made the few minor changes necessary. By the way, I noticed the change you made on telos. May I ask what the appendix thing is? Cerealkiller13 03:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I just thought I'd let you know that I created another inflection template, Template:grc-decl-3rd-M-ευς. You have my explicit permission to move this template (and all future ones) to conform to your naming standards. Should it have been grc-decl-3rd-M-con-ευς? Also, may I ask what ln and dn stand for? Thanks. Cerealkiller13 22:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In a related question, I just added an inflection to θάνατος. There wasn't a 2nd masculine pax, but the prp worked fine. Should I have made a pax, or is it ok to use a workable, albeit technically incorrect, template? Cerealkiller13 07:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I must say that I agree with you, that there should be separate templates, even if they might be redundant. So I went ahead and created Template:grc-decl-2nd-M-pax and inserted it into θάνατος. Cerealkiller13 22:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I changed the accentuation on Template:grc-decl-3rd-ln-pax. I may be wrong on this, but it seemed to solve a problem on ὑμήν. You might want to check and make sure this was a correct edit. I'm sorry if this was mistaken. Cerealkiller13 00:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to just pile a whole bunch of work on you for when you're done with finals, but I created yet another template, Template:grc-decl-3rd-N-pax-con-κ, the name of which I am unsure about. It's for 3rd dec nouns with a final consonant which combines with the σ to make a mixed consonant like ξ or ψ. Also, could you check out the inflection of γάλα. I'm a bit uncertain about it, and don't have the references to check it. Thanks. Cerealkiller13 23:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Case templates

Thanks for the suggestion - these are intended for use in the headword definition:
eg   παιδί (n, , sg) —— Saltmarsh 05:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome Back!

It has been a while. Please feel free to check any of the Ancient Greek that I've managed to ramshackle together in your absence. Atelaes 08:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back as well! I've responded (somewhat) to your question about Latin adjectives. The short answer is that I've been focussing on format for nouns and verbs, and spending more time on Spanish and cleaning up the ISO language templates. --EncycloPetey 18:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Translation help

Could you check and/or add translations for the entries parrot and listen? These are two of my model pages, so I want them as fleshed out as possible to serve as examples. In particular, could you check the Sicilian for parrot; I'm suspicious of the accented letter. And if you speak enough Hawaiian, I've found pāloke, manu pāloke, and manu aloha as possible Hawaiian terms for parrots, but not in any source I'd trust. The last in particular may apply only to a particular species of parrot, but I have no Hawaiian language resources in which to check. ...sometimes I really miss the Cal library. --EncycloPetey 15:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. The thing about Sicilian is that it could easily be accented as well as non-accented (a lack of standardized writing conventions, as well as dialect shifts within Sicily, complicates matters). I'll definitely be able to figure out something for the Hawaiian. Medellia 16:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the Sicilian: I can't find any accented uses; furthermore, a fairly famous Sicilian poet used pappagaddu. On the Sicilian Wikipedia, pappajaddu seems to be in use. A more modern Sicilian writer uses the spelling pappaiaddu... so there you have it. I can start adding entries in after I check the Hawaiian. Medellia 16:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the Hawaiian: all of those could function. "Pāloke" is a transliteration, but I'm almost certain there's a verb that is also spelled pāloke. While manu aloha literally means lovebird, as far as I understand the word was extended to cover all parrots. May as well add 'em all. Medellia 16:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Input

Thanks for your input on equus. I was wondering if you had seen Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek yet. If you haven't looked at it yet, I would very much appreciate it if you could. Most of the folks commenting on it have only a casual understanding of the language, and the original author's level barely (if at all) exceeds that. Many thanks. Atelaes 00:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I had glanced over it before, but not in any sort of depth. I am, however, going through the entry now. There are several minor wording issues that I'll probably bring up on the talk page. You did a phenomenal job with it, really. I think one of the main problems is that we actually have very little idea of how things were really pronounced, and while scholars can make guesses, it's not something that can be known. Such are the perks of making dead languages one's wampeter! Medellia 00:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

albior

Duh! of course it's third declension. I keep confusing in my head the number of the declension and the number of inflectional forms when I work with adjectives. Nice catch. --EncycloPetey 02:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't sure if that was a mistake or a carrying over of the lemma declension... and thus just waxed a little long-winded (to take a quick departure from proper grammar) on declensions in my response on the About page! Medellia 02:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Vocatives

They aren't on any of the (few) existing Latin adjective declension tables. Although most of my quick reference grammars omit the vocative forms, we should probably have them since the positive nominative singular masculine is different. --EncycloPetey 02:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I was concerned. I'll go through the adjective templates and add them in. Medellia 02:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I've just realized there may not be separate declension tables for the positive forms (separate from the corresponding nouns). The tables are all confusingly labelled, and I can never keep them straight without relying on a model page to refer to. As long as you're inclined to update the adjective declension tables, how about we give them clearer names like {{Template:la-adj-positive-3}} and so forth (where the number represnts the number of endings)? We may not have a template for the -ius (gen/dat) adjectives. --EncycloPetey 03:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The forms are {{la-decl-1&2}} and things like that. While we're re-doing everything, may as well double check the templates and add/edit as needed. Medellia 03:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I've just noticed that all the noun tables place the voactive following the ablative, but the adjective templates you just did place the vocative before the ablative. I have no preference either way, but we ought to be consistent. I've also got half a mind this week to reformat the noun inflectional tables to look better. Right now they're battleship gray and are put to shame by the pretty tables used in Greek, Spanish, and Swedish. --EncycloPetey 04:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I recall seeing some table that had vocative before ablative... but now I'm not sure which. I actually prefer the other way around, but I remember someone complaining a loooong time ago. Anyway, I'll switch whichever to the order that seems standard. I'm fairly jealous of the aesthetics of the Swedish templates, though those colors just don't connote SPQR to me. Medellia 04:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Most I've seen put vocative last, though I've seen at least one publication that rearranged the whole table "for ease of learning". I think their order was Nom, Voc, Acc, Dat, Gen -- or some such. Since I'd already studied Greek and learned the tradiitonal order, that book drove me nuts. I'll try to use colors from Pompeiian frescoes when I do the templates :) --EncycloPetey 04:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

One arrangement has implications of being British, but I cannot for the life of me remember which one that would be. As long as we're both in agreement, I'll put the vocative at the bottom. It really does make sense to have it there as the ablative is much more frequently used. I'm excited to see the new templates! Medellia 04:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah! Don't forget to update Wiktionary:Latin inflection templates, so that everyone will know which templates to use. --EncycloPetey 04:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! That completely slipped my mind. Medellia 04:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Another check for you

Could you take a look at cervus. I apologize for just dropping this work on you, but I have rather few sources regarding Latin etymology, and what I have does not confirm this. Thanks. Atelaes 02:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it! I don't know if I got back to you on equus, but all signs point to a shared PIE ancestor (granted, I didn't get to TLL...), not descent. I would assume the same to be true for cervus as well. Medellia 02:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

*sigh* That's sort of what I figured. That means all of this user's entries are going to have to double-checked.....and they seemed so promising at first. Dammit. Thank you. By the way, there was something of a development in Latin while you were away. I've been putting it off for quite some time, but it really needs to be done at some point, and perhaps you might be interested. I convinced Perseus to give us the Lewis and Short (it's out of copyright), and so I have an electronic copy of it sitting on my hard drive, as does Connel. Unfortunately, it's written in Perseus' format, not ours. Connel said that if I could write decent entries for the first few words, he could figure out how to program a bot to convert all the entries into Wiktionary entries. And then we'd have, well, a full Latin section, nearly instantaneously. There's a lot of code to sift through, however. Any interest? Atelaes 02:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd be interested in helping as well, but won't have the time to do so until after 2:00 pm on 11 June 2007. One problem with L&S is that for all the verbs, they used a different form for the fourth principle part from what we (and more recent dictionaries) use. However, the difference is usually regular. I also have my doubts about how much of the formatting a bot can handle when it comes to dealing with macrons and inflections, but a bot could certainly do a lot quickly, leaving experienced users to do cleanup rather than drudgework. Oh, and cervus simply has a shared PIE root; it doesn't come from Greek. --EncycloPetey 03:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to help out! That's really great... especially given that Perseus still isn't fully back up and running. As far as the etymologies, I guess we just transfer them to the corresponding Greek entries (provided that they don't have complete etymologies?)... Medellia 03:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Latin

• Ah thanks for pointing that out. I'll save those to my user page they'll come in handy no doubt. I have tried one as first attempt - the adjective invitus - unwilling; reluctant.

• invitus

• Meanwhile, I'll continue adding words to the place through my WikiBook on Catullus. Have a look if your interested here. It might interest you as you seem to be quite a connoisseur of languages... does that involve any study of literature?

• In fact, if you ever wanted to join the project as a Latin authority, [I myself am just a student] then you are more than welcome to do so. You'll need an account on WikiBooks though. :D

Alakazam | Talk 22:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Comparison of Adjectives

I'll try to keep all that in mind. Thanks for creating those templates. By the way, you may have noticed that some of your links to inflection templates which were previously blue are now red, specifically links to feminine second declension tables. As far as I could tell, 2nd feminines are declined exactly as masculines are, and so I merged the templates when I made the switch over to including duals. Again, my knowledge and resources aren't quite up to par with yours, and so I apologize for any mistakes made. Again, thanks for the comparative templates. Atelaes 06:33, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Latin verb help

I'm totally at a loss as to how to set up the pages for faciō and fīō so that the relationship between the two is preserved while keeping the two somewhat deponent verbs separate. Particularly annoying is trying to set up the conjugation tables. Any ideas? --EncycloPetey 03:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. This is a bridge that I was very pointedly not crossing... (Well, to be fair, the bridge of Latin verb clean-up in general!) Gimme a sec to assemble my collection of grammars for reference purposes, and I'll try to help you figure out something. Medellia 03:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I know what you mean. I've worked pointedly at doing nouns and some adjectives. However, I've decided that someone needs to start the shift to using the 1st person lemma forms while there are still relatively few links to infinitives as lemmae. I've begun going through them myself, but there are a few tough cases. There will also need to be a second pass of cleanup at some point to deal with the inflection tables and section headers embedded within templates (ick!), but that can wait. Right now I just need help with a few nasty verbs that just don't behave the way they're supposed to. --EncycloPetey 03:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if usage notes wouldn't be sufficient? I seem to have misplaced my Bennett and textbooks really wouldn't help in this situation. L&S offers this gem.

Before I forget, have we switched over to the template style as used on amō? I like it much better than the old one. I think I may have to rip off of it for my Occitan templates (which need to be repaired, though I'm not really looking forward to the process thereof). Medellia 06:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Requesting assistance

I fear I may have messed up certain features of Category:Ancient Greek declension templates. I humbly request your assist. I have posted details at Category talk:Ancient Greek declension templates. - Gilgamesh 11:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

New topics at Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek

While I realize your interest in Greek has recently waned, I thought I'd at least let you know that there's some stuff happening here, if you care to give your two cents. Thanks. Atelaes 00:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Substantive

Does a Latin substantive adjective follow a different inflection from the adjective use? --EncycloPetey 07:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, no. My main concern is that substantive meanings generally apply to one or maybe two genders. I think that the header ought to be used only when the substantive has a meaning that isn't obvious. For instance, nova would not fall under the category because "new things" is quite easily derived from the meaning of novus. On the other hand, words such as hastātī ought to be under the heading "substantive" (come to think of it - total side note - I'd really rather prefer substantive adjective as I doubt if we want to incorporate a header that could eat up noun, pronoun, and all that good stuff) as the quite specific meaning "first line of the Roman army" doesn't fall naturally from the definition of hastātus, "being armed with a spear." But perhaps this would be better mentioned in the BP. Medellia 15:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

patrona

Hehe. I selected umbrage to be Word of the Day on the 13th, two days later than I probably should have. --EncycloPetey 06:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That would have been perfect! That's exactly what I was thinking about when I started editing the article. Medellia 07:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

dexter

I'm going to look into the inflection of dexter, but I should say one thing up front. We can't use the templates for "nom", "gen", etc, because 3-letter templates are reserved for ISO language codes. Those template calls in the declension tables will have to be changed. --EncycloPetey 17:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. I forget where I stole them from... but I think they've only been used for Latin so it shouldn't be too difficult to fix. Any opposition to {{nominative}} and the like? Medellia 17:24, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think templates are really needed for these tables. Myself, I'd just use ! at the start of the table cell to automatically center and bold the text. --EncycloPetey 17:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, so a quick look around shows the "dextr-" stem seems far more common (and you and I both would have expected). I can find Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian descendants that all favor this stem; I can't find adjective descendants in those languages that descend from the "-ter" form. I did find one medieval usage of "ad dextera sua", but that seems to be a substantive use, isn't it? My Latin textbooks don't mention the "-ter-" declension patern, but both patterns are given in the Facciolati Lexicon. I think I would set up the inflection table with the standard declension pattern only, and relegate the "-ter-" forms to Usage notes explaining that there is an additional set of inflection forms occasionally found. Modifying the declension template for this one oddball case seems overkill. I think they ought to be listed somehow in the Inflection line as well, and we have have to just hard-code that one since it's weird. --EncycloPetey 17:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Excellent; thanks for looking! I wasn't really confused until Bennett suggested otherwise. Medellia 17:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, did I mention that I was able to find and purchase an 1828 edition of the Facciolati Lexicon? Now I have both Calepinus and Facciolati. I'm so excited! --EncycloPetey 18:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh wow! I'm really jealous right now. That's awesome. Medellia 00:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Byzantine pronunciation?

Could I have your opinion at Wiktionary talk:About Ancient Greek#Byzantine pronunciation? I'm seeking consensus on this issue. - Gilgamesh 06:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

form-of templates help needed

In looking at the templates here (Category:Form of templates), I was wondering what to do in the case where... so in Greek adjectives change form for three genders and four cases. We take the masc nom sing form as the lemma form. So this is the only one we'd want to pass as an arg to one of these "form of" templates. But then suppose I'm trying to mark up the fem accus sing form. If I pass the lemma to the "accusative singular form of" template, the reader is going to be mislead (because there's no mention of the gender in the description the template puts out). Do you have a general workaround for these cases, or should we be making a bunch more templates like "accusative feminine singular form of" ? Thanks for any insight you can provide. ArielGlenn 03:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I've already nswered this one. --EncycloPetey 08:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back...

Hope you had a nice trip! Just wanted to let you know that whiule you were away, I cleaned up all the Latin adjective inflection tables. They all have consistent format, and have documentation that provide specific real examples of how to use them. All this was possible because of the first template you edited. Once the basic code was in one of them, it made editing the remaining templates relatively easy. Also while doing this, I cleaned up some incorrect endings I found in one old table and add two tables we were missing (such as the 3rd declension, 1 ending with a parasyllabic i-stem).

The color scheme for these templates is still open for discussion, but should be easy to change since they all use template calls to set the colors (per your idea). Gray is just ugly. I wanted red, because no other color looks more Roman to me than red. Unfortunately, red is too bright and difficult to get is graded matching hues. The light ones look pink and decidedly un-Roman. I chose an aquamarine shade of blue based on looking at a number of Roman mosaics where the color was used. As I said, though, the colors might still benefit from additional thinking. Feel free to play around on the test page I set up for testing colors. Please don't remove any of the existing tests (no matter how hideous) but feel free to add new selections.

I'd like to get the noun templates cleaned up next. BiT has come up with some ideas (see the links from my talk page), but there are some potential changes in his concept I think should be avoided. I've also drafted specifications for a {{la-adv}}, and will ask you to look over them once they're written but before I post them in the Grease Pit.

Again, welcome back! --EncycloPetey 07:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I did have a rather nice time and managed to pick up a couple more Hawaiian language books - always exciting. (I may end up having a few questions to ask you in that regard as I'd really like to get an "About Hawaiian" page together before I start sorting through the mess that is category:Hawaiian language.)

A bigger thanks in regards to the adjectives! I'll take a look at the colors; I admit that the aquamarine caught me a bit off-guard. I'm sorely tempted to use non-"web-safe" colors... While I agree that red would be ideal, I also worry that it's a bit too dark for the site. Maybe gold would look okay?

I'll take a look at the noun template proposals and get back to you about that shortly. Medellia 19:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Ancient Greek edits

Hi there. I noticed that you've been following up on a number of my edits to Ancient Greek and Latin terms, so I've been trying to use your changes to figure out the right way to do some of these things according to Wiktionary conventions. If you have any specific pointers or any style guide pages you could point out for me, I'd appreciate it.

On another note, you might be interested in this user script that I created: User:Mike Dillon/Scripts/ancientGreekSortKey.js. It adds two links to the "Toolbox" portlet on the left:

• Greek sort key
• Greek sort key (case-sensitive)

Both of them derive a category sort key from the current page name by stripping diacriticals marks and turning iota subscripts into plain iotas to facilitate proper sorting in the Ancient Greek categories (at least as far as I've determined the convention). The difference between the first and second links is that the first one folds case and the second one preserves case (useful for the proper noun categories, but not for proper nouns found in mixed categories). I'll probably update it to deal with combining diacritics at some point, but I haven't seen anything but precombined characters in page names so far.

Anyways, thanks for your help. Mike Dillon 00:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I just noticed that we both went to UC Berkeley. I took the Greek 10 class from Jed Parsons along with Latin 1, 2, and 100 (can't remember the teachers). Mike Dillon 01:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

On the whole, I was not a big fan of the Berkeley Linguistics program, largely because I decided early on to focus on Cognitive linguistics and the required curriculum at the time was geared toward a different approach to language (i.e. formal syntax and a generative approach to grammar). Apart from my cognitive linguistics classes with excellent professors like George Lakoff and Eve Sweetser, there were a couple of other bright spots, mainly John Ohala for phonetics and phonology. It's been long enough now that I don't think I can speak to whether the program has become more accepting of cognitive approaches as "mainstream", nor do I know much about the Linguistics minor program.

As for the Hawaiian stuff, I can't say that I know much about it. I actually saw the note on your page that you were interested in Hawaiian and I guess I ended up poking around. I think I created the Hwc. template after seeing that da kine was listed as "Hawaiian" when it is really "Hawaiian Pidgin" (as far as I know). I didn't end up changing that entry, though, since I'm not sure if the "preferred nomenclature" is "Pidgin" or "Creole".

Anyways, thanks for the guidance on the Latin/Greek entries. I think your approach to dealing with the inflected forms seems as good as anything else I've seen here. I for one see a good deal of value in listing all common inflected forms, since someone without familiarity with the source language will be better able to find the lemmata without having to know the convention used by that language's scholars to list terms in a lexicon. Mike Dillon 03:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

hwc

Is the self-name for the language simply "Pidgin"? It seems to have several names in English, including "Hawai'i Creole English" and "Hawaiian Pidgin". --EncycloPetey 05:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's generally referred to in Hawaiʻi as "Pidgin." Medellia 05:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Should we expect to see a few entries in this pidgin soon? I can help set up the Language category structure if you'd like to add a couple now to get it started. --EncycloPetey 06:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I would appreciate that. My first concern is getting da kine cleaned up, but I can add some other entries too. Medellia 06:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

They wouldn't have to be much to start with. I just really like seeing additions to Wiktionary for languages we didn't previously have, and I don't see any entries at all labelled "Hawaiian Pidgin" or even a category for it. I'll create the category now (I've already created the ISO template). Should da kine be "Hawaiian", "Hawaiian Pidgin", or both? --EncycloPetey 06:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I definitely worry that I overextend myself at times by taking on too many languages, but I agree completely with you and have been meaning to work on less-represented languages as I am able. I'm sure Pidgin will require less thinking on my part than Latin, for instance, so it shouldn't be too difficult to knock out a few decent entries. Da kine is definitely "Hawaiian Pidgin." Medellia 06:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The starter language category now exists at Category:Hawaiian Pidgin language. The corresponding "Nouns" category also exists as does Category:hwc:*Topics. --EncycloPetey 06:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Medellia 06:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the edit history for da kine, you'll see that I'm the one who created it :) It was a requested entry labelled as "untranslatable", which was too big a challenge for me to resist. I did some research and started the entry. It's nice to see da kine finally fixed by someone knowledgable. --EncycloPetey 06:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd venture to say that "untranslatable" wouldn't be a terribly inaccurate label; I suppose I should add to the usage notes that it all depends on context. You didn't get a bad start by any stretch of the imagination. Medellia 06:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

armum

About which part of the formatting are you unsure? It looks fine to me. --EncycloPetey 04:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Armum m is fine, but I'm not sure how to handle the addition of armum n on the page. It didn't even occur to me until armīs to include information about the neuter as well. I've had two conflicting thoughts: 1. armum m should come first because of alphabetical order 2. armum n should come first because it is a much more common word. At any rate, feedback in either direction would be appreciated. (In theory, both should have separate etymologies, but I don't know if I can figure out the etymology of either on my own.) Medellia 06:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Where are you finding armum as a potential lemma? I don't have it in Lewis & Short, and Facciolati indicates that arma is plurale tantum, so it wouldn't generate that entry either. --EncycloPetey 06:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually not sure. I have it scribbled on a post-it "Add armum n" - so it could have just been early morning brain fog that got me thinking that the term existed. That would solve the problem for the most part. Do you think that the armīs entry is decent enough to be borrowed from for armōrum, provided that the neuter entry is changed to reflect the actual lemma? Medellia 06:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I think so. Although we'd move the gender into the {{inflection of}} template for adjectives, I think it's better to keep that information separated into the inflection line for nouns. We do have the option of sorting alphabetically by lemma though. What do you think of that idea? I could just as easily prefer sorting by gender. --EncycloPetey 06:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. I'm trying to think what I've done in other situations, but only adjectives come to mind. As far as that's concerned, to sort by gender would treat nouns and adjectives somewhat equally. If "intralingual" parallelism is at all a goal (and for consistency's sake I think it ought to be), then gender sorting makes sense. However, if parallelism isn't necessarily that important, alphabetical sorting seems to fall in line with general practice around here. Medellia 06:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

So... which do you prefer? --EncycloPetey 01:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

nominated for admin

It does involve some responsibility and some work, please accept here. Or not if you prefer, but I think it is overdue. Robert Ullmann 20:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, wow. Thank you! This is quite honestly a little unexpected. Medellia 20:55, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

karibu sana. You have made many serious contributions, to both entries and discussions. Note that most people won't vote until you indicate acceptance (although such votes are valid, if eventually accepted). Karibu! Robert Ullmann

Accepting that nomination required more of me than I expected. You'd think someone would know their own timezone! Thank you for the Kiswahili as well. Something new every day, right? :) Medellia 21:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Hawaiian templates, categories

Hi Medellia. I just wanted to point out that I've been doing a little work on the Hawaiian entries. I created the following templates:

• Template:haw-noun
• Template:haw-verb
• Template:haw-adj
• Template:haw-adv
• Template:haw-intj

These templates put the entry into the corresponding categories. I've gone through all of the Hawaiian entries and changed them to use these templates. In the short term, this has removed all of them from Category:Hawaiian language. If you think it makes sense to list them there as well, since there aren't a lot of words right now, we can easily modify the templates to do so in bulk.

Also, regarding sorting, I've been using {{DEFAULTSORT}} to sort long vowels with their corresponding short vowels, but I've been leaving okinas as-is. The result is that words starting with okinas sort after words starting with "w". I'm not sure if this matches the Hawaiian sorting convention, but it matches what I read about the alphabet order, so it seemed reasonable. Mike Dillon 03:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

YAY! Thank you so much. I think cleaning things out of Category:Hawaiian language is an excellent (and large) step towards getting Hawaiian on track.

As far as the sorting is concerned, I have seen it done numerous ways. My gut reaction is to say that an ʻokina should not effect sorting, such that entries that begin with "ʻa" are sorted under "a" and not "ʻ". If I can dig up my Pukui/Elbert dictionary, that would most likely give a pretty good indication of the right way to do things. Thanks again! Medellia 06:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

A follow-up: the Hawaiian reference works I have that I trust most do disregard the ʻokina; for instance, ʻAuʻau is in the "A" section. Medellia 08:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok. There aren't too many words with ʻokinas at the moment, so it's easy enough to change. Mike Dillon 15:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

In re philodox

I’ve replied to you on my talk page. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 00:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

New Buttons!

I'm happy to announce that you have been promoted. Here are some basic instructions about the new tools. If you have any questions, feel free to ask any other admin, including your promoter, User:Dvortygirl. Also, please update your entry in the administrator list with any additions or corrections at WT:A. Thanks for your hard work in the past and (in advance) for the work you will be doing! ArielGlenn 05:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Congrats! Rod (A. Smith) 05:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh yay! Thank you! Medellia 12:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Latin

Hi there! Just wondering if there were any developments in Latin since mid-August. I've decided to start sifting the disaster area that is category:Latin verbs and would hope not to muck it up more. Medellia 10:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

In terms of verbs, no progress. Once mid-August rolls around, I'm usually too busy to contribute to Wiktionary to the degree that I have done during the summer months. My contributions for the past two months have been largely WOTD, various discussions, and old template cleanup.

I have done some work on verbs beginning with L, but mostly because I began trying to fill in all the Lewis words beginning with L. There was some progress on revising the 1st-conjugation paradigm template, so that it now looks nice and is collapsible (see amō), but I don't think the other such tables have been edited to do that yet. Neither have we yet set up a "form of" template akin to {{inflection of}} which we developed for nouns and adjectives. My own feeling is that we should get the lemma pages done, pare back any infinitives set up as lemmas, then see about getting bot help for entering the conjugated forms.

Participles will still be a mess, and I still haven't decided how I feel about the various options.

On the plus side, adjectives are now easy to do. Also, an anonymous user added the locative to the various declension page Appendices. If that wasn't you, you might take a look at them, since my reasources are scanty on the correct forms of the locative.

You might also wish to take a look at the model pages listen and parrot to see some of the recently adopted templates used in the etymology section of entries. --EncycloPetey 11:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent; thank you for the pointers. I didn't add the locative and will definitely take a look. I can't really understand why someone would want to throw that into the mix as it was really only used for a few select words by the time literature which is currently extant was being written.

As far as verbs are concerned, I agree with your instincts. I think I'll start by adapting 2/3/4/3-io templates to follow the 1st conjugation ones. Medellia 11:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

As far as the locative goes, we need not add it to the inflectional templates, but having the information in the Appendices (perhaps with an added note about its rarity of use) seems like a nice addition. --EncycloPetey 11:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Latin adverbs

Conrad Irwin helped code a new {{la-adv}} template to the specifications I worked out. The template now generates the comparative and superlative forms (given the stem and an ending parameter). It also handles irregulars and adverbs that aren't comparable. How cool is that!? The template's talk page has all the documentation and several examples. --EncycloPetey 01:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh wow! That is really cool. Thanks for letting me know! Medellia 13:18, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back!

In case you're curious, grc now has a reasonably full set of verbal conjugation templates in place. See, for example, λύω (lúō). I figured the person who initially created grc inflection on Wiktionary ought to be informed. As I'm sure you've noticed by now, EP has done some incredible work with updating and cleaning up Latin. Ivan Štambuk has been doing some excellent work with Sanskrit and Proto-Indo-European. The Classics on Wiktionary are almost sort of starting to look respectable.  :-) -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 23:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Ditto on the welcome, though I fear it will be short-lived as always. (sniff) We have a number of new Latin form templates, including {{la-noun-form}} and {{la-adj-form}}. Also, I've begun plowing through Latin cardinal numerals and some of their Romance language descendants, and started Appendix:Latin cardinal numerals, which I may get to finish this next week. If you are going to be around more, please let me know. We miss you terribly. --EncycloPetey 00:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could say that I'll be able to stick around, but come September all bets are off! Thank you both for the welcome and updates. A word of warning: I've done little in the way of classics over the past year (although my Italian, Sicilian, and Neapolitan have improved considerably!), but I'm certainly eager to get back to editing. Medellia 03:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

smoccolatoio‎

I'm not convinced that this is a candle snuffer. It seems to be a pair of scissors used to trim the wicks of candles - but I don't know what you call them. SemperBlotto 18:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• OK - we're both right. Zingarelli says it is a pair of scissors (for trimming wicks) with a snuffer on the end. SemperBlotto 21:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know! I had a nagging feeling that "snuff" didn't exactly encompass the verb, but couldn't find much information about it. Medellia 21:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Latin & Sicilian

Good to see some work finally happening in Sicilian! If you are seeking additional starting point inspiration for entries, I have a list of Latin nouns that I am working through to make fully fleshed-out entries. I have done a lot for the ones beginning with A-R, but any additional information you can include in these entries (such as additional Descendants, Etymology, etc.) would be welcome. Sicilian, Occitan, and Neapolitan descendants and entries would also be very cool.

I have started a common Latin verbs project, but it has been progressing only slowly. I thought initially to do one such verb per week, but it's turned out to be more like one per month, and the initial enthusiasm from other participants lasted for less time than for other such projects in the past. It could still be something to inspire work, however, as these are the most commonly used verbs in Latin and in Spanish, with known relatives in other Romance languages, and many of them have entries missing or in very poor shape.

Please note two changes I made to your additions to barba. First, the ablative form is pronounced differently form the nominative, and so really needs to be placed in a separate Pronunciation section. Second, I removed the inflection pattern tag, because I intend (sometime soon) to clean up all the Latin noun inflection tables to current standards, and this information then can be included as part of the table template itself. It's always struck me as silly to have to put in two templates for one regular pattern. I'd have made these template changes already, but there is a lot of other work to be done on those templates (some of them take parameters in the wrong order, for example). I also have intended to finish the great verb cleanup first, and I've not quite finished orphaning the older verb conjugation templates; there are still about fifty 3rd and 4th conjugation verbs entries to be done. But, the short of it is that a second template is a silly thing to have to include, when it can be done with just one. So, I've been removing those secondary pattern descriptions when I come across them in anticipation of the template upgrade, and will systematically hunt them down once that happens. --EncycloPetey 21:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I was lucky enough to have a Sicilian roommate, so I figured it's time I get some real work done. I find the language fascinating, perhaps due in part to the Arabic influence. The Sicilian Wiktionary has come a long way, so there's lots of information to be had from it. I will definitely go through the noun list and add what I can.

Regarding barba:

1. I'm never quite sure what to do with first declension ablative singulars, so that's good to know!
2. The pattern templates: another thing I was never quite sure about. I'll remove them when I see them from now on.

Thanks much! Medellia 22:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Catalan

Due to Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Retired langauge codes, the Provençal section of Catalan needs something done to it, and I figured you'd be the person to ask. Many thanks. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 20:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I would guess that it would be catalan, but I'll take a look around and see if I can dig something up. At any rate, I'd be glad to add Occitan to the lowercase entry. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! Medellia 22:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The Occitan Wikipedia seems to agree, as does an article on Chambra d'Òc. If no one objects, I'll just remove the whole, troublesome Provençal section from the article. Medellia 22:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:PIE

Just a note to let you know that I nominated this template for deletion at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Others#Proto_Etymon_Templates, since we should be using {{proto}}. As an editor who recently used the template, I thought I'd make you aware. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 07:27, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

oesophagus

Hi there! Do you know (or happen to know of someone around here who knows) anything about Late Latin? Oesophagus currently has "oesophagus" for the Latin translation. The classical term, however, is fistula cibālis, so I would assume this to be the Late Latin (and a borrowing from the Greek οἰσοφάγος (oisophágos) at that). L&S doesn't seem to have anything, but my Italian etymological dictionary suggests the Late Latin form to be "aesophagus" and my English "oesophagus" or "ēsophagus." Any ideas? Thanks! Medellia 18:02, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it looks like a Greek borrowing, albeit partially Latinized. That spelling does not turn up in Calepinus, Facciolati, or Souter, so I can't say if the word was ever used in mainstream Latin. It is certainly "Medical Latin" and turns up in Dutch as well. Sorry, but I don't know anyone working in Late Latin on the Wiktionaries. --EncycloPetey 18:42, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I did some more research. Niermeyer's Mediae Latinatis Lexicon Minus does not have this word in any spelling. Du Conge's Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinatis has one cite for (deprecated template usage) isofagus, but no other spellings. Howlett's Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources has a header for oesophagus, but the only cited spellings are (deprecated template usage) isophagus and (deprecated template usage) ysophagus. So, if oesophagus is Latin at all, then it's New Latin. --EncycloPetey 18:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary:About Latin

But ti still needs a lot of work. I'm hoping to finish describing the Related terms/Derived terms/Descendants/See also today, since those sections seem to cause confusion among new editors. --EncycloPetey 20:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If there's anything I can do to help out, please let me know. Medellia 20:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Proofreading is always a vital help, as I am prone to letter inversions and little typos. I also find, from time to time, that text I wrote is slightly ambiguous for not explaining the precise context. And I am trying to decide how best to revise the I/J information at the top of the page. Certainly J (long-I) is not a Classical character, but it is a regular feature of Medieval and Later Latin. I'm trying to decide how best to deal with this issue, which is tied up in chronological changes in the language.

Otherwise, continuing to add entries in Latin and its Descendant languages is the biggest help. I myself spent much of this week adding hundreds of Galician and Asturian terms, as well as templates and even a couple of appendices. --EncycloPetey 21:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: Another way to help is to check all the various entries used as examples in the page. I'd like to have these examples as fleshed-out as possible in order to serve as models for people adding Latin entries. This principle could be applied to non-Latin entries linked as well. --EncycloPetey 23:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Move to Wiktionary Latin

User Goldenrowley has been working hard to clean up items Transwikied from Wikipedia. There are a number of Latin and Latin-derived entries among them. I cleaned up a batch of them yesterday, but they seem to keep coming. If you've time for some Latin assistance, these entries are nicely challenging and fun to research. For one thing, not all of them are Latin entries, per se. Some of them are legal phrases in English/American law that come from a Latin phrase. The Latin phrase may not merit an entry in some of these cases, but the etymology still needs Latin information.

As I say, they seem to keep coming. So, even when one has managed to empty the category (or nearly so), it soon fills up again. --EncycloPetey 22:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll take a look. Medellia 22:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

libello

I have seen a number of Latin entries like this. Could you fix it? Cheers. SemperBlotto 11:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

desysopping

As you have been inactive on this Wiki for more than a year, your administrater status has been removed.

If you become active here again, and want to be an administrater again, just ask, and it can be provided without the need for a vote. SemperBlotto 14:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC)