User talk:NativeNames

Community Insights Survey

Share your experience in this survey

Hi NativeNames,

The Wikimedia Foundation is asking for your feedback in a survey about your experience with Wiktionary and Wikimedia. The purpose of this survey is to learn how well the Foundation is supporting your work on wiki and how we can change or improve things in the future. The opinions you share will directly affect the current and future work of the Wikimedia Foundation.

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Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 14:29, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Reminder: Community Insights Survey

Share your experience in this survey

Hi NativeNames,

A couple of weeks ago, we invited you to take the Community Insights Survey. It is the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual survey of our global communities. We want to learn how well we support your work on wiki. We are 10% towards our goal for participation. If you have not already taken the survey, you can help us reach our goal! Your voice matters to us.

Please take 15 to 25 minutes to give your feedback through this survey. It is available in various languages.

This survey is hosted by a third-party and governed by this privacy statement (in English).

Find more information about this project. Email us if you have any questions, or if you don't want to receive future messages about taking this survey.

Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 19:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Reminder: Community Insights Survey

Share your experience in this survey

Hi NativeNames,

There are only a few weeks left to take the Community Insights Survey! We are 30% towards our goal for participation. If you have not already taken the survey, you can help us reach our goal! With this poll, the Wikimedia Foundation gathers feedback on how well we support your work on wiki. It only takes 15-25 minutes to complete, and it has a direct impact on the support we provide.

Please take 15 to 25 minutes to give your feedback through this survey. It is available in various languages.

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Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 17:02, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Words from Wikipedia

Please don't take words from Wikipedias in languages you don't know and add them as translations at Wiktionary. Many Wikipedias will make up words so they can have an article to describe a concept, but that doesn't mean the word in question is actually attested in that language. In general, adding content in languages you don't know and don't have a reliable source for (like an actual dictionary) is a good way to introduce subtle errors into Wiktionary. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:52, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Gotcha, won’t do it again. I assume I 'ought to revert my edit then? NativeNames (talk) 17:57, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, unless you can find evidence, like a dictionary or in Google Books (but the latter is quite hard unless you know the languages in question, given all the interference). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:04, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

You know, here’s a question, pertinent as it also relates to the Xiognu page, albeit the Chinese one (匈奴). So, I have book references for the Chinese word 葷粥, and the Sanskrit, however I ran into an issue with the Sogdian and Pahlavi ones. Now instead of a book, I found them on a database. The first, featuring quite literally thousands of Sogdian inscriptions, and the second full, also of thousands, of Pahlavi lemmas. The issue arose there that they technically weren’t scholarly sources. Now, I added them anyway, which regardless is a lapse I suppose, but your concern about the possibility of invented words is still valid. Now the likelihood of this can be debated in these particular circumstances but it seems for all intents and purposes that these are rather reliable sources. I could take another look to see if there really was a peer reviewed work they were taken from but assuming I don’t find one, where do I go from there? NativeNames (talk) 18:10, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't work with Sogdian or Middle Persian, and I don't know the resources. If a (non-crackpot) website is giving transcribed inscriptions, then I think that's perfectly fine (after all, the inscription itself is the source). Lists of words can be worse, and there are some nationalists trying to revive Middle Persian, so there could be a danger of made-up words in that case, but I doubt it for a word like this. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:21, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Really? Well, I suppose there’s a cause for everything. But, okay, I’ll try and run through a bit more verification with my sources either way. Worst case scenario I just remove the words from the page, not a disaster. NativeNames (talk) 18:23, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

@Victar works with those. Assessing databases is like assessing other sources, but trickier. You have to look at where they're getting their data, and who's compiling it. Once you eliminate the people with agendas, the big danger is with amateurs cutting corners in their quality control or not knowing what they're doing. It's very important that both the compiler(s) and the author(s) of their sources are serious and know what they're doing.

Even if they're going directly off of physical objects such as tablets or papyri, there's a surprising amount of interpretation involved. These can be like handwritten chicken-scratching, and there's no backspace key with a stylus or a pen. To really read them correctly you have to know scribal practices of that time and place- and perhaps even the idiosyncrasies of an identifiable individual. It also helps to know the historical context and the body of similar writings. Published sources that have been scrutinized by other scholars are generally better, especially if you don't have the background to tell whether the people involved are competent and responsible. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:07, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Much appreciated! Thanks for the help. NativeNames (talk) 19:08, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Groundhog Day

We already had a discussion at User_talk:Vahagn_Petrosyan#Երեւան/Էրեբունի. Don't touch things you don't understand. --Vahag (talk) 06:10, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan I will concede I don't know the intricacies of the Armenian language. I will not argue I do not understand as well as you do the etymology of those Armenian words. However, I will not sit here and be told that I am in the wrong for linking the Armenian word for Erbuni as the origin of the English word Erbuni. Your reverts have become counterproductive. This is the equivalent of berating someone for making the apparently outrageous claim that the words "synonym" and "synonymous" are related to one another. It is this point, and this point alone I must stress again, that I have a problem with. It's simply ridiculous, and I'm sorry if this seems rude or unprofessional, but it's simply my honest opinion. I don't need to be Igor Diakonoff to understand that the English word Erbuni, the word referring to the Armenian fortress named Erbuni, comes from the Armenian word Erbuni, the word referring to the Armenian fortress named Erbuni. NativeNames (talk) 15:40, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

You are wrong for linking the Armenian word for Erbuni as the origin of the English word Erebuni. Both the Armenian and English terms are modern scholarly transcriptions of the Urartian name discovered by archeologists in the 20th century. The Armenian name of the fortress is Արին բերդ (Arin berd). --Vahag (talk) 08:44, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan Fair enough. But, when I added the Urartian name to the Armenian page as its origin, you also removed it. And, you just said it yourself, this is correct. Can you explain that? NativeNames (talk) 13:25, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

You made many mistakes. You left out the determinative 𒌷, you used {{l|akk|...}} within {{der|hy|xur|...}}, your transcription Irbûni was incorrect. --Vahag (talk) 15:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)