User talk:Placebo

Amazon

Do you have any ideas about the statement in the etymology of Amazon about it coming from Persian "hamazan", meaning "warrior" to "to fight as a group"? I can’t think of a Persian word like that. —Stephen 17:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I have not heard of that term before. If I wanted to say "fight as a group" I would say "bâ ham jangidan" or something along those lines. Maybe "hamazan" is old Persian. Arvin 17:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. That must be it. —Stephen 18:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:fa-adj

I have created a template for Persian adjectives that should make articles easier to prepare.

You can see it in use at مثبت, where it is included as {{fa-adj|tr=mosbat}}. The "tr" stands for "transliteration". --EncycloPetey 19:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll make sure to use that in the future. :) Arvin 19:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

{{fa-noun}} is also now ready to go. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 20:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If there is any additional functionality you think would be useful for either of these, (e.g. spot for gender, other forms, anything else), please feel free to let either of us know. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 21:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! It would be great if any of you could make a template for Persian verbs, adverbs and proper nouns. :) Arvin 21:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

رقصیدن

Hello. You have previously deleted the article رقصیدن, and I was just wondering why. I would like to create this page, but I want to make sure that it doesn't get deleted. Arvin 10:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

For whatever reason we get a lot of Persian words with random formatting. So, if you see a previously deleted entry, you can fairly safely assume that some anon previously created the entry with content along the lines of "[[Image:thumb|A '--80.191.88.93 10:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)]]" (the content of the entry in question when it was deleted). This is especially true of vulgar terms. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 15:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Aha, so the entry was deleted due to vandalism/trolling? I can safely add a translation to the entry, right? Arvin 15:34, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Treat it like it never existed. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 01:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Etymology of که

Hey. Do you think that the Persian word که is from the French/Spanish word "que"? It roughly means the same, and I believe it's kinda pronounced the same as well. Arvin 19:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Salaam Arvin. No, Persian "ke" does not come from French nor Spanish. It is a purely Persian word. --Dijan 18:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. :) Arvin 21:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

اموات

Hello Dijan. In the Persian entry موت, you have added اموات as the plural form of موت. Are you sure this is correct? As far as I know, اموات is the plural form of میت, which is not quite the same. I thought I would check up with you to see if you agree :) Arvin 17:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

اموات (amvât) (deaths) is the plural of both موت (mout) and میت (mayyit) (the dead). --Dijan 19:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

beardless in Persian

Hello, Arvin. Can you tell me how is beardless in Persian? I need it for Appendix:List of Balkanisms, because the Turkish word, which propagated it on the Balkan peninsula, was loaned from Persian. In Bulgarian it is kyosé, in Serbo-Croatian ćósav, so something with k and s/š in the beginning? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, beard is ریش (rish) and beardless would be بی‌ریش (bi-rish) as the prefix بی (bi) means "without" or lacking something. Another word that comes to my mind which starts with s is سبیل (sebil) which instead means moustache. Lack of moustache would then be بی‌سبیل (bi-sebil). I hope it helped. Arvin 17:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort anyway. One of the words for blind is ćórav/kyorav and is derived from کور, so I thought it would be a similar case, but it is not... Regards The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 08:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

From Persian کوسه (kose) Steingass. --Dijan 02:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

آسیا

Hello, can you check the transliteration of the word? The præsent one is Âsiyâ, but in the grammar of Persian which I am reading right now, it is transliterated as āsyā (I could not find ā majuscule for the initial letter). Is the i correct and why do we use â instead of ā, which is usual for long vowels? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 08:22, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Persian spoken forms

What is a spoken form? The orthography of all Wiktionary words has be verifiable, so we don't allow 'spoken-only forms' as there would be no way to check the spelling. I'm thinking something like {{eye dialect of}} or {{form of|Colloquial form}} would be the best choices - you can specify sc=fa-Arab in the {{form of}} templates. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

In Iran, mainly around the Tehran areas, people tend to use words like "bâroon" and "zendoon" in casual conversations rather than the more formal ways like "bârân" and "zendân". This has to do with the "oon" sound being easier and slightly faster to pronounce than the "ân" sound.

Since these words a more common in conversations than their formal words and since they play an important role in the modern Persian language, I found them necessary to add. But if they are redundant, then maybe they should be deleted. Placebo 14:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess the question (in my opinion) is whether the difference is regional spelling, or regional pronunciation. In Yorkshire I might pronounce my as /mɪ/, but that wouldn't justify an entry for another spelling of my, unless the difference is recorded in terms of spelling. Is this making sense? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. I think a solution to this could be to add the pronunciations to the already existing entries. For example in the entry زندان it can mention that a Iranian spoken pronunciation of the word is "zendoon" az opposed to the formal "zendân". Placebo 14:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Awesome Name

Nice band name you have. :3 66.91.85.45 04:33, 3 August 2010 (UTC) (lKj)

Thanks, but actually I didn't have the band in mind when I chose this nick. At that time I was reading about the w:Placebo effect. Placebo 10:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, too bad. I thought of that possibility but guessed it was because of the band. 66.91.85.45 19:12, 3 August 2010 (UTC) (lKj)

translits

Hey, could you please use u for و, and x for خ? Also check out WT:FA TR for others. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 19:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect, I have never seen any Iranians use the letter "x" as a transliteration for خ. It's used for languages like Azeri, but I have never seen it being used for Persian before. I think "kh" is more appropriate since that's the transliteration us Iranians use. What do other members of this website prefer to use? I'm willing to use whatever the majority on this website uses but I prefer "kh" as the "x" would add too much confusion. Placebo 14:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Our target audience isn't Iranians. Our Persian sections on this wiktionary are targeted at English-speakers learning Persian. We use x because /x/ is the IPA sound the letter makes, and it's easier to make that connection than "kh" which for all we know could just be a "k" sound. It's better to use single letter transliterations. If we use kh for خ, there's no way to distinguish it from که or کح, which do in fact make a completely different sound. č ğ š ž, not ch, gh, sh, zh - for the same reasons. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:38, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Placebo, please follow Opio's recommendations. That's what the majority of this website's members prefers. --Vahag 16:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I would like to know where it is documented that the majority of people on this website prefers "x". Thank you.

که and کح cannot make the "kh" sound because these combinations will always be read as kah/koh/keh.

If you want to add the IPA sound to a word, I believe the best solution is to make a seperate section in an article for the IPA sound. Look at this word با as an example.

Another reason that I disapprove of this idea is because most people when writing Farsi using Latin letters uses the "kh" transliteration. If a non-Persian speaker stumbles upon a text written in latin-Persian, they will encounter the "kh" transliteration, not the "x" transliteration. And if a non-Persian speaker looks up a word here and uses the "x" sound for transliteration, then it would look weird and unnatural to Persian-speakers.

The brackets next to every word are not meant to be IPA pronunciations. They are just meant to be casual transliterations. I suggest to use a separate section in every article for IPA and other pronunciation systems as the most effective solution.

With all due respect, I think other people like Dijan and Stephen G. Brown who contributes to Persian entries should have a chance to give their 2 cents since this would have an effect in their editing too. If the majority prefers "x" then I will change my editing style. :) Placebo 17:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Dijan and Stephen both did work on WT:FA TR which outlines the standards used on wiktionary and compares them also to "casual" systems. So they were the ones that originally wrote x for kh on Wiktionary.

It would be very easy to link to this appendix from every transliteration, as I have done with Hindi templates, so that the user can see the differences. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well they did have a discussion on this matter and Stephen said it was suggestions and that it could be modified.

Looking at this list, I can already see another mistake on the list. The letter ق does not transliterate to "q" in Persian. It transliterates to "gh".

"q" is only used for Arabic transliteration. Arabic has its own types of pronunciations, like for example the letters ح and ه differ in pronunciation in Arabic. That is why when transliterating Arabic "h" is used for ه and "7" is used for ح.

But with Persian, the pronunciation of ح and ه are identical, which means that the transliteration for both of these letters will be "h" in Persian. The same goes for the letters غ and ق in Persian. Same pronunciation: "gh"

That is why I believe this list should be modified to make the transliterations more accurate. Placebo 18:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

That's called disambiguation. If a person can't remember the Perso-Arabic spelling, but they do remember that we used q and not ğ it will help them to spell it properly. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The "q" sound is only used in some dialects (mainly Dari and Tajiki) as it says in the Persian alphabet article. Therefore, if you had to be correct you would have to write two pronunciations for each word, one with "gh" and another with "q" and then mention that the "q" sound is only used in some dialects whereas the "gh" sound is the mainstream dialect in the Persian alphabet.

Using "q" as the only/main transliteration is incorrect. Placebo 19:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

So now you're going to discriminate against Dari.

Also if you're actually paying attention, WT:FA TR says to use q for ق and ğ for غ

It seems like you're unwilling to actually discuss this without calling ways other than your own incorrect. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 19:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Discriminating? I'm sorry but you were the one who edited all my previous entries before even discussing this matter with me and now you tell me I'm the one saying "my only way is the correct"? How much do you even know about the Persian language? The Persian language is my mother language, it's what I'm born with, it's what I have been speaking all my life, so with all due respect, I think my knowledge on this field is more than yours. Now please keep in mind that the WT:FA TR is free for modification, so I will probably look into modifying this at one point. I did say earlier that if the majority wants to keep "x" and "q" and they actually have any arguments for this then I'll approve, but so far you haven't haven't brought in sufficient arguments. Please keep in mind that I have the right to say my opinion as well.

I would suggest you read my previous post again. I said that if you are going to use the "q" as a transliteration, then you will have to make two transliterations because otherwise you would be "discriminating" the mainstream Farsi that is spoken throughout Iran and many parts of Afghanistan, which uses the "gh" sound and NOT the "q" sound. Placebo 20:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

You alone don't get to decide what the "sufficient" arguments are. We aren't here to please you. The only thing I changed in your entries that we have actually talked about here was the "oo". — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Placebo, I'm sorry to say this, but Opi is correct. Please, follow the transliteration rules. By the way, Opi is not discussing the sound that the letter represents. He is talking about a consistent transliteration, in which case, ق and غ are two different letters and should be treated as such in transliteration, "q" and "ğ", respectively. Also, neither Opi, nor any of us here, are discriminating against Persian nor against the way it's spoken anywhere. This has nothing to do with speech, but is a matter of transliteration. By the way, do not be so defensive when someone is trying to point you to guidelines and rules of this project. We are all here to work together. --Dijan 20:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No offense, but when he starts crying that I "discriminate" against Dari, that is just extremely rude and uncalled for. This is not the kind of friendly debating I was expecting. If this is how debating on Wiktionary is, then I will simply ignore all messages from anybody from now on.

And to Opiaterein, I am not here to please you either. If you can't take it that I have the right to bring up my arguments for a subject, then it's best you don't start a discussion with me in the first place. Placebo 20:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

To quote Dijan: "By the way, do not be so defensive when someone is trying to point you to guidelines and rules of this project. We are all here to work together." You don't exactly get to say "with all due respect" and then say whatever you want to support your point of view and completely ignore mine. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I have the right to be a little bit defensive when you accuse me of discriminating an entire language. Next time I suggest you think about what you write the next time. I was using a friendly tone with you the entire time and tried to have a healthy debate and you didn't even bother to argue against my points, you just told me that I discriminate Dari. Placebo 20:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

That's actually... not how it happened. You said "Iranians don't use x", I said "Our target audience isn't Iranians" then Vahag suggested you follow WT:FA TR and you said you wanted to know where it was decided that we use "x" and said we should wait for Stephen and Dijan to give their input, and I pointed out that Stephen and Dijan did WT:FA TR, and provided an example of one method to link to a description of our transliteration policies. Then you said that WT:FA TR had what you call mistakes, and I *tried* to explain what that was, although Dijan later did a better job. Then you said something that was slightly confusing, since we already recommend different pronunciations for Dari and Iranian... but transliterations aren't the same as pronunciations. So to me it seemed like you were saying we shouldn't use "q" because that's only for Dari, which seemed discriminatory to me. And that's basically what happened up to that point... — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

What I meant was that "q" is used in Arabic transliterations and small dialects of Farsi/Dari. "gh" is more mainstream and more people would recognize "gh" as opposed to "q". Placebo 21:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, when you say "more people would recognize 'gh' as opposed to 'q'", to whom are you referring to? Which people? As far as I am concerned, most English speakers, to whom this project is directed towards, hence it is written in English, will be more confused by the fact that both "ق" and "غ" are represented with "gh". They are two distinct letters. This is not about sounds. Please go back and read what I said earlier. It is about graphical representation and if anything, it provides disambiguation. --Dijan 21:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

What I mean is that the transliteration system used on the internet uses the "gh" for both ق and غ.

This can best be explained through an example:

If somebody on the Internet is to write قلیون with latin letters there are 4 choices. ghelyoon, qelyoon, ghelyun and qelyun.

Now if we do a Google search on all these four words, you will see that ghelyoon comes up with 81,000 hits.

qelyoon brings up 100 hits.

ghelyun 3,770 hits.

qelyun about 84 hits.

My point is that the common transliteration for ق and و on the Internet has always been "gh" and "oo". That is why I believe that these transliterations should be used so that English speakers will not get confused when people use "gh" for ق and و for "oo". Placebo 00:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Most common is not the same as best. We're trying to be scientific and as professional as possible. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:53, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

What Google says is completely irrelevant in this case as Persian is not written in Roman script and the transliteration varies from person to person. Most scholarly materials use traditional Arabic transliteration and that is what most academics are familiar with. We are not looking for "most common" on Google, but we are looking for most logical, scientific and simple. --Dijan 01:26, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'm happy to hear that.

I hope you both appreciated my input nonetheless. Placebo 01:33, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Placebo! I'm bothering you for a personal translation request. It's going to be a tattoo so I could just ask a native speaker. Can you please tell me how can I say "she exists as long as her presence is felt" and "feeling is enough" in Persian? Well if they don't sound that good in Persian, and you have different ideas, I'd be very glad to hear :) Thanks in advance! Sinek 23:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi mate.

she exists as long as her presence is felt: او تا زمانی وجود دارد که حضورش احساس می‌شود

feeling is enough: احساس کافی است

These are how I would translate the two sentences. Please note that in Persian "he" and "she" is the same. Therefore the first translation I gave you could mean "he exists as long..." as well. او refers to both he and she. Placebo 22:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)