User talk:Polyglot

Hi, my name is Jo

I live in Belgium and since this is a multilingual country, I seem to have become multilingual myself. One thing I would like to see is that you would find a way to add word gender to the words. Or should I just start doing that myself?

Could we have some kind of standard like:

(f.) = feminine, (m.) = masculine, (n.) = neuter

--Chuck SMITH

That sounds sufficient. (for the languages I know)

I think we should put this after the word, does that sound ok?  :::--Chuck SMITH

It sounds perfect. So just a space and then one of these three letters. I started putting them in italics by surrounding them with two/four quotes: m, f, n Polyglot 12:02 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

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In response to your question (I expected it would come up) three words need to be distinguished:

• Homonyms have the same name and are spelled and pronounced in the same way, but are have different meanings based on different origins, thus pole meaning a shaft stuck in the ground and somebody from Poland are homonyms.
• Homophones are spelled in different ways but pronounced in the same way. This has been the case with the examples that I have changed.
• Homographs are spelled the same way but pronounced differently, thus read when used in the past and present tenses.

There has been a lot of confusion in the past between the first two words, and because many people were taught wrongly in the schools (myself included) the tendency has been to use "homonym" wrongly without even knowing about "homophone". I'll look into preparing the articles for these three. Eclecticology 00:11 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I was indeed taught wrongly about them. Maybe because the teachers didn´t want to overly complicate things back then, maybe because in Dutch there are very few words that sound the same while at the same time are spelled differently. This happens all the time in English due to the strange phonetics it has.

Anyway, I´m glad I learned something new and I´ll try to name that section correctly from now on. Of course we would never have a section on homonyms, as they would all end up on the same page, wouldn´t they... The same goes for homographs. So it would be kind of hard to get it wrong, I guess.

What do you think of the pictures? I´m not a photographer, but I think for animals and flowers and the like they illustrate things in the best possible way. Should I compress them even more? Or is 80 kB an acceptable size? Polyglot 07:07 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Polyglot. Some thoughts about your pictures from a fellow Belgian. Although a picture here and there can help with a definition of a word, I do think we should limit ourselves to one picture per definition. A second thing is the size. I think a picture like the one in alpaca is way too big (it doesn't even fit on my screen!). Let's try to limit them to a reasonable size of, say 200-300 x 300-400 pixels (like Wikipedia). After all this is not a photo album :-) D.D.

The pictures look great, but I agree with D.D. that they should be reduced in size. Eclecticology

I agree there too. In fact the ones that are still big, are the first attempts I made. Feel free to take out the pictures that you don´t like or that are not appropriate. When I said size, I also meant memory size. I don´t want to hog the database... Polyglot 00:05 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

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re: Eclecticology, sorry for writing in your page all the time...

I don't mind answering questions, but it makes answering them easier if you sign them. The other point is that such questions should go on a User talk page instead of a "User" page. The system is set up to alert a person when there is a message on his talk page but not on his user page. Your question could have stayed there for a month before I even noticed it was there.

Where can I find the meaning of # : *. How do I make something bold? Is it necessary/preferable to put #:*language name: word? Or would *... be sufficient?

1. A lot of these basic questions are covered at w:How to edit a page
2. The two punctuation options before a language name can be used to differentiate two different situations.
   1. The shorter and simpler one can be used with translations that apply globally to the word, and would follow a "===Translations===" heading.
   2. The long form should be used when a translation applies only to a particular meaning of a word and would follow a "#:Translations" heading.

Eclecticology 00:21 Apr 27, 2003 (UTC)

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Regarding the etymology of handcuff the presence of both "cops" and "cosp" are correct. this was taken directly from the 1913 Webster, seemingly to justify the reversal of the two consonants. I have since noted that Partridge disputes this etymology in his Origins. Eclecticology 00:06 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

It struck me as odd, so I wanted to draw your attention to it. Cheers Polyglot 05:34 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

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As requested, I've looked at your Irregular verbs article. This is fine. Some people might include the present participle, but these tend to be very regular even among the irregular verbs. Eclecticology 07:43 Jun 11, 2003 (UTC)

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Could you help me with SQL? How to retrieve all entries that NOW doesn't have, for example 'Indonesian', in its text? The problem is with old entries that previously didn't have the word but now have it. Petruk 16:15, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This seems to do the trick:

select * from cur where cur_text not like '%Indonesian%';

I hope I understood the problem correctly. Enjoy Polyglot 22:36, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Now I know my own problem. I was using old* instead of cur*. Thanks. Petruk 01:59, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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I've seen your reversions of User:12.234.123.133. It certainly needed it. I've continued by deleting those articles that never had any valid content. It was peculiar that he reverted his own vandalism at Wiktionary:Bug reports. I'll keep watching what happens with this guy. I'm not a big supporter of banning. Most of these routine vandals have a poor attention span, and tend not to stick around very long anyway. Unless they persist it's often just a wasted effort. Eclecticology 18:28, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I feel the same way. To make things worse, it would be rather easy for a really persisting user to change IP-addresses or spoof them. But I think you are right, it will probably stop soon enough. It's funny, I was just presenting Wiktionary to somebody and she immediately said this might be a problem, if everybody has write access. I told her it happens relatively few times and that it is not very worthwhile to vandalise it, since nothing is really lost and somebody will notice it rather quickly and revert to an undamaged version. This time I had some trouble deciding whether they 'could have been' valid English words and I also can't actually delete entries. I didn't have time to really start checking either, so I decided to do what I could do to resolve the situation swiftly. Cheers Polyglot 20:32, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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I've deleted pecia de chacos as requested. It wasn't much of an article anyway. The term was not Spanish, but Interlingua for Chessman. Eclecticology 09:48, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I hope it means chess piece in Interlingua, otherwise ia already doesn't make sense to me any more...Polyglot 11:34, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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To restore a prior version

1. Go to the page history
2. Open the version that you want to restore
3. Edit the page
4. Without doing any additional editing, save the page

The problem that you describe will be a continuing one. It can happen at anytime a page is opened in a browser that does not understand Unicode, especially if the editing is done off line. Most of the time the person who creates the error neither knows or understands what has happened. Eclecticology 13:30, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. Now I need to find out how to get back to these broken pages... They are already more than 500 changes away. But it sure is good to know for the future. About this happening with faulty browsers that don't understand UTF-8. I think the server should pick up on it and not accept changes in those lines. Of course, this may be tricky to implement in the software.Polyglot 11:34, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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Can everybody 'block' anonymous users or did I inadvertently become an administrator?Polyglot 20:15, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Strange things have been happening with the software lately. :-) Ec

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I've put a note on the user talk page for the person who contributor who gave us узус. If this had come from an Anon. I would have agreed with you and deleted it right away. Eclecticology 18:26, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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Thanks for the warm welcome and the chuckle about defenestrate. It's gratifying that someone out there is enjoying my meanderings. I know I am! Dvortygirl 08:20, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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I've got no problem using level 4 (or 5, or 6) headings as you have done. I frequently do it myself, but only when nesting is required. It will not be needed for a simple well behaved word. Headings at the same level have equivalent status. Heading at an inferior level are all dependent on their superior level. Thus I tend to vary the levels that I use according to the circumstances. Thus

Example 3

Etymology 2

Verb

Translations

In the first example the word only has a single etymology and part of speech, so everything can stay at level 3 because they are equal in status.

In the second example, the word has a single origin but gives rise to both a verb and a noun, each of which would give rise to separate hierarchically subordinate translations.

In the third example the word has two separate origins, which will each give rise to separate sets of data. The second origin in turn gives rise to both a noun and a verb, and again these will lead to separate translations.

There's an endless number of possibilities that can arise, and I suppose your approach is safer. I tend to avoid the rigid use of templates without understanding, but I know that others find them very useful. Eclecticology 10:21, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sorry about the awkwardness in this way of communicating, but the big advantage is that it notifies you when you have a message. With an 8-hour time zone difference it means that we are not always on line together. We often have to waste time sleeping when we should be working on a wiki project. :-)

I appreciate the difficulty that you are having in trying to develop a template. Unfortunately, I don't believe that there is a single solution. At least there isn't a simple one that can be easily communicated to a newbie. Perhaps the important thing might be to show the basic pattern for the well-behaved example. Beyond that you could try to explain the nesting principle (which works somewhat like brackets do in basic mathematics), saying that it can be effected by varying levels of headings and indents.

Level 2 headings are already appearing very stable, since they are almost all the names of languages. The only exception so far has been for translingual usages. I am considering introducing one more which would usually come right after English (or whatever other language is first listed). This comes from looking at translation lists where several languages use exactly the same word as English to mean the same thing. This short section would basically express that fact. Eclecticology 17:21, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Removing regular inflections

Hi Jo, I've replied to your comment about removing regular inflections on my page. Ignore the comment about asking your name - I've just found it on this page. Paul G 14:38, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Yep! It looks as if you are now a trusted sysop! The list at Wiktionary:administrators has not been updated. But when I went to the general user list I found that you and Petruk had been added. I've consistently refused to become a Wiktionary Wikipedia sysop; the tendency to abuse it like some others would be too great. No problem about the Hebrew page, especially if it was by an anonymous user. When a registered user does this I would be inclined to discuss it with him first. Eclecticology 08:36, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Oops fixed my own gaffe. It's Wikipedia where things get a little strange. :-) Eclecticology 09:17, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Bot

Good morning, I'll start writing the bot in an hour, can you give me some example data? Will the data be in mixed languages or is it only a long list of english->Belgian? -- TomK32 10:06, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tom,

Belgian doesn't really exist. We have three official languages: Dutch, French and (even) German. The list consists of a wide variety of languages:

Sodium en Natrium de lb nl af fy da sv no fo Natur (Natrín) is — Italic Sodium fr Sodio es gl it Sodi ca fur Sòdi oc Sódio pt Sodiu (Natriu) ro Natriumu arm — Slavic Натрий [natrij] ru bg Натрiй [natrij] uk Натрый [natryj] by Sód pl Natrijô kas Sodík cs sk Natrij sl hr bos Натриjум [natrijum] sr Натриум [natrium] mk — Baltic Natris lt Nātrijs lv Natrijan sud — Celtic Sodiwm cy Sóidiam ga Sòidiam gd Sodjum gv Sodyum kw Sodiom, Natriom br — Other (Europe) Νατριο [natrio] el Natrium sq — Indo-Iranian Натрий [natrij] oss Uralic Natrium fi Naatrium et Nátrium hu Altaic Sodyum tr Натрий [natrij] kk uz Natri' tg Натри [natri] mn Other (Europe) Sodioa eu ნატ? იუმი [natriumi] ka East-Asia オトリウ? [natoriumu] ja 鈉 [na4 / naap9] zh (mand./cant.) โซเดียม [sōdīamo] th Natri vi Malayo-Polynesian Natrium ms Afro-Asiatic صوديوم [Sūdiyūm] ar Sodjum mt ? תרן [natran] he Artificial Natrio eo

(I hope Windows gets the copy/paste right...)

This comes from: http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/elem/na.html

I'm not copying the latinized transcriptions.

I have made a group of array variables to convert the ISO abbreviations to English and French language names. Maybe that would be helpful to become a 'dictionary' in Python.

Thanks for helping me out! (I hadn't expected you to do this at all)Polyglot 12:42, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

OK, that's a good data-format. Is it fully compatible with Wiktionary's naming?

Can you give me a list of "short" -> "long" language-name? Then I can convert them automatically too.

How should the result look like?

I think it will be done until tomorrow. -- TomK32 21:18, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Regarding your question on Translator, "what does c stand for?" I had been wondering the same thing. Looking under w:Swedish language, I found "Nouns come in two grammatical genders: common and neuter." -- Ortonmc 17:19, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Thanks a lot. Regarding the elements, I didn't notice you added some more but I will check them. I will try my best because Breton language is not yet well stabilized on scientific words.

Regarding the gender abbreviations (m,f,n) I would like to know whether there is one for a collective noun meaning a word used mostly for several individuals as a single object (different from the plural). For instance, traezh (collective) stands for sand when a single particle grain of sand will be traezhenn (singular) and several of them traezhennoù for grains of sand (plural).

Hi Gwinver,

I think it would be best not to abbreviate that. It is not something that exists in English and therefore it would occur too few times for people to be able to get used to it. It is probably best to use (collective noun) between parentheses. In a description of Breton you could clarify the usage. Or you can start separate entries for the Breton words and mention it there. When translating a singular word it is not necessary to add the plural forms in the entry for the English entry.Polyglot 10:30, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

To my knowledge, English does have a count/collective (often called mass) noun distinction with respect to the semantic nature of plural marking of nouns. They are often treated as if they are singular, except often having different article usage in the form of very infrequent use of the indefinite article, and normally not having any separate plural form or usage. However, they can still in special cases get marked as plural, which usually has special meanings beyond simply being plural tied to them. The implication of such marking is inconsistent across collective nouns, and varies heavily across dialects. Note that this information is generally not marked in dictionaries. Note that I might be wrong here, even though I natively speak English (native speakers of languages often don't have the least clue about their own language), and I thought the count/collective noun distinction was a standard feature of the sort of formalized (and usually not even getting close to the whole of the grammar of the actual language most people speak) English grammar that people get taught normally. 05:35, 27 Jul 2004 (CDT)

Hi guys, sorry for butting into somebody else's discussion but it looks like yet again we have sombody confusing the concepts of collective noun and mass noun / uncountable noun / non-count noun. Collective nouns are special singular nouns which refer to groups, usually of animals. A flock of sheep, a school of fish, a murder of crows. The latter 3 synonyms are what you are talking about here. Mud is an uncountable noun since you cannot say "a mud" or "muds" but you can say "the mud" and "some mud". Hope this makes the terms a bit clearer. — Hippietrail 11:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dutch Genders

Hi again Polyglot.

I'm going to continue using just n and c for Dutch nouns since I don't possess a dictionary which differentiates between m and f. Please do a Google search and you'll understand that many sources no longer treat Dutch as having three genders even though many Dutch dictionaries still do. This is the case also with the Dutch self-teaching titles in my public library. I hope you can appreciate that I'm not stupid or ignorant or even stubborn on this point and I don't mind a bit if you continue to clarify my c attributions into m or f but please try to refrain from the subjective comments when doing so. Hippietrail 13:03, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Hippietrail,

I never meant to imply you are stupid. If anybody is ignorant, it is me for not knowing that some languages have a common gender. Dutch doesn't though. Dictionaries sometimes add (de) after a word to indicate that it is not neuter. That 's what Vandale seems to do.

I also have to admit that the word gender, isn't always agreed upon between Holland and Flanders. It is important though. Not when one simply needs to put an article in front of a word, but it is when you refer to the word with pronoun. An example:

Daar staat de tafel. (There is the table)

Ik zie ze. (I see it)

So tafel is a word with female gender.

De auto staat in de garage. (The car is in the garage)

Ik heb hem daar gezet. (I put it there)

So auto is a word with male gender.

I hope this makes it clearer that there really are three genders in Dutch as spoken and used today and that it makes sense to indicate them properly. It is not possible to fully speak or write Dutch correctly if one only knows that the gender is common as opposed to neutral. Except if one avoids using pronouns to refer to the words.

I would rather see you add the Dutch translations without indicating the gender than to see them with c, since that doesn't make sense to me.

Sorry for having offended you, apparently, that was not my intention Polyglot 16:23, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Polyglot,

In answer to your question, I think you have asked two worthwhile questions--whether to begin adding audio pronunciations and whether to start a multi-lingual phrase book. I think both could be quite useful.

In particular, audio pronunciations bypass interpreting written pronunciations, something which can help native speakers and beginners alike, especially in a not-really-phonetic language such as English. Yes, it adds another layer of complexity and effort to the project, but Wiktionary is (supposedly) a living project with lots of contributors, some of whom may willingly share their voices. (For now, if you, personally, want to hear a word in English, the folks at http://www.m-w.com/ include audio files already, if not free ones.)

As for a phrase book, it too could be useful, if simply by having audio and many languages. I don't feel like I have been involved deeply enough in the politics of this project to judge whether a phrase book is within the scope of Wiktionary. I guess that depends on how detailed it becomes. Greetings and pleasantries are one thing; every idea a human might someday want to express, quite another. It should certainly become a special page or appendix, not part of the definition of "phrase book". Perhaps the appropriate approach is to try it, and see if it grows, fizzles, or draws criticism.

In a nutshell, I would, eventually, like to see both, as long as they are not created at the expense of a solid English dictionary. Ultimately, that's just one woman's opinion; the rest of the world will want its say.

Dvortygirl 07

02, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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G'day Polyglot. I saw your addittion to my Spanish ordenador/computadora/computador entries. I actually compiles an Excel spreadsheet with the results of a Google search for each variant in each Spanish speaking country. All 3 words occur in each country of course but every country (except one) takes a clear favourite of over 50% of usage with the other two forms mostly splitting the remainder. The file is on a different computer but I can send it to you if you'd like and if you're interested in such things. (: Hippietrail 11:23, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Hippietrail,

My first reaction was to ask somebody from Peru and she told me they also use computador, although I never heard it when I was there. So I thought I would add it. Maybe it's better to add that all three forms can be used but that certain countries favour on word over another. I'm always interested in electronic word lists, maybe I can write a script to get them into Wiktionary, if time permits. Polyglot 07:26, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Sorry to put my message here, but I guess someone (possibly you) blocked this page's talk page. Don't hesitate to move it to the proper place :)
My real question: could you respond to my objections to the use of the name Onthaalpagina? Guaka 00:31, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi Guaka,

Onthaalpagina sounds better to me. Probably the influence of all those Belgian web sites...

If it has to be Hoofdpagina, I'll rest my case.

I protected this page after various incidents of vandalism around a month ago. Sorry, forgot to unprotect it. Polyglot 11:34, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Vocabulary Project

Hej Polyglot, I have written a program for learning vocabulary, and since you speak foreign languages and like to work on dictionaries I thought you might be interested. The program is based on the belief that it is best to learn foreign words by learning typical sentences. It can also be used for learning other stuff that works with the question/answer scheme, e.g. the theory for the driving licence or anatomy. Unfortunately I wrote in qbasic, which can be downloaded here. In the long run the program should be rewritten in a better language like Visual Basic. Afterwards it should be possible to switch languages within the program. Up to now there is a different version of the program for each language. The program uses images and sound files for alternation and in order to work on the pronunciation. If you are interested let me know. I currently have files in English, French (with sound), and Spanish. Catalan and Portuguese are in the planning. Corrections or additions are very welcome. The easiest thing to start with for improvements would be adding new vocabulary, sound files or images. A guide to the program will follow soon, although I think it is rather self-explanatory. Get-back-world-respect 16:32, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hello GBWR,

Your program sounds very interesting. I'll go over and have a look at it. Probably tomorrow.

I don't agree Visual Basic would be a better language than qbasic. If you have to rewrite it anyway, maybe you could consider something like wxPython. This will make sure that your program is cross-platform, i.e. that it will run equally well on Windows as on Linux. Python is an interesting language to know in the long run and wxWidgets enables you to create great interfaces.

If you release the program under the GPL license, you can host it on sourceforge and you will find other interested people to help contribute to it. Polyglot 17:09, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry, had not seen this before. Could you please reply here next time? Interesting that you suggest Python. I heard about it for the first time today, also when checking the page of someone I had asked about the project. Others agreed that I should make it cross-platform. Makes sense, especially given the open-source idea. In the meantime winamp and Stefan Peichl (LxPic) allowed me to use their programs and I made a nice zip-package. What is sourceforge? Get-back-world-respect 23:11, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

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Why do you remove translations into other languages from non-English words? I guess you have a good reason for this, but my first thought is good to have them. Guaka 00:09, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Polyglot likes to remove them because he feels they are redundant. Personally I would rather have them because the chances are that any 2 languages have closer equivalents than English can provide as an "interlanguage". However, on Wiktionary, people tend to cut and paste from other translations anyway and there's no way to know which are the accurate direct translations and which are merely cut and pasted from some other page. — Hippietrail 01:52, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OOPS! Sorry Polyglot for replying in your user page! I thought this question was in the Beer parlour! — Hippietrail

No problem Hippie. I think, if there are indeed direct translations that can't be rendered well with Enlgish as pivot, we should add those to the foreign language entries. I believe however that in most cases this is not necessary. I'm a bit concerned about things getting unmanageable if we try to have translations from any language to any language. I'm not good enough at math to calculate all the possible combinations. But even without being able to calculate it I can see that this is a huge number, given that there are say 5000 languages each with a vocabulary of a few hundred thousand words. That number is probably higher if we start to include expressions and composite words. Then you have to multiply this number by the number of Wiktionaries in existence. A few hundred seems realistic. Building a dictionary is a daunting task. Most people wouldn't even consider starting on it even with a little group of people that gets bigger little by little. Let's try to keep our prespective realistic.

As an (amateur) programmer, I know it is best to reuse code as much as possible. Transposing that common sense over here I believe it's best to reuse our lists as much as possible. I can see however that there are situations where a sense is not translatable with English as an intermediate. Exceptions should be made for those cases.

All this is my opinion. If most people don't agree with this, I will give up on removing those translations between foreign languages. Please consider that in order to find translations between two exotic languages, one might have to follow/hunt down all the links of all the translations, since it is possible that one person has added the translation to Kannada to the entry for Swahili and another person has added the translation to a language spoken on Tuvalu to the entry for a native American language because they happen to know this combination of languages. When all the languages are in one list on one page it will be a whole lot easier to find them (also with search engines).

I rest my case...

The combinatorial problem as you imagine it doesn't really exist since to have good translations from language Q to language R they need to be added by somebody who is bilingual in both or who has access to a bilingual dictionary on both languages. There are not even monolingual dictionaries for 5,000 languages. Exotic minority languages will be very very lucky if they have a dictionary in a world language or major nearby national language such as English, French, German, Chinese, or Russian. The other thing needed is for somebody to contribute each entry. If your concern is that such people exist with such knowlege and do such work that the Wiktionary become to big is not likely to occur. If your concern is in finding people capable and willing to add them, then it doesn't matter anyway - Wiktionary will never be complete - even moreso than OED or Websters which will also continue to expand into the foreseeable future.

As an example, I have a Spanish<->Finnish dictionary and a Tahitian<->French dictionary. I have almost 0 knowledge in either Finnish or Tahitian and though my Spanish is fair I can't claim any understanding of its subtleties. My French is less than abysmal. It seems a waste to not add translations from these dictionaries but it seems foolish/dangerous for me to extend the translation from the Finnish or Tahitian over to the English. Sooner or later somebody more knowlegable can improve things. In the meantime, worrying about people having to follow some links to find the English translation of a Tahitian word seems silly. It's better than not having the Tahitian word there at all, and it's better than me making a dumb "beginners" guess at which sense(s) work also for English.

But as I say I'm a bit worried that a few people will fall into the trap of collecting all the translations for their favourite word in their favourite language and cut and paste stuff which doesn't really match. Hell I just kinda did it myself with the a Finnish word for "bar". Lucky with a collaborative project like this things often get fixed by knowlegable people pretty quickly (: — Hippietrail 08:16, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There are words that are simple to translate, like the names of the elements, mostly the names of animals, plants and then there are words and expressions that are a lot more complicated to translate. I don't think it makes much sense to have those simple words translated over and over again between all the languages. The work becomes huge even with only 50 to 100 languages to maintain. On top of that somebody will add a word to one of those lists and not to the others and I don't think anybody is volunteering to update those other lists each time somebody changes something here or there. I know I am not. So everything becomes inconsistent.

The picture may be different for the more complicated words and meanings. As for the words that one doesn't know the English equivalent for. Maybe they can be added and then replaced by somebody knowledgeable. When I take a out a translation, I always check with the English entry and add it there if needed, so as not to lose that translation. Polyglot 08:47, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Don't be fooled by "simple" words. Animal names are notoriously tricky. Just look at moose / elk. Sure "dog" and "cat" are easy, but as we get deeper it gets harder - this is one reason for the Latin species names. There can be literally dozens of names for an "animal" some of which refer to separate species, some of which cover several species, some covering the same species. But even common animals are not immune - Umberto Eco has written a book (only available in English afaik), "Rat or Mouse?" which has one theme of the such translations. Go traveling someday and try to figure out what kind of fish is meant just by the name!

We're all volunteering to update whatever each of us feels like updating. You seem to be voluntarily moving lots of translations already (: Wiktionary will always be inconsistent - that's one thing we can count on. But it will always improve and the "Talk" pages will be great for disputes and questions. When you add a word to the English entry do you check with a dictionary? Do you check that the move doesn't diminish a shade of meaning? For instance, English distinguishes two locations in various paradigms: this/that these/those here/there; other languages such as Spanish and Japanese have three. If we moved Japanese "ano" from the Spanish "aquel" to the English "there", this will be lost. When I'm aware of these subtleties I try to make them apparent so nobody will move them, but I'm only aware in a few cases that I've learned myself - all others will certainly escape me.

I'm not trying to ask you to stop moving the translations, I just think it's interesting to talk about the ramifications here and get a few observations from different people. — Hippietrail 13:29, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Myself I think that in most cases moving translations should be possible. When a word is more specific than the English, such as aquel under "that" or estar under "be", the existence of more than one translation in the English list (in this case, also ese, and ser) should already be a hint (in theory) that they should check the entries of the words themselves before they blindly translate.

When it's less specific, like Japanese ? (nezumi) (which doesn't differentiate between rat and mouse) or Bosnian ruka (usually "hand", but indicates a span of the body including both the hand and the forearm), it should still be listed (as the closest normal translation which conveys the meaning wanted) and again, more detail should be found in the foreign entry itself.

These are basic concerns found in all multilingual dictionaries, and hopefully anyone using Wiktionary for this is aware of that... I don't think the lack of 1:1 mapping between various languages is a problem we can solve. I think Polyglot's concerns are valid here, and indeed understated: heck, you don't have just 5000 languages, but regionalisms to deal with also: you might call pop what we call soda, or what my family calls medias (socks) yours might call calcetines. Who will add what translations where? Whatever may be the best way to solve this, multiplying translation lists is probably not among them, as due to the wiki way each will find a way to end up incrementally different. —Muke Tever 16:01, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad to get some support with this. Sometimes I feel I can't explain things well enough. I think with the proper hinting it should indeed be possible to suffice with single translation lists in the native language entries of each Wiktionary. Of course this requires some intelligence on the part of the users, but in the single year I was studying for translator, I remember they had to explain us how to correctly use a dictionary, so it shouldn't be a problem if the Wiktionaries need to come with a user manual for proper usage. If I look something up in a paper dictionary, I also need a lot of common sense to find a good translation in it. Funnily, I often have to rephrase completely anyway, sometimes not even using what I found in the dictionary, except as a hint to the meaning.

There are some words - like plant and animal names - for which it might make sense to have the list of translations under the Scientific name. Those should be unique for each of them. I'm not absolutely certain they are and I don't know what to do with all the varieties that are being added to plant names lately every time a new breed is developed.Polyglot 21:53, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I had the same idea re the scientific names a while ago but forgot to mention it. Anyway I'm all in favour. "variety" is the correct name for plants, I believe. "breed" is for animals and I think you have to have so many generations without throwbacks to earn the term "breed". They're both akin to the concept of "race" in humans. I think the term "variety" is used for new versions created by horiculturists so they creator gets to name it and it shouldn't have too many common names. Also note that scientific names are changed surprisingly often as new information is found. But that shouldn't stop us. I found a whole popular science book a couple of weeks ago on the topic of confusion in the popular names of animals by the way. If there's enough to make a whole book on the subject it's sure to affect us here. — Hippietrail 02:34, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Wiktionary database

Hi Polyglot. Thanks for the info about SQL searches on Wiktionary that you posted on my user talk page. I'll investigate this when I get some time too look at it. Regards -- Paul G 09:36, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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nl.wiktionary.org

The project has just been started and I'm applying to be a sysop there. Could you be so kind to add your comments on this on http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_Wiktionary_permissions? Positive or negative. If it's not too negative after a week, Angela will turn me into a sysop. I don't know about bureaucrat status. I guess it makes sense to ask for that as well, but this seems much more like something a consensus of nl.wiktionary.org is needed for. Angela told me to also involve nl.wikipedia.org, but I have almost never contributed there. And I don't see how they can comment one way or another. If there is a need for it, I would also apply for eo and (temporarily) for es.wiktionary.org. It is likely that eo will remain rather small. I expect es.wiktionary.org to pick up pretty quickly. nl.wiktionary.org is going to get the most of my attention though.

Many thanks, Polyglot 10:37, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

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Polyglot, why did you rewrite the Slovak plural in snob??? Red Prince 19:09, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Red Prince. I turned it into a link, since snobi is described on another page. This is the way we have been doing this for quite some time now. Is it a big problem? I was simply trying to have it look more like the entries for the other languages. Each spelling of a word or declension has its own page, well if it's noteworthy enough, at least, i.e. it is irregular or that same spelling has another meaning in another language. Polyglot 19:26, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

No, not a problem, Certainly not the the link itself (though it is linking to a non-existent entry, so it seems rather meaningless, as typing in every possible form of every Slovak word as a separate entry would probably require quite a huge database). It is the placing of the plural into parentheses that surprised me. It seems more consistent to have it as "snobi pl" than as "(plural snobi)". I mean, it is just one of the forms listed. Perhaps in other languages, the plural is just a by-the-way thing, but in Slovak it is an essential part of figuring out how to decline the noun. So, either it should all be in parentheses or none of it (would seem to me). I spent some time thinking it through, coming up with a meaningful way of displaying all the necessary information without having to type every case for each word, adding a link to the appropriate declension and showing any forms that might differ from the pattern (yes, Slovak has more exceptions than rules).—Red Prince 19:56, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Red Prince,

It isn't a very big problem that it is in red and remains so for an extended time. When somebody feels like clicking on it and then decides to turn it into an entry, it will become one. If nobody ever does, no problem. If the entry gets created, it is possible to check which pages link to it and it is possible to also add the Slovak meaning of that particular spelling. It is also not a problem that the database grows big, although, maybe it makes more sense to have all possible declensions of words on the Slovakian Wiktionary. That's hard to decide. I hope others will chime in. My opinion is: as many words as possible and as many links between them as possible. Except for the words that come back on almost every page, like the parts of speech and the names of the common languages. We don't need to worry the database will grow too big. Technology is constantly improving and electronic storage will keep getting cheaper for at least the next ten years. December 2003 has shown that even if there is a need for extra funds, they actually do get raised. And that's with the current, still relatively small community. It is to be expected that this will also keep growing rapidly. So, I would say: turn them all into links. The ones that are blue at the moment you create the Slovak article, you follow them and add the Slovak meaning. The others can simply stay in red. For more regular languages, it makes more sense to refer to a declension or conjugation model noun, adjective or verb. The abbreviations m, f, n and pl are used for the word that is described in that entry. The declensions are prepended by what they are, or they can be put in a table to clarify what they are. I think it should be possible to parse the information with a computer program. So it should be as streamlined/standardised as possible. We try to use abbreviations sparingly. There are no constraints for the length of an entry. It doesn't need to be printed on paper.Polyglot 22:21, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

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I have no problem with {{User:Hippietrail]] becoming an admin. Perhaps the best place to post such requests is at Wiktionary:Administrators. As you say, we probably already have enough, but I won't use that against a deserving person. Perhaps the only thing that I insist on is the proposed admin's consent. Eclecticology 03:39, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

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Thanks for your welcoming message, Polyglot! RSvK 15:40, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Afrikaans

Hi, Jo. Over on Wikipedia, somebody asserted that "The name Afrikaans is simply the Dutch word for African." Is this true? I was wondering, because the Wiktionary entry for Afrikaans doesn't agree. I thought a native Dutch speaker might be somewhat authoritative. :) -- Ortonmc 23:40, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Ĥoro

Do you know whether the Esperanto word Ĥoro is capitalised? Is there no lower-case h-circumflex in Esperanto? — Paul G 11:01, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dutch words in need of correct gender

Hi Polyglot. Please just tell me if this is really annoying and I'll never do it again (:

Here's a short list of words in Wiktionary which have Dutch translations but just have "de" for the gender because I couldn't find a source with better information:

• almond
• apricot
• archer
• boar
• breast
• broth
• colony
• cricket
• cube
• dice
• dot
• gnat
• heel
• honesty
• knot
• marimba
• meaning
• messenger
• moisture
• muscle
• mussel
• pasta
• peanut
• rod
• roe
• sheath
• step
• syllable
• telephone
• treasure
• trunk
• typewriter

— Hippietrail 14:43, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And here some more I found by Googling the various Wiktionary mirrors: Thanks again!

• alcohol
• armpit
• artery
• barge
• blindness
• bravery
• cataract
• chamber
• chandelier
• crossbow
• devil
• fingerprint
• gamut
• garden
• germ
• glacier
• glazier
• grapevine
• gravy
• guard
• handcuff
• handmade
• hobbit
• hostel
• hunter
• inaccuracy
• joystick
• marionette
• noodle
• novel
• oath
• pea
• puppet
• rutabaga
• scabbard
• shovel
• sock
• soldier
• spoon
• stalk
• stern
• taunt
• tenure
• turnip
• uterus
• vein
• whiskey
• whisky
• yeast

— Hippietrail 15:58, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

you suck

Why did you delete you suck without commenting further on talk:you suck? Should we not have a phrasebook? I think a phrase book is a good idea, but I could see it being argued that it is a seperate project entirely. --Eean 18:57, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Project to get basic words defined

User:Richardb/Project - Basic English Word Cleanup.

Active Participants

The following people have contributed to the project so far. Can you help too ?

• dmh- enthusiastically running with it
• Eclecticology - This seems like a useful idea.

I've not publicised this in the Beer Parlour because I don't want just anyone to test out the idea, only the currently active players--Richardb 11:36, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I'm happy to be working on some simpler level projects at the moment. but your project sounds good for the longer term, ultimate soultion.--Richardb 14:44, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Knaggs

Hello Jo.

OK, I have listed Knaggs as RfD.

By the way, when I first added it to Wikipedia it was also VfD but survived. Cheers. SemperBlotto 20:03, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

goatse.cx

I'll take a look at that vandal later... Jamesday 18:13, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about that...

Polyglot,

I was unaware you were starting a deletion run. After taking a few minutes to compose a fictional, but probably entry for goatse. cx, I posted it. Minutes after, I noticed you had just deleted it (3 minutes earlier.) Sorry to have crossed tracks so akwardly. Is it your birthday? --Connel MacKenzie 07:43, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I had become very sensitive to this term. I doubt that it is necessary for us as a dictionary project to describe this web site and I will probably nominate it on rfd.

No it's not my birthday. Why would that be relevant?

I too am agravated by the recent proliferation of these repulsive links. Only because of it, I've gotten slightly adept at reverting changes. (The birthday comment was not related; I saw something you deleted that had that text and wondered for a moment if it was intended for you.) Again, you can delete the goatse article if you want, without and rfd; it was only a matter of criss-crossing delete & posting times. --Connel MacKenzie 09:10, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

For several months we have had hardly any vandalism. Together with the increase in popularity we also seem to attract the less intelligent part of our civilization. I guess we'll just have to learn to live with this new situation. I attempt to shoot the obvious crap on sight, in order to save other people some time. I hope my judgement is correct the majority of the time and I'm constantly monitoring whether there are complaints. Keep up the good work. Polyglot 10:39, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi again! Thanks for fixing Ekmek. I had no idea. When you get a chance, could you run through Category:Requests for deletion please? Is seems to be suffering from neglect...there are over 50 items that should probably go quickly. --Connel MacKenzie 22:11, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Gee Poggylot, seems like you love cluttering up the block list. It takes me several minutes to reset my IP and create a new user. That's annoying. Dudley Dowrong 10:54, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Shoot, dude, you done missed the point. I am pelican shit guy. The point was, it's silly buggers to keep banning me. You done blocked a whole lotta IPs there, and some of them are university networks. Why you wanna keep on messing over the valid users in a vain effort to block one griefer? Don't make no sense, man, specially when it don't even work.

Dudley Dowrong 17:31, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Whoa, just looked at "recent". Guess what? 69.166.113.230 wasn't me. Heh. Looks like you have a copycat as well. Dudley Dowrong 17:33, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well now. Since you asked, I'll respond, then I'll discard this account.

I have nothing against Wiktionary. In fact, I wish you well, though I think you would do better to relax your "encyclopedic" rule. Some things need a more detailed explanation to be of any use.

If you look at wiki.mozilla.org's blocklist, you'll see a lot of familiar names. I screw with them too, as well as a lot of other places. So your question is "why"?

Amusement. Nothing else. I really don't consider myself a "vandal", I'm a troll. It amuses me to make others go "WTF??". I get a chuckle out of it when you revert my nonsense, because then I know you found it. But one response that doesn't amuse me is a ban. I take bans as a personal challenge. I've never been successfully banned, and I'm determined to keep that record. So your instant bans are beginning to annoy me. I actually feel a bit bad about getting so many innocent IPs blocked for long terms.

See, as long as you keep doing that, I feel obligated to prove I've defeated you again, so I come back. In truth, I'm getting tired of this place and would fade away if you didn't keep slapping me with the gauntlet. So let's call it a draw. I'll stop now if you recognize you can't block me. Of course, I can't do anything about the copycat. He amuses me too, but I don't know who he is. You can do as you please with him. Dudley Dowrong 10:18, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sysophood

Hi Connel,

I see you have been making some good contributions during the last three months and I believe you would make a good sysop. Would you be interested in the 'privilege'? Then I'll nominate you. If no major objections arise, we can ask Eclecticology to give you sysop rights. All you would have to do is to shoot obvious vandalism and spamvertising. The stuff that's less clear, still has to go to {{rfd}} for debate. Polyglot 09:07, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dear Polyglot,

Thank you very much for your generous offer. I am flattered and honored. I honestly do not desire to have the ability to delete pages. Sometimes the distinction is very subtle; occasionally my gut instinct has been dead-wrong. In those cases, I've been rewarded and informed by other's review of my rfd. But there are sysop features I do desire, such as one-click edit-reverting, block users and protect pages. (That is, if I understand sysop correctly.) There are still facets of deletion that I do not understand; e.g. can Transwiki pages be deleted (or do they have to be moved first, to a temporary name?)

This (curiously) is a difficult decision for me. I'd like to think about it for a day or two before you do any such nominiation, if that's OK with you.

--Connel MacKenzie 09:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dear Jo,

Thank you, Yes, I would like to be nominated to become the active American sysop. A good night's sleep always helps.

Re: blocking. My MO would be to block for 12 to 24 hours by IP, 12-24 weeks by username (er, maybe a little less.) As "?Dudley Dowrong" pointed out, (and I must confess, he is right;) we cannot win, with blocking. However, slowly over time we will prevail. The act of blocking an ip/user just allows us breathing room to catch up on reverting entries and obvious deletions. I think perhaps the most telling aspect of his post, is the indication of his abused past; he *is* taunted into further action from getting attention. Poor kid; I've started praying for him. I can't do much else for him.

--Connel MacKenzie 16:34, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

Hi Jo,

Just noticed the "rollback" feature on a user contributions page! Does this really roll back ALL edits a user has done? Wow. I'm a little scared to test this, even on 68.115.91.185. This anon ip had created a new garbage entry. Before I added "rfd" to it, it looked like I was allowed to rollback his one and only change; that would in effect delete that single entry? I'll have to remember not to touch the entry next time, so I can try it. Is that a line-by-line rollback, or all for a user, I wonder? --Connel MacKenzie 22:13, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

SemperBlotto Sysop

Hello Jo,

Yes, that would be nice. I do get annoyed at the frequent vandalism, but would try to restrain myself.

If you want more details about me, I am w:User:Knaggs in Wikipedia, but don't do much work there these days. My real name is Jeffery Knaggs, and I live in Stevenage, about 30 miles north of London. SemperBlotto 10:31, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No hurry! Whenever it suites you. And it won't be the end of the world if the vote is No. SemperBlotto 15:42, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Country

Hi Jo,

I see you reverted the entry for Country to the version that I (and others) questioned. The etymology that is listed now does not match any reference I can find, but the "fictional" one does. Was this what you indended? --Connel MacKenzie 18:15, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wedge

Hi Jo,

I was about to clean up Wedge, but looking at it, I have to wonder if you just posted an entry to the wrong article/page? What you have at Wedge looks like it belongs at gaggle? --Connel MacKenzie 06:22, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the welcome! Everybody has been quite friendly and helpful. Wiktionary has been great fun so far.--Alia H 06:09, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hello!
I think that
<input type="hidden" name="num" value="50">
should be inserted to 
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Googlesearch
so that 50 search matches could be displayed at one time.
Greetings 
--Dubaduba 20:26, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

thanks

Cheers for the yes vote for the Adminship by the way. and that is all i have to say --Wonderfool 10:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Bureaucrats

You've been nominated to be promoted to Bereaucract status. Please either accept or reject the nomination at Wiktionary:Bureaucrats. Kevin Rector 02:56, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Audio, at last

Jo,

As you may have noticed, I finally got a decent microphone and got set up to do audio pronunciations. (GerardM talked me into it with a single word in Dutch.) You can try some examples at associate and attribute. Please let me know what you think. Ideally, I would like to perfect the process before creating thousands of entries that will need later correction. I think I may also be up to trying again at a phrase book, if you're still interested, though I think we should build it a category, if we haven't yet.

Also, thank you for your vote on my admin nomination. Your welcome was the first thing ever on my user talk, and it's still one of my favorites, so I value your support. If I make it I will doubtless be back here for help figuring out how to proceed! To that end, I encourage you to join us in Wiktionary IRC. Besides including all of the current admin nominees, who will appreciate your guidance, the channel has grown into a remarkably international group, and we have all been learning a great deal from each other. We would welcome your company. --Dvortygirl 18:05, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Archive

In the rfd there is mention of the material at User talk:Polyglot/archive that was put there by someone else. I've deleted these pages where for users who either absent or have a short page. However, for those who are active and have a long page it seems better to just leave a notice and let you do what you wanbt with it. I will be removing the reference from the rfd page. Eclecticology 05:57, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC)

I deleted it, thanks for telling me. Polyglot 06:19, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

bank

Hello!

I think the current practice is to just say "See English meaning above" for foreign language entries that are the same.

--Connel MacKenzie 23:22, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Japanese-English

Hi. I have placed a small extract of the JMdict file at http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/samplexlm.gz It has the DTD at the front (comments about each entiry, etc. are in the DTD.) The sample covers many, but not all, of the less common aspects of entries.

BTW, I see you removed the discussion from the Beer Parlour, then re-instated it.

BTW2, I suspect I should have put the discussion into the Talk page of About: Japanese-English bilingual, and left the page itself for policy, etc. matters. Is this correct? Cheers. Jim. JimBreen 11:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Fanfare

Congratulations on writing entry 80,000! — Paul G 10:28, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Hehe, of course that's why I had become so active lately... :-) Polyglot 10:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

It seems like Dvortygirl should get the fanfare though. I don't mind. I was mostly rehashing old content anyway. It would have been odd that I hit number 80.000. Phew! :-) Polyglot 10:52, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I really don't know who's keeping track of these things, or how to tell exactly who got what number. How about congratulations to the project and to the community for growing to 80,000 entries together? --Dvortygirl 07:29, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation labels mnemonic suggestion

Hi Polyglot. I do think that disambiguation labels will be a good thing if people learn to use them but they need to be robust. I see that you are using labels such as <!--DefA--> etc. The problem with these is that they are arbitrary and meaningless. If they get moved around to different homonyms or senses somehow it will be hard to notice. This is most likely to happen when senses are split but also if the order is changed by a naive user who isn't aware of disambig. labels. I suggest making them mnemonic so that there is something tangible connecting them to a particular sense. It still only need be a few letters. — Hippietrail 01:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm using these labels too, although I have been using Def1, etc, as there are an infinite number of these, whereas DefA, etc, run out after the twenty-sixth. I think Hippietrail's is a valuable suggestion.

Anyhow, I wanted to point out that you (I think it is you) seem to be leaving the hash (#) in the labels. This gives a number that doesn't necessarily correspond to the number of the definition (returning us to the days before translation tables) and that comes out as a 1 if there are spaces between the tables. The numbers don't seem to serve any useful purpose (that is not already served by the labels) and so I have been removing them. — Paul G 09:55, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why you leave the hash there. Surely the visible label (the summary of the definition) is sufficient, and the numbers can get out of synch with the definitions, as used to happen. They all come out as "1." if the tables are laid out with space between them, which I prefer to do as it makes the entry easier to edit. Why you leave the hashes in?

Hippietrail's is a good idea as makes the commented labels easier to match up. — Paul G 10:24, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

"Lead" now looks hideous! I don't like those boxes at all. Why do the visible labels need numbers or bullets at all? I think they look fine without anything at all. — Paul G 10:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

"Glad we agree that it looks hideous without numbers." Well, I think it looked hideous with bullet points, not that it didn't have numbers.

Tin is looking good (with no numbers or bullets). I think the labels are fine. I'm still not entirely sure why they are necessary - how do they help? — Paul G 08:47, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Romanian words

Hi hi. Yeup, they are Romanian words. Glad I could help with translating some of them. Sorry if they're not too complete. These are my first contributions and I kind of just put them up there. Glad you looked em over =)

About the verbs, it is true, the infinitive does not include "to" like it does in french. So I'll add an "a" in front of them. Saying just the verb sounds kind of strange, actually.

Romanian words do have genders. I had forgotten about that =P. They actually have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to identify the difference between male and neuter nouns. Perhaps I'll look the words up to find out, or ask somebody. What's the standard way of putting in gender info?

I don't think adjectives have comparitives or superlatives. For example:

• good - "bun"
• better - "mai bun" - more good
• best - "cel mai bun" - the most good
• So you add words, you do not modify the adjective.

Laxori666

The problem is that there isn't another personal pronoun for neuter nouns. Also there is no separate article for them. Like in german you have der, die and das. But in Romanian, you only have a masculine one and a feminine one. I think what happens is that neuter nouns act masculine in some places while acting feminine in others. I'm not sure exactly, I'm going to have to look into it.

Ah, never mind, just looked into it. Apparently neuter nouns act masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural. So I should be able to distinguish them now.

Laxori666

Images from Commons (osprey)

Hi! What's the point in adding all the images from the Commons (especially including a redundant one)? Isn't the tag {{commons|page_name}} used just for that? We could also transfer the whole Wikipedia article on osprey but would it make any sense? I don't see any reason for that and many reasons against it (e.g. needlessly big, slow-loading and unclear entries, not mentioning redundancy with other Wikiprojects). I thought Wiktionary is for definitions/translations, Wikipedia for articles and Commons for images on a particular subject. Isn't one image per definition enough in a dictionary? I must say I'm a little confused now. It is an obvious mistake for me, but on the other hand I see you're an admin here, so probably you know what you're doing. :) Nevertheless, I'm reverting that change now and if there are reasons for placing all the Commons images on Wiktionary's pages, please try not to ban me for that in a rightful wrath. Just revert my reversal. Oh, and I would be happy to know the reasons behind such redundancy (you know, acceptance through understanding). :) Greetings, --Marac 23:52, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi again! I was sure you're not going to ban me for a change made in good faith - it was only a joke. :)

Thank you for your welcome. I'm not a native either - I'm from Poland. I just hope my English is good enough to contribute to this project. If I make a grammar mistake or two, somebody will correct me, I suppose - isn't this whole wiki thing about correcting? :)

I'm also hoping to contribute more (it is a great fun for me) - if only it wasn't soooo time-consuming (talking about preparing a complete entry). A day should last for at least 48 hours. Unfortunately it cannot be simply corrected by clicking on "edit". What a pity... :) --Marac 02:06, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Airplane / Aeroplane

Hello Jo, good work with center / centre. Do you think it would be a good idea to do the same for airplane / aeroplane? Aeroplane is just an old British version of the word, and not many people use it today, even in England. Cheers. SemperBlotto 09:04, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Ahem. I have no objection to airplane , but aeroplane is alive and well in Australia, where it is always used. I haven't spent a vast amount of time in the UK, but when there I have heard aeroplane often and airplane rarely. In Oz, "airplane" is only seen in texts originating in the US. I don't know what you did to centre, but I suggest something like aeroplane, which gets about 800,000 Google hits, is hardly obsolete.--JimBreen 07:05, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

centre nor center aren't obsolete at all either. I simply transfered all the common information to one entry and left the specific with the other. What I want to avoid is duplication of information. Take the translations list, you copy it, then somebody adds a language two one entry and somebody else adds a language to the other entry's version. When are these ever going to come together again? Somebody looks it up, looking for the translation, doesn't find the info, because it happened to be on the other side. Now somebody will come along, sees there are no translation tables at a specific table, but a redirecting link to the other entry instead. He goes to the entry that happens to be the main entry and finds all the translations there together. The same goes for all the other data the two entries have in common. Polyglot 12:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Plural form

I noticed that it is the case that the plural form is made into a link, but to what? - Marshman 03:15, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Writing home about it

Jo, I just saw you translate nothing to write home about into Dutch. I had no idea it even had a Dutch equivalent. Your translations were one of the first things that drew me into Wiktionary. It still amazes me that I can put a word in here and, miraculously, somebody on the other side of the world cares enough to translate it into two or three languages.

Anyway, thank you for all you do for Wiktionary and for all the support you have given the community for so long. It's inspiring. --Dvortygirl 06:34, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Template:frtrad

Reply left on my talk page --Expurgator t(c) 22:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

lol

I think (the same guy from the other night?) eliminated the Dutch altogether. --Stranger 23:50, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Since you did it before . . . Can you revert terrorist and Muslim please? Thanks. --Stranger 03:29, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

And one more while you're at it: authority. Bedtime. --Stranger 04:05, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning these up and for getting shalom too. Wonderfool wasn't around, apparently, to get my note on that one. I know where to report vandalism, but is there any place to report general rubbish like this? If not, do you think a subpage of VIP would be a good idea? I don't want things like Muslim and terrorist going unnoticed if you happen to go on holiday (like Wonderfool may have done). Cheers. --Stranger 13:10, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

German capitalization

Sorry about that. The rule didn't occur to me at the time. My mistake. Thanks. -- Shoehorn 14:09, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Ncik

Hello Polyglot,

Yes, I can certainly explain my actions. I will send you a private e-mail (assuming your e-mail is entered correctly here.)

--Connel MacKenzie 22:21, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Hello Jo. I took the liberty of restoring my response and moving your responses to a following section. The edit you made (particularly the intervening whitespace) disrupted the numbering of my response, rendering it quite difficult to read, I think. Just taking a quick glance at your response, I'm confused as to how you can conclude that I was acting as a bully. After numerous warnings, in light of his continued slanderous personal attacks (especially on WT:BP but also elsewhere) I do not feel I did anything untoward. I expect that characterization could be clarified some, to eventually reach a reasonable mutual understanding. --Connel MacKenzie 12:47, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Connel vs. Ncik

Thanks for the heads up on this. These two have not been getting on at all lately. I'll look into it, and try to bring them to an agreeable solution. If it has to go further than that I'll look for community support rather than trying to develop complex procedures for dealing with this sort of thing. Eclecticology 23:16:41, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

protecting images

I thought I saw that you posted a message to the BP asking if we should protect images. I can't find your posting, but wanted to comment. That idea had been discussed and rejected. I believe I filed it in the VIP/archive. The crux was that people were fearful ap would move on to more destructive vandalism if this image plaything was eliminated. Better the devil you know. Cheers, --Stranger 17:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll look at the BP more carefully.

I've seen the image. And you make sense. I agree - it's worth the risk of something worse to keep that image out.

Maybe I'll change your "nick-name" to "The Wise Dutch Expert". Cheers, --Stranger 22:06, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

embarrassed

Just to let you know about this word. Your name came up basically at random (as a grammar expert this time) :-). Again, it was pretty much random. Anyway, if you're interested, you can have a look at: Talk:embarrassed Cheers, --Stranger 00:23, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

it's okay

I just saw your note on Safeplace. Thanks. And before this I saw your note on Dishwashing. Thank you for your support there too. Cheers, --Stranger 00:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

bots

moved conversation to User_talk:PolyBot, so it stays together more coherently

Talk:venturi

Thanks for your note after I blanked the page. I'm glad it was nothing vulgar, but I guess you can't be too careful. Cheers, --Stranger 00:30, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

butterfly - for the record

I started writing this note twice. I just want to point out how nice Dv-girl (I have a hard enough time spelling regular words!) is, in case you missed it: She originally gave the butterfly and posted the message underneath it: for cleaning up our forgotten and mistreated "rfc" list - or something to that effect. I then left my message saying that I was just cleaning up the list not all the words and asking her if she wanted to take the butterfly back. Then she changed it to: conscientious contributor. Just to point it out that: she was very thoughtful. Cheers, --Stranger 15:38, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Conversion script for UW?

Hi Polyglot, I hear you're working on a conversion script for UW; can you point me to where it is on Sourceforge? I see that there is a new pywikipediabot/wiktionary directory... Is there some way for me to test it out on a pair wikt and test databases? (I guess that would require a creation script for the right test db...) Thanks :-) +sj + 20:38, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, I'd love your comments on the unified wiktionary outreach project when you have a moment. +sj +

self-promotion

I answered on Ec's user-page. Cheers, --Stranger 01:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

entbehren

You put a note on this word in comment < ! - - comment - - > form on this page. Can you not do that, please? The talk page is much more convenient for the rest of us who want to see what you've said. Thanks! (Oh, I moved it to the talk page for this word.) --Stranger 14:56, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

welcoming people

I think newcomers should be welcomed as soon after they arrive as is possible. I've been working a bit (with Dvortygirl) on the {welcome} template to do this. I think an administrator should do the welcoming, but it isn't happening. I think I'm not qualified to welcome people because I'm relatively new here. But I've decided that shouldn't be an obstacle and that a prompt welcome message is more important than my qualifications, since I can always refer questions to you more senior folks.

I do have another concern, though, which is why I'm addressing this to you. At the bottom of the welcome message is the note: if you have any questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page. (or words to that effect). Then you sign your name.

How do I say this? I might not be the best person for a newcomer to meet. I don't want them to be scared away by something like Safeplace or Wiktionarians Anonymous. Even if I try to hide those links, a curious newcomer can find them.

I worry a lot and think far too much. Maybe a blog. Well, I'll be seeing a doctor on Wednesday and will likely be out of commission (wiki-wise) for about a week, so I'll have some time to think. So, I guess the point of all this is:

Thanks for listening. Sorry to bother you.

Cheers,

--Stranger 23:47, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

verb templates

It appears I ranted at you in my reply. I should have waited until the Muse had passed from my system before trying to communicate complex ideas. I do want to say that I've only just begun to use templates and therefore cannot compliment you on venturing into the mess which were the verb templates because I didn't know the mess existed. Connel believes the mess existed and I'll trust his judgment on that. Best wishes, --Stranger 20:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Template:en-conj-reg

You have my support for this template. Has a nicer name than regverb, and also sets things in bold and wikifies them automatically (which, on the 11th of August, regverb did as well; I changed this because at the time I had the stupid idea of including pronunciations and other stuff for the inflected forms which led, in connection with boldifying and wikifying, to massive problems). Ncik 16:38, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Polyglot/monobook.js

Jo,

Thanks for taking a look at this. So far, my experiment has not gone very far. Obviously, it is not ready for prime time. Like the Russian Wikipedia (where I got some of it) it should be activated by a button. Or perhaps a row of buttons, for each of the different actions (which may end up with their own controversy.)

I'd like it to auto-Show-Changes whenever it changes something. Right now, just opening up a page for editing causes many "invisible" changes - if I'm not careful, I won't even notice the extent that I modify articles now. Making the action button-activated would alleviate some of that, I suppose.

Anyway, I am interesting in hearing how well it works (or doesn't) in other browsers. Well wait, no not I'm not - at least not yet. This intermediate version will never end up being the "final" version anyway. I'd rather get the header nesting pinned down (politically and technically) long before going that route. Make that 'and' an 'or'.  :-)

--Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 02:09, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Connel,

I did look at monobook.js. The first question that popped up is: is all this executed as soon as I start editing a page? Your comment on my talk page seems to confirm that it is.

What would it take to add buttons to your javascripts, so that one can select which action is performed? That would make those scripts very useful to me. I don't know the first thing about javascript and I'm not very motivated to find out. It's not laziness, it's trying to be efficient. You seem to know where to look. You stated that on the Russian Wiktionary/pedia they have buttons. Could you add an example of how to do it? Feel free to add it to my monobook.js if it's not useful for yours.

Many thanks, Polyglot 07:48, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Jo,

I'm sorry, but I will not feel free to modify your monobook.js. No way. I would not feel comfortable doing that. I did figure our how to get the "Show changes" working the way I want it though. So you may wish to copy User:Connel MacKenzie/monobook.js to User:Polyglot/monobook.js again.

I started dissecting the Russian Wikipedia's MediaWiki:Monobook.js to find the parts that I wanted to reuse. I ended up just poorly copying the concepts. They modified several other pages with that, to add one or two "Format" buttons. I found the links from the English Wiktionary's list of tools. Looking at the top row of this edit box (as I type right now) I see eleven buttons. I know in theory, I can add more buttons there dynamically with javascript...but I am very rusty at javascript.

I'm leery of trying to do that sort of thing for several reasons. 1) Most of the cleanup I am doing these days comes from my generated lists of "messy" articles from the XML dump. Normal entries should not need this severe a cleanup. 2) Some of the cleanup I do will not be appropriate in the future - it is only for these very badly formatted articles. 3) Some of the changes (such as adding {en-infl-reg...} are controversial. 4) Splitting the formatting tasks up into separate functions is a better approach than the all-formatting-changes-at-one approach I am using right now.

When I finish clearing off User talk:Connel MacKenzie/todo3 I'll want to revisit the possibility of adding buttons. Things like auto-level correction, POS alphabetizing, translation table left/right balancing could each get their own button. But not today. Nor this week.

--Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 14:51, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

fixed code

I know I said I didn't want to edit your monobook.js, but when I found the extra parenthesis character on line 95, character 34, it seemed likely that that was why all javascript processing was stopping for you. --Connel MacKenzie 07:23, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, note that this is pretty specialized for what I've been doing. In general, I open up 20 tabs at a time (from my cleanup list) and they each load, make automated changes, and re-preview by the time I get back to them. (Cooking, dinner, bathroom, etc.) It sounds like you still need a way to get the {trans} section inserted easier. --Connel MacKenzie 07:28, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I've made a lot of tweaks to my version this weekend, so far. Going through my cleanup lists: todo, todo2 and todo3, I was able to do more than 500 cleanup edits in under twelve hours yesterday. --Connel MacKenzie 21:59, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I refactored my monobook.js entirely. Now I get applicable comments. I also have case in-sensitivity in most of the appropriate places. The poor Wiktionary servers don't seem to be coping very well to this new enhanced productivity level, though.  :-) --Connel MacKenzie 20:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome.

Quick on the draw Polygot! I spend most of my time of wikipedia but I'd like to shake things up and move among the projects. Thanks for the warm welcome. - Trevor MacInnis 23:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

just kidding...

Hi! Polygloty (?) speaking, haven't you ever thought about learning Portuguese ? Sorry for this, but I can't resist... Delete this comment if you think you should (you'll probably do it...) this is just a wikioverdose consequence... e-roxo -talk to me- 01:36, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

out of the loop

Poly -

Admittedly, I am out of the loop these days, not reviewing the BP or anything else - just in my own little world. I just got about tweaking as I randomly punch up words.

One thing I've noticed is that some of the translation sections use "*Dutch:" and some use "*{nl}" - I presume {nl} is the preferred method, since it makes things the same across all words. However, newbies/idiots/strangers may often not know that nl=Dutch. Is there an easy way to make a {dutch} ({french}, {german}, etc) templates that will be easier for strangers to remember and use? This way, when tweaking, I can try to make this "correction"/improvement to the words as I go through them.

Please reply on my user page. I ask this of you simply because nl is one of the langs that I remember and I remember that you're into robots.

Cheers,

And Happy Turkey (or whatever other animal y'all slaughter in the Netherlands to feast over) Day :-)

--Stranger 21:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

ash-tray

Hi there. Would you like to merge this with the existing (correct spelling) ashtray? Cheers SemperBlotto 17:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

defitionless words

Jo, do you think that you could add the {{stub}} template to any words that you add with no definition (if you must add such words) - I'm sure that I must have missed some. SemperBlotto 16:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

maid

Lots of plurals I can't find any evidence for. Messy format. May I suggest using Template:en-noun2 instead? Ncik 00:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

en- templates

You certainly don't want to use a template beginning with en- for non-English words (as happend with the Slovak word brat). Ncik 18:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

EDIT WAR WARNING

An edit war is starting at Wiktionary:Entry layout explained. Please take a look at the page.

Gerard Foley 03:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

monobook

Could you please prevent the automatic inclusion of User:MGSpiller/monobook.js in Category:English irregular plurals by adding a <noinclude> and a </noinclude> to the code? Ncik 17:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Template:en-conj-reg, Template:en-conj-irreg

These two templates were created by you. They are not in use anymore. I nominated them for deletion. Hope you don't mind. Ncik 17:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Polyglot/monobook.js

Hello again Jo,

Congratulations! Sorry to see you absent here though. I'm deleting your monobook.js rather than "correcting" it so that you can restore it to your pleasure when you can return. But in that long a timeframe, it is probable that all Wiktionary formatting conventions will change.  :-) So perhaps it will be better to start clean anyhow. I'm sure you can restore it yourself when needed. Thanks again for helping test it, thanks for all your contributions, and please come back soon!

--Connel MacKenzie T C 17:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

mondigheid teenoor meederjarigheid

Hi Polyglot, what is the difference between mondegheid en meederjarigheid? I have not been able to get an exact grip on the two concepts. Can you explain the sense of the two to me? Thanks Andrew massyn

Thanks your explanation did help. The case (in 1935) concerned a minor who had married, and was therefore emancipated. He applied for a release of an inheritance which had been held by the Master of the High Court on his behalf. It appears that his father had forced him to marry, to emancipate him, in order to gain the inheretance. The Court refused to release the inheritance. The court had the following to say: "In die bree sin bedui die woord mondig die genus en meerderjarig die species. Mans word mondig deur meerdejaarigheid, huwelik, handeling ens. M.a.w. meerderjaarigheid is slegs een, en daarby 'n bepaalde wyse van moontlike mondigwordig." A footnote says that there is no English translation for mondig. Regards Andrew massyn 20:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

bepalingaankondigend voornaamwoord

Is there anything that you can do for this entry? SemperBlotto 07:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Untagged images

Please explain the sources and copyright of these images:

• 2003-04-13 17:29, Polyglot: Raccoon.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:19, Polyglot: Anoa.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:19, Polyglot: Arabian oryx.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:20, Polyglot: Bison.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:21, Polyglot: Chimpansee.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:22, Polyglot: Deer.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:22, Polyglot: Elk.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:23, Polyglot: Grey wolf.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:24, Polyglot: Kanguru.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:25, Polyglot: Millipede.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:25, Polyglot: Ostrich.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:26, Polyglot: Nelsons elk.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:27, Polyglot: Vulture.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:27, Polyglot: Trompeter swan.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-13 22:28, Polyglot: Yak.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-04-15 00:27, Polyglot: Alpaca.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-05-01 12:44, Polyglot: DuckWithDucklings.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-05-01 12:53, Polyglot: Rhododendron impeditum.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-05-01 12:54, Polyglot: Ruta graveolens.jpg: untagged!
• 2003-05-01 12:55, Polyglot: Tulip.jpg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:08, Polyglot: Hoe gaat het.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:09, Polyglot: Hoe heet jij.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:10, Polyglot: Hoe laat is het.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:11, Polyglot: Ik denk het niet.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:11, Polyglot: Ik denk het wel.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:12, Polyglot: Mijn naam is.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:12, Polyglot: Waar is het toilet.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:13, Polyglot: Wat een mooie dag.ogg: untagged!
• 2004-01-12 23:53, Polyglot: Heel erg bedankt.ogg: untagged!--Jusjih 14:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This is your last chance. I have nominated all of these at Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others, so please answer of these files will be deleted.--Jusjih 15:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I think think User:Polyglot is around anymore. He’s been gone for almost two years already. —Stephen 00:46, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm still looking every once in a while. These are all pictures I took myself and sounds I recorded myself. If they help the project great, if they need to be deleted. Oh well, who cares. They were also put here before commons existed, that's why they are here and not there. I don't have time nor energy to move them over. Polyglot 20:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

OGG files

Please do not load these here. Load them on Commons. --EncycloPetey 20:53, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Occleve - the Open Content Learning Environment

Hi Polyglot,

I see that you were one of the original movers on the idea of a Wiktionary phrasebook. So I'd like to tell you about Occleve - the Open Content Learning Environment, which is a language learning system and a phrasebook, includes sound clips (if you build from the CVS)... and has a custom front end which runs on your mobile phone, so you can learn on the move. The whole thing has a mediawiki backend. Please see my userpage for more details...  :) --Joe Gittings 12:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others - kept

Kept. See archived discussion. 09:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

autarcheia

I was wondering about your edit a while ago to autarcheia. Are you sure this is a Spanish word, and not a greek transliteration? Closest I can find is autarquía. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

nimbus

We don't wikilink header text in translation tables. It is possible to use {{trans-see}} to redirect the translations (see the template in use on parrot, for the third definition), but I'm not sure either whether this is appropriate for the rain cloud sense. That is, I'm not sure that the two terms are complete synonyms, with no distinction in meaning. --EncycloPetey 00:00, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Esperanto

Why bother?

I see people who are creating entries in Lojban. I don't know any people who can speak this language. I do know people who speak Esperanto. In fact somebody from the Ukraine stayed over for a few days a few months ago. He doesn speak French or English and I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian. We were able to communicate at a high level with a relatively small investment of effort in learning Esperanto. It is actually an easy language to learn compared to all natural languages I know. I don think this can be said of Lojban or Loglan.

In an ideal world all children would learn Esperanto as a second language and 40 years from now we would all be able to communicate with each other as equals instead of having a privileged few who are native speakers of English (or Chinese, who knows what language it will be by then?) and all the others who have to struggle to learn the language of the privileged ones.

This is not exactly a problem for people like myself who learn languages easily and who happen to live in an environment where it is easy to pick up languages. I have been teaching English to Spanish speaking people and it was only then that I realised how hard it is for them to be able to learn English properly. I can only imagine how hard it must be for people that use other scripts or languages that are not near linguistically to the European ones. Polyglot 19:38, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

ambitious

I left the edit summary for the benefit of Bob Ullman, in case there was some larger pattern. I just correct little things like that because we all make them. Bot errors are potentially more of a problem than manual errors. DCDuring TALK 19:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

User:Conrad.Irwin/creation.js

Hey, I said I'd keep you posted :). See WT:BP for a discussion. Comments are very welcome. Conrad.Irwin 03:32, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Removing Template:tbot entry

Are you actually checking the entries or are you just removing the template? [1] [2] [3] and especially [4] -- Gauss 18:34, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

aérien

Hello. Answer to your question [5]:
You can use {{fr-adj}} instead of {{infl|fr|adjective|g=m}}. See Template:fr-adj for more info. Maro 22:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

hak

One very tedious, nitpicky thing: If a language template is linked, an unlinked version needs to be created, to be used by templates in which the linking interferes, such as {{etyl}}, {{term}}, {{infl}}, etc. The linked version simply needs a "lang:" in between "Template:" and the iso code. I've created {{lang:hak}}. By the way, excellent idea on unlinking the language templates for common langs. Thanks. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 00:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

hydrogen

There's nothing wrong with sorting yourself, but the bot is faster and tireless. Standardising entries so bots can do more or adding real content is better - not that botable tasks can't be satisfying as well. Robert Ullman and connell Mackensie have pages that list entries with problems of various kinds. DCDuring TALK 18:30, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't here that long myself and I'm no good with bots. I'm willing to clean up for and (less so) after bots. I also like the bots that mark or list anomalies in any way. I also like the idea of standardizing the structure of certain classes of entries (eg, elements, page sizes, symbols, punctuation) and exploiting that structure in some way. Do you see any needs or opportunities of that kind? DCDuring TALK 19:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

harvesting tranlsations from WP interwiki links

While this sounds like a good idea for certain words, I am suspect where the translation added is a phrase (has a space in it, or eben a hyphen), as the foreign term may be a sum of its parts (not idiomatic), and should be listed in the translation table as the sum instead of as the sum. What do you think?—msh210℠ 20:46, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I have replied to your replies on my talk page on my talk page.—msh210℠ 18:19, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Polygot!

I kinda stumbled across your user page by accident, and I found it VERY interesting. I am a 15-year old highschool student in the US of A, and I love learning about languages. How did you manage to learn so many, and do you think that I'll be able to too? --Crazy-Steve 23:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Template:lang:nn

I'm a bit confused as to why you undeleted this template. Robert is going through and deleting all of these, as he recently devised some code which makes them unnecessary. Since {{nn}} can now serve as the linked or unlinked version, {{lang:nn}} is unnecessary. Also, I think that {{nn}} should remain Norwegian Nynorsk. We've had some discussion without reaching a real consensus (see the whole mess here), so I won't say that this is set in stone policy, but I do think that Norwegian Nynorsk is more useful to most users. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 05:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I started using substitution to get from the iso2/3 code to the language name. This resulted in Norwegian Nynorsk. I noticed Stephen G. Brown is putting Nynorsk under Norwegian as follows:

• Norwegian: ...

  Nynorsk: ...

He also changed Norwegian Nynorsk to Nynorsk in this edit, so I reckoned it would be better that it would be Nynorsk in the first place, saving him some time. I didn't know this was being discussed already. I'll delete :lang:nn once again. It's only recently that I learned each linked language needed an unlinked version needs a :lang: counterpart. I wasn't aware of Robert's efforts to make this unnecessary. --Polyglot 06:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The name "Nynorsk" would be much better. "Norwegian Nynorsk" is an illiterate travesty. (Given that we name languages in English, that really ought to be "Norwegian New-Norwegian". Or something like that.) The languages are, in English, "Norwegian" and "Nynorsk". But if you try to name them properly (and group them usefully as Stephen does, and I do, as above), you will will be screamed at endlessly by extreme Nynorsk proponents who will DEMAND that "Norwegian" (the proper English name of the language) be renamed "Bokmal" (note, not an English word, and not what someone looking for Norwegian will look at, as it clearly is not Norwegian ...) until you give up and wait for them to go away.

We had it set up properly (Norwegian/Nynosk) until Atelaes opened the can of worms, and he hasn't explained yet how it is going to be fixed. (Technically is not hard: we convert all occurrences of "Norwegian Bokmal" to the correct "Norwegian", and all occurrences of "Norwegian Nynorsk" to the correct "Nynorsk".)

Or perhaps we should just give up and name the languages in English:

Norwegian (Book Standard, this is what you want)

and

New Norwegian (Slowly fading 19th century spelling reform of Norwegian, this isn't what you are looking for)

(for those seriously humour-impaired people, this is snark)

We do need to figure out how to use (return to using) the correct names, so that users looking for standard Norwegian find what they are looking for, and so that Nynorsk gets proper treatment as a separate language, not having 1/2 its vocabulary under "Norwegian" and the other 1/2 in separate language categories etc. You would think that the proponents of Nynorsk would want it treated as a full language, not a poor step-child? Robert Ullmann 07:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

As you can see, Robert has an odd, pathological hatred of Nynorsk, which is well evidenced in the linked discussion. Thankfully, it is shared by few (no one, actually, as far as I can recall from the discussion). The discussion I started earlier this year was by any standard one can conceive, an absolute clusterfuck, much to Robert's delight. I have since decided to let those who actually edit Norwegian to work this out on their own, and they seem to be doing so, as can be seen at Wiktionary talk:About Norwegian. I am content to allow Norwegian to be a little goofy until a final solution is come upon. I think it will be reasonably easy to make the requisite conversions once that happens. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 08:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

A can of worms indeed. Not one I intended to open, but I guess it's too late for that now. After not becoming all that much wiser from looking at the WP article on Nynorsk (to decide whether it's a language needing treatment as totally independent or grouped with Norwegian), I must say that I like the arrangement like Stephen did it. I tend to prefer seeing :

• Norwegian

  Nynorsk

over:

• Norwegian

  Bokmal

  Nynorsk

over:

• Norwegian

  Classic

  Reformed

It seems like the way that people wanting the information they're after will find it most easily. The fact that it isn't exactly an English word doesn't really bother me. Anybody with some exposure to Norwegian will be able to recognize the term. Besides we also have Kölsch, which is not exactly English either. (I suppose Colonian would sound a bit odd. (BTW Robert: Kölsch doesn't sort properly).

Since I opened the can anyway, I noticed in the entry for iron, there is also Old Norse... Maybe that can also be included.

Now, since we are grouping languages anyway, there is another thing that might make sense. Stephen said he also groups the Alemanic languages. I don't see whether that would also include Luxembourgish, but I tend to like this.

So, something like:

• German:

  Kölsch:

  Limburgish (although this could also fit under Dutch):

  Low German:

  Low Saxon:

  (maybe) Luxembourgish:

  Old Prussian: (doesn't look like German at all though)

Of course, this raises the issue whether it makes sense to also group the French dialects:

• French:

  Occitan:

  Walloon:

And Flemish under Dutch: (even though WikiMedia unfortunately decided that vls is the dialect of the province of West Flanders)

• Dutch:

  Flemish:

  West-Frisian

One step further is to bring all the languages that use the Cyrillic script together in one group. This would allow somebody interested in that group to compare them more easily. I have no idea how to treat Serbian anymore then, since they can write in two scripts apparently. OTOH, the Japanese have 3 scripts and they don't get 3 lines. Maybe it would be better to put the Roman script of Serbian under tr=, but wikilinked. Anyway, if that ever happens, somebody interested in Slavic languages will probably also want to compare to the other Slavic languages written in Roman script... So it should probably be left to another interface that is capable to sort/group rding to a user's settings.

I realize this is rather something to discuss on the Beer parlour. But I don't think this 'proposal' stands a chance of being accepted, if put there like this.

Also, I don't expect any human to be able to sort the languages anymore, so AF would have to take care of it full time then.

Example at Talk:iron. No idea how serious I want this to be taken. I put Afrikaans under Dutch, it probably doesn't belong there, but it's certainly related. --Polyglot 11:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

A couple things in response. First, I think that your idea of grouping languages is a very reasonable one, and I would not be in the least bit surprised if it is one day adopted. Some entries, such as [[iron]], have so many translations (thanks to you, if I remember correctly), that finding what you're looking for from a straight alphabetical list can be difficult, especially when you take some of our conventions into account (such as the fact that Greek and Ancient Greek are two languages here, with Ancient Greek sometimes sorted under "A"....and sometimes not....that's an unsettled issue, or the fact that we have no language called "Chinese"). However, a couple of critiques: First I retain my position that calling Bokmal "Norwegian" and Nynorsk "Nynorsk" is a terrible idea. My first support is that every Norwegian speaker who commented in the conversation found that to be completely inappropriate, if not outright offensive, regardless of whether they were Bokmal or Nynorsk speakers. Second, while it has been awhile since I have revisited that convo, as I recall, nearly every English speaker other than Robert found it equally distasteful. Robert is right in that when people learn "Norwegian" in school, they nearly always learn Bokmal. However, it is my impression that many people who learn English as a second language learn British English. I think we can predict what would happen if we proposed calling British English "English" and American English "American." They are both English, just as Bokmal and Nynorsk are equally Norwegian. Ask the Norwegians if you are still in doubt. Secondly, I think your idea of grouping languages under other languages is a bad idea. Occitan is not a form of French, nor are the Frisian languages a form of Dutch. However, if we grouped, say, all the Romance languages together and all the Germanic languages together, in a genetic hierarchy, that would make a lot of sense. Additionally, grouping Cyrillic together is also a bad idea, as Cyrillic is a script, and has no specific linguistic merit. Grouping Slavic languages together, on the other hand, would make a lot of sense. As for the comment about the Beer parlour, yes, this is something that will need to go there if it is to ever accomplish anything. However, I predict that this is a topic that everyone and their mom will have an opinion on, and bouncing it back and forth to fine-tune it a bit might help it to be a more focused conversation. If you're tired of having this conversation on your talk page, please simply say so, and I'll say no more. I'll try and work up my own proposal at Talk:iron, but it may take me awhile. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 04:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Atelaes, I completely agree with you that I should have used language families instead of arbitrarily grouping them under another language that they happened to be more or less regionally related to and while I was doing the grouping, I was already becoming aware of that (I was missing the other Slavic languages among the Cyrillic ones for one thing). The next problem then becomes that there is no complete consensus about these language groups among linguists either. Anyway, that kind of grouping is probably best left to a presentation layer (where it can be a user setting how it should be done), so Wiktionary will probably remain 'raw data' in that regard. I have no intention of pursuing the idea further. It was simply an experiment. One problem I see for instance with grouping all the Germanic languages together is that would like to see Dutch, Flemish, Frisian and Afrikaans as another subgroup of that. Causing a lot of indentation and becoming ugly very fast when more than one translation is given.

Regarding Bokmal and Nynorsk, I hear what you are saying and I hear what Robert is saying. I don't have an answer either. I'm always kind of hoping such discussions get resolved and I then have some guideline to follow. All I hope for is that the language labels are concise and clear and that people will be able to find what they are looking for. So I don't tend to like having to use 3 lines for Norwegian entries

Norwegian:

• Bokmal:
• Nynorsk:

or a long label like

• Norwegian (Common written form that doesn't correspond to how it's pronounced nowadays)
• Norwegian (Reformed and called Nynorsk locally).

So, if I like

• Norwegian:

  Nynorsk:

It's mostly for its conciseness. I'm a practical kind of guy. But as said, I don't have strong feelings about the matter, as long as the template expands into what is supposed to be used. --Polyglot 07:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Xmas comp

"gedaan (aanbreng) engelengeduld" seems to be invalid - the last word should begin with "breng". Cheers SemperBlotto 11:07, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

port

A sense you added for port, "transfer from one state to another", was just removed because it failed RFV (temporary link to discussion, q.v.). The definition line was very general; did you mean something more specific?—msh210℠ 20:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Dutch gender

Hi Polyglot,

Sorry for the English, but otherwise the English-only-nazis will object again. Your edit at About:Dutch is a bit funny, because I had actually written both parts of it... So thanks for the compliment about the 'nice part' at least. I had worked rather hard on that because I think we needed a workable solution to this. Yes you are right that feminine is alive, but only to some extent. In the north only to a very limited extent and that has triggered (I think) some interesting shifts.

The pronominal adverbs are pretty old and in most Germanic languages rather on the way out. Not in our language: they enjoy a kind of second youth and I suspect that has something to do with the m-f collapse in the north. I wonder if the prominence of the pronominal adverbs is any less in the south than it is for us northeners. I'm not sure because a word like 'waarzonder' is more accepted in the south than in the north. So maybe I'm wrong about there being a relationship?

Jcwf 03:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Old school language template

Remember that these need to be converted to the new format before their lang counterparts can be deleted. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 21:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Prince Kassad took care of the creation of the 'new school' counterparts --Polyglot 21:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

All the ones I'm seeing are still old-school. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 22:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I added the ones Prince Kassad didn't and that were valid. There are now 2 templates for Inupiak: http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Template:ipk&action=edit and Inuktitut http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Template:iku&action=edit

Template:lang:ood

I thought we weren't using the "lang:" versions of these templates anymore. --EncycloPetey 22:23, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

You are right. I was in fact cleaning them up. It's gone now. --Polyglot 22:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

"# past" entries

I believe the translation sections for the "# past" entries (five past, ten past, twenty past, half past) need some reformatting. The translation glosses say the FL phrases should be equivalent to "# past one". While one-to-one translations of such a phrase aren't always possible I think this "fix" is misleading in that "# past one" has a completely different meaning. Some languages may have exactly matching phrases, so this 'kludge' is inappropriate. Many won't, though, so how would you like to phrase the others? Maybe a a numerical placeholder such as "# y diez" for Spanish (it's fully linked because that would be a SoP in Spanish)? Any ideas? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 06:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Template:rmy

{{rmy}} is not Romani, it's Vlax Romani. {{rom}} is Romani. Please be more careful. Thanks. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 07:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

PolyBOT

Hi there. Could you mark its edits as minor please - they all look good, and we can remove them from Recent changes. You might as well start a vote - so I can flip the bot flag. Cheers. SemperBlotto 22:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

• Most edits I've seen look fine but this is bad. -- Visviva 01:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

• Visviva: metric ton had the same problem. I went back and reverted it myself. Sorry that I hadn't noticed it myself sooner. It was a bug in the code, as you probably already guessed, where I stripped the whole entry of [],.{} instead of only the concise definition. It's fixed in the mean time. --Polyglot 01:48, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: { {top}}/{ {mid}}

Hi Polyglot, I was a little horrified when I saw the increased number of entries in the category of items requiring a trans gloss. Normally, I add 4-6 gloss a day, but it jumped from 32 to 106 and I don't think I can keep up with that. Especially, because in most entries there are multiple senses but only one trans table gets created by the bot and we would need one trans table per sense. So I would have to add a trans table per sense, than add the checktrans table, and ttbc for each translation. It's a lot of work. If you know how to resolve this, that would be great. --Panda10 01:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I like the changes. An even better approach for multiple sense entries with one trans table: instead of adding rfc-trans, the bot could actually add checktrans-top, trans-mid, trans-bottom, and add {ttbc|} to each translation. That would save so much work. So how would I run the Python script? --Panda10 02:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

No problem, I will work through the list slowly. I have Windows XP SP2, Python is not installed, never worked with it before. Also, I've never run a bot before. I hope it's ok. --Panda10 11:58, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Noticed that you are adding trans tables without gloss again. The Category:Translation table header lacks gloss list has increased to 133 from 89. Have you changed your mind about adding the gloss? --Panda10 14:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Multiple rfc-trans in one entry

Hi Polyglot, I removed 9 rfc-trans lines before one of the translation tables at Alsatian. I left the other. What is the reason for multiple rfc-trans? --Panda10 12:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

some new entries

Hi, if you are looking for some new entries to create you might be interested in these: 22 & 24. 50 Xylophone Players talk 10:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Tagalog.py

Hey Polyglot! The script you wrote is useful, and speeds things up, and I'll always be thankful to you for it. Thanks! But something happened one day as I tried to log on to it through the terminal, and it responds with this:

Traceback (most recent call last):

 File "Tagalog.py", line 5, in <module>
   site = mwclient.Site('en.wiktionary.org')
 File "mwclient/client.py", line 83, in __init__
   self.site_init()
 File "mwclient/client.py", line 103, in site_init
   raise errors.MediaWikiVersionError('Unknown MediaWiki %s' % '.'.join(version))

mwclient.errors.MediaWikiVersionError: Unknown MediaWiki 1.16alpha-wmf

And I can't log on now. What does it say?

importExternalScript

Just a note, importExternalScript() from MediaWiki:Common.js is just a copy of importScriptURI() from wikibits.js. We're going to remove the former, so I changed your monobook.js over to the latter. Cheers. --Bequw → τ 20:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

twee handen op één buik ?

Hi Polyglot,

Thanks for writing the term twee handen op één buik! It’s not clear to me what the meaning of the phrase is – you gave a great etymology though, so I figured you just omitted to include a definition. AFAICT, it means something like “to be in strong/complete agreement”, and is not entirely unlike English two peas in a pod, but as I know no Dutch (other than lol and gezellig), so I thought it best to check with you.

If you could write/check the definition, I’d be most grateful – thanks!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 02:17, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Tu estado como administrador

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Saludos cordiales, --MF-Warburg (talk) 03:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

How we will see unregistered users

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18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Admin rights

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