User talk:Rhemmiel

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Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! --Vahag (talk) 11:29, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Trailing glottal stop

Thanks for your edits. But why have you added ʾ in the Aramaic emphatic state? Do modern Aramaic dialects feature it or does one read Classical Syriac thus today? I find it unlikely that Classical Syriac featured it. Because if it ever existed it was superfluous and was to be omitted because if it is everywhere then it does not distinguish anything, so according to the principle of efficient language a state where all nouns end in āʾ is not stable. So it is only a mater lectionis. Me and @334a, who created most of the Classical Syriac entries, have been removing it in cleaning up the old pages and omitting it in newly created pages. Fay Freak (talk) 20:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Fay Freak, I'm not aware of whether word-final -ʾ is pronounced in any dialects outside of its capacity as a mater lectionis. I was trying to produce a 1:1 grapheme correspondence when transliterating for the sake of reversibility, but I suppose the presence of word-final ܐ can be inferred relatively easily when reverting back into the Syriac script. If that's been the decision, then I can remove the word-final -ʾ from the entries I added it to and avoid using it in new pages. Is there a talk page where this was discussed? Thanks for letting me know, Rhemmiel (talk) 01:16, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I've actually been internally debating whether or not to include the "silent ʾ" and I'm starting to lean towards including it. I don't think it's a bad idea to represent an aleph with a ʾ in all cases since:

1. The transliteration should be a 1:1 correspondence of the spelling (like Rhemmiel said) as much as possible, not a phonetic transcription (which is what the IPA is for and varies depending on the dialect).
2. The silent aleph can occur in the middle of a word as well. Sometimes, there are alternative spellings in which the only difference is an additional silent aleph (e.g. ܛܠܐ and ܦܐܬܐ)--in these cases, the IPA would be the same for both, but the transliterations would be the same if you don't include the silent ʾ. This can lead to some confusion.
3. If the vocalization of a word is not known, it is common practice to include all the alephs anyway, even if they appear to be silent. Leaving the alephs as well as the vowels out makes the transliteration of these words look stranger than they already are.
4. Aleph doesn't represent all final vowels, only -ā and -ē. It might be more consistent to note the aleph because of this.

--334a (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with @334a here. Due to the vast differences in Aramaic pronunciation across time and space, I think the best way to handle this is through a 1:1 transliteration with actual regional and historical pronunciations indicated in IPA under the pronunciation header. I tried to do this at ܩܡܨܬ̤ܐ, where ܩ and ܬ̤, while written identically, are pronounced differently across Western Neo-Aramaic dialects. Regardless of whether -ʾ was pronounced or not (and it seems that scholars believe it was at least originally consonantal in Aramaic), I don't think transliteration should be dependent on conjecture over pronunciation. Rhemmiel (talk) 21:36, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

@334a: The transcriptions would be the same, that’s why they are transcriptions, and that has been my intention, to show that these are alternatives in spelling only. It’s only few months ago that |ts= for transcriptions has been created, but in Aramaic unlike Akkadian one does not need to distinguish, and I have been more of the opinion that we should tend towards transcription or give what we think is the pronunciation, of course as far as we know (conjecture over pronunciation is rather the exception, and it would also be silly to argue to put the schwa-sign ə sign either everywhere or nowhere), so also we transcribe Arabic with ō and ē if necessary. If it |tr= is the only field than we add the transcription.

If scholars give transcriptions containing marks that do not represent anything phonetically relevant then that is because they omit the actual script used. This must be seen: For Ottoman Turkish one constantly “transcribes” with circumflexes over the letter but we don’t need it because we have the original spelling directly attached. Ottoman dictionaries with Ottoman script do not add any strange extra marks either in the transcription to show any silent letters; it’s the best to transcribe as if it were Modern Turkish, else we would show difference where there is none. Similarly Urdu transcriptions should be like Hindi transcriptions in spite of huge differences in spelling. Also if a language has multiple alphabets one can easily write {{alt sp}} of the transcriptions are the same, where it is odd to write ”alternative spelling of” when the header and the linked-to-term are differently transcribed. So if you create ܛܐܠܐ‎ according to that logic you transcribe/transliterate it ṭāʾlāʾ and define it as “alternative spelling of ܛܠܐ ṭālāʾ”, which raises eyebrows. You understand how I think? I think of the transcription being independent of the writing system. It’s the words we transcribe, not their spellings.

Then there is that, it is repulsive to have pages built around pronunciation sections; a problem with Wiktionary’s layout rather specific to Semitic languages, and already a meme in general: wherewith can I clutter room before and between the definitions? I usually prefer to omit pronunciation sections than to group differently vocalized word under “Pronunciation 1” – “Pronunciation x” when that is not the main information and the pronunciation is in the vocalization and transcription (ideally, I’d like to have a transcription-to-IPA switch in inflection tables pronunciation sections do not get in the way for words having a table – do we need |IPA= |plIPA= etc. for headers?). An entry like عرض is horrible with IPA everywhere between. But in Syriac you use to not point the headers and now you want to alienate the pronunciation from the transcriptions too, referring the reader to a section that he ideally avoids. Formerly 334a has given only IPA and no transcriptions but that is highly unusual, readers are accustomed to derive pronunciation from transcription. For a dictionary it is important how quickly people apperceive the content, and varying transcription to show spelling differences trammels these apperceptions, as it appears to me. Like duplicated content, like cognate lists that I have to read in etymology sections when I could just as easily see the cognates in the ancestor entry. The original script stands for the spelling, and transcription is not where I expect to find a repetition of the spelling in Latin script but what the script is supposed to show. Sorry, who wants it there? Fay Freak (talk) 00:17, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

كلب البحر

What region did you hear this from? I'm inclined to understand it as "seal" if anything, but if you've heard it for "shark" firsthand then that's very cool. 😯 M. I. Wright (talk) 06:14, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Several speakers of the Beiruti dialect have told me that كلب البحر is the word they would use for shark, but I'm also aware of it as a common term for "sea lion" across dialects. I dig some digging and apparently it's also used for various other fish in the Mediterranean/Nile/Red Sea, including the Dogfish Shark and the African Tigerfish as a direct calque of Greek hydrocynus! The page on here for sea lion currently lists كلب البحر as a translation for Hijazi Arabic and MSA. I'm sure this is true for many other dialects and entries for these should certainly be added to the page along with a seal/sea lion definition for North Levantine. Rhemmiel (talk) 17:54, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

That's pretty neat, thanks for the info. M. I. Wright (talk) 06:06, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Stop moving PS entries

Rhemmiel, you need to stop moving PS entries without first having a conversation with those in the that work in the area. Just because you believe ʕ is preferable, that doesn't mean people here agree with you. @Fay Freak --{{victar|talk}} 05:33, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

• Ok, I'll start a discussion over at the Beer Parlour. Rhemmiel (talk) 05:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Zenaga in Neo-Tifinagh

I noticed you added a few Zenaga entries, and I'm wondering why you did so in Neo-Tifinagh. I don't know of any normal use of any kind of Tifinagh in that community, and from what I've read, they did not write their language until the arrival of Islam and Arabic script. Were you following a specific source? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:17, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

No you’re totally right! The words themselves I cross referenced between phonetic transcriptions and transliterations in a few different sources (including [1] and [2]). But then I assumed they should be presented in Neo-Tifinagh and went ahead and wrote them in myself after I was unable to find any written forms online. Makes perfect sense why I wasn’t able to now lol. I’ll go ahead and move them, thanks for pointing this out. Rhemmiel (talk) 03:57, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Please mark the redirects with {{d}} so they get deleted. I've recently started reading a bunch about Berber historical linguistics, so let me know if you want to work on it at all around here — although Zenaga is a really weird language, so maybe not a great place to start! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:43, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

• Reminder about this. I also noticed your Tayart Tamajaq entries, and they also seem suspect — as far as I know, they use the Tuareg variant of the Tifinagh, not Neo-Tifinagh. Did you create the spellings for those as well? If so, it would be safest to move them to Latin script. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:42, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, forgot to take care of this. Yeah, same situation with the Tayart Tamajaq entries, I'll move them both right now. And I'll definitely let you know about working on Berber historical linguistics here, I'd love to if I could find the time! Rhemmiel (talk) 08:08, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

ṯ and ḏ

Thanks for replacing θ and đ for ṯ and ḏ in Proto-Semitic entries. I always wanted to remove them, but I know how long it takes to fix all the links. – Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 00:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

API prononciations of appear

Hello, Rhemmiel: Are you sure of this change, https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=appear&diff=prev&oldid=58308598 ? Several dictionaries show the previous prononciation. Greetings.--Adelpine (talk) 02:28, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Questions

Hi, I am Sethemhat, a Japanese Wikipedian who writes about Egyptology mainly. Thank you for making the entry wsr-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ and stp.n-rꜥ so far. I have a few questions for you.

1. I want to know the source of the cuneiform record, "wa-aš-mu-a-re-a" and "šá-te-ep-na-re-a".
2. How do you know the reconstruction of the Egyptian pronunciation like "/wasmuʕəˈɾeːʕə/"?

Thank you for your cooperation.--Sethemhat (talk) 03:36, 1 July 2022 (UTC)