User talk:Stephen G. Brown/2010

help with Malay

Do you know how the letter "p" in Pasir Ris is pronounced in Malay? I need to know if it’s [p] as in Russian or [pʰ] as in English. Also, would you take a look at these contributions? They look fishy. --Vahagn Petrosyan 07:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It is [p] as in Russian. I’ll have a look. I see that some of them are in Armenian, which were probably added recently. —Stephen 08:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S.—You can hear a Malay 'p' on Youtube here: Apa Khabar! —Stephen 08:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I know some contribs are in Armenian: that's what caught my eye. The user is trying to transliterate into Armenian Singaporese place names, mostly incorrectly. So, maybe his other edits too are unreliable, I cannot check. --Vahagn Petrosyan 08:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

So far his Tamil seems good, except for some formatting problems. —Stephen 08:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

almi

How would you render "almi" in the Arabic script? Someone told me the other day that almi means water in the Arabic dialect of Chad, but I'm unable to transliterate the word into the Arabic script. -- Prince Kassad 16:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know anything about that dialect, but I suppose it would be المي. The romanization is probably better hyphenated: al-mi. The al- is the definite article. I am assuming that your contact wrote the transcription almi...however, if he only pronounced it, it could be other spellings. There could be a glottal stop: المئ or الميئي. In regular Arabic, it is al-ma’: الماء. —Stephen 16:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Navajo for crocodile/alligator

Are there not separate terms for crocodile and alligator in Navajo? 24.29.228.33 05:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

No, just the one. —Stephen 06:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

кварта

Am I correct in thinking that this word is a feminine form of the word? Also, could you fix it up please? Thanks, Razorflame 22:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 01:39, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Razorflame 01:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Kannada translations for coconut

Hi there SGB. I've scoured the Internet for about half an hour now, and I have come up with three different translations in Kannada for the entry coconut. I just want to make sure that they are right before they get added.

The translations that I have found are: ತೆಂಗು, ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ, and ನಾರಿಕೇಳ

ತೆಂಗು means both coconut and perch. ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ means coconut The last one also means coconut.

Anyways, how close am I to getting the right Kannada translations for coconut? Please respond on my talk page. Thanks, Razorflame 13:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That’s correct. ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ is the one used by the Kannada Wikipedia, but the other two also mean coconut. —Stephen 19:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Would you be willing to add them to the translations, then? Thanks, Razorflame 19:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Questions

Hi there Stephen. Since you seem to be the expert on quite a few languages, I've got some questions that I would like to ask you:

• Where can I find information to help me learn the Cryllic and Georgian alphabets?
  • Where can I find information that will help me learn how to transliterate both of these?
• Am I correct in thinking that this symbol: ಠ is a Translingual symbol for a letter in a language like Laz or Telugu?
• Where can I find information on how I can begin to learn the Telugu language?
  • Where can I find information on how I can begin to learn how to transliterate words in Telugu?
• Where can I find information on how I can begin to learn the Kannada language?
  • Where can I find information on how I can begin to learn how to transliterate words in Kannada?
• I'm interested in becoming a translator. Do you have any information on being a translator that could help me decide on whether or not it would be a good career path for me or not?

Thanks for the help in advance, Razorflame 01:17, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

When you say you want to learn Cyrillic, I assume you just mean the typed or printed alphabet, not the handwriting. If you will select a page in any book and spend half an hour transliterating it into Cyrillic, then you will have learned it. There are only a few special letters which you probably will not be able to use in this exercise, so you will have to learn them separately. The lowercase of almost all of the letters look the same as the uppercase, so you don’t have that to worry about.

This is the Russian alphabet:

а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

The above alphabetized like English for easier use:

a b c č d e  f g i  j ja je jo ju k l m n o p r s  š šč t  u v x y z  ž '  "

а б ц ч д э ф г и й я е ё  ю к л м н о п р с ш щ т у в х ы з ж ь ъ

Don’t worry about mistakes, just transcribe letter by letter into Cyrillic and after about half an hour, you will know the alphabet (č=ch, š=sh, ž=zh, ja=ya). After you learn these basics, you will need to study those letters which you were not able to utilize, such as šč (shch). Then you have to learn the special difficulties with "je" (written 'je' at the beginning of a word or after a vowel or ' or ", otherwise only written as 'e') as well as the other letters that start with a 'j', which is dropped after č, š, or ž.

The other alphabets you mention will be somewhat more difficult, especially Tamil, Telugu and the other scripts of India and Indo-China, but you can use the same method if you’re sure you want to tackle them. These Indic scripts are syllabaries, not alphabets, and each letter is a syllable (consonant plus vowel). See for example the table in Index:Tamil, where each letter shown begins with the transcription at the top, followed by the vowel at the left.

ಠ is not translingual, it is a letter in the Kannada script, transcribed as "ṭha".

For information on becoming a translator, it depends on whether you’re in GB or the U.S. In England and Europe, this occupation is one of the professions, like lawyers and doctors, and you have to attend special classes. In the U.S., it is like being a waiter in a restaurant, and anybody can do it if he thinks he can. What country are you in? —Stephen 13:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the massive amount of help Stephen :). I currently live in the United States. By the way, are there any differences between the Bulgarian and Russian alphabets? Cheers, Razorflame 17:45, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You’re welcome. There are differences in the pronunciation of the letters, of course, but the two alphabets are almost identical. The only difference is that Bulgarian does not have ё, ы, or э. (Actually, most Russian texts do not use ё either, replacing it with е...this undotted е is still pronounced 'yo', but you have to know the word to know whether the е is pronounced je or jo. Traditionally, Russian only writes ё in children’s books and dictionaries.)

But the sound of some of the Bulgarian letters is different, which affects the transliteration. The letter ъ in Bulgarian is the vowel schwa (it Russian it is ", the so-called hard sign...means that the preceding consonant is unpalatalized, hard). Bulgarian щ is 'št' (in Russian it is 'šč').

You can see the various Cyrillic alphabets at Appendix:Cyrillic script. —Stephen 18:45, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Since you’re in the States, to be a translator you just have to become fluent in your chosen language, and you need a Bachelor’s degree in it at a minimum. You really should attend a couple of years of college in the country where that language is spoken. You also need to develop at least one specialty field, such as finance, law, medicine, electronics, chemistry, civil engineering, etc. Finance is probably the hottest field, the one most in demand, but it’s also very difficult unless you are lucky enough to have a knack for it. Then you have to learn the specialized vocabulary of that field in both languages. Ideally, you would major in your language and minor in your selected field. You’d want to subscribed to professional publications in both English and the foreign language, and you should go to the country of that language and study a couple of years of the field at university, where it would be taught in your other language.

You also need to take some translation courses in college. Upon graduation, you will work mostly or exclusively from your second language into English, not the other way around. There is lots of work in languages such as French and Spanish, but also there are tons of qualified translators for those languages, so there is a lot of competition and the pay is at the low end. If you go for a less common language such as Korean or Japanese, there is less work to do, but you would have far, far less competition, since native Japanese and Koreans rarely can translate understandably into English, and few native English speakers can do those languages. The pay for a language like Japanese or Korean is on the high end, probably three times as much as for French.

Probably the most lucrative language around is Chinese. If you learned good Chinese and spent enough time in China to learn the culture and the system, and developed good contacts with the Chinese business community and government, you could pretty well name your price. You could reject all low-paying jobs and companies that pay slowly and companies that have boring or difficult jobs, and accept only the highest paying, quickest paying, and most interesting ones, and you could live anywhere in the world that you wanted.

In any case, when you start work, you have to own a great library of professional dictionaries for your language and your specialty, which will be a big investment. Professional technical dictionaries can run one or two hundred bucks or more each. You have to apply at all of the translation agencies in the country that you can find, and it will take some time for you to build up a reputation for doing good, dependable work. So many translators are unqualified and/or undependable that agencies assume new applicants are no good. Also you would submit your name and info to the important translator directories such as that of the ATA (American Translators Association) and www.proz.com/translator-directory/.

One thing I almost forgot to mention...you have to obtain and learn to use at least one (preferably more) computer programs known as translation memories, such as TRADOS and Deja Vu. This has become an extremely important part of the job and you can’t get by without it. Anyone who hires you will insist on it. —Stephen 18:45, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the insight into a translators' life. It was very helpful. Thanks again for the information, Razorflame 18:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC

Questions II

Why is it that one has to have a particular specialty if one wants to become a translator? Is it because of those jobs like translation of manuals for technical manuals (like the owner's manuals for computers, etc.), or is it because it would be too difficult to be a translator (broadly) across the entire language? Furthermore, what is your take on becoming a translator in more than one language? For example, I might want to become a translator in both Romanian and Japanese (an example). Is there anything different involved in doing that? What other languages do you recommend in becoming a translator in? I'm thinking about becoming a translator in either Italian, Romanian, or Japanese, although I'm not sure which one. Do you have a suggestion as to which one would be the best choice right now? I find all three languages very, very interesting (especially Japanese and Romanian), and I really do want to be able to both speak and write all three as well as I can, but I am not sure if I would be able to manage that. All three languages are very, very interesting for me, so I really would love to become a translator in any one of those three languages, if not more. When I was talking with one of my parents today about this, they said that I should take classes here first and then after that, go to college in the country of the language that I plan on becoming a translator in. Is that a good idea? Sorry for pouring all of these questions onto you; it is just that you seem to be the right person to ask these questions to because of your background. Thanks again for the help and information, and cheers, Razorflame 04:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You have to have a specialty because every field has its own specialized vocabulary, and just knowing the language does not enable you to understand or translate a technical field. English/Spanish translators who translate business contracts do not understand the terms or concepts used in genetics and can’t translate a paper on genetics. Most fields are so large and complex that it takes as long to learn one as it takes to learn a language (if not longer), and only a few translators can manage to handle two or three different fields.

There are a few so-called general translators who claim that they can translate anything, but when a person experienced in a certain field reads a translation made by one of these, he can tell that the translator did not understand the subject and had no idea what he was saying.

There are a few translators who can work in more than just one language pair, but it’s rare. I have a Colombian friend who speaks good English and who has been working in Brazil for several years, so he can translate between Spanish, English, and Portuguese. Many Ukrainians speak excellent Russian, and if they learn English or French, can translate more than one language pair. But language changes rapidly, both in general and in the field of specialization, and it is difficult to keep abreast of everything in more than one or two fields and more than a couple of languages.

To become a translator in both Romanian and Japanese will entail living in each of those countries for several years, and studying your specialty at a university or vocational school in each of those countries. Furthermore, you have to keep up with the changes and advancements in your specialization in both countries as well as in English, so you would have to rotate constantly between the U.S., Romania and Japan to maintain your fluency and subject knowledge.

Since a lot of Japanese work is in the kanji characters, and since Japan is close to China, it might make more sense to study Japanese and Chinese. Knowing the characters of one of them gives you a huge leg up on the other, and it’s only a short airplane hop to visit the other country.

Italian does not offer that much work, and there is a vast supply of qualified Italian translators competing for the few jobs. If you want a European language, you would be better off with French or Spanish (each of which have a lot of work available, but also a lot of translators vying for it). Japanese is a difficult language for Westerners, much harder than French or Spanish, and the writing makes it doubly difficult. But Japan, Korea, and especially China is where the real action is. The 21st century will be the century of China. If you learn Chinese and learn the customs, laws and practices, and learn to navigate the commercial and government systems, you will be set for life. An American who speaks, reads and writes good Japanese or Chinese is in demand everywhere, and will be in demand for the next hundred years at least.

Your parents are right, you should take a semester or two of the languages that interest you here first, to decide which you think you would be able to major in. After you get a Bachelor’s degree with a major in one language and a minor in a technical specialization, then you should go overseas to study your specialization in a university in that country. That’s how you will learn the field in both languages.

I still remember that I bought my first car in Germany years ago. I lived in Germany and took my VW to German garages to get it worked on, and bought car parts in German auto stores. A few years later I returned to the U.S. and discovered that I could not communicate with the service representatives in American garages or dealerships. I only knew car parts and the mechanics and physics of an automobile in German, and I was completely lost with a mechanic who only spoke English. It took me a couple of years here to learn the English jargon, all that about spark plugs, engine mounts, catalytic converters, wheel struts, universal joints, and so on. That’s why you have to finish your specialization up in a university overseas in the foreign language. —Stephen 05:25, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

So it would be easier to learn a language pair that are closely related, then? Furthermore, do you know how much work is available for someone who can translate between Romanian and English? I know that Japanese will be very difficult to learn, but both Japanese and Romanian interest me quite a lot. I took four years of Spanish in high school, but it wasn't really that special to me. Since I've already taken several years of Spanish, I might as well learn it because I know that it isn't that far off from that. I know that there is a lot of work out there for Spanish translators, yet as you've said, I also know that there would be a lot of competition for job positions in that language, which is why I wanted to do something like Romanian, which has interested me for the past few years. Thanks again for all the information, and I loved reading your story about Germany and the fact that you didn't know what a spark plug was ;). Cheers, Razorflame 06:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would be easier if they are related. Of course, Japanese and Chinese are not related languages, but only share a lot of hanzi/kanji characters and a good bit of culture.

Romanian does not have all that much work, not even as much as Italian, but there are not many Romanian-English translators, so there is little competition.

In the U.S. most French translation is for Canadian French, and Spanish is for Mexican Spanish, because of the amount of trade we do with Canada and Mexico. If you lived in Romania, then there would be a lot more work because everything in the European Union has to be translated into every constituent language. Of course, to work there, you would have to complete a translation school course in Europe to get your translator’s certification. You have to be certified in Europe, much like a doctor or lawyer. But that’s where you would find lots of Romanian work (probably mostly British English, since most trade would be with Britain). —Stephen 06:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that that sounds good. I could still go through college here to learn the language, and then I can go to this translator's school in Europe, and then I can end up in Romania to live there for a while. I've been wanting to live in Romania for several years now, so even though there is not much work, you said that there would be little competition, so that sounds like a good plan. Thanks for the help :). Cheers, Razorflame 06:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Questions III

Hi there. Can you please take a look at User:Razorflame/Cyrillic and tell me if I am doing it right? Furthermore, is there a Cyrillic letter for h and w? Thanks, Razorflame 10:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You’re doing it right. For h, use х: хаппи. For w, use у (уэлш). —Stephen 10:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for the help. Cheers, Razorflame 10:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Razorflame/ಠ

Hi there. I've written a draft of this in my userspace, and I was wondering if you can/could check it over? Please ignore the stuff right beneath the Letter header as that will be fixed once it gets moved out of my userspace. Thanks, Razorflame 12:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Would you be so kind as to delete this userspace page of mine now that the page is made? Thanks, Razorflame 13:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Done, but it looked good. —Stephen 13:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the compliment :) Cheers, Razorflame 13:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

laser beam

I'm curious - are you the author that is cited on this page? :D Tooironic 08:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

No, that’s a different Stephen. —Stephen 08:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

List of items

Thank you for your answer in Talk:list.

It would not be terrible to write "item list" or "items list", but better and more idiomatic would be either of "list of items" or "itemized list". —Stephen 02:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Question

Hi, can you help at Talk:chʼil_awhééh? 71.66.97.228 03:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Apostrophe problem

Hi, it would be great if you could check on the apostrophe problem I just brought up at Talk:chʼil_łichxíʼí. 71.66.97.228 02:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

руководитель

Ok, so this means teacher, but in what sense? Razorflame 15:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

For instance, the American term "homeroom teacher" is классный руководитель in Russian. —Stephen 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. Razorflame 15:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Question again

Hi there Stephen. I found a very nice transliteration guide for the Kannada script, and I used it to transliterate a word of the Kannada language. Since you know transliteration of Kannada fairly well, could you double-check my work, please?

ಸಸಿ = sasi

Also, can you help me by telling me what this transliterates into: ಣ್ಣ ? I can't seem to find it listed anywhere on my transliteration table.

Thanks, Razorflame 18:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The second one is a ṇṇa conjunct. It's a regular conjunct formed by adding a "small" ṇa to the right and below the normal ṇa letter. (Many other conjuncts are formed the same way). -- Prince Kassad 18:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

What do the dots mean under particular letters? Razorflame 18:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

They indicate aspiration (h). -- Prince Kassad 18:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That’s correct, ಸಸಿ = sasi. ಣ್ಣ has one letter beneath the other. If these two letters were side by side like ಣಣ, they would be pronounced ṇaṇa. By placing one below the other, the first consonant loses its inherent vowel and they form a consonant cluster...ಣ್ಣ = ṇṇa. This is how many of the Indic scripts work.

You might concentrate on learning Tamil script first. Tamil handles this matter by placing a dot over the first consonant and then just positions the two consonants side by side. The dot means that a consonant loses its inherent vowel: Kannada ಣ = Tamil ண = ṇa; Kannada ಣ್ಣ = Tamil ண்ண = ṇṇa. It means that Tamil is easier for a beginner to learn. —Stephen 08:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like a plan. I'll give Tamil a go :). Thanks for the suggestion, and here is to hoping that I can learn Tamil as well :). Cheers, Razorflame 13:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC) After taking a look at the Tamil alphabet and other things, I've decided that Tamil actually looks harder than Kannada. I definitely believe that I can learn the Kannada language fairly quickly. By the way, did you mean the Telugu language, because Telugu and Kannada are closely related. Razorflame 16:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

(unindenting) Hello there, Stephen. Can you look over the transliterations that I've written on User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL please and tell me how I am doing? Thanks, Razorflame 16:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Lushootseed

Hi Stephen. You added a Lushootseed translation to name is. SIL retired "Lushootseed" [code:lut] since it was a group name and the individual languages were already identified/code: Southern Puget Sound Salish [slh], Skagit [ska], and Snohomish [sno]. Would you be able to be more specific then in your translation? Thanks. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

It is the w:Tulalip tribes in Snohomish County, Washington, so that would be the Snohomish. —Stephen 07:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Which way?

Hi there Stephen. Which way should the transliterations of Kannada be presented on the English Wiktionary: in scientific transliteration, or non-scientific? That is to say, would you rather the transliterations be like they are with the Telugu language (see any Telugu translation in any articles' translations section, or the way that I have done mine in User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL? Thanks, Razorflame 16:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Definitely use the scientific transliteration. The one used by the Telugu translators is better than nothing, but only just. They do it that way because Telugu is their native language and they do not have the facility of the complex set of Roman symbols need for a more accurate system. —Stephen 22:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I was pretty sure that we should use the scientific notation because there were some characters that did not seem to translate well such as the n-yay (n with tilde), and several other characters with the accents over them. By the way, how are my translations at the link that I posted above? Am I getting good at transliteration in Kannada? Razorflame 22:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I checked and corrected the first few. The corrections are on that page. Pretty good overall, but some errors. —Stephen 23:29, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for taking the time to do so. I guess that it is good that only the first few contained errors and that the rest of the ones that I added later were free to errors. That means that I am progressing :). Anyways, after looking through the ones that I were getting wrong, I noticed that all but one of them that I got wrong had a conjunct in it, which means that I still need more practice with conjuncts. Anyways, thanks again for the help! Cheers, Razorflame 23:39, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, it’s no guarantee that the rest are correct. I only looked at the first few, so you could get the idea. You need to recheck the rest to make certain. —Stephen 23:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Some of the symbols look so similar to the others, so I guess that I could have gotten a few of them mixed up. I'll take a recheck of the rest of them to see if they are correctly transliterated. By the way, can you add a section to the template box that shows up under the edit box on the editing screen that has all of the special characters and such in them, and possibly add in all of the special characters used for the scientific transliteration of Kannada words? Thanks, Razorflame 23:47, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no way to put them in the edit box. The special forms are created automatically by your usp10.dll shaping engine. When you type two regular letters in sequence (a consonant+vowel, consonant+consonant, or consonant+consonant+vowel), your shaping engine combines them into the special characters that are required. The only way you can see all of the special characters is to make a table the way I did with Tamil at Index:Tamil...except that Tamil only has the special consonant+vowel characters, and that’s all. Kannada has special consonant+vowel, and consonant+consonant, and consonant+consonant+vowel...much more complex as I explained before. So you would have to make a huge table and type each consonant with each vowel, then each consonant with each consonant, and finally each consonant with each consonant with each vowel. That should do the trick. —Stephen 00:00, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Holy crap....that sounds like a lot of work :o. Actually, I've already seen a few of the special characters already in some of the other boxes. For example, Devarengi seems to have a few of them, and IPA has a few of the letters with the dot under them, and I am betting that I could ask EP for the codes for the Latin macrons, (the lines above the A, E, I, O, and U), and I could use the Spanish n with the tilde over it because that seems to be the same character as the Kannada version of it. However, this is all just conjecture, and it may be completely wrong as well, so if it is, then I apologize :(. Anyways, I really do want to learn how to do this, however, that seems like an inordinate amount of work....Razorflame 00:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Devanagari and virtually all of the Indic scripts, including those of neighboring countries such as Burma, Tibet, and Cambodia. All of those scripts came from Phoenician, just like the Greek, Cyrillic and Roman scripts, but the Indic scripts were all funneled through the Brahmi script of ancient India, which is where they took on this complexity. —Stephen 02:30, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

So couldn't you add those symbols from that symbol list and add them to a new Kannada symbol list on the edit box? Razorflame 02:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Spelling question

Hi, can you help at Talk:béésh łichíiʼii? 71.66.97.228 06:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

committed identity

I've copied over the wikipedia template to here ({{User committed identity}}) if you'd like to use that on your userpage. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. —Stephen 23:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Another spelling question

Hi, between leader and president the Navajo translations are given as naatʼaanii and naatʼáanii--one has an accent over the third A and the other doesn't. Are these two separate words or is one a typo? 71.66.97.228 06:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

naatʼáanii is correct, the other is a typo. —Stephen 10:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yet another spelling question

Hi, can you help at Talk:łibá? 71.66.97.228 09:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Also

Also Talk:Damóo. 71.66.97.228 09:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Etymology

Can you check the etymology at Biʼééʼ Łichííʼí bikéyah? 71.66.97.228 19:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, shouldn't shirt be deijiʼééʼ or deijįʼééʼ (the illustrated dictionary prints it one way in the text and the other in the index) rather than just ééʼ? Or is ééʼ shorthand for the longer phrase in this country name, understood to mean "shirt" when the word really means "clothing"? 71.66.97.228 20:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No, they have different words for the same thing sometimes, just like English. Biʼééʼ means his shirt, but the length is not limited, and it could be a full-length covering. Deijiʼ means upper, so deijįʼééʼ makes sure you know it’s just a Western-style shirt. ééʼ means clothing, garments, shirts. A Catholic priest is ééʼ neishoodii, or "the-shirt-drags-around", meaning that the shirt is so long that it reaches the floor. —Stephen 20:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

That's really fascinating. I just added Ééʼ neishoodii, in case you want to work with it. 71.66.97.228 20:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

More spelling

Any idea why Náʼhatʼéʼiiʼtsoh bikéyah has the kangaroo spelled with glottal stop before the "tsoh," while náʼhatʼéʼiitsoh does not? 71.66.97.228 20:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

We’re going to make these a uniform spelling, Nahatʼeʼiitsoh bikéyah and nahatʼeʼiitsoh. —Stephen 22:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Three spelling questions

See Talk:łáʼtsʼáadah, Talk:táátsʼáadah, and Talk:dį́į́ʼtsʼáadah. 71.66.97.228 07:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Swadesh list

Hi, is there a Swadesh list comparing Navajo and any of the Northern Athabaskan languages? 71.66.97.228 07:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I have never seen a Swadesh list for any of these languages. —Stephen 19:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

There's a small one with Navajo and a few other Southern Athabaskan languages at the en:WP article on the Navajo language. It would be interesting to see how similar the northern and southern languages are. 71.66.97.228 19:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would be interesting. I know a bit about Dena'ina, and I can see a strong resemblance between that and the southern branch. For instance, Navajo nił (“with you”) = Dena'ina neł (“with you”). Navajo shí (“I, me”) = Dena'ina shi (“I, me”) —Stephen 23:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of that nation (I thought most the Athabaskans in that area were up in the Arctic Circle, like the Gwich'in). The Navajo-Ute flutist R. Carlos Nakai told me he took his father up to that area and his father said their language sounded like the Navajo old people used to speak. 71.66.97.228

The Dena'ina live in the Alaskan Yukon. Although those languages have not developed tones, they otherwise work the same way as Navajo and a lot of the bits and pieces are almost the same. The name Dena'ina is cognate with diné and dineʼé, as well as Na-dené. —Stephen 04:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The Wiktkonary entry says they live in "the region surrounding Cook Inlet on the southern coast of Alaska." 71.66.97.228 04:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

That’s the Southern Yukon. If you look at a zoomed image of the map on w:Dena'ina, you will find their territory under the old spelling of Tanaina, around Iliamna and Susitna in the Southern Yukon. —Stephen 04:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, Stephen. I don't know whether you remember me or not. We had a conversation about Arabic a while ago. I was busy in the past months but I returned to contributing in Wiktionary. Please review my edits and tell me if you have comments. Cheers. --Meno25 09:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Meno, welcome back. Our Arabic entries need lots of work! Anything you can do will be appreciated. —Stephen 23:35, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

a- and -í

Hi, can you make an entry for Navajo a- (someone's/people's) and -í (nominalizer)? 71.66.97.228 03:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Question

Hi, for inalienable Navajo nouns that don't exist without prefix, shouldn't we make the entries with an initial hyphen? So, gaan should be moved to -gaan? 71.66.97.228 03:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Hyphenated theoretical forms are a possible way to go, but usually they are only used in brief explanations, not in dictionaries. Dictionaries usually put the a- form as well as the bi- form. We need an article for agaan and for bigaan. —Stephen 04:28, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, if we aren't going to do them, we already have -doh and -lah, and gaan (which I think should be treated as an improper spelling because that word apparently must have a prefix). 71.66.97.228 04:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, they have to have a prefix. —Stephen 04:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Category:German contractions

Hello Stephen. When you created this category in 2006 (OK, so lond ago!), you put there a few other categories - articles, prepositions... I don't understand why you did this. German contractions are not articles or preositions (they are formed with these parts of speech, but are not actually articles or prepositions). Please can you elucidate me about this. --Volants 13:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I don’t understand what you are saying. I doubt that I can elucidate because it was too long ago. Some of the most important and most common contractions are formed from prepositions and articles, and are used as prepositions with articles. I don’t know if that helps you. —Stephen 15:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

See also: ins, zum, zur. (Thanks for the quarks, Stephen)— [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Conjunct trouble

Hi there Stephen. I am having trouble finding out the transliteration of this symbol in Kannada: ನ್ನ. I know that the base is na, but I cannot figure out what the symbol underneath is. Thanks for the help, Razorflame 01:07, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

ನ್ನ is just two ನ's...hence nna. —Stephen 02:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

So that fish looking symbol is that nna symbol? Razorflame 02:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the fish is na. —Stephen 03:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the conjunct that is just the plain letters nna, right? I am thinking this because the ṇṇạ symbol is different than this one. Razorflame 04:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, just plain nna, not the dotted ṇṇa. —Stephen 18:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Another question: In this word: ಜ್ವಾಲೆ, the conjunct is underneath the little swirly thing after the jaa (long a) symbol, so the conjunct adds the v, and the aa is still left over from before the conjunct, and that is why it is jvaale, right? Razorflame 12:04, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

No, the letter ಜ್ವಾ is consonant+consonant+vowel...i.e., ja+va+a. The first consonant, ja, loses its vowel and it becomes j+va+a. The additional ‘a’ (ಾ) is what makes it a long ā. In other words, the conjunct ವ is ‘va’, but this one as an additional ‘a’: ವಾ (vā). So you have ಜ (ja) + ವ (va) + ಾ (a) = ಜ (ja) + ವಾ (vā) = ಜ್ವಾ (jvā). —Stephen 18:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you also double-check the transliterations of User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL (the ones that I've marked with double-checked)? It would be very helpful if you could :) Thanks, Razorflame 12:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I've come across another conjunct that I cannot find listed in my transliteration sources...maybe you could help me? ದೈ Thanks, Razorflame 03:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Could you take a look at the above conjunct and help me figure out what it means? Thanks, Razorflame 18:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not a conjunct at all. It's just dai, i. e. da + vowel sign ai. -- Prince Kassad 19:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Prince Kassad is right, not a conjunct consonant. ದೈ = ದ + ೈ (dai). —Stephen 19:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the help. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Thanks for clarifying this! It helps me complete a transliteration I was working on! By the way, Stephen, can you double-check the last two transliterations that I added on User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL please? I need to verify that it is 100% correct before I add it. Thanks, Razorflame 19:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

awrath#Etymology 3

Hi Stephen. Given your knowledge of Arabic, could you ascertain this word’s (presumably Arabic) etymon? If possible, it would be appreciated. Regards, † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know what system of transliteration that was used for this, but I think you are talking about عورة (ʕáwrah, “imperfection, nakedness”) < عور (ʕáwira, “to lose an eye”). Your spelling might be from another language such as Persian, where it is spelt عورت (awrat, “woman”) (from the Arabic عورة (ʕáwrah)). See w:awrah. —Stephen 18:06, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

That (deprecated template usage) awrat / (deprecated template usage) aurat transliteration makes it pretty plausible for me. Are there two (deprecated template usage) t sounds in Standard Arabic (or in any variant dialect of the language, for that matter) that would justify making a distinction in transliteration? (Perhaps aspiration?) We could just say “Perhaps from the Arabic (deprecated template usage) blah (blah).” if you’re uncertain. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Arabic has a th (as in ‘thing’), a dh (as in ‘the’), a t (as in ‘time’), and an emphatic/pharyngealized ṭ (/tˁ/). The final letter of عورة (ʕáwrah) may in some phrases be pronounced ʕáwrat (with a regular ‘t’). Nothing in Arabic or Persian would justify spelling this word with a ‘th’. —Stephen 19:50, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

How strange… Still, it seems that you’re convinced enough of that derivation not to preface it with a qualifying “perhaps”, so if it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me. BTW, are you OK with these changes? I see you’ve added a pronunciation, for which I’m thankful. Lastly, is there are plural that (etymologically speaking) would make sense, so that I may go looking for it, or is this term uncountable or a plurale tantum? Thanks for your work on this entry. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The changes are okay. The Arabic plural is عورات (ʕawrāt). I assume the English plurals would be awraths, awrahs, and aurats. However, in Arabic the plural has a different meaning: pudendum, genitals, and also weaknesses, weak spots. I suspect that the English borrowing has no plural. —Stephen 20:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The only Google Book Search hits for *(deprecated template usage) awraths are scannos for auratus, so I’m going to go ahead and mark the term as uncountable. So, assuming a plural, it would be spelt the same, but pronounced */ˈaʊ.ɹɑːt/, yes? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I really doubt that English would use the Arabic plural. If there is a plural, it would be with -s. If English for some weird reason adopted the Arabic plural, it would have to distinguish it with a different spelling, either with a macron or a doubled ‘a’. —Stephen 20:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it, too; I was just wondering, really. In the analogous case of English etymologically-consistent plurals from Latin’s fourth declension, plurals deriving thence that differ from the singular by means of vowel lengthening are usually homographic with them; however, I’ve seen both macra (as with lapsūs linguae) and circumflexes (as with nexûs) occasionally used for the plural, but never a doubled vowel. That said, English and Arabic don’t share an alphabet, so since there are a number of transliteration schemes out there, and since transliteration is generally seen as something slightly less important to stay faithful to than spellings from languages using the same script, I suppose *(deprecated template usage) awraath isn’t totally outside the realms of possibility. (Not that there’s any evidence that it exists.) One last thing: In the interests of having a long and detailed English entry devoid of red links, could you please create entries for عورة (ʕáwrah, “imperfection”, “nakedness”) and عور (ʕáwira, “to lose an eye”)? That would be great. Thanks. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 00:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Mandarin translation of Occam's razor

Just some feedback for ya... You were a bit off here. [1]. I've corrected the pinyin and formatting now. Cheers. Tooironic 01:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Russia Kannada transliteration

Hi there Stephen...I just wanted to double-check this transliteration of Russia first before someone else adds it: raṣyā. Thanks, Razorflame 02:25, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I am joining the request. Also, I have trouble finding Sinhalese for Moscow. Do you know? In fact, resources for Sinhalese + another language seem to be extremely poor, making it difficult to find translations. --Anatoli 03:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, can you double-check my transliteration for Sanskrit: saṃskr̥ata? Thanks, Razorflame 06:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

The Kannada transliteration of Russia is correct, but I think it is a big mistake to infer uppercase/lowercase on these languages. In some common transliteration systems, capitalization is used to indicate different letters from the lowercase. And which system of capitalization will you select for the Kannada writers for language names, days of the week, months, etc.? English style (uppercase) or majority European style (lowercase)? Kannada does not have an uppercase and there is no tranliteration system in common use for Kannada that capitalizes such words and that is actually used for literary purposes to write the language. It should be raṣyā. As for Sanskrit, the ‘r’ is not a consonant ‘r’ but a vocalic ‘r’ (meaning that it is a vowel, not a consonant, and so no -a follows it): saṃskr̥ta.

As for Sinhala, online dictionaries are very incomplete. Moscow is මොස්කව්. I think if you are going to do any amount of Sinhalese, you will need to buy a good paper dictionary. —Stephen 11:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Stephen. --Anatoli 19:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I have another request: Is assāmīs the correct transliteration of this Kannada word: ಅಸ್ಸಾಮೀಸ್? I need someone to verify that I correctly did the tl before I add it. Thanks, Razorflame 23:54, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, assāmīs is correct. —Stephen 02:48, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch! I'm getting better at transliteration! :) That was a hard word to transliterate! Thanks again, Razorflame 03:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi again. Can you review the last three transliterations on User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL please? I'm almost ready to start not having to ask you to verify each of them soon; I just have a little more left to learn. Thanks in advance, Razorflame 12:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I have a question about your correction of my transliteration for persistent. You said that is was mom̩du, but my transliteration guides (three of them) all tell me that anasavaru (the o symbol), is transliterated as ṇ when before a ḍ. Is this correct of them to say this, or is it truly the n̩? Thanks, Razorflame 12:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, ṇ when before a ḍ is a better transliteration. —Stephen 20:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks :) Also, can you check this transliteration for me please:

ಜುಱೊಙ್ ಪೂರ್ವ

juṟaoṅ pūrva

Thanks, Razorflame 03:44, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It’s juṟoṅ pūrva. —Stephen 03:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so when using ṟa, only the ṟ is used, or is it because of the half consonant? Thanks for the help so far, Razorflame 05:10, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Not just ṟa, but any consonant. ರ, ಱ, ಲ, and ಳ are normal consonants. By contrast, ಋ is a vocalic r, meaning that it is a vowel...and ಌ is a vocalic L, and therefore a vowel, not a consonant. Whenever a consonant is directly followed horizontally (inline) by another consonant, the first consonant keeps its -a. OTOH, if it is followed by a vowel, that vowel becomes the one and only vowel for that syllable. If it is followed by a consonant placed below, then it loses -a and there is no vowel between the two consonants. —Stephen 05:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the very helpful tips :) They were very, very, very helpful :) By the way, I've got a backup of about 13 or 14 transliterations that need to be verified; can you check User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL, please? All of the ones starting with the first waterfall translation, please? It would be very much appreciated :) Thanks so much for all the help you've given me since I started :) Cheers, Razorflame 12:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, can you double-check this (I am very unsure about the transliteration, so I want you to verify):

ಎಸ್ಟೊನಿಯ = esconiya Thanks, Razorflame 13:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

ಎಸ್ಟೊನಿಯ = esṭoniya. ಸ್ಟೊ = ಸ + ಟ + ೊ —Stephen 13:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks :) By the way, what is this symbol: ಈ (ī)? I've never seen it before. I know the base is ra, but I don't know what to make of the thingie through it. Razorflame 23:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

ಈ (ī) is the independent vowel ī. The independent vowels are ಅ (a, “a”), ಆ (ā, “ā”), ಇ (i, “i”), ಈ (ī, “ī”), ಉ (u, “u”), ಊ (ū, “ū”), ಋ (ṛ, “r̥”), ಌ (l̥, “l̥”), ಎ (e, “e”), ಏ (ē, “ē”), ಐ (ai, “ai”), ಒ (o, “o”), ಓ (ō, “ō”), and ಔ (au, “au”). —Stephen 23:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep, Prince_Kassad told me via IRC, but thanks for the confirmation :) Cheers, Razorflame 23:27, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you double-check my transliterations of the last five words on User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL please? Thanks, Razorflame 07:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Please vote

Привет Стивен,

Меня выдвинули в администраторы. Пожалуйста проголосуй здесь. --Anatoli 03:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Stephen. You know, your opinion counts, even if you don't leave comments. I want to make friends with you but I am not imposing. I see we have a lot in common. Contact me if you have a moment. --Anatoli 12:27, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

You’re welcome. I think everyone here already knows you, so the vote is really only a formality. —Stephen 12:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Questions?

Hey there Stephen. Do you think the Ojibawe and Navajo tribes have a word for streetlight? Also, when are you going to archive your talk page, because it is starting to take a long time for my Internet to load your talk page ;) Cheers, Razorflame 05:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the Ojibwe is waazakonenjiganaatig, Navajo is tłʼóóʼgóó dadiltłiʼígíí. —Stephen 05:50, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Mind adding them to the entry for streetlight? Also, while I appreciate your archival so far, there is still quite a lot of text on this page...I don't mean to complain, because I think you are a very neat person, but could you maybe archive just about another 150KB or so of data? Thanks, Razorflame 05:57, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Great! Thanks for the help :) It really makes it much easier for me to get in contact with you, now that I don't have to wait a minute and a half for your talk page to load =D Cheers, Razorflame 06:41, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

вырыть, нарыть, отрыть, подрыть

Hi there Stephen. Do you have time to maybe make these four pages? I need all four in order to use in a small paragraph that I am writing in Russian for a school assignment. Thanks, Razorflame 09:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. With those entries, I was able to finish my assignment :) I'm very, very interested in learning Russian now. If you know of any good sources to learn more about the language, can you point them out for me? Also, is it just me, or are there a lot of related terms added to entries ;) Razorflame 11:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I added a lot of related terms. Russian is too difficult to learn on your own, you need a classroom course, preferably an immersion course. The best courses available in this country that I am aware of are at Columbia University, University of Texas, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. There are also good immersion courses available in Russia. —Stephen 11:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the advice. I made a single Russian page (and won't make anymore due to difficulty) as a token of my appreciation. Cheers, Razorflame 11:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Stephen, thank you for fixing прорывать. I found this one a bit confusing, as it seems to be related to 2 different verbs and their roots, they seem unrelated to me - рыть and рвать. --Anatoli 22:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, many of the -рывать verbs are like this. They have two different perfectives (-рвать and -рыть) and two different etymologies (one from Common Slavonic ръвати, the other from рыть with the imperfective infix -ыва- inserted). —Stephen 22:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

EDIT CONFLICT - I typed this question while you were editing, let me read what you wrote, perhaps you already answered my question.

Are they related, though? I mean, do рвать and рыть really come from the same stem? Although the Russian Wiktionary shows one etymology for different sense inпрорывать, verbs рвать and рыть are shown as having different stems "рв-" and "р-" accordingly. Sorry for the stupid question from a Russian native speaker! I am really confused. --Anatoli 22:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

рыть is from Common Slavonic рꙑти. However, at an earlier date, рꙑти and ръвати came from the same word, so they are distantly related. —Stephen 23:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Stephen, good job in the entry! BTW, I downloaded 2 fonts for OCS but still can't see the 2nd character in рꙑти. Do you have a download link? --Anatoli 03:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Found a working link. I used this link: [2]. --Anatoli 03:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

See Appendix talk:Old Cyrillic script#Fonts. BukyVede and Kliment Std are good choices. —Stephen 04:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again! --Anatoli 04:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Deletions

Yes, I checked the What links here before I put them up for deletion. Apparently, I missed one. Thanks for the catch! I've fixed the article now. All the rest have no other pages linking to them, and are not to be found anywhere else; they are completely incorrect. Razorflame 14:22, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Dictionary query

Hi Stephen. This is probably a very basic question, but when I look up (deprecated template usage) pavement (ie "sidewalk") in my Arabic dictionary, one of the translations given is طُوار (م). I am expecting the brackets to give me info about the plural, but that isn't any suffix I recognise. What does that mim mean? Ƿidsiþ 07:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know. There should be a legend somewhere in your dictionary that explains it. (م) could be the abbreviation of almost anything, but nothing about the word stands out that would clarify it for me. I disagree with the dhamma...I would pronounce it طَوَار. —Stephen 10:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Huh, interesting. I'll have another look. Thanks. Ƿidsiþ 10:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

horoskop

Hi. I see you've changed "hōroskópos" to "hōróskopos". But which one is correct? The first one I've found in my dictionary, but both forms can be found in Google: [3], [4]. Maro 16:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don’t remember what source I used, but el:ωροσκόπος is the spelling used on the Greek Wiktionary as well as on their Wikipedia. —Stephen 20:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Greek adjective headword line

Hi - the headword/inflection line we currently use is not satisfactory (it says m Template:nominative sg) - when it may well be another case form as well as nominative. Most dictionaries, monolingual as well as bilingual, show the feminine and neuter endings after the masculine form.

I have worked up a new template (currently called {{el-test}}) whose output you can see at at τέλειος - please let me know if you think that this is an improvement. —Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 08:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The template is now {{el-adj}} —Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 12:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Shortenings are discouraged in Wiktionary. We don't have space problems like paper dictionaries. This is better: τέλειος (feminine τέλεια, neuter τέλειο) --Vahagn Petrosyan 17:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, why not - except linking may be a problem (with my level of parsing anyway) because there are sometimes 2 forms - see ανώτερος —Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 17:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I like it, but I agree with Vahag that we should have the full spellings. Another possibility: on French Wiktionary, they give feminines and plurals in a little box at the right margin, which I think looks good. See for example fr:bon#Adjectif. Maybe it would be too much trouble to implement, though. —Stephen 23:29, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The fr:bon looks fine, but our Greek entries will eventually (!) have a full declension table, using the French dis[lay would just reproduce part of this. I will see what I can do about the in-line display to give full spellings with alternatives. —Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 06:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Please can any further discussion move to User_talk:Saltmarsh#new_inflection_line_for_adjs, where a parallel discussion has occured. —Saltmarsh^{απάντηση} 06:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

scita and scienda

Hi Stephen. Forgive the spam, but I need to know urgently what the two Latin words scita and scienda mean. My guess is that they're related to either sciō (“I can, know, understand, have knowledge”) or scītor (“I seek to know”, “I ask, enquire”) (which we don't have), or to both of them. They have a specialised use in English as terms of political science, as demonstrated by this quotation:

As modern life becomes increasingly complicated across many different sociopolitical levels, Kuehnelt-Leddihn submits that the Scita — the political, economic, technological, scientific, military, geographical, psychological knowledge of the masses and of their representatives — and the Scienda — the knowledge in these matters that is necessary to reach logical-rational-moral conclusions — are separated by an incessantly and cruelly widening gap and that democratic governments are totally inadequate for such undertakings." (taken from w:Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn#Work)

Any help you can give me with these words (the greatest being the creation of entries for them) would be very much appreciated. Thanks and regards.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Scita is the feminine of scitus (knowing, shrewd, judicious), a participle of scisco, to investigate, to inquire. I believe scienda is from scio, to know, to understand (scire, scivi, scitum, sciens, scientis, scienter). Encyclopetey is better at Latin and I will leave their creation to him. —Stephen 17:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Stephen; that's very helpful. Also, it matches fairly well with Bogorm's reply (though, in this case, I think (deprecated template usage) scita is neuter plural, not feminine singular). Regarding entry-creation, Caladon's already made a start.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 18:51, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Just thought I should call by to thank you again after my absence. The prompt response I received was invaluable.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 00:49, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

бутерат

Hey,

does бутерат mean high? Drug-related high? Or is it something like drunk? 81.68.255.36 14:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Buterate, a synonym for натрия оксибутират, is a chemical named in English sodium oxybate or gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB. It is the date-rape drug. —Stephen 14:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I know GHB. I must have misunderstood them, thought they used it as an adjective. Thanks! 81.68.255.36 15:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

h-dropping

Hi Stephen,
I heard that speakers of certain dialects of English may omit the h's at the beginnings of words. By this reason in spoken language they use the indefinite article 'an' instead of 'a'. But is it acceptable in written language too? Or should it be corrected? I came across a Wikipedia article in which 'an' was used before all the words beginning with 'h' and personally, I found it very odd. Of course I'm aware of words eg. heir, honor, honesty which start with silent h's, but how about the other ones? Ferike333 20:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Some words have a silent h, including an heir, an honor, an honesty, an herb (I think the British pronounce the h in herb). This is standard American English, not merely dialect. In American English, they are written with an, not a. In addition to these standardized words, some educated people also use an before some other words where the h is not silent, such as an historic. Only a few words with a pronounced h are treated this way, and historic is the only one that I can think of. It is not done with history, which must be a history. I am not certain of the rule, but I think that the first syllable must not be stressed (hence an historic, but not history)...I think it also requires that the vowel after the h be i, and I think it must be word that is descended from Latin. But historic is the only case I can remember where some educated people say and write an historic, pronouncing the h.

I think that there are some British dialects that pronounce an h where none is written (olive pronounced holive), but no h where an h is written (horrible pronounced 'orrible). American does not do this. —Stephen 21:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

It's to do with words which are adopted from French, and where the H was originally silent. The other (relatively) common one is "an hotel". Most of these words have now developed ‘native’ aspirated Hs, but the practice of using "an" lives on weirdly in a few cases. (With ‘herb’, the H has become aspirated in Britain but stayed silent in the States). Ƿidsiþ 21:15, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both. Another standardised word is hour. Yes, I've heard about British omitting h's; probably the most known dialect the speakers of which do so might be Cockney spoken in London. I would just be interested how they would write all these things. I've also read about h-addition but I've never noticed it yet. Interesting stuff. However, an hotel and an historic sounds to me something like a hypercorrection. Thanks again, Ferike333 10:10, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Logo localization

Hi, would you be able to help with the list of localizations for the new logo? Persian, Thai, Khmer, and Swahili still need translations and the Japanese and Bulgarian translations need checking. --Yair rand 01:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 05:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Bureaucrat

There's been some discussion about us needing a third (active) bureaucrat, would you accept? I'm sure you'd pass very easily. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am willing to do it. —Stephen 13:28, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Votes/bc-2010-03/User:Stephen G. Brown for bureaucrat

There you go. SemperBlotto 17:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for desysoping you. Do you want to have a go at the latest request at Wiktionary:Changing username? SemperBlotto 08:12, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I think I managed the username request. I got a message: "User Lewis1350 has been migrated to the unified login system. Renaming it will cause the local user to be detached from the global one." I continued with the namechange. Hope I didn’t mess it up. —Stephen 08:21, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

параплица

Hi Stephen, thanks for expanding this. Are you a Languagehat reader? I got it from one of his posts; the guy is obsessed with Russian, in a way you'll probably appreciate. Ƿidsiþ 22:33, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

You’re welcome. I did read Languagehat a couple of times several years ago but I got distracted somehow and lost touch. I should start reading it again. —Stephen 22:50, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Double-check transliterations

Hi there. Can you please double-check the five transliterations listed on User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL for me please? Thanks, Razorflame 00:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Done, plus corrected one of the other Kannada spellings. —Stephen 01:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I removed the one that you said was wrong, and for the last five, I corrected the first three, however, when going through the transliteration guide for anusavara, it says m with the dot under it except in certain cases, and none of those cases included vowels, so I transliterated it as m with the dot under it as per what my transliteration guide said. Razorflame 01:06, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The sound of anusvara doesn’t depend on the preceding vowel, but the following consonant. It’s unnatural to say "md" or "mt". The d and t make it sound more like an n. —Stephen 01:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, my mistake...let me go back and double-check them. Razorflame 01:17, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

A couple of aspects of the Russian transliteration

Moved to Wiktionary_talk:Russian_transliteration#A_couple_of_aspects_of_the_Russian_transliteration. Sorry for hijacking your talk page, Stephen. --Anatoli 04:07, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

valucha

Hey there,

regarding the bombings in Moscow today, there was a man who was speaking Dutch (Jelle Brandt Corstius, perhaps you've heard of him, perhaps you haven't) and using the word 'valucha' without really explaining what it means. I thought it meant something similar to a terrorist, he was talking about the Caucasus in particular. Do you know what it means or do you know a similar word with a similar meaning? Thanks 81.68.255.36 22:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it is someone’s name. I don’t know of Mr. Corstius. —Stephen 19:44, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Please watch http://pauwenwitteman.vara.nl/Archief-detail.113.0.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=16144&tx_ttnews[backPid]=111&cHash=687601f166 (I think you have to view the source text to see the proper link) and 12:03 in particular. He says "maar die valucha's die zitten ook in Rusland, die zitten in de Kaukasus" (but those valuchas are also in Russia, they are in the Caucasus). When I hear it for the second time, it can also be 'valuja'. I hope you understand the Dutch in the video :) please let me know 81.68.255.36 00:14, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I believe he said Fallujah, the name of a city in Iraq. —Stephen 01:54, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

chapeline, julien

Hi Stephen, let me congratulate you on being a bureaucrat. I think you are the first with 100% concensus;) Or at least that I have seen. Secondly, I would like to ask your help a bit. I came across the word chapeline which I could not find here on the Wiki. Does it really exist in English? If so, would you please define it? Thank you, Ferike333 15:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. chapeline is an old French word, not in common usage. I think it used to mean a kind of armoured helmet. It is also the feminine adjective that refers to the French commune of w:Chapelle-d'Huin or of w:La Chapelle-sur-Oreuse. I haven’t seen it in English before, but if it exists, it probably means that old armoured helmet, usually spelled w:capeline in English. —Stephen 19:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for capeline. It explains. I happened to find another word the meaning of which I couldn't find here, nor on Webster. It's julien and is a verb and may be related to cooking. Can you help, please? It seems that these days I always come into words I can't even look up. Ferike333 08:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Also from French, as cooking terms often are, but the correct spelling is julienne. To julienne means to slice a vegetable into long, thin strips. —Stephen 12:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Recognition

Thanks for cleaning up my little mess at vaivainen. :) ~ heyzeuss 07:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Eipä kestä. —Stephen 08:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Set up of a separate page for conversations between us

Hi there Stephen. Since I am going to be starting to work in Kannada again, is there any way that we could set up a page that is a subpage of your talk page in which I could post transliterations for verification? Please let me know, Razorflame 03:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I suppose you could post at User_talk:Stephen_G._Brown/Kannada. I don’t know if this would automatically notify me the way it does when you post here, but you can try it. —Stephen 03:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No, it won't automatically notify you about it, but you could keep the page watchlisted and keep a lookout for any updates that it gets. Razorflame 03:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hebrew and Aramaic

I was wondering if you would be able to translate the words 'adored' and 'beloved' into Hebrew and Aramaic. Let me know! Thanks.

If you mean beloved as a noun, then Hebrew for beloved: אהוב (masculine), אהובה]] (feminine). These are not my languages. For Hebrew, you should contact Ruakh. We did have an Aramaic translator here, but he has not been active for a while. You might ask Ruakh. —Stephen 18:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

maṣdar vs. ism

Out of curiosity, since the sakhr dictionaries separate these... should we, or is there any reason to treat verbal nouns differently than regular nouns or put them under a different header or anything? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think they should be under a separate header. One of many such header cases that I have given up fighting about. The verbal nouns are separate from all the other nouns and are more like an infinitive, and virtually every verb has one. —Stephen 02:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't suppose the detractors to this idea had any knowledge or caring about languages that differ significantly from English... I just can't accept people who don't know anything about a language being given equal right to make decisions on how we handle them. But that's another subject... Maybe it should be done anyway, and to hell with those who don't know any better? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 12:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I can’t convince anyone that other languages can have other parts of speech. It is taken as a truism that every language has exactly the same parts of speech that English has, no more, no less, no different, and when another culture such as the Thai or the Arabs come with a different model, they are thought to be too simple and unsophisticated to see that their languages are really just like English and Latin.

I have tried to use corrected headers, such as ===Predicative=== for Russian, ===Preverb=== for Ojibwe, but AutoFormat marks them as errors and Ullmann, Connell or someone else comes and changes them to whatever word from the standard plan seems closest...preverb becomes adverb (because the word contains "verb" and has a prefix), coverb likewise becomes adverb, prepositional phrase becomes preposition, and so on. Trying to recorrect them just leads to a revert-war with a tireless automated bot. —Stephen 12:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think either of the two of them really have a right to be deciding how we treat languages... I don't mind revert-warring and abusing the block tool. AutoFormat marks a number of things that it shouldn't, and when you ask ullmann to fix it... well, I think he has some kind of power complex. Maybe we should find others who realize that languages aren't all based on Latin grammar and start a wikiuprising. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 13:30, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I would support that. I made many efforts on this matter over the past six years, but it was all in vain. I really like the way the Russian Wiktionary is set up. There the headers are neutral: Semantics, Phonology, Definition, Etymology, etc. Then under Semantics, you can describe an entry as an adjective, predicative usage, preverb, or whatever is needed.

It was suggested that the different requirements of individual languages be handled on the "Appendix:About..." page, and that then AutoFormat would accept the different terms. But this did not work at all, so I gave up on the Appendix:About pages. —Stephen 13:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The About:X pages seem to be kinda neglected... or ignored altogether. It really is unfortunate, though, that we give the same weight to the opinions given by people who have no understanding of these things... we don't ask restaurant owners what they think we should do to cure diseases. Why are we allowing people who speak English and nothing else dictate what we do with languages that bear no similarity to English to speak of? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 14:01, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd just like to note that I would support a language's use of a non-English POS, if appropriate. I suspect that there are quite a few others who would as well. I don't know when the last time a BP thread was started on this, but it may be time for another. Connel was, admittedly, somewhat difficult about this, but he isn't really a factor any more. I imagine that Robert will change AF's protocol if he sees strong community support for it. Just my two cents. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 14:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Count me in, if you have a vote on "new" POS. --Anatoli 12:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

take a walk

Hey Stephen,

can you tell me what 'take a walk' means in Australia? Or what it used to be..? Thanks 81.68.255.36 20:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

It could mean to hike in the bush. I think they also use it to mean that something has vanished: my wedding ring has gone walking. I’m not Australian though, you should ask User:Hippietrail. —Stephen 06:17, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I will. Thank you :) 81.68.255.36 08:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

German

Hey there Stephen,

could you tell me what you need to say in German what in Dutch is called verwijswoord when you translate: "Yeah the movie was OK, I've seen it with my father". I hope I'm still making sense, but is it just er as in Dutch (hij)? Thanks 81.68.255.36 13:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the closest word in German is da. Definitely not er. Dutch ermee = German damit. In that sentence, you would use er in Dutch, which has a weakened meaning like German da in davon, dabei, etc., but German would not use that construction here. In German I would say, Ja, der Film war okay, ich habe ihn mit meinem Vater gesehen. Sometimes we use a form of the definite article: den hab’ ich mit meinem Vati mal gesehen. —Stephen 20:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

And what if you want to say I've seen the film, it was okay? 81.68.255.36 19:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Ich habe den Film gesehen, er war okay. Or: Ich habe den Film gesehen, der war okay. Use er because der Film is masculine, so you have to refer to it with "he". If a word is feminine, then refer to it with sie; if neuter, then es. —Stephen 18:21, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Which script?

I just found this script online. Do you have any idea what language it is? We don't have entries for the individual characters.

ચપતી ભરી ચોખા રંગતાળી

71.66.97.228 04:34, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

That’s Gujarati. —Stephen 04:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

So we need entries on all/most of the Gujarati letters? 71.66.97.228 05:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we do. —Stephen 11:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

hardes

Hi Stephen. Do you know if this edit is a good one? Ƿidsiþ 09:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the original word was right. فردة (farda) means a single piece, which might be used for a piece of cloth or clothing, while فرض (farD) means notch, incision, duty, decree, hypothesis. I reverted it. —Stephen 11:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

user: translations for French

Hello, I don't if it's here that I can express my gratitude for the addition of the translations. I wanted to say also that I don't create an account because I don't speak well English (I speak like a... French cow or « une vache espagnole ») and because I use the wiktionary to help me to understand what I learn in Dutch. So I think I don't have my place here. Kind regards User:93.21.153.223

Gujarati

I saw what someone asked to add the Gujarati characters. This is a language I learned: is the wiktionary team alright if I help you with this? But I don't know how we do this...unsigned comment by User:93.21.153.223 14:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would be very helpful if you could do that. You could make a page for Gujarati like we did for Wiktionary:Hindi transliteration, and a different page for each Gujarati letter, like क. See Category:Devanagari for all the letters we did for that script. To start with, you could copy everything from क to ક and then make all the necessary changes there. —Stephen 16:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I started a page of requests at Wiktionary:Requested entries:Gujarati. But the letters are not in any order (and some of them might actually be syllables rather than letters). 131.123.120.57 19:36, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The order seems to be pretty good. I added the missing letters. As with the other Indic scripts, they are all syllables. The word "letter" might be a bit of a misnomer, but it is convenient. It seems better than "symbol", and a lot of people don’t understand glyph. —Stephen 21:37, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a catgory Category:Devanagari_ligatures, the entries are flagged as Category:Entries with non-standard headers because of the "Ligature" header but they do the job of explaining Hindi combined letters, I don't see why this can't be done for Gujarati. To get things started, please check my very raw entry આ, sorry I don't know any Gujarati. Feel free to correct and categorise. --Anatoli 02:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Like I said it at the beginning of the section, I would like to help with Gujarati, but I see that there are people who know exactly how to do this (this is not the case for me). And I must ask to my father the authorisation to create my account, but it is not possible for the moment... User:93.21.153.223 (why have I been given a name with these numbers?)

They know how, but they don’t know Gujarati. That’s why nobody has done this for Gujarati yet. I did it for Russian, Dijan did the Hindi, but still no Gujarati.

Everyone who writes something here or on Wikipedia starts with a username made up of numbers. The numbers are your IP address. If you want to create an account, there is no disadvantage to doing so. There is no cost involved and no personal information is needed. You just choose a name, word, or series of letters and numbers that you like and that have not been used before. It will be your name both here and on Wikipedia. Any edits or comments that you make will be attached to that name so that you can always see what you have written and when.

When you write a comment, end it with 4 tildes: ~~~~. That will automatically put your name as a signature, as well as a date stamp. When you create an account, nobody will know where you are or what your email is. It is perfectly anonymous. It just makes it easier for people to get to know you and recognize you, because words are more natural than numbers; and it makes it easier for you to keep track of your edits. —Stephen 15:41, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Sir. I would like to do it, because it interests me, but my father is already registered on Wiktionary and Wikipedia (his nickname is "Kangi Ohanko" and he has an adopter with the name "Xeno") and he doesn't want that we register if we don't ask him before. I don't if I can say this on this website, but he has big health problems and he is in the coma since Christmas. I must wait that he gives me his authorisation. My uncle (he has the same number: 93.21.153.223, he learns Dutch and it is him who asked the question about "Loket") help us since my father was wounded, but he says that he doesn't want to contradict what my father said. Thank you for your kindness. User:93.21.153.223

Understood. I hope your father gets well soon. —Stephen 08:45, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Loket

Many, many thanks for your help, Mr. Stephen, I do appreciate it. Sincerely User:93.21.153.223

ńdízídígíí

Hi, Stephen, you say this is a verb, though a "month" definition would imply it is a noun. Is "Nominalized verb" the most appropriate part-of-speech, or is it possible to give it one that is more widely used? Conrad.Irwin 15:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think ńdízídígíí is a verb that has been nominalized, which means "the months" or a particular month. A form of ńdízííd, which means "the months are passing". You could call it a noun. —Stephen 16:02, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for dealing with that so efficiently. As part of the same project to clean up the PoS headers, User:Atitarev suggested that your expertise might be useful in resolving دين#Verbal noun (i.e. is it a form of a verb, or is it a noun?). I tried half of it [5], but I'm not confident that that was right. Conrad.Irwin 21:02, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I’ll look at it to see if I can do anything any better. I usually avoid adding Arabic verbal nouns just because they don’t fit the English grammatical model. Arabic verbal nouns are a problem because they are a separate part of speech, more like our infinitive or gerund. They are different from normal nouns, not really verbs even though some authorities refer to them as infinitives, and every verb has one. There are also various and numerous other nouns that are derived from verbs, but which are not verbal nouns. I suppose we just have to call them nouns, even though they are unlike the other nouns that are made from verbs. This will continue to be a problem in the future, since there are so many verbal nouns in Arabic, and whenever editors work on them, they will be forced to make difficult choices about how to handle them. —Stephen 22:31, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. It sounds like the best choice is "Verbal noun" then? There's no problem with having language-dependent headings, I just assumed this was a mistake as it was the only one. Conrad.Irwin 22:39, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Wonderfool is active?

O RLY? Do you care to divulge who he is, please?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 14:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

User:Rising Sun is his current moniker. —Stephen 14:11, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I see. Well, he's fr-4, but I'm not really aware what other evidence there is to implicate him... (BTW, I laughed at User:Rising Sun#other users whose contributions I appreciate: "Sometimes I think I'm the only psychologically secure one here.")  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 14:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Apart from he admitted to me in an email (which I no longer have). I have suspicions about other accounts which I've spoken about in private emails. He's not a vandal, not IMO, he's just careless and never seems to check what he's just written, creating stuff like in addtiion instead of in addition. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Some Asian talk

Hi Stephen,

could you tell me what the Asian man is saying at the end of this video? Thanks 81.68.255.36 09:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I think he says, "triple headshot". —Stephen 10:01, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

In what language? 81.68.255.36 17:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe it’s an Eastern Persian language, probably Pashto or Dari. —Stephen 14:25, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Vote

The rather controversial vote is shortly coming to a close. I suspect you all know at least the basics of the issues surrounding it. Since it is rather close, incredibly controversial, and tempers are flared, I think one of you could go a long way to preventing future clashes by closing it when the time comes. All of our current 'crats have a great deal of respect from the general community, and, while there isn't a strong precedent for 'crats demonstrating authority in vote closing on this project, I suspect that most people would nonetheless recognize that authority and respect it. I certainly would. Thanks for your consideration. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 22:55, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted your closing of the vote, as it doesn't end for another 19 hours... --Yair rand (talk) 05:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Your clock setting must be different from mine. Mine just clicked over to a new day. 19 hours from now, by my settings, will be 7:00 p.m. —Stephen 05:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The vote page says it ends at 24:00, 24 May 2010 UTC. Your signature in ending the vote said "—Stephen 05:00, 24 May 2010 (UTC)". --Yair rand (talk) 05:32, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Odd. The time of the most recent edit of that file in My watchlist now says 00:22. I suppose it is not UTC. —Stephen 05:38, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

restore ung uservote

ok. -Momay! 04:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

How old are you? —Stephen 04:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Request

Can you double-check the 7 transliterations that I added to User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL please? Thanks, Razorflame 22:01, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! It is much appreciated! As for dr̥, I take it that is a vowel consonant, which is why there is no a in it? Razorflame 03:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Because r̥ is a vowel. Vowels do not have other inherent vowels in them, they are only themselves. Only consonants have inherent vowels or modified vowels. —Stephen 03:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yep. That was what I figured when you double-checked two of my transliterations. r̥ is indeed a vowel, so dr̥ is the consonants. I've read up about it now and found out some more about it, so that mistake won't happen again, now that I've got it drilled into my brain ;) Razorflame 03:09, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi again Stephen...can you double-check the 3 transliterations on the page listed above please? Thanks, Razorflame 04:02, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

One more request...could you check the remainder of the entries on User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL that don't have the (correct) next to them please? Thanks, Razorflame 23:37, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

إضافة

This could use your help :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 14:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 14:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Chinese vs Indian

Hi there,

I was wondering why translation tables such as the one in hi (interjection) do list Chinese with subheaders such as Mandarin, Cantonese, but do not list Indian with subheaders such as Hindi and Telugu. Why is that? 81.68.255.36 17:32, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Chinese is a language that can be divided into more specific languages. Indian is not a language. It's not a geographical system, or else we'd have to put English under European. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a funny question. :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Why is it funny? 81.68.255.36 17:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, weird. Wikipedia says Chinese is a language family, though...but I suppose it's for the best then :) 81.68.255.36 17:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Right. The four common Apachean languages are all frequently called Apache and should be grouped under Apache (but Navajo is not, even though it is closely related, because it is never called Apache). The various Chinese languages are often called Chinese for short, and it is natural for us Westerners to look for them grouped under Chinese. But Uyghur, though spoken in China, is not a related language and is never called Chinese, so it is not grouped under Chinese. Hindi and Telugu are spoken in the same country, but are unrelated languages. The groupings that we use are not areal associations at all, but depend on association by linguistic relationship and by denomination. Hindi is Indo-European (like English), while Telugu is Dravidian. We do not have any purely areal groupings. —Stephen 17:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I understand, it is now much clearer how wiktionary lists things. Thanks you :) I can't help feeling Opiaterein was just being a jerk because of this, though. 81.68.255.36 17:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Got another

Berukh added نوتر but it seems it should be at توتر? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 01:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

You're right, Opiaterein. I split into two entries. --Anatoli 02:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

full steam ahead

Hi Stephen, could you tell me the German term used for the expression above? Thanks in advance, Ferike333 11:04, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I think I would say, Volldampf voraus. —Stephen 16:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm just working on de:wiktionary and I came across a couple of phrases I can't transcribe into German. :/ Can you further tell me what a steam plough is, or I think the American spelling should be steam plow, but I don't know. Ferike333 17:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

And if I don't bother you, could you tell me a German term similar to walk the line? Ferike333 17:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I think a steam plow would be eine Lokomobile, ein Dampfpflug, or eine Pfluglokomotive. walk the line is very idiomatic...maybe in einer Linie antreten or sich gleichschalten...it really has different meanings in different situations, so it is hard to find a general translation. —Stephen 17:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I really appreciate your help :) Ferike333 18:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

хлопотливо

Could you make this entry please? Thanks, Razorflame 17:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 18:16, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

pleasey please

I would love your input at "Proposal for (toned) pinyin words" at BP. So far I've gotten very little response. Thanks. ---> Tooironic 08:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Arabic or similar text

Hi Stephen. Given your knowledge of Arabic and Farsi, could you reproduce here the text that looks like Arabic between the two highlighted blocks in this source please? Thanks in advance.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 00:47, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay: Template:ug-Arab —Stephen 14:49, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 17:00, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

настоящее

Could you please create the adjective section? 81.68.255.36 14:14, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 14:42, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Khmer

Hi Stephen, I was wondering if you could provide a phrase translation into Khmer? "When broken glass floats" Thankyou Ginni Leonard 06:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I would say: ពេលណា​កែវ​ដែលបែក​អន្ដែត (peelnaa kaev daelbaek on-dait)

However, I am not a native speaker and you should get a second opinion. —Stephen 16:16, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Chinese languages

Please show me where is the policy of nesting all Chinese languages together? I shall say I was told there's no technical enforcement. --Symane 15:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary is not like Wikipedia, here not every policy and convention has been committed to writing. It should be, of course, be no one has done it. Nevertheless, it has been the policy here for over six years, at least. You were told "no technical enforcement" (whatever that means) by a single individual who is not involved with this aspect of Wiktionary. It is our policy and it would require a discussion and vote to change it. In any case, you don’t own any of the work you do here. Once you save your work, it is open to any of the other editors to change it as needed, including correcting it, deleting it, moving it, reformatting it. —Stephen 15:40, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your long explanation on my talk page and I find you were attempting to exclude me out of here by use of twenty "we"s, to my understanding at least. My question will be simply, where is your policy that has been here for over six years? I shall agree to nesting immediately as soon as you show me where it is. --Symane 16:15, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Apparently you did not read my explanation. All of the information is there. It does not matter whether you agree to nesting or not. If you place a translation in the wrong order, someone will move it to the proper order. If you revert the correction, you will be blocked from editing for increasing periods of time until you accept the way we work together here. —Stephen 16:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I did read, but I don't know why you have the right to modify my edits, while I don't. Are we still in USSR's dictatorship? --Symane 09:04, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

It's called standardization. If everyone comes along and does things in a different fashion, where do you think Wiktionary will end up? Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 09:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

You do have the right to modify others’ edits, but only after you learn the ropes. We have strict formatting requirements, strict in part because we use a special bot to help keep everything straight, and the bot expects and demands certain things. After you learn our formatting and learn to use the specific templates that you will need, then you certainly may and should modify incorrect edits just like the rest of us do. If you find unnested Chinese, now that you know the policy, please modify and nest the entries properly. —Stephen 09:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I need water

Hey there Stephen...wouldn't the Spanish translation of I need water be yo necesito agua or just necesito agua? Razorflame 23:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that. I thought I was editing I need food. —Stephen 23:37, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

sowieso

Hi Stephen,

could you please translate that example better? I believe anyhow doesn't really fit (making it necessary to add some translations which I cannot think of), but perhaps you see it differently. Thanks 81.68.255.36 19:40, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I gave it my best shot. You might be able to improve on it a little. —Stephen 20:01, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I doubled checked it, your translation was very good! Thank you 81.68.255.36 22:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

بو حباب

Could you possibly make this page, as it is used in the Etymology sections of baobabo? It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Razorflame 19:11, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it is best to break it into separate words. Even then, the second word is somewhat unusual and I don’t have any references for it. It is probably dialect or antiquated, or otherwise some rare form. —Stephen 15:06, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Sounds good to me :) Thanks for the help, Razorflame 15:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Appendix:Swadesh lists for Slavic languages

Hi Stephen,

I saw your edits on Appendix:Swadesh lists for Slavic languages. I added a few Russian synonyms. I hope it didn't cause you any edit conflicts. Let me know if you need any assistance. --Anatoli 03:19, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, edit conflicts are usually no problem for me. —Stephen 03:30, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Spanish pronunciation

Hello Stephen,

could you please tell me when a v is pronounced as a /b/ (sort of) and when it's pronounced as a /v/ in Spanish? I know there are differences in South/Middle American Spanish and Castilian regarding the pronunciation of a c, is this also the case here? Please let me know, thank you. 81.68.255.36 15:52, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

(butting in) the IPA character for that b-like sound is /β/, and in general, South American pronounce /s/ while Spaniards say /θ/. See vecino. Stephen will probably know much more than I do (as always). Mglovesfun (talk) 16:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Both b and v are pronounced /b/ at the beginning of a breath group and after n. Otherwise, they are pronounced as a softened sound halfway between a b and a v: vivo = /'biβo/, pero vivo = /'pero 'βiβo/, en vivo = /em 'biβo/. It is the same story in both Latin American and Iberian varieties of Spanish. —Stephen 16:05, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

At the beginning of a breath group? So Valparaíso is pronounced with a /b/? I've heard a man from Chile say /v/, although I think it's a /v/. I'm certain you can correct me if I'm wrong, here's the link: sound file. 81.68.255.36 16:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Valparaíso is pronounced with a /b/ if no other word immediately precedes it. Maybe the man from Chile was exaggerating his pronunciation so an American wouldn’t be confused by hearing Balparaíso. The link would not work for me...it wants a user name and password. On YouTube you can hear Valparaíso pronounced on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBd0-4KXloo at about the 0:41 mark. —Stephen 17:12, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Odd, I had no problems listening to the file. Anyway, thanks for clarifying this. I never knew what it was, especially with sports commentators pronouncing some Spanish names correctly and others (now I know) incorrectly. It was confusing.

81.68.255.36 11:06, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

roľa

I was wondering you could help me out with another thing, I asked Dan Polansky if the word rol'a is Slovak and if it means field. I haven't heard from him, but a google search does give some indication that it means "field", but I'm not entirely sure if it's really Slovak. Do you know?

Slovak does have a similar word, roľa, meaning field. In some fonts, the ľ looks like l', but it is not. —Stephen 14:12, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

нюхать, сосать, вытирать

Hi Stephen,

I followed some entries you created and I made these entries to the best of my knowledge and grammatically they seem okey but could you please check if they are complete otherwise? As for the choice of these verbs - I want to try to add aome basic verbs, which are still missing, in at least one of the aspects (pf/impf). --Anatoli 01:41, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I made some minor changes, mostly in the linebreaks. Otherwise, they are good. —Stephen 15:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

кIиранде

While I know nothing about, a number of Chechen entries have been tagged for script problems. It seems the contain a capital Latin letter 'I', which is indeed a bit odd. Seems you created this one. Thanks, Mglovesfun (talk) 10:28, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Normally, they are supposed to contain the letter Ӏ (an exact lookalike). Latin I is often used on the Internet due to font and keyboard problems. -- Prince Kassad 11:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

This letter, the palochka, evolved on the Russian typewriters from the Roman numeral I. Russian dates are often written with the month shown in Roman numerals: I6.VII.20I0 г., so Russian typewriters include the Roman letters I and V as well as the № symbol. Since Russian has more letters (33 upper, 33 lower), cuts had to be made somewhere, so parentheses were dispensed with (that’s why Russians often use // as parentheses), and the numeral 1 is missing. The Roman numeral I also served as the Arabic numeral 1. The Chechens and other Caucasians needed a special letter that did not appear in Russian, so they adopted the Roman numeral I (or the number 1, according to how you interprete it). Around ten years ago or so, the Unicode Consortium created a special palochka for them, but most Cyrillic fonts available in the Causasus region did not include it, and in the few that had it, it was not well designed and had a bad appearance. For these reasons, the Chechens have always, before the computer and since the computer, used the capital letter I (or Roman numeral) or the Arabic numeral 1, or occasionally the Roman lowercase L. The Chechen Wikipedia, for example, like most of the others that use this letter, uses the I. So a word might be found with I (i), 1 (one), l (L), or Ӏ (palochka), but much more often the I (uppercase i) or the numeral 1. —Stephen 14:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Quail in Navajo

Hi, we seem to have two separate entries for quail in Navajo: diłdánii and díłdánii. Can you please check? 71.66.97.228 08:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 17:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

'mughdriya'

Do you know of any Arabic word resembling معذرية (which of all the variations I can think of is the most common on Google) that means something like "compassion" or "mercy"? I'm trying to figure the etymon of the Maltese mogħdrija but... it's not been easy. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 16:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, from عذر (ʕáðara, “to absolve from guilt”) come معذرة (máʕðira, “forgiveness”), معذار (miʕðār, “plea”), معذور (maʕðūr, “excusable”), and other similar forms. —Stephen 17:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks :) I'll use معذرة as a cf. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

вводное слово

I'm having a problem with finding an English equivalent to the part of speech called вводное слово in Russian. "Parenthetical word" does not seem to be a valid PoS. What PoS would you recommend for things like допустим, положим, դիցուք? Adverb, particle? --Vahagn Petrosyan 13:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The technical term for вводное слово is parenthesis, but most people would not understand it. Adverb is commonly used for them in English, even though they are not really adverbs. I think I would be in favor of using parenthetical expression for it. —Stephen 14:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Making parenthetical expression a valid PoS would require a lot of bureaucracy (something you and I don't do), so I'll stick to 'adverb'. Thanks anyway. --Vahagn Petrosyan 14:33, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree, if it’s for PoS headers, it will have to be Adverb. —Stephen 14:59, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Flag User:ArathVerbFormBot

According to the Wiktionary Bot Policy I have to ask a Bureaucrat to flag my bot account.

I asked for approval of my bot at the Beer parlour and I don't know how long I should wait for it, but I don't think anyone's going to disapprove. So when you feel enough time has passed could you please flag my bot? Arath 09:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Flag set. —Stephen 13:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

abano

What did you mean by flychaser when you edited this entry? What is a flychaser? Nadando 06:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

In the old days, before airconditioning, houses kept open windows during warm weather. We had screens, but they are never very secure, so during the course of the day, a lot of houseflies would enter. We used a flychaser, which could be a large fan or something as simple as a cuptowel, to chase the flies toward an opened door before we sat down to a meal. Different from flyswatters, which are used to kill flies. —Stephen 06:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

About riħ

Talk:riħ#Gender issues - I tried for a while to figure out for sure what gender it was, but I ended up finding about equal amounts of things that indicated f versus m. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 19:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it’s one of those few irregular words. It looks like it’s masculine, but its spiritual meaning makes it feminine. The Italian word is masculine, so that is probably an influence that makes some treat it as masculine. —Stephen 19:52, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess we'll just have to make a usage note about it at some point. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Todo/Redirects with macrons

Should Classical Nahuatl words have macrons in the page titles? If not, all of the redirects on this list seem suitable for deletion. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:53, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Nahuatl words have macrons in the page titles. For example, nah:Cemānāhuac, w:nah:Nāhuatlahtōlli. —Stephen 21:06, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

For both Nahuatl and Classical Nahuatl? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:42, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I think all dialects and registers of Nahuatl have them. Of course, 600 years ago Nahuatl was not written with the Roman alphabet...vowels with the macron were introduced for use in Classical Nahuatl in the seventeenth century, and now the modern dialects use the same system. —Stephen 23:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Translation

Hi Stephen, today I was given my first official Hungarian-English translation to do, and now it's done. However I'm unsure of the grammar at some points. Could you just look it through, please? Not long, a bit more than one page in Microsoft Word. Is there a possibility to send this document to you? You can send me your email address to ... - if you'd not like to share it here. Best, Ferike333 19:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I sent an email. —Stephen 20:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Sent. Ferike333 20:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

America - she

Hi again, during watching a movie, actually by name it was Pearl Harbor, I came across a couple of things I'd like to ask you questions about. First of them was asked here: talk:cal. Another one is that America was replaced by the feminine personal pronoun, she. I'd like to ask if this goes only with America, or with all/some continents/countries? Ferike333 21:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

No, other countries, especially large countries like Canada and Russia, can be called she. See w:Gender-specific pronoun#Ships and countries. Other she’s include powerful vehicles that you ride inside of, such as submarines, automobiles, trucks, buses, airplanes. Also, storms, oceans, large rivers. I think the important factors that all of these share are that you can be inside them, they are a powerful force, and they can be unpredictable and even dangerous. It’s harder to think of nouns that we would call he...a computer is a he (although an old IBM mainframe computer would probably be a she, because of its size, stringent environmental requirements, and problems). —Stephen 22:01, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Favor

When you have a moment to spare, could you make насильственный suck less? Thanks :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 01:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 03:29, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 03:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Persian ye

Hey, just a tiny reminder. Remember to use the Persian ye (ی)for Persian words. :) Keep up the good work. Placebo 11:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

пром

Hi,

could you tell me if -пром in a Russian company's name actually stands for something and if so what exactly? Thanks 81.68.255.36 10:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does mean something. Пром- is short for промышленный (promyšlennyj, “industrial”): промкомбинат (promkombinat, “industrial combine”), промтовары (promtovary, “manufactured goods”), промфинплан (promfinplan, “industrial operational and finance plan”). Also, -пром, short for промышленность (promyšlennostʹ, “industry”): легпром (legprom, “light industry”), леспром (lesprom, “timber industry”), тяжпром (tjažprom, “heavy industry”). —Stephen 06:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

gálibo

Is this related etymologically to the Russian габарит? Nadando 06:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

No, габарит (gabarit) is from French gabarit < Italian gabarra < Spanish gabarra (“barge”) < Basque kabarra < Latin carabus < Greek κάραβος (káravos, “boat”). —Stephen 06:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

лазанья#Declension

Hi Stephen,

I couldn't find the template matching this noun and added a manual one. Could you please help? Thanks in advance. --Anatoli 23:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

[6] --Vahag 23:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Спасибо, Вааг. ;) --Anatoli 00:08, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

moest

Hi,

In Dutch you can say "moest je vanavond werken?" which can mean 2 things: someone has already worked that evening or someone is about to that evening. Can you do the same in English and if so, how? 81.68.255.36 14:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I don’t think there is a construction in English that contains those two possibilities. We have many ambiguous verbs and constructions, but none like this one. In English you would have to choose either "did you work tonight" or "do you have to work tonight". —Stephen 02:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I see. Do you think it's usage note worthy at moeten then? Thanks 81.68.255.36 07:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

That’s a good idea, or at least an example or two like the one above. —Stephen 07:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I made 2 edits at moeten and gaan, I'd appreciate it if you can review those. Thank you 81.68.255.36 08:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen 08:53, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:tptu and Template:tptu2

Can you please unlink these from the Mandarin pinyin category? Cheers. ---> Tooironic 09:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Unlinked. —Stephen 09:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

They still appear to be there. See Category:Mandarin pinyin. ---> Tooironic 06:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Must be propagating from template:zh-tone, which each of these include. I’ll remove it from zh-tone and see if that works. —Stephen 06:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

palochka display

Hi Stephen. At the risk of seeming interfering, please see User talk:Prince Kassad#Redirection policies. I asked PK about a cryptic statement he made in the Beer parlour. The discussion that developed resulted in a possible solution to the disagreement that you and he have had re Chechen orthography. Please let me know what you think of the compromise proposed therein. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:54, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

First, to address the outright POV pushing I read there, I do not do "everything to prevent the use of palochkas", I simply enter the spellings that I and most Chechens think is correct. Just because an American typographic association has made available a new symbol in the last ten years to be used in place of the old one, it does not make the old one that Chechens have used for a long time incorrect.

There have not been any edit wars or wheel wars over this issue. The standard that most people have been using, including the Chechen Wikipedia, does not "cause major sorting issues", it causes a minor sorting issue. The following list is a selection from our Chechen noun category. It contains five underlined words with palochkas. The left column has the I that Chechen Wikipedia prefers, and the right column has the new Ӏ. The sort is off a little, but not terribly, and Chechens are accustomed to this order.

• жIаьла

  жоьжахати

  зIуга

  заза

  йозанча

  йохкархо

  кIира

  кеманхо

  маршо

  менеджер

  меттанийнIилманча

  милцо

  минот

  орам

  официант

  пIелг

  пахун

  пачхьалкх

жоьжахати

жӀаьла

заза

зӀуга

йозанча

йохкархо

кеманхо

кӀира

маршо

менеджер

меттанийнӀилманча

милцо

минот

орам

официант

пахун

пачхьалкх

пӀелг

That was in answer to the unfair POV. As for using redirects, it’s fine with me. I have never understood why everybody here is so fearful of using redirects. Redirects are an important tool that can serve a number of useful functions, including making certain letters equivalent. When I enter Chechen with a palochka, I add a redirect. If there are some palochkas that now do not have a redirect, it’s only because someone has deleted the redirects. —Stephen (Disc) 23:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I had assumed good faith, and not taken you to have acted improperly. I simply saw a problem that seemed soluble, and tried to help. Whatever character is chosen, that one has to be used universally: palochka is the last letter of the Chechen Cyrillic alphabet, whereas the way I, 1, and l sort all make them de facto behave as the first letter of it. Display and sorting work-arounds can be achieved by the use of templates' head= and sort= parameters. Redirects, I think, are invaluable for making these four characters equivalent. Bear in mind the other languages that use the palochka, in which case homography causes problems for the use of redirects. Another solution exists in the software: It can be programmed to autoredirect all instances of the palochka to I, just like it already does in autoredirecting all instances of (deprecated template usage) ſ to (deprecated template usage) s. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 23:53, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course. However, sorting is a minor problem with many languages (to the same degree as this one with Chechen). Many Cyrillic scripts use the same letters, but not always in the same order. The letter Һ comes early in the Kalmyk alphabet, but late in Buryat, and in the middle in Yakut. In Swedish, å comes before ä, but the computer sorts ä before å. Many languages have digraphs as individual letters, including Chechen. Although I is last in the alphabet, the letter гI is almost at the beginning. In any case, these things have little effect on sorting except when the letter in question is the first or the second in the word. And, since many languages are affected this way by several or many letters, all computer-users who know one of those languages knows and understands the problem and knows how and where to look for words in computerized alphabetic order. As far as I’m concerned, sorting is a nonissue. For me, the important things are (1) how an educated native speaker spells the words in his language, and (2) interwiki linking. If redirects are used consistently, and if they can be protected from deletion by some overzealous edit, then it doesn’t matter much which letter is selected as the basic form. But if the new one is used as the basic letter, then links to the Chechen Wikipedia will require adjusting the link spelling at our end, or a redirect for each one will have to be created on the Chechen Wikipedia. Words copied from the Chechen Wikipedia will have to be converted to the new spelling here.

If we keep the old I, then our spellings will match theirs and links will need no adjustment. Words may be copied from the Chechen Wikipedia without changing anything but capitalization.

Redirects and homographies clash not infrequently and must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. As concerns the palochka, many or most of the languages that have it and also have a Wikipedia are like Chechen, generally going with I for that letter. The one that the Unicode Consortium came up with so far has not been widely accepted. Even the keyboarding programs for most of those languages have traditionally selected the Roman letter. This is something that could change (when most fonts finally include the new letter and if keyboard apps are developed to select it). I have been taking my cue on each language from the native speakers who write the Wikipedia articles. If we want to go the other way, it means extra diligence with redirects and interwikis. —Stephen (Disc) 02:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorting is more of an issue with Adyghe. It allows words to start in a palochka. -- Prince Kassad 08:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Chechen as well has a few words that begin with palochka. If you look at a category page on the Chechen Wikipedia such as w:ce:Тоба:Яззамаш, entries with initial palochka appear first, not last. People know this. Adyghe is another language that uses Roman I for its palochka, but that language does not have a Wikipedia yet. In the Cyrillic alphabets, there are numerous letters in many languages that do not sort correctly, and many of these letter can begin words, making the anomalie more pronounced. In some cases, such as Spanish, the language authority has recently changed the alphabet so that it conforms to current Unicode sort. For languages that have not yet made this concession, the users are aware and know where to look for words in a sorted list. —Stephen (Disc) 08:30, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

This is an issue that will hopefully be fixed soon. It is one of the earliest bugs filed at bugzilla and the developers seem to be trying to find a way to allow languages to set their own sorting order. -- Prince Kassad 19:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

deciphering Kurdish

Hi. Could you please type in Unicode the Kurdish word sawar found here, middle of the left column? --Vahag 19:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

ساڤار -- Prince Kassad 19:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

មុខ

Saw this in the pedia article on Khmer script, but it's mostly inferred... Wasn't sure if it could also mean mouth or the other details. So I'd appreciate if you could have a look at it when you've got time. Thanks in advance :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 13:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen (Disc) 15:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

{{ru-verb}}

The _code_-_pos_ template names are supposed to be for inflection line templates, while _code_-conj is used for conjugation templates. Why must the Russian conjugation template be at {{ru-verb}}? --Yair rand (talk) 17:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know what code-pos means, or what an inflection line template refers to. ru-verb is the name that I and the others who add Russian conjugations use (the others are all native Russians). If you change it to ru-conj, somebody will have to go behind all of us from now on to correct our template names. The template names are the names that are meaningful to the editors, and the editors who add Russian conjugations use ru-verb. The abbreviation conj is barely meaningful to me, and I suppose less so for a Russian. —Stephen (Talk) 17:57, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

There's an inconsistency between xx-verb being an inflection line template (like {{fr-verb}}) and being a conjugation template. I'm trying to standardize them so that people who don't know the languages can still use them, as they have a standard naming system. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:20, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Yair rand here, let's not make things more difficult than they already are. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Note it's also allowed me to create {{ru-verb}}, which we didn't have before, and could not have done. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I glanced at fr-verb but do not see what it is. The Russian verb conjugations can only be added by people who know Russian, which is me and a few native speakers. For us, ru-verb is the standard naming system. I think you are compartmentalizing the editors’ tools according to a complex scheme that requires either a special mindset or at least a lot of study to use, and it puts the tools out of the reach of those of us who need them. It’s why we have mostly stopped adding categories to Russian entries. We have the Russian noun, verb, and adjective templates set up so that they are intuitive for us, and trying to make the names pleasing to editors who cannot use them anyway is not helpful. —Stephen (Talk) 18:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know what {{ru-verb}} is, but I think if it is something that we needed, we could easily have done it before. If you insist on making the Russian templates difficult to use and understand for those of us who are actually using them, conjugations will go the way of categories. Currently, only some non-Russian editors understand categories and glosses and they are left with the job of adding them...which, unfortunately, they have not chosen to do, so it is no longer being done. —Stephen (Talk) 18:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Well you must understand it now, four letters of a seven character title have changed. The problem is that entries that appear on list of entries with level and structure problems (or any problem) can be in any language. Ideally each problem could be solved by a near-native speaker. The problem is, for most languages we're doing well if we have one such speaker - in Spanish we have all of one (Nadando) so the idea is to standardize so that what applies to one template also applies to another equivalent in the same language. FWIW these are the same changes I made to {{bg-verb}} and {{bg-conj}}. Adding stuff like perfective and imperfective won't be difficult. Noting that while checking the transclusions of {{ru-conj}}, seemingly none of them were formatted - not surprising given that no template has ever existed to do so (to my knowledge). Mglovesfun (talk) 20:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I vaguely understand it, but the way we’ve done it for years is deeply ingrained and I won’t remember the new names after a day or so. I don’t know what you mean about lists with structure problems other than those that show up in Category:Requests (Russian). I check Category:Requests (Russian) regularly, but if lists are located in other places, I probably won’t see them. Russian structure problems do not have to be defined in detail at Category:Requests (Russian), they only need to indicate that attention is needed. {{bg-verb}}, etc., are okay with me because I can’t do Bulgarian conjugations. As for transclusions of {{ru-conj}} not being formatted, I don’t know what that means. If I’ve ever seen it before, I probably thought it was about conjunctions and I would have corrected it.

As I said, you can change these, but it will cause big problems. You or someone will need to run a bot everyday to check behind the Russian editors and change our names to yours. If you want problems attended to, they need to appear in Category:Requests (Russian). —Stephen (Talk) 20:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I've had a lot of problems even with the Romance languages, I found it incredibly hard to just to specify a plural - even a regular plural - for a Portuguese noun because {{pt-noun}} works differently from {{fr-noun}}. Same went for {{ca-noun}}, {{es-noun}}, {{oc-noun}}. What it means is editors have to learn different rules for every different language, which ironically enough should be hardest for you of all our editors. It would be ridiculous to have every template for every language to work the same way, but having as many common parameters across languages means that a user who contributes in Catalan can also contribute in Spanish without having to read the template documentation. Stuff like head, g, sort (etc.) is common. For example, I think that all languages that have genders either accept {{{1}}} or {{{g}}} for the gender. There are none that use {{{gender}}} or {{{gen}}}, and {{{gen}}} refers to genitive in Dutch, German, etc. Changing this sort of thing can cause teething problems, but can eventually contribute to long term ebtter usability. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know what you mean. All languages are different and have different needs, but some headings and some tools can be used for most or all languages. Among Romance languages, some editors can perform some tasks in languages related to the ones they know even if they have not learned the related language. With Slavic languages, only native speakers or editors with near-native fluency can handle the conjugations and declension. Changing the long-standing template names will only allow editors who don’t know Russian to add Russian conjugations and declensions, except that they cannot do it if they don’t know the language well. Changing the names will have the same effect on grammatical tables as the deletion of our commonly used cat/gloss templates has had, it will have a chilling effect. Russian verbs are already extremely difficult and it requires intense focus and concentration due to the great grammatical and other differences that appear from one verb to the next. Having to worry about software issues such as this will leave only one editor willing to tackle the job, or possibly not even one. Certainly the editors of other languages who understand and like these new changes cannot do this work in Russian at all. —Stephen (Talk) 21:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Believe it or not that's exactly what I mean. BTW {{ru-verb/doc}} says what it now does. I've based it purely on what I can find in entries - it's not used so any changes can be made without consequences in the mainspace. Also, I apologize for renaming this without consultation. I assumed it would be uncontroversial, I always try to discuss anything controversial with editor(s) of the language concerned. So for that, I apologize.

Anyway, my point is actually the one you've just written above, so I won't repeat you. The complicatedness of Russian verbs isn't an issue with renaming the template, because I haven't touched any parameters, just given it a different name. You've pretty much said everything I wanted to say. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

More specifically this diff is a practical example; up until now (well, still now in fact) there has been no template to format the inflection line for Russian verbs, but nouns, adjective, adverbs and proper nouns have had one. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

If that’s what you meant, then surely you can see that it is a bad idea to change the familiar names to names that only non-Russian-speaking editors can use, if only they knew Russian. I think {{ru-verb}} is complicated and I doubt that most editors would use it. The {{infl}} template works very well as we have been applying it. It would be preferable, I think, to add new, optional functionality to {{infl}} (such as specifying forms of the opposite gender)...but it really is not very important and {{infl}} works fine as it is. As regards all of those specialized templates for different parts of speech, it is too much to remember all the differences among them, for noun, proper nouns, adverbs, and so on...{{infl}} works for all of them. There are structural issues that we have never been able to resolve that I have long ago given up on, but they are real problems that need solutions. In addition, it would be great if the many declension templates could be augmented to allow optional partitives, locatives, and vocatives, and perhaps secondary plural forms, but the templates are way too complex for me to try to mess with them. I just don’t see how changing ru-verb to ru-conj will do anything but create confusion and trouble. —Stephen (Talk) 22:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Upgrading the hundreds of automated templates to accommodate partitives, locatives, vocatives, and secondary plural forms will be very hard, almost impossible. You should manually fill {{ru-decl-noun}} in such cases. --Vahag 22:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that’s what I try to do, but sometimes I just use a template and ignore the partitive and so on. I only mentioned it because it would be a worthwhile project for an enterprising software expert, but really I think it is impossibly difficult and no sane person would attempt it. —Stephen (Talk) 22:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

No I mean the content of the template hasn't changed, just the name. It doesn't seem like anyone uses {{infl}} for Russian verbs, they're just done ad hoc with no overall pattern. Also realistically, two of our three Russian editors have taken part in this conversation. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I realize that only the name changes. I use {{infl}} for Russian verbs as well as all the other parts of speech. —Stephen (Talk) 22:41, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Swadesh lists

Hello, Great work you've been doing on Native American language Swadesh lists! I've been trying to get words from http://www.lakotadictionary.org/ , but they only allow a few queries everyday. Apparently they only allow unlimited access to full members, which I've unsuccessfully tried to become.

Also what are your sources for Dakota and Navajo? I'd really like to complete the lists. :) Keep up the great work! — Stevey7788 02:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

For Dakota, John Williamson’s "An English-Dakota Dictionary" (Santee Dakota). I am an admin on the Navajo Wikipedia, so the Navajo entries come from multiple sources. Navajo verbs take some thought in the choosing because they often have to indicate shape or consistency of an object. For instance, the verb "give" needs -ł- to indicate transitivity in certain cases, and, if the thing given is noncompact matter such as hay or grass, it requires -jool: níłjool. For a slender stiff object such as a cigarette, then nítįįh. To give a liquid, níziid. There is no generic word like English "give". Often the manner of movement of the object affects the form of the verb, so a verb may have to distinguish among handling, propelling, or free flight. Adjectives are usually verbs, so the same problems. Nouns are a easier, but many are inalienable and have to be possessed, so it is necessary to decide who the possessor will be. In most cases, I have used a-, which indicates "somebody’s". I try to use the simplest form possible so that the word is not distorted too much by the many affixes. —Stephen (Talk) 10:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Question about Abkhazian

Hi. Do we include that 'а-' thingy in Abkhazian entries? Should аҷарам be lemmatized as ҷарам? --Vahag 14:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

That’s like a definite article. I think it should be lemmatized as ҷарам, but we still need аҷарам, with an explanation and a link to ҷарам. I tried to see how many google hits each spelling gets, but it seems that Abkhazian is not yet being written on the Internet. —Stephen (Talk) 19:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I got the spelling from this dictionary. They have put А–ҷара́м under the letter ҷ, so I guess you're right, better to lemmatize as ҷарам. Аҷарам can stay a redirect until we come up with a standard format of handling forms with definite articles. --Vahag 19:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Abkhaz is still rare on the Internet. The only Abkhaz website I know is some kind of cultural website about Abkhazia hosted in Germany. -- Prince Kassad 19:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Arabic sūra

Do you know if Arabic سورة (sūra, “chapter of Quran”) can be pronounced with an [h] at the end? Maybe in one of the dialects or in Persian? --Vahag 10:28, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I think in most dialects of Arabic, it'd be /su:ra/, /su:rat/ or /su:rit/, and in Persian سوره would probably be /suːˈɾe/ — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 14:45, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I need a /h/ to explain սուրահ (surah). --Vahag 15:10, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I dunno about that one... Armenian usually borrows words phonetically, doesn't it? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Depends on the borrower. Maybe this borrower was looking at English surah and didn't know the -h in it isn't pronounced. --Vahag 15:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

That’s right, it is /su:ra/, /su:rat/ or /su:rit/. No [h] in Arabic (or the Persian). The only way I can think of to get an [h] is with the suffix for [his]: سورته, /surituh/ (his sura)...but then you also get the [t]. Note that the Arabic word may also be spelled سوره, so it is possible that the borrower did not realize that ه = ة in common Arabic spelling. —Stephen (Talk) 02:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the explanations. --Vahag 09:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Another question about Arabic pronunciation. Can qaf ڧ (q) be pronounced as [ʁ] in any dialect? Maybe in Persian or in medieval Arabic? We say Ղուրան (Ġuran), Ղոմ (Ġom), Ալ Ղաիդա (Al Ġaida), I wanna know why. --Vahag 14:44, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Persian has a funny [ɢ] sound when /ɣ/ (which to me sounds pretty similar to [ʁ]) comes at the beginning of a word. The letters ﻍ and ق both represent that sound...or these sounds... :D — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:20, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Right, ڧ (q) is usually pronounced like ﻍ in Persian, and in some dialects of Arabic it becomes [g], ʔ, or [ɣ]. —Stephen (Talk) 20:58, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

"h" comes into other languages simply because of the spelling and the letter name. The special letter ة (taa' marbuuTa - "hidden taa'") is a ه ("haa'") (equivalent of English H, h) with two dots above, like ت "taa'" (equivalent of English T, t). The final ة is never pronounced as "h" or similar, it's always preceded by a fatHa, so the final/pre-final vowel is "a" in standard Arabic. The hidden taa' doesn't represent any sound in the pausal form or in colloquial Arabic (with some defined exceptions), it becomes "t" in front of case ending, in إضافة (iḍāfa - genitive constructs) and is replaced with a proper ت "taa'" if followed by another letter but because of its shape people think of it as "h", because of the preceding "a", many people think it's a vowel "a", because of it grammatical usage - a feminine marker (or plural marker for things). To mark the presence letter somehow in the transliteration, letter "h" is used. I read discussions and talked with Arabs about this. Some believe the letter ة never represented the sound "h", some believe it may have in the past, I never got to the bottom of it. It certainly doesn't represent it in the MSA, and any form of modern Arabic, including in Qur'an readings. However, some methods of romanisation prefer to use "ah" in romanisation to distinguish from 3 or more other possible endings in the Arabic script. In some dialectal words ة is replaced with ه ("haa'"), which is confusing, Persian also uses ه in words borrowed from Arabic, e.g. اضافه. I believe it's not pronounced in Persian, please ask R·I·C. I hope I explained it right, it's the way I know it, anyway. --Anatoli 23:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

In Persian, ه is pronounced [h] in all contexts except at the ends of words, where it's pronounced [e]. Actually, I think in Dari it might be [a] or [æ], but I'm not at al familiar with Dari. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you think the cases where it's pronounced as [e] are borrowings from Arabic with ة? It's my observation so far. To be exact, in (standard) Arabic it's [ɐ] in the final position (/'su:rɐ/) or (/'su:rɐt/) in the genitive construct (+ an optional vowel), except when it's after emphatic letters, like شرطة shúrTa ( /'ʃurtˤɑ/) --Anatoli 00:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

There are both... some are Arabic derivations - اضافه for example. Then on the native side you have stuff like پرنده. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 01:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Hanzi

Hey Stephen,

I've seen a erm, advertisement board with these Chinese characters and underneath those it said "am ber". Could you tell me what it means and perhaps provide the characters as well? Thank you 81.68.255.36 21:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

That isn’t much to go on. Perhaps it was 琥珀 or 琥珀色, which mean amber. —Stephen (Talk) 22:22, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh I'm sorry, but you were right it was 琥珀. Thanks! 81.68.255.36 13:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Russian stress patterns

Is there any place online to find which stress pattern Russian words follow, besides Zaliznyak's dictionary? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

No, the only other place that I know about is right here. If you are familiar with Russian stresses, then you can usually deduce a stress pattern just by using the stress and spotty declension information at http://www.gramota.ru/slovari/ ... and often the Russian Wiktionary shows declension, and you can see the pattern there. —Stephen (Talk) 16:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:15, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• Also [7] for a more visual interface. --Ivan Štambuk 19:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's great :D It's good to see the actual pattern there, too. Thanks, Ivan :D — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar Award

		Barnstar
		I, Stevey7788, hereby award you a Barnstar for your excellent work on Amerindian Swadesh lists and Russian entries. Keep up the wonderful work! — Stevey7788 08:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Stevey. —Stephen (Talk) 15:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Rename user accounts

Hi!

Could you rename my two user accounts as requested at en.wikipedia? Thanks Helder 20:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen (Talk) 20:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Old Persian font

Hi Stephen,

I just edited the Ancient Greek Achaemenes, it has some Old Persian in it which shows as all squares to me. Could you tell me where to get the Old Persian font, please? Thank you very much 81.68.255.36 13:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You can find Old Persian cuneiform fonts at http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_OldPersianC.html —Stephen (Talk) 17:49, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

салака is a newbie?

Was this entry added on purpose or is it a typo? Is it only used on the Internet or does the usage in this sense predate the digital era? --Hydrox 23:06, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

The entry is correct. салага is more common than салака in this sense. It's not a new meaning and was first used by Russian sailors and is still more common in the navy. --Anatoli 00:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Vatican

Hi Stephen,

I made an edit there regarding the etymology. SemperBlotto reverted my edit without giving explanation. I'm sorry to bother you with this, but I am starting to dislike the man a bit. He seems so unwilling to help. I was wondering if you could take a quick look and see if I really made an error. Thanks in advance! 81.68.255.36 14:38, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, it wasn’t a very good etymology. When they came up with the name Vatican, the people there did not even know the word "hill" at all, since it is neither Latin nor Italian. The Vatican was named after Mons Vaticanus, and Vaticanus is from vates. We expect a very high level of accuracy and thoroughness here, and most editors don’t have time to explain every reversion to every contributor. If it is accurate enough and thorough enough, and well-written following the formatting guidelines of ELE, then it will be accepted...otherwise, it usually will be rejected without explanation. —Stephen (Talk) 14:49, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay I see, no problem :) I did what I did because I thought the analogy with Quirinal was legit. 81.68.255.36 22:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

borachio#Pronunciation

This isn't an RP pronunciation; neither /ɑ/ nor /o/ are phonemes in RP. Moreover, borAʹchō is a non-standard enPR transcription. Did you really mean to do all that, or are there mistakes there? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 17:54, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know IPA, SAMPA, or enPR very well. I can say the word but it is not so easy to put it into IPA. The IPA table that I looked at suggested /ɑ/, but my personal preference would have been /a/. I pronounce it bo-RAH-cho, not bou-RÆTCH-i-ou. —Stephen (Talk) 03:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

You're American, right? How does this look to you? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, American. It does not seem correct to me. I could be misunderstanding ô and ă, but this ‘o’ should be like the ‘o’ in bore, core, and the ‘a’ should be like the first ‘a’ in pasta. —Stephen (Talk) 21:54, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, ô represents that phoneme in (deprecated template usage) bore and (deprecated template usage) core. In the case of (deprecated template usage) pasta, is that first (deprecated template usage) a long in your pronunciation? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 13:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, long, like the first ‘a’ in each word of Dalai Lama or Cannes, or the second ‘a’ in aha. —Stephen (Talk) 13:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, I think it's fixed now. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 14:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Seems good. —Stephen (Talk) 14:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Photograph

Should eʼelyaa be moved to eʼelyaaígíí? 71.66.97.228 02:29, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

No, it just needs to have the definition adjusted a little. —Stephen (Talk) 14:39, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

adaa'

Just thought you might wanna see this. 50 Xylophone Players talk 21:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. —Stephen (Talk) 22:16, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

More you may not have seen (made only minutes ago) :) : Talk:łichííʼ, Talk:hólǫ́. 50 Xylophone Players talk 21:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Attended to. —Stephen (Talk) 21:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Translation of animal names

Hi Stephen. Could you help me give a full translation for kamchatsky brown bear in English? I don't know what to do with that adjective kamchatsky. Ferike333 10:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

kamcsatkai barnamedve (Ursus arctos beringianus). Kamchatsky is from the Russian adjective камчатский in бурый камчатский медведь. A better name in English is Kamchatka brown bear. —Stephen (Talk) 10:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! I didn't know you knew the Hungarian name. If I had known that I wouldn't have given you such a mixed mess with a Russian transcription. May I ask where you looked it up if you did so? Ferike333 19:36, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

It is here: w:Kamchatka brown bear. —Stephen (Talk) 01:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I feel a bit shamed about not having found that... Ferike333 11:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Stuff on the (Written) Arabic Swadesh List

Hello! I'm Neqitan, the (rather new) user whose contributions to the Arabic Swadesh list you altered the other day. I have some comments regarding what I see so far: 1. Is the IPA supposed to be phonemes or phones? To provide an example, if we're going for phonemes, then قتل qatala would be "qatala", if we're going for phones, then [qɒtˤɑlɑ] would probably be our best transcription (taking on account emphasization-spread and vowel rounding, commonly found across urban dialects, which western Arabic textbooks usually don't care to mention =( ).

The thing is that as far Arabic linguistics goes, the current transcription, "[qɑtælæ]", is not really an appropriate one for most speakers... I guess that maybe some native speaker of Urban Hejazi would pronounce it like that, I don't know... But most speakers do pronounce that /t/ as [tˤ] "ط".‎

So... Would you vote towards adding IPA phonemes or phones? Let's agree on something and I'll add all the pronunciations.

2. Out of curiosity, where did you find this description of the dipthong /aj/ as "[ɛ̈ı]"?

3. I corrected the Unicode punctuation thing again e.g. entries #5-8, 16. Please leave it as it is...

4. أنا /anaː/ has (phonemically) a long vowel there. (Admittedly, it's true Arabs usually pronounce it short in practice, but so they do with all Written Arabic final vowels...) --Neqitan 05:08, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Neqitan. We use both. We use qátala for the purpose of transcription, and [ˈqɒtˤɑlɑ] for pronunciation. On the Swadesh lists, we have not been adding both, but only one. We prefer [ˈqɒtˤɑlɑ] in the Swadesh lists if we can get it. We only accept qátala there if we have no other choice. But for regular entries, we like to have both, as for example in الله.

We don’t need to worry so much about how different Arab natives from different countries would pronounce MSA, we want to put what we feel is the best recommended pronunciation for an English-speaking person who is trying to learn MSA. In our regular entries for Arabic, we make provisions for all of the major Arabic dialects, such as Eqyptian Arabic, showing how to pronounce the entry in that dialect. But in the Swadesh list, just put the IPA phone that is most recommended for a foreign student.

As for a pronunciation like [qɑtælæ] not being appropriate, I agree. We have had constant problems with this topic for the past five or six years, with one editor insisting on a phoneme scheme that any editor who studies Arabic script for 30 minutes would be able to provide, while another insists on formal Qur’anic pronunciations, and another one or another of numerous other systems. The way that I want to have it is, in the case of regular entries, to have a simple transcription like qátala, and also the IPA phonetic pronunciation that is most recommended for foreign students. In the Swadesh lists, just the IPA phones if we can get them.

As for [ɛ̈ı], somebody provided that and it seemed to have a certain logic. I don’t think the sound is quite like [æj], certainly not like [aj]. I know the sound but it is difficult to describe it with IPA symbols, at least it is so for me. If you don’t like [ɛ̈ı], that’s okay with me, but try to use an IPA that allows a student to try for the best pronunciation.

You said that أنا /anaː/ has (phonemically) a long vowel there. I disagree with this. I am certain that the vowel is not long in this word, not just casually, but formally. If someone pronounces it long, I think it is a hypercorrection and a mistaken pronunciation. —Stephen (Talk) 05:49, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Arabic pronunciation does vary quite a bit, isn't it...? I can imagine all the discussions arising from that. :S

No, I didn't say that I didn't like [ɛ̈ı], neither did I mention any [aj] pronunciation. In fact, I think [ɛ̈ı] is an appropriate way to transcribe /aj/, as well as [æ̈ı], but I would want to know the source, since I've never seen it used in a publication. As far as I know, the reason why Arabists have always used [æ] is to avoid the usually-unnecessary use of diacritics, since basically every /a/ and /aj, aw/ would be transcribed [æ̈] and [æ̈ı, æ̈ʊ] (or [ɛ̈] and [ɛ̈ı, ɛ̈ʊ]). In this case, what do you think of me using [æ̈(ı/ʊ)]?--Neqitan 22:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

is, and Nemzag

Patrolling the Recent Changes I came across this edit to the Arabic translation of "is". Could you look at it to see if it's a good change or a bad one? Also, I recently went through all of User:Nemzag's contributions, in light of the fact that a majority have needed checking or reverting, and I listed those twenty-nine which have still not been checked on RFC. You've been the one to correct most of Nemzag's entries, so I wondered if you'd like to comment there — I'm prepared to remove his dubious additions to entries which already existed, posting the information on the talk pages (where it can be checked at leisure), but a couple of the entries were created by him and never edited by anyone else, and I don't know what to do with those (as I can't easily verify them myself). — Beobach 22:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Nemzag is a pest. He is intelligent and educated, but he has a strange agenda (apparently trying to prove things that he writes elsewhere by creating "evidence" here, which is unethical as well as illogical) and his edits are mostly bad, rarely if ever useful. Because of the trouble and the very low value of his work (like KYPark), I think it is best to just revert him. —Stephen (Talk) 22:28, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of Mr. Nemzag, I was wondering if you could have a look at coerator. I'd asked Petey, but he appears to have gone missing... — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 22:40, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

He is trying to say that curator has a variant spelling coerator. It does, but it’s Old Latin and probably difficult to cite. He claims it is related to coeruleus, but coeruleus is actually a variant of caeruleus (dark blue). He claims it is related to corax, but this word if from the Greek κόραξ (raven). As usual, bigger headache than it is worth. —Stephen (Talk) 23:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

From coerator it is apparent that we are missing a noun sense of curator, though. Anyway, it's one thing to (re)move his additions to existing pages (eg hypi), but what should we do with the pages (probably 1/4 to 1/2 of what I listed at RFC) which don't contain any other information? RFV? — Beobach 02:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The guy is a cuckoo, I don't understand why you are so lenient towards him. IMO he should join KYPark and Razorflame at the bottom of the ocean. --Vahag 02:23, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Vahag, I wish I could find your gay twin :P — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 02:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Added the noun sense of curator, cleaned up coerator. Yes, I suppose RFV would be a good way to go. —Stephen (Talk) 07:29, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

1. I honestly haven't checked Nemzag's edits, but at least regarding this particular edit, "is", يكون yakūn is indeed used even if in particular cases (subordinate clauses working as verbal complements). 2. The former explanation including the pronouns هو and هي was also right on, specially used in clearing up possible syntactical nuances, so I'm bringing it back. 3. I think the use of zero copula should also be mentioned, so I'm also including it.--Neqitan 22:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I created Arab entry cause I needed those for link definition of my web page, I just wished to to add info since it's open to any one and I add entries (from Lingvosoft & Babylon Source) sometime that need to be corrected and completed but I don't do vandalism like some other (I don't know a better & precise electronic Arabic dictionary), since Stephën telled me to not add arabic anymore, because i'm level 2, I didn't added anymore, adding request in Arabic that are there since two years without complement by Arabic expert.

About some Albanian word like hypje (up : υψος (ypsos) / ὑπέρ (hupér) [ʰyps·os / ʰyp·er], p148 : "Albanian Etymological Dictionary"), is a gheggian language from Macedonia & Kosovo (adopted in media instead of Enver Hoxha dialect) and who is distinct from reformed Albanian based on Tosk (orthodox where Ypsilon (Old Ellêniqa) became Ipsilon (Modern Greek : 3 [i] ita, ipsilon, iota) and C/Qoppa [q] C/Gamma [g] (O.E) became Kappa [k] or Ghamma [ɣ] [(M.G), it's the reason why albanian use letter K for sound c/q [q] & k [k], where other Latin language use c like prefix COM- writed in Albania KOM- ; I noticed that Beobach checked and reverted some of my add (perun, hypi (mk / ks) / hipi (sq) : is there a tool to know all if his reverting on my contribution ?), it's not nice, since those word exist & are true. You use falsificated dictionary based on toskian & reformed shqip, you don't know the gheggian language & there is no gheggian admin to confirm my add... So please be tolerant, I'm conscious that I'm just a student who try to add some content for all world, perhaps i'm make mistake, but just be more comprehensive and positive upon me and improve not remove. I have been blocked one month by dictator like Ivan Štambuk (for telling that obedience is عبد / عباد) or reverted by Vahag (mbret / zot) using book writed by Vladimir Orel (Israel, Tel Aviv), but I keep in mind that 10 years ago Serbian Orthodox / Slavic Communist take pleasure to exterminate my people & falsificate our language in 1947 after victory against the National Socialist... Thanks to be more open-minded toward other (respect article 19 of U.N.O Universal Human Rights), if this Wiktionary is just about political interest I will not add any more entries, since I just lose my time if someone else remove my add... (also I'm sure that etymology of Obediô from Oboediô is not Ob+Avdiô) Gmazdên 04:06, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

What means IMO, RFC & RFV ??? Gmazdên 04:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I stopped adding Arabic because of all of the arguments from so many people who were just beginning to learn it. I decided that life is too short to put up with all of that abuse, and if the beginners want Arabic to be done differently, let them do it themselves. Since I stopped, nobody else did any, so Arabic is in limbo at the moment.

IMO = "in my opinion". RFC = "request for clean-up". RFV = "request for verification". —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:10, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Beoback your profile don't show what language you speak & write, are you albanian ? Why do you verify language that you don't know, with use of dictionary made by an russian israeli based on falsificated toskian dialect, why do you removed mret redirection to mpret or mbret, are you trying to confirm a invented language by removing prove of origin ??? And I would like that you ask me before removing my add, perhaps I have some explication that you don't know... Gmazdên 17:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why you say the low quality of his work ? (his edits are mostly bad, rarely if ever useful). I use the structure of most wiktionary english word, with ==Language==, ===Etymology===, ===Pronunciation=== (I noticed that lot of wikiword don't have IPA or reference, or related), ===Noun===, ====Related terms====, ====Synonyms====; ====References==== (someone tell me that I need to add this for proving my add), has I said before I use Lingvosoft, Babylon 8 & "translate.google.com", my definition are correct, since I use electronic dictionary. You check in printed dictionary, well, but don't say low quality (since his lingvosoft & Babylon 8 the responsible) ??? And about theses entries I created what's the problem with them the definition are correct ??? Just one question how to add inflected form like m (singular, plural) & f(singular, plural) with a good syntax, don't forget I'm a beginner, about coerator why did you not keep this word in curator related term or in etymology ??? Gmazdên 08:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Inflected forms can be entered like preguntó and hombres. Electronic dictionaries and computer translating programs are full of errors and do a poor job. Many of the words or translations entered in them were done by uneducated people, people who don’t speak the language well, speakers of various dialects, and so on. Please do not bring anything from an electronic source. I don’t understand your question about coerator. Coerator is Old Latin (Archaic Latin), not the classical language. Coerator did not come from curator, since curator is classical and therefore more recent. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm saying why do you not keep in etymology or related term of curator page, the word coerator. Does coera, procoerator & procoerator word exist ?. About, inflected form does your syntax function with Albanian words (any page link for syntax code) ? What book do you suggest then ? Do you know a good archaic latin & greek lexicon ? I would like that you add a function in wiktionary to list all word from a language (hope you added archaic Latin has a language), I searched this tool but I didn't find (for Old Ellêniqë). Gmazdên 20:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not usual to link Classical Latin words to their Archaic predecessors. Coerator is not a different word, but just an older orthography. Classical Latin words are linked immediately to Proto-Indo-European if this is known, or to some non-Indo-European source if that is known. I don’t believe that procurator was used at all in Old Latin...that term only came about in the Classical language. Please forget about Old Latin. Old Latin is not important in modern etymologies and is only of passing interest to students specializing in the Latin language. Until you know Latin at a level of at least Babel-3, you should not concern yourself with Archaic Latin and you should not be entering those words, especially if you don’t know how to decline them and don’t know which vowels are long and which short.

Archaic Latic is not considered a separate language, it has the same language code as Classical Latin, i.e., la. As to Albanian inflected forms, yes, the syntax functions with that. If an Albanian noun form is in the plural, it works just like hombres, except you use sq instead of es. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, the meaning of Old Latin Coerator & Orô is better than modern Curô by Urô (heal by fire ??? really strange I think)... Also, you didn't corrected unë etymology (modified by Oemnipedista who don't speak Shqip but believe russian israeli book not authenticated by Gheggian Ministry of Language ! I proved that the explication of Vladimir is false... Do you know a link to a list of archaic latin word with variation with classical ? Gmazdên 12:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

He would be nice that you add new language code for archaic latin and for gheggian albanian to differentiate the sq (toskian) dialect, perhaps using (code ks : kosova or else), please. A gheggian wiki would be wonderful, to keep memory of variation. Thanks for your kindness and patient (explication, any wiki link for syntax ?), Good day. Gmazdên 02:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Can I re add laj to synonym of pastroj page ??? I checked para and in etymology he would be usefull to add παράς (parás). In qen, somehone remove my information, can you re add since it's more complete : "deviated to çan (still used in Xhakova, Kosova) then çen (still used in Gheggian dialect) and reformed (1947) in Albania by the communist power to qen." Gmazdên 10:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I was never able to understand what you were saying, and you wanted to wait for a Gheg admin. I didn’t correct unë because of this...I don’t know how to correct it. You should drop the subject of Vladimir, nobody here knows anything about him. You are the only person who ever mentions his name. We have no idea who he is and we do not know his book.

There are print dictionaries that list archaic words, but I do not know of anything online. There is no ISO code for Old Latin (appropriate since Old Latin is not very important). The ISO language code for Gheg Albanian is aln, and Tosk is als, so Gheg words can be added under the language name Gheg using the language code aln. It is possible to make a Gheg Wikipedia and/or a Gheg Wiktionary, but it requires a lot of work. You would have to translate all of the wiki terms into Gheg, such as My talk, My preferences, My watchlist, My contributions, Log out, Page, Discussion, View source, History, Watch, Toolbox, What links here, Related changes, Upload file, Special pages, Printable version, Permanent link, and thousands of other terms. It is a huge job and you really need at least three Gheg speakers to work on it together for many hours.

Yes, it is a good idea to add laj as a synonym of pastroj. I can’t add an etymology for qen because I don’t know the etymolgy, and I cannot understand what you wrote about it. If we can’t understand your etymology, then of course someone will remove it, because it serves no purpose if it makes to sense to anyone. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:31, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Stephën, it's not me who mentioned his name but Ivan Stambuk in zot#Reference and Vahagn Petrosyan mbret#References, I searched who is this guy and I find it in Wikipedia. And the etymology used in unë is from his (300$) book p.486 , it's why I'm talking about him, still I proved is explication is false, cause he use +1400AD reference book, but Shemitic Ana/Ênê and Old Latin Unus are more older than Hypothetical Old Albanian (Formula e Pagëzimit (1462), Fjalori i Arnold Fon Harfit (1497), Perikopeja e Ungjillit të Pashkës ( fundi i sh.XV-fillimi sh.XVI)), first albanian language never existed since we speak shqip (scipio latin), the name of this nation exist since Society of Nation created it in, when Ottoman empire collapsed after 1918, before we were Rumelia, and before Byzantine & before Ellêno-Macedonian, the Turkish term of Turkey is false to, cause they are not Altaic/Asiatic people like Turkistan but white Caucasian/Persian...

I writed in Etymology of qen, that in Macedonia we use çên [ʧɛn], and in Xhakova a city of Kosovo they use çan [ʧan]. So the deviation of word from the root is Canus → çan [ʧan] → çên [ʧan] → qên (sq[ʨɛn]).

To create the wiki gheg, we should perhaps first make a excel word list with toskian, gheggian, dialectal & root. And after create a program that convert automatically the toskian word in gheggian using the excel database (xml or else), I searched for such list, or a extracting tool to get term list from a an electronic albanian dictionary like Lingvosoft or Office (star or microsoft), but I didn't find it. I'm not programmer but I can help for the word I know, I will talk to my cousin who are teacher in Macedonia to check the complete term list, if 50 person help me, we each can correct 1000 word. Perhaps we need first to create a SQL / XML page to list the word (tosk, dialect, gheg & root, add variant in and then make an automatic translation from albanian wiki to gheg. I can't do all alone, I'm not rich I have to work to win money. I add word because, I don't have job actually, so I have time, but complete a wiki need a team of people more knowledgeable than me, my mother can help me because she was teacher, but she don't know how to use computer and how to program in Wiki Code. I'm from Belgium, and I don't know all word, and I don't know all variant from all gheggian city, the best would be to get list of term of each city from messenger communication and compare automatically difference, and then propose a corrected version based upon source and etymology, but for that we need a programmer and I'm not one. Gmazdên 13:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

"Deviation of word from the root" doesn’t make sense in English. There isn’t anything written there that I can understand or use.

If you are talking about a Gheg Wikipedia, you have to start in the incubator (Main Page). You’ll need to translate all of the wiki terms, messages, warning, guidelines, etc., before you will be able to leave the incubator. After that, you can start writing or translating articles in Gheg. If you want to make a Gheg Wiktionary, you have to apply here. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about SQL, XML or other program applications. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:56, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't speak English everyday, and for me it's a bit difficult to communicate in this manner, perhaps we can continue in French ? Atalaes removed laj in pastroj synonym, so I prefer ask Admin before re add to not have problem... Gmazdên 14:02, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Conversational French would be no problem, but this would require the use of technical French terms, French etymology language, and that would probably be too confusing. I think we have to forget about etymologies for the moment, communication is too difficult. —Stephen ^(Talk) 14:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

To link to a specific language, use [[wikt:cool#Dutch|cool]]. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Goodness. Still I really want to do something about UNÊ, the definition of Vladimir Orel cause me problem, I disagree with Omnipaedistia add (definition is false and his explication to), and I don't understand why he remove the Arabic (Semitic) link & why not to add Uno (Unus, Unique, 1 I), if he add some info that he believe to be correct, why does not keep info of others ? I can add ANA/ÊNÊ by my self but if someone reverse it would be unpleasant... Is there a Great Judge in Wiktionary for such case ? Gmazdên 22:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, but the etymology must be logical and correctly formatted and entered in understandable English. That’s the problem, we have no way of understanding what the etymology should be, so we can’t write a logical, understandable etymology. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, but why do you keep the Vladimir Orel Etymology ? It's not an Shqip (Scipio Latin), and I checked his book and they are lot of error. Gmazdên 09:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I don’t know anything about Vladimir Orel, but I am not competent to judge or edit the etymology. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I propose this Etymology : From Latin unus (un·us, “one”), uno (un·ɔ, “single”), cognate with Arabic أنا (’ana, “I”), Hebrew אני (ani, “I”) & Latin unicus (uniq·us, “only, singular, one and no more”). Gmazdên 10:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Those look like cognates, not etymons. It might be cognate with either the Latin word or the Arabic word (but not both, since there is no evidence that the Latin and Arabic are related at all). It looks like a lot of guessing and very little solid evidence. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:45, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Still you keep Vladimir Ethymology and there is no prove that is correct since he link the word to Greek yes & screen (I said before he don't use Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hindu book in his reference)... Shqip (Scipio Latin) has a lot of word with Latin root, and I believe that Semitic I (ANA/ANI) have same structure than UNÊ (Vowel+N+Extension), but has you know A is singular vowel in Arabic & U plural. I would like to add my etymology, I will not remove the Vlad one, but I would like to be sure that my add would no be reverte, I explained to you with word crimen & جرم that arab & latin are related... If you don't like etymology word : "cognate with" with what should I replace then ? Gmazdên 10:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn’t write it, so I don’t keep it. It was written by someone else and kept by someone else. If it is wrong, then it is a blemish on the reputation of the one who wrote it. I am not competent to edit it one way or the other. Please stop mentioning Vladimir, it makes you sound neurotic. I do not know who Vladimir is and I have never seen his book.

You have to forget about this etymology until you learn English better and until you find concrete evidence. Until then, if it is wrong, then it is on the one who wrote it.

There are a small number of words that Latin borrowed from Arabic, and a few that Arabic borrowed from Latin. Other than those few borrowings, Latin and Arabic are not related whatsoever. I know all about the Nostratic theory, but no one has ever found one bit of evidence in support of it. Any such genetic relationship was more than 40,000 years ago, and languages have changed so much since then that it is impossible to prove a genetic connection.

As I said, I am not competent to edit this etymology. I will not edit this etymology. Please drop the subject and move on to something new. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

With who should I talk or ask then ? Can we bring Omnipaedistia here ? This case concern me (unê, ênê, onë) and my people and I don't like that a foreigner that even don't speak Shqip remove link to Arabic or Latin root... I think I proved what I said. So if you can't help me, tell me who can then. Omnipaedista is Admin ? I have understanded that the Tosk are Orthodox and it seems that they to don't want to keep Muslim or Latin word or root in their falsificated language Etymology, but if so, can I add Tosk in definition and created an Gheggian etymology like anmik & armik, I tried to use syntax {{l|aln & {{l|als but this bug... Gmazdên 11:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

You can try to discuss with him on his talk page. There is no other choice that I know about. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice, but what about the syntax {{l|aln|word} & {{l|als|word} how to use in page definition ? Is Omnipaedistia admin ? About the book of Vladimir Orel Albanian Etymology Dictionary p.253, I noticed an other error, he link "protects" : mbron (tosk) / prun (gheg) to imparo, but it's impero (Imperator, Perun God of Thunder, Lightnings Zeus), he seems to use contrary etymology for Latin term using... Stephën, I understand that you are not Shqip, but if someone falsificated your Mother tongue (English language), I'm sure that you would be trying to correct, like I do, did you know that the insurgency in Kosovo started when they (socialo-communist) imposed Tosk Dialect at University by Law (1990).

About Albanian etymology, when I check English word etymology (like peace the wiki team allow definition with "related to", "akin to", "cognate with", so why do you (Admins) not allow for UNÊ (Unus or Anus ? أنا (’ana, “I”), אני (ani, “I”))... It's what I don't understand, it's unjust & unequal. Gmazdên 13:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I finded an other term that cognate from Semitic & Latin like crimen, oculis & עגול / جولة [ogul·ɪs], don't forget that in Egypt, letter djim ج (j) is [g]... Ana/Ênê could became Unê with time & Merging with Unus ??? Gmazdên 21:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I don’t see anything wrong with {{l|aln|word}} or {{l|als|word}}. The only problem is that there is no Gheg or Tosk language section on the word page. If there were, then they would work. There are many, many errors here with words in the languages that I speak, including English. It does not bother me in the least. Your fixation appears to be a pathological obsession and you should try to control yourself and let this drop. Your life will be much happier if you learn to let go of such petty things. Ana did not become unus. This is well understood in linguistics, and the subject to too complex to discuss in a small paragraph here. You need to take a linguistics course at university for two to four years, then you will understand.

This is my FINAL word on this matter. I will not reply to any other question about the etymology of unë. I am finished with it, the matter is dead. It is an ex-matter. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for response (still you didn't tell me if Omnipaedista is admin), I will search an Gheggian Admin for the une case. Thanks for your help. Last question before I drop the subject, what word should I use then to link Ana/Ênê to definition : From Latin unus (un·us, “one”), uno (un·ɔ, “single”) unicus (uniq·us, “only, singular, one and no more”), look like Arabic أنا (’ana, “I”), Hebrew אני (ani, “I”). Correct my phrase because I want to keep the link. Gmazdên 10:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

No, he is not an admin. There is no Gheg admin here, but there might be one on the Albanian Wiktionary or Wikipedia. I don’t understand your question, but there is no connection between unus and أنا. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help, good & nice Day. Gmazdên 14:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

chaashtʼezhiitsoh

Hi, can you please check chaashtʼezhiitsoh? The definition was given as "mushroom" (I assume that was a mistake, and just changed it to "carrot"; I hope that was correct), but there is another entry for chaashtʼezhiitsoh with nasalization of the "aa." 71.66.97.228 04:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It means carrot, proper spelling is chąąshtʼezhiitsoh. Mushroom is ábishjaaʼ. Fixed. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

דהר

Are you sure that's the right cognate? It seems unlikely that (1) Arabic would have /ḥ/ where Hebrew has /h/ and (2) Even-Shoshan would give an Arabic word as having /h/ where it actually has /ḥ/. (Of course, #1 makes #2 more likely; and for all I know your Arabic may be better than Even-Shoshan's; but even so, if you could take another look just to make sure, I'd appreciate it.) Thanks in advance! —Ruakh_TALK 18:55, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I’m not sure. It is extremely difficult to find Arabic words from transliterations. This seems the most likely. As far as I know, there is no such word as دخر. There is the noun دهر (dahr), meaning eon, long time period, but no "dahara" from it. There are no candidates by using ض instead of د. If it is not دحر, then the only thing I can think of is that it is either a very rare and little known word, or a word in some diachronic Arabic dialect. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your research. I've changed "cognate with" to "compare", which is cheating — it tends to imply "perhaps cognate with ____" rather than "cognate with something, perhaps ____" — but at least can't be actually wrong.

I'll re-check Even-Shoshan to see what else he said. Sometimes he gives glosses for Arabic words when their meanings are noticeably different from the Hebrew cognates; I've been ignoring those, because I figured the Chinese whispers error-rate would be higher than it was worth, and it didn't occur to me that the transliterations wouldn't be enough information. From now on I'll add such glosses in <!-- HTML comments -->, which hopefully might help a bit?

—Ruakh_TALK 19:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

O.K., I've re-checked Even-Shoshan, and for Arabic dahara it gives the gloss "hitnapel" (to fall [upon]), which isn't quite the same as "chase away", but is close enough that I have to imagine it was what he was going for. Thanks again. —Ruakh_TALK 00:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Another meaning of دحر is to defeat, so it could be. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Prostituut

My baad, sir, I stand corrected. I see, now, there's no Dutch noun sense listed at hoor. It IS Estonian.

Ragityman 04:50, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

калаш

Hi,

I heard that калаш means Kalshnikov/AK47 in Russian. Could you perhaps decline it for me? Thank you very much 81.68.255.36 12:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is slang for автомат Калашникова. Declension is like this, although I am not certain of all of the stresses:

Haha declension of Stephen G. Brown! Thanks again Stephen, you're amazing 81.68.255.36 13:55, 31 December 2010 (UTC)