User talk:Stephen G. Brown/2017

January 2017

What is India like?

I suspect from the things you do in Wiktionary suggest that you have been to India. What languages do they speak? Do they have any influence from western cultures, and mix it with their own? One severe example is the dish चिकन [[#Hindi|]]टिक्का मसाला (cikan ṭikkā masālā), with origins from Scotland – AWESOME meeos ！ ＊ （「欺负」我） 23:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Also, I suggest the Armenian Granshan – AWESOME meeos ！ ＊ （「欺负」我） 23:54, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

No, I have not been to India. I've only been around North America and to Europe, Asia Minor, and North Africa. I have studied some of the languages of India, however. w:Chicken tikka masala is said to have originated in Scotland, but not necessarily by a Scotsman. There are lots of Indian immigrants in GB, and one of them may well have made the first Chicken tikka masala. India, as I'm sure you know, was a British colony for some time, and having 1,652 different languages spoken there, has adopted English as a lingua franca. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Late reply

Sorry Mr Stephen for late replies.Ndinonyanyogona Shona - Takudzwa Chaita

Kwaziwai, Takudzwa. Ndinovimba kuti wapora. Wadzidzei sei kutaura mutauro wokuSpain? —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:50, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Typography and Linguistics

Hi Stephen, according to your user page, two of your primary interests include what I said just above. Did you know that I heard of this Armenian-based competition called Granshan where one can upload fonts of various scripts for different languages and win prizes from them? Just saying – AWESOME meeos ！ ＊ （「欺负」我） 21:49, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I have done lots of both over the years. I stopped designing typefaces around 14 years ago, though. The technology underwent a major change (from TrueType and PostScript to OpenType. For TrueType and PostScript, there were a couple of excellent font-editing programs such as Fontographer, where a good program was a complete tool and all of the work could be handled by that program. When OpenType fonts appeared, no single font program could do all of the work. You needed a good editor, then you had to have a separate hints program and a third program for kerning, and, IIRC, yet another program to handle the shaping engine. At the same time, the importance and need for good fonts dropped off steeply. A new technology evolved for font embedding (either into websites or into browsers), and traditional fonts were not much needed any more.

About a year ago we had an Albanian editor who wanted to creat specialist fonts, and he asked for my help. However, it would have required a large investment in money and time, and the fonts would not be used by anyone but him, so I declined the invitation.

Over the past 14 years, a lot of work has been invested in a new font-editing program (by the same people who made Fontographer), so I presume that the editing tools are much better and more integrated now, but the problem remains that there is not much need for new fonts. Also, fonts used to be expensive, and therefore creating them was a lucrative profession. Today, people expect fonts to be free of charge. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:38, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

February 2017

What do you prefer?

Humanist sans-serif or Grotesque sans-serif – AWESOME meeos ！ * (chōmtī hao /t͡ɕoːm˩˧.tiː˩˧ haw˦˥/) 12:09, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Humanist sans-serif. Humanist fonts have a calligraphic structure (unlike the Grotesques), their letter shapes lead the eye along horizontal lines, and they are the best of the sans serif fonts for long reading and small text. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:05, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

This might interest you

Noto Fonts, a project by Google that combines typography and linguistics together! I use some of their fonts too! (including my global styling page) — AWESOME meeos ！ * (chōmtī hao /t͡ɕoːm˩˧.tiː˩˧ haw˦˥/) 11:06, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Until recently, I think I had fonts for every script used on Wiktionary and Wikipedia, but then my computer failed and I replaced it. I still have not located and installed all of the fonts I need. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

March 2017

Request to change User:Eyjentjim → User:EyjentJim

Hi Stephen!

I'd like to use EyjentJim as username instead of Eyjentjim. Please change it to EyjentJim for emphasis.

 Eyjentjim (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Stephen. Enjoy your day :) -- EyjentJim (talk) 17:01, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Favourite fonts

Hi Stephen what are yours? Mine are, to say a few are Fedra Sans, San Francisco, Avenir, Roboto and Proxima Nova — AWESOME meeos ！ * (не нажима́йте сюда́ [nʲɪ‿nəʐɨˈmajtʲe sʲʊˈda]) 05:24, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Some of my favorites include ITC Tiffany, Helvetica, Bodoni, Garamond, Futura, Baskerville, Caslon, Univers, Gill Sans, Franklin Gothic, Minion, Clarendon, Graffiti Classic, Stymie, Goudy, and Bella. Some of these have modern variants that have some worthwhile improvements. For example, modernized versions of Helvetica include Helios (which employs w:ink traps) and Triumvirate. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:48, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

About translations

How are you able to translate to/from so many languages with just a level 2 on your user page? To be clear, I am not criticizing your translations; they are quite perfect. --kc_kennylau (talk) 05:30, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I've never really understood the Babel levels. There are numerous ways to use a language, including speaking, hearing, reading, and writing, and also translating into, translating from, and familiarity with different registers, different technologies, and a lot more besides. So my level numbers are just subjective choices that I made while thinking of a specific but now forgotten use eleven or twelve years ago. I think the level numbers don't mean much. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:37, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

'Ancient' forms in modern fonts

Hi Stephen, you might think that I'm obsessed with typography now. I am an amateur typographer. I've heard of stories of typographers designing Greek and Cyrillic fonts to compliment their Latin fonts, but those designers' native script is Latin. But their Greek and Cyrillic fonts are criticised by native readers of Greek and Cyrillic, due to having ancient forms in their 'modern' fonts. Do you know of some examples. I'm trying not to make the mistakes that those designers made. — AWESOME meeos ！ * (не нажима́йте сюда́ [nʲɪ‿nəʐɨˈmajtʲe sʲʊˈda]) 04:16, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Are you talking about the pre-1918 Russian alphabet (which included the now obsolete letters Іі, Ѳѳ, Ѣѣ, Ѵѵ), or fonts capable of typing the ancient languages, such as Old East Slavic, Church Slavonic, and so on, which require the additional letters Ꙗ, Ѥ, Є, Ѧ, Ѫ, Ѩ, Ѭ, Ѯ, Ѻ, Ѱ, Ꙟ, Ѳ, Ѵ, Ѷ, Ҁ, Ѹ, Ѡ, Ѿ, Ꙑ, Ѣ?

I assume you mean the latter. The only criticism that I can imagine would be that certain fonts were used for setting Cyrillic type from about 900–1500 AD, and that these critics feel that only fonts that are identical to those ancient fonts should ever be used for the ancient languages. I don't support that idea at all. For one thing, Old Church Slavonic is still in use today in the Russian Orthodox Church. I know a priest in Southwestern Alaska who speaks, reads, and writes Russian, English, Yup'ik, and Old Church Slavonic, and he also has need of fonts for these languages so that he can print out material in those languages. He does not normally seek out specifically ancient typefaces, but he likes typefaces that are somewhat ornate but still modern.

If a font user wants to use Helvetica to set text in English and Church Slavonic, that's his business and he should be able to find the fonts he likes. If critics don't like Church Slavonic set in Helvetica, they are welcome to avoid using the font for that purpose. The fact that ancient letters are included in the font does not affect them in any way.

And no, I don't know of any examples. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Awesomemeeos http://leksandra.livejournal.com/115861.html ? —suzukaze (t・c) 23:08, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

captahuella

Do you think the lemma should be at the singular or plural? Googling it there seems to be a lot of variation (and also variation with masculine and feminine, but feminine seems more common). DTLHS (talk) 17:32, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

The lemma should be captahuellas, which is masculine singular as well as plural: el captahuellas, los captahuellas. If Spanish were to have a specific plural form of the word, it would be "captanhuellas" (literally, they-pick-up-fingerprints), but, luckily, Spanish does not bother with this (i.e., the number is in the verb capta/captan, not in the direct object). —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:14, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Roots in Navajo noun entries

Hi Steven, I'd like to get your thoughts on the following matter... I'm trying to add root information to Navajo noun entries, and I hesitate between various formats. Let's take the example of naaldlooshii dadichʼízhii (“reptile”) (en passant, I don't understand why it is not naaldlooshii naaʼnaʼii instead but let's say). I came up with two main solutions:

Etymology: original format

naaldloosh (“it is trotting about”) + -ii (nominalizer) + da- (plural prefix) + dichʼíízh (“rough, scaly”) + -ii (nominalizer)

Etymology: inline solution

naaldloosh (“it is trotting about”, from -DLOOZH) + -ii (nominalizer) + da- (plural prefix) + dichʼíízh (“rough, scaly”, from -CHʼIIZH) + -ii (nominalizer)

Etymology: offload solution

naaldloosh (“it is trotting about”) + -ii (nominalizer) + da- (plural prefix) + dichʼíízh (“rough, scaly”) + -ii (nominalizer)

See roots -DLOOZH, -CHʼIIZH.

End

Which one do you like best?

Julien Daux (talk) 08:14, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Julien. I would prefer the inline solution (2nd solution).

By the way, I am wondering about an entry such as -lah. Of course, it should redirect the reader to alah (or maybe to halah instead), but -lah itself also merits an entry as a stem noun. It's not a ROOT, but it is similar. Y&M list it as a stem noun in their Analytical Lexicon (page 365). Mainly I am asking about what part of speech for the header (Noun?, Suffix?) and what categories. —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:05, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you.

So, I implemented a new template with the inline solution, you can now check naaldlooshii dadichʼízhii again. You can see that categories are automatically added to the bottom of the page.

An alternative solution could also be to not add the "from <ROOT>" mention in the gloss of the constituent terms but still keep the categories. This would avoid cluttering up the Etymology section while staying in line with the objective (link nouns to roots). Would you favor that?

Two more questions on the topic:

1. Do you think it's worth separating verbs from nouns in the root categories? For instance, the category Category:Navajo terms belonging to the root -DLOOZH (go on all four) now contains both verbs and nouns. What would you think of a sub-category for nouns within this category?

2. For terms like naaldlooshii bikéshgaan hólónígíí (“ungulate”), where the middle term is itself a compound noun (ké "foot" + gaan "dried up" = dried foot = hoof), would you have the entire phrase be linked to all for roots (-DLOOZH, -KEEʼ, -GAN, -LĮ́Į́ʼ), or would you consider -KEEʼ and -GAN too deep for warranting affiliation between these and the entry phrase? In a way, this amounts to saying, how would you write the etymology of this phrase?

a. naaldloosh ("it trots along") + -ii + bi- + -késhgaan ("nail") + hólǫ́ ("there is") + ígíí, or

b. naaldloosh ("it trots along") + -ii + bi- + -ké- ("foot") + -sh- + -gaan ("dried up") + hólǫ́ ("there is") + ígíí, or

c. naaldloosh ("it trots along") + -ii + bi- + -késhgaan ("nail", from -ké- ("foot") + -sh- + -gaan ("dried up")) + hólǫ́ ("there is") + ígíí ?

Proposition c is the more accurate, but starts to be somewhat clumpy, and we haven't added roots yet, if ever we think we should add roots to deeper noun phrases.

To your question: I'm not sure I would consider -lah a stem. Just because it is an anlienable noun, doesn't mean that is more of a stem than say tsé. There's a point though for terms like ké ~ -keeʼ. I'll have to think it through. For me the main problem with these inalienable nouns is more that the lemma chosen here is sometimes the a- form, sometimes the bi- form, sometimes the ha- form, sometimes the "stem" form (like -lah), and sometimes all 4 at the same time!!

Regards, Julien Daux (talk) 05:32, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Julien Daux, the reason why people don't say naaldlooshii naaʼnaʼii for reptile is that both naaldlooshii and naaʼnaʼii are movements, and it makes no sense to describe a creature with both of them.

"An alternative solution could also be to not add the "from <ROOT>" mention in the gloss" ... I don't think the etymology section is too cluttered, but I don't have a strong opinion on this.

1. "Do you think it's worth separating verbs from nouns in the root categories?" ... I think it is probably easier to find these things if they are not separated, but kept together. I'm just not sure what to call them (the nouns as opposed to the verb roots). It might be helpful to have the nouns together with the verb roots, and also to have a subcategory for the nouns.

2. "a. naaldloosh ("it trots along") + -ii + bi- + -késhgaan ("nail") + hólǫ́ ("there is") + ígíí, or" ... What I have been doing in cases such as this is to write something like this:

a. naaldloosh ("it trots along") + -ii + akéshgaan ("hoof") + hólǫ́ ("there is") + ígíí ... and then put the etymology of -késhgaan at akéshgaan. That is, I would move as much of the etymology as possible out of naaldlooshii bikéshgaan hólónígíí (“ungulate”) and into naaldloosh, akéshgaan, and hólǫ́. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

1. Reptile

Then maybe naaldeehii naaʼnaʼii would be a better fit?

2. "from <ROOT>" clutter

OK, I'll keep it in.

3. Root categories

I think we're not talking about the same thing here. I'm not talking about verb roots or noun roots, but about derived verbs and derived nouns from the same (verb) root, like naaldloosh and naaldlooshii now part of the same category (terms belonging to the root -DLOOZH... )

So what I meant is keep all derived "terms" (derived nouns + derived verbs) in the Category:Navajo terms belonging to the root -DLOOZH (go on all four) category and create two subcategories within it, Category:Navajo verbs belonging to the root -DLOOZH (go on all four) and Category:Navajo nouns belonging to the root -DLOOZH (go on all four) . I can easily create those 664 (!) subcategories provided one allows me to run a bot... :).

4. Etymology

So you would say that naaldlooshii bikéshgaan hólónígíí only "belongs" to roots -DLOOZH and -LĮ́Į́ʼ, and not to -KÉ and -GAN also? (Granted, -LĮ́Į́ʼ is not a very exciting root to belong to, but I'm taking at least for the other three)

Also, since naaldlooshii is already an entry of its own, why wouldn't the etymology be directly: naaldlooshii ("animal") + akéshgaan ("hoof") + hólǫ́ ("there is") + ígíí? If bikéshgaan doesn't need expansion, so shouldn't naaldlooshii, but I don't have a strong opinion on that.

Then, in order to keep the link to the roots, we could also rephrase it as :

naaldlooshii (“animal”, from -DLOOZH) + akéshgaan (“hoof”, from -KÉ and -GAN) + hólǫ́ (“there is”, from -LĮ́Į́ʼ) + ígíí.

That would be nice to keep this links among all derived entries and roots.

Julien Daux (talk) 01:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Julien Daux, 3. "I'm not talking about verb roots or noun roots, but about derived verbs and derived nouns from the same (verb) root" ... Oh, I see. Yes, I misunderstood. In this case, then, verbs are already categorized under Category:Navajo verbs, and nouns under Category:Navajo nouns. So, in regard to derivations under the same verbal root, I think I would just keep them all together in one category Category:Navajo terms belonging to the root -DLOOZH (go on all four). I don't think subcategories are needed.

4. "So you would say that naaldlooshii bikéshgaan hólónígíí only "belongs" to roots -DLOOZH and -LĮ́Į́ʼ, and not to -KÉ and -GAN also?"' ... Yes, that makes sense to me.

"Also, since naaldlooshii is already an entry of its own, why wouldn't the etymology be directly: naaldlooshii ("animal") + akéshgaan ("hoof") + hólǫ́ ("there is") + ígíí?" ... Yes, I agree, that's better.

and

"naaldlooshii (“animal”, from -DLOOZH) + akéshgaan (“hoof”, from -KÉ and -GAN) + hólǫ́ (“there is”, from -LĮ́Į́ʼ) + ígíí" ... I see what you mean. Yes, it's probably a good idea to keep the links to roots all together like this. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:19, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll go from there! Will keep me busy for the next couple years... Haha.

Regarding the categories for nouns and verbs, is that possible in wiktionary to get all the entries which cross-cut 2 categories? (=words belonging to both "Navajo nouns" and "Navajo terms belonging to root -DLOOZH" for instance). Julien Daux (talk) 16:14, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

@Julien Daux, yes, it sounds like an ambitious project. As for entries that belong to 2 categories, I think it is possible to find them by using a data dump. Someone at Wiktionary:Grease pit knows how to do that kind of thing. Wiktionary:Grease pit is where our programmers and computer geeks hang out. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:58, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

If you type incategory:"Navajo nouns" incategory:"Navajo terms belonging to the root -DLOOZH (go on all four)" into the search box, it comes up with naaldlooshii dadichʼízhii. There's more detail about MW search capabilities at mw:Help:CirrusSearch. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, I didnʼt know that! Julien Daux (talk) 05:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Telugu dialogues

Can you go through this online book available in Google books. [1] It is entitled : "Dialogues in Telugu and English with a Grammatical Analysis" by C.P.Brown. Can I use it in giving examples for the usage of some Telugu phrases. May I request you to make a template for it to be used as a Reference. Can you prepare an example page. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I looked at the copyright information here, but it was not clear to me. I can't be sure that using phrases exactly as written is permitted. Of course, simple words such as అవును (avunu), లేదు (lēdu), నేను వున్నాను (nēnu vunnānu), మీరు ఉన్నారు (mīru unnāru), నేను అర్థం లేదు (nēnu arthaṁ lēdu), etc., are okay to use. I suggest that complex phrases could be changed a little. For example, నేను వేడి నీటి కావలసిన (nēnu vēḍi nīṭi kāvalasina), నా బూట్ ఎక్కడ? (nā būṭ ekkaḍa?) could be changed to నేను కొన్ని వెచ్చని నీటి కావలసిన (nēnu konni veccani nīṭi kāvalasina), నా బూట్లు ఎక్కడ? (nā būṭlu ekkaḍa?). Since we are not copying exactly, there is no need for a reference.

Here is how to make examples:

1. నా బూట్లు ఎక్కడ? ― nā būṭlu ekkaḍa? ― Where are my shoes?

or:

1. నా బూట్లు ఎక్కడ?

   nā būṭlu ekkaḍa?

   Where are my shoes?

   —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:48, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. w:Charles Phillip Brown, the author died in 1884. This particular book is published in 1853. All his works, I think are definitely copyright free. We are already using his Telugu-English dictionary in English wiktionary. Thank you very much.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:56, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I have made {{R:te:Dialogue}}. I'm not sure if it will work, though. It has been a long time since we did the other Reference templates, and I don't remember how it worked or what it was supposed to do. Try this one and see if it works. Put the template into an entry and add a page number, such as this: {{R:te:Dialogue|44|head=లేదు}}. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:26, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I have used the template in the page కోర (kōra). If I am giving the page number, it is searching in the text and taking to that page. So I have mentioned the lesson number of the section. Telugu search is not working in google books. Thank you for the help. Check that page, for any other errors.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 04:51, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I have also used the template in some other pages. Please check them. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:03, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

You put in "42", and that is what it searched for. It does not search for anything else. Besides, Google search doesn't work for Telugu words, because it only knows the English alphabet. But this template will only search for the page number, such as "42". —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:35, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I checked some other pages where you used the template, but they all indicated page No. 42. It seems to be working correctly. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:40, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Chameleon and horsetail

I don't know if you saw this edit and my note on the talk page https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:naʼashǫ́ʼii_łahgo_ánééhé. Not sure if you have any insight with regard to this issue? Thx. Julien Daux (talk) 17:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm. I will ask him about it. Seb usually prefers e-mail discussion and avoids talk pages. I don't have much insight here, because ánééh is such a complex, difficult verb. Thanks for fixing tsé nástáán. I had a dream about it last night and realized that a letter was missing. —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:48, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, let's wait what he says. In any case, the head noun doesn't match the page's name anymore now, and the link to the nv.Wikipedia page is still pointing to the anééhé entry there. Normally, this should be considered a "disruptive update"  :).

Also, there was some updates to ałtį́į́ jikʼáshí today, and according to YM, this entry should rather be ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí. Maybe you could throw this question in too... Thx Julien Daux (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll e-mail Seb. Well, the link won't be a problem, it's easy to fix. We have moved/renamed many pages over the years, and it often means making corrections here and on other wikis. For example, there are still a number of pages that have the misspelling "dinéʼiʼ" in the name (instead of dineʼé). When I move them, there will be a lot of linking pages that have to be adjusted as well.

ałtį́į́ jikʼáshí is more confusing. In my Y&M (1980), it lists Ałtįį Jikʼaashí (page 102, name of a canyon crossing; also the name of a jointed shrub).

Then ałtį́į́ jikʼáshí bow smoother, Equisetum kansanum (which is now called Equisetum laevigatum, smooth horsetail).

Then ałtį́į́ʼ (bow), then some other forms with ałtį́į́ʼ or ałtį́į́.

So there seems to be some confusion among ałtį́į́ʼ, ałtį́į́, and ałtįį, as well as between jikʼáshí and jikʼaashí. It is not unusual to find some misspellings and other errors in Y&M ... it's amazing that there aren't more, considering how complex it is and the state of typesetting in those days. I will ask Seb about ałtį́į́ jikʼáshí/ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí. He lives in the Navajo-speaking areas of Arizona, so he may have a better understanding of this. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:03, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Checking the Analytical Lexicon, I found ałtį́į́ʼ (bow) and ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí for Equisetum. But let's wait to see what Seb says. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:11, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't think to comment on spelling or morphology, but ethnobiology has always been a major interest of mine. I don't know how familiar you are with the actual plant, but all that you mentioned makes sense: Equisetum is basically just hollow, jointed green stems coated with minute silica crystals (it has leaves, but they're small and insignificant). The silica makes the surface just like a fine-grained sandpaper, so it would be an excellent tool for polishing/smoothing arrows. Having a canyon location named after it makes sense, too, because in arid and semi-arid regions it only grows where there is water and shade, which are more likely in a canyon than in the open desert.If you already knew all that, please forgive the interruption. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:55, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

It was a little difficult to understand why they call it "bow polisher". When I look at photos of it, it reminds me of seaweed, which is soft and delicate. With silica crystals, it makes sense. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:04, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Julien Daux, still no answer from Seb. Sometimes he can be difficult to work with. If he doesn't answer, then I have no suggestions. —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:38, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Let's wait a little more... So the changes to ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí you did weren't following his answer? Julien Daux (talk) 11:40, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

No, I changed ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí because of the evidence I found in the Analytical Lexicon. While the Y&M dictionary used various spellings, the Lexicon only listed ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí. Also, the Lexicon indicates that no mode or aspect of -KʼAAZH has high tone. If there were a form such as "-kʼáásh", appended the suffix -í or -ígíí to it would mutate to "-kʼáshí", but there is no "-kʼáásh". So I am convinced that ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí is correct (although it is possible that some people say "ałtį́į́ jikʼáshí"). —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree, internal evidence strongly pointed to ałtį́į́ʼ jikʼaashí to be the correct one, include the glottal stop at the end of ałtį́į́ʼ -- I know of no word in Navajo where final į́į́ would stand on its own without being closed by a glottal stop or a h, at least in the prevailing orthography. Julien Daux (talk) 22:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Hindi Translation Request

Hi Steph, at diff, there was a request in Hindi to English. I was actually very surprised that the user could not write in Devanāgarī. So I had to write it in Devanāgarī to show the correct spelling, as well as translating. Why can't they write with the original script. — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 01:43, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

P.S. I reckon the sentence represents female speech, am I right? — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 01:43, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

तुम्हे is misspelled. It should be तुम्हें (tumhẽ).

You shouldn't be surprised that the user could not write Devanagari. It's quite common. There are all sorts of circumstances: many people don't know Hindi at all. There are lots of people who can speak it, but not read it or write it. There are people who can read the Devanagari, but not the Roman spelling (the IP may well have received the message in Roman letters and cannot read Romanized Hindi). There are lots of people who can read it and write it, but who do not have the fonts or keyboards to type it, or who don't know how to type it. Lots of people can manage to write or type, but can't spell. There are lots of Indians in other parts of India, such as Tamil Nadu, who can speak Hindi, but may not be able to read or write it. And there are many other possibilities. People bring us what they have, or what they can manage, and are just looking for a little help.

Or it might be an American who has a Hindi girl friend or boy friend. Or an American who saw it in a talk page or bulletin board and just wondered what it was. So many possibilities.

It could have been either male or female. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:12, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

April 2017

Khmer equivalent of these words

Привет, Стивен. Какой кхмерский эквивалент тайского อดีต (à-dìit), лаосского ອາດີດ (ʼā dīt), бирманского အတိတ် (a.tit), хинди अतीत (atīt) и бенгальского অতীত (otit)? Я был удивлён, что не нашёл существительного в кхмерском словаре Sealang. Есть អតីត, но используется ли оно как существительное? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:31, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Хотя это и прилагательное в кхмерском языке, слово អតីត (a’dɨt, a’tǝyta’) — правильное слово. Чтобы создать существительное, нужно добавить ещё одно слово: អតីតកាល (a’dɨt kaal), អតីតភាព (a’dɨt pʰiep), или អតីតសម័យ (a’dɨt sa’may). —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Понял, спасибо :) --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:43, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Telugu as abbreviations

Kindly look at this page ఉ (u). It is also used as abbreviation. I have given the reference. There are some more Telugu letters used as abbreviations like మ (ma), శా (śā). etc. Is it O.K.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 14:18, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Rajasekhar. I am asking at WT:BP how to format this. It has to be different, but I don't understand it myself. When I get an answer, I'll try to explain it. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:46, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Is there any difference between ఉ (u) and ఉ. (u.) (like St and St.). Should there be two separate entries for both of them.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

It depends on the way Telugus write them. In English, we usually have a certain way to write most abbreviations, such as Mr., Mr, Mrs., kg, ml, rpm, mph, km/h, p.m., a.m., Ph.D., PhD, MD, and so on. In some cases, people write it both ways, as Ph.D. and PhD. So you should decide if it's better to write them with, without, or both. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:13, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Okay, for ఉ (u), I changed the header to ===Noun===, then used templates {{abbreviation of|ఉత్పలమాల|lang=te}} and {{abbreviation of|ఉత్తరము|lang=te}}. Then in ఉత్పలమాల (utpalamāla) and ఉత్తరము (uttaramu), I added a section for ====Synonyms==== with a link to ఉ (u). I don't like this format very much, and I have a feeling that nobody actually knows what to do with abbreviations. I hope this helps. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:15, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for taking very much interest in Telugu language entries. In Telugu, we write both ways as ఉ (u) and ఉ. (u.). Can I create the other page for ఉ. (u.) following similar method.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 09:09, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, using a format like PhD, which links to Ph.D.. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Category:Tamil nouns

Many of the older pages that you made don't use the {{ta-noun}} template (maybe also verbs, adjectives etc.). Is there a reason why it's like that? You should have changed the templates a few months after you created those pages — that is in later 2006 ... — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 12:29, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

{{ta-noun}} has only been around for a little over seven years. I probably have Tamil entries that are twelve years old or older. I even have entries as far back as 2002 before I had registered an account here. Wiktionary has not always been as it is today, you know. I usually do not re-do old entries unless I see an obvious mistake, and I never look at source text just to check on templates, etc. A long time ago, we had an arrangement whereby we could click on a button and open a random page (completely random or random within a certain language). When we had that, I used it a lot and frequently corrected old pages. When that capability was lost, I no longer visited old pages. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:26, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Special:RandomInCategory? —Aryamanarora ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 13:14, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Hmm. Doesn't work very well. It just takes me to categories. When we had the random-file button, clicking it actually opened a random page. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:31, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Works for me: Random. — Julien Daux (talk) 16:47, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah. Yes, Random works. It just needed some parameters. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:53, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Little cleanup

Hi there! Thanks for all the multilingual entries! Can I ask you to have a look at the pages in Category:Tbot entries (Ukrainian), to check them and to add whatever. If so, you can remove the Tbot cleanup tag - I'm on a de-Tbot mission at the moment. Thanks!! --G23r0f0i (talk) 16:50, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:19, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Awesome job! The Tbot entries are dwindling away, step by step. --G23r0f0i (talk) 20:08, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Dravidian entries

I am interested to enter Telugu pages derived or linked to Dravidian languages. If you are interested we can etymologically connect the South Indian languages. This[2] Dravidian dictionary may be useful. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:54, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Here are some examples that we use: in the Latin word ambactus, we have the section name ====Descendants====, with modern descendants of the Latin word. In хох under ===Etymology===, we show cognates in other languages. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:27, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Take an example of కురుపు (kurupu); using the reference [3] (in entry 1780) there are many cognites in different languages. The header is Ta kuru; does that mean, the Tamil word kuru is the root word. Can you make the Etymological entry for this. How to get the script of other South Indian languages. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:15, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@Rajasekhar1961: Sorry to but in, but I know some Proto-Dravidian stuff. First of all, the Tamil is not the root word, but all those words are related. You should read Proto-Dravidian and look at this paper that has some examples of reconstructed Proto-Dravidian. —Aryamanarora ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 12:37, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

குருப்பு (kuruppu). குரு (kuru), s. prickly heat, வேர்க்குரு (vērkkuru); 2. the smallpox, குருநோய் (kurunōy); 3. boil, sore, புண் (puṇ); 4. horripilation, புளகம் (puḷakam); 5. nut கொட்டை (koṭṭai). குரு ஆரால் மூக்குப்போலிருக்கிறது, the smallpox has come out well like the nose of a lamprey. குரு புறப்பட்டுச், (வார்த்து) சாக குரு விலே போக, to die of smallpox. குருவண்டு (kuruvaṇṭu), a kind of wasp.

You can probably find the Tamil spelling of words at Tamil and English Dictionary.

As Aryamanarora said, I don't think Tamil kuru is the root word. It's a cognate (meaning that both కురుపు (kurupu) and குரு (kuru)) came from the same Proto-Dravidian root. That is, కురుపు (kurupu) and குரு (kuru) are not daughter and mother, they are cousins.

You should be able to add keyboards to type the scripts of other South Indian languages. For example, on my PC computer I have Windows 10. I can add the Tamil keyboard by clicking on "Windows Settings", then "Time & Language (Speech, region, date)". Then I look in the region for India and add the Tamil keyboard. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:47, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

If you want to do it, you can add Proto-Dravidian entries. We have done that for Proto-Indo-European. See for example Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/déh₂nu. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:37, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Or see Category:Proto-Dravidian language. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:30, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

The system appears to be very complicated; and beyond my capacity. I am basically a medical man; not a linguist. But I would like to enter the cognates in the Etymology section. Can someone or you verify their accuracy (I fear for any mistakes). Once these cognates are verified, we can go to Proto-Dravidian entries. I have done it for కురుపు (kurupu). Thanking you.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 04:58, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I added Tamil definitions, but otherwise, I think it's very good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:45, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Aryamanarora and Stephen, Can you help me with అరి (ari), I have linked it to Proto-Dravidian and Sanskrit roots. Can I add the cognates of Tamil entries in this page. Kindly check it. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 04:21, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes. I added Tamil. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:04, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I have added Tamil cognates in అప్ప (appa), అమ్మ (amma), అర (ara), అల్లి (alli). Can you help me.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:25, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

They look good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:46, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Do we need to add references to the Cognates. I have added Tamil cognates in అవ్వ (avva), అల్లు (allu), రెండు (reṇḍu), ఉప్పు (uppu), ఉల్లి (ulli), ఎన్ను (ennu), ఎలిక (elika), ఎలుక (eluka), ఎలుగు (elugu), గంజి (gañji), కట్టు (kaṭṭu). Please check them. Aryamanarora is helping their links to Proto-Dravidian roots. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 08:56, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Normally I only put the references in the entry itself, but if a cognate that is listed is controversial a reference would be good. I've added a few Proto-Dravidian entries CAT:Proto-Dravidian lemmas but my knowledge is limited and so are my sources, so it will be a slow start. —Aryamanarora ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 18:57, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much for getting different languages linked through etymology.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:23, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

@Rajasekhar1961, most editors who add cognates do not list references. I don't list references. I think references could be good, but they are also extra work. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:39, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

ఏనుగు (ēnugu), మార్జాలము (mārjālamu), అన్న (anna), అక్క (akka), మామ (māma), అత్త (atta), నది (nadi), కక్కు (kakku), చిల్లర (cillara), రొక్కము (rokkamu), are some more entries with Tamil cognates created. Please check them.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:08, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. Looks good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:39, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I have added some more Dravidian cognates in some Telugu words: ముక్కు (mukku), చెవి (cevi), నెత్తురు (netturu), తోక (tōka), తల (tala), ‎ తోలు (tōlu), ‎వేరు (vēru), ‎పేను (pēnu), అప్ప (appa), ‎తండ్రి (taṇḍri), ‎చిన్న (cinna), దొడ్డి (doḍḍi), ‎దొడ్డ (doḍḍa) and ‎ఐదు (aidu). Kindly check them for accuracy and make any corrections.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 19:38, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Thai จรวด, Lao ຈະຫລວດ (or other spellings) and Khmer កាំជ្រួច

Hi Stephen, is Khmer កាំជ្រួច (kamcruəc) the source for Thai จรวด (jà-rùuat) and Lao ຈະຫລວດ (cha lūat) terms? The pronunciation differs significantly but that's often the case. Also asking @Wyang, Octahedron80. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:20, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Modern Khmer is កាំជ្រួច (kamcruəc, “firework; missile; rocket”), កញ្ជ្រួច (kɑñcruəc). This is built on ច្រួច (cruəc, “to sprinkle; to splash; to squirt (with water)”) < < prefix /c-/ + /ruːəc/ ~ (> Modern Khmer រួច (ruəc)). Wyang (talk) 05:35, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed answer, Frank!

BTW, Stephen uses a Khmer transliteration, which is close to Sealang's, which often can't be done automatically and sometimes there are multiple readings and irregularities. We should probably come up with some method for phonetic respellings for Khmer in the future? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:44, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Привет, Анатолий. Я согласен с Вьяном. Мне кажется очень разумным. В дополнение к тому, что Вьян сказал относительно слова ច្រួច, слово កាំ означает «стрелка». —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:55, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I think I spotted my name in Russian: Вьян, haha. On the topic of Khmer, are there dictionaries published which make use of phonetic respellings? If so, I can see if I am able to use them in a fashion similar to the Thai system here. Wyang (talk) 07:15, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

http://sealang.net/khmer/dictionary.htm has IPA at least. —Aryamanarora ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 19:05, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wyang Don't know if "Вьян" is right but depends how you pronounce it. I meant the custom-made phonetic respellings for Khmer like you do with Burmese. It seems MOSTLY phonetic, so only irregular readings will need those and perhaps additional symbols would be required. Words may have multiple readings, eg. អតីត (ʼaʼdət) /ʔaʔdɨt/, /ʔaʔtǝytaʔ/. I'm not yet ready to handle Khmer, just talking. I've got a Tuttle Practical Cambodian-English/English-Cambodian dictionary but Sealang, Aryamanarora mentioned (we both know it, thanks) is a definite resource, which has IPA. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:10, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

@Atitarev: lol, I should have known better... —Aryamanarora ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 22:07, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

dził

Hi, I noticed you changed the pronunciation of some /dz/, /ts/ affricates to [c], which is normally pronounced further back in the mouth (a sort of palatalized [k]). Could you please add more color as to these changes? Thank you. —Julien D. (talk) 14:12, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I was working from a doctorate paper on Navajo phonology. I tried to find it again on the internet, but could not (I cleared my history yesterday to try to fix a problem). There are different views on representing Navajo phonology, and this paper was interesting. Since then, however, I compared the way the paper explained the phonology with what we have in Appendix:Navajo alphabet, and I think Appendix:Navajo alphabet is a better way to represent the phonology. In addition, dził was using the symbol ˩ to indicate the low tone, but I could not find any other Navajo entries that used a symbol like that. The other entries use either acute and grave accents (é or è), or just the acute accent, which I prefer. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:59, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Scholarly works do not always use standard IPA characters. We do. So some papers might use /c/ for the voiceless alveolar affricate in cases where it cannot be confused with a voiceless palatal stop, but we only use the standard /ts/. Same goes for tone marks, scholarly works may often use various accents marks to represent tones, but standard IPA uses marks like ˩ (although it seems we don't strictly follow that one). --WikiTiki89 19:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Whenever I see pronunciations that use ˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˩ ˥˦ ˥˧ ˥˨ ˥˩ ˦˥ ˧˥ ˨˥ ˩˥ ˦˩ ˦˨ ˦˧ ˩˦ ˨˦ ˧˦, I find them difficult to read, whereas acute accents are easy. Besides that, the Navajo tone pitch is not precise, and the contours can vary depending on cadence, emotion, gender, and other factors. I have tried to get used to ˩ and the rest, but I really dislike them. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:32, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, like I said we're not that strict about using them. Theoretically, the problem with accent marks is their meaning is unclear. But sometimes, as you said yourself, that's a actually benefit. --WikiTiki89 20:45, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Was it a paper on Navajo as spoken today, or a paper on Proto-Athabaskan phonology? Proto-Athabaskan is reconstructed to have a palatovelar series *gʸ / *kʸ / *kʸʼ ( ~ [ʝ] [c] [c’], or [c] [cʰ] [c’]), that regularly gave way to dz / ts / ts’ in Navajo, merging with the orignal *dz / *ts / *tsʼ series. —Julien D. (talk) 23:34, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Possibly, not sure. I was focused on one particular section. The interesting part was not about ‘c’ vs. ‘ts’, but the following ʰ or ʔ that distinguish the three consonants dz, ts, and tsʼ. That is, it's not so important how the dz/ts are represented, but how the secondary articulations are handled. This is why many Navajos today like to append an ‘x’ after some of their letters, such as ahxéheeʼ. It's also why some of the early spelling systems for Navajo used ‘q’ or ‘xw’ in words such as tqin and txwó. Most of today's writers are self-taught and many of them think the letters of their alphabet have the sounds of the similar English letters, so they try to modify them with x, w, and so on. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:34, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Talking of [tʔ] or [t^ʔ], the standard notation for ejectives in IPA should be the same as in Navajo orthography, i.e. [t’]. That said, I don't believe IPA is a worthwhile addition to word pages since the orthography is 100% phonemical. You of course have to know that /t/ and /k/ have some velar fricative release to them, but that's a totally regular, universal and exception-less phenomenon.

Now, another traditional Navajo phonetics bit I'm not quite fond of is the description of /b/, /d/, /dz/, /g/ etc.. as voiceless consonants. Honestly, comparing the onset of dził to that of tsin in the audio links (leaving aside the aspiration), one can hardly describe the former as voiceless. Maybe as [dz̥], but certainly not as voiceless. —Julien D. (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure why IPA ejective notation should be the same as in Navajo orthography, but I don't have a strong feeling about it. Either way is okay with me. Although Navajo orthography is phonetic, IPA is still helpful, since most people don't know how the letters should be pronounced.

I think the pronunciations of Navajo /b/, /d/, /dz/, /g/ are gradually changing today as a result of the English voiced pronunciation of these letters. When they are pronounced correctly, according to classical Navajo phonology, I think [dz] and [ts] are both unvoiced, and that the only difference is that one is /ts/ and the other is /tsʰ/. I am hearing the same introduction of voicing to Ojibwe consonants as a result of using letters which are voiced in English. Eventually, the alphabets of these languages will change the pronunciation of the letters because the speakers are accustomed to the English practice of voicing. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:34, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

English proper nouns from the Hindu Puranas

I want to create the English proper noun pages derived from Hindu Puranas. I have created some pages earlier. Can I give the reference of Puranic encyclopedia by Vettam Mani, 1975. See the link here: [4]. Kindly advise. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:33, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's okay. There might be some difficulty with the definitions. I don't think you should copy the explanations word for word from the Puranic encyclopedia. I think you should probably reduce the definitions to a single sentence (because of the difference between a dictionary and an encyclopedia). —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:13, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I have added the Reference in the page Abhimanyu. Is it OK. There is a problem in Sujata, which is name of a man and also a woman. How to enter there. Kindly help.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 15:26, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

It looks very good. I just changed the word "pages" to pp., which is the standard for a bibliography. A single page is p., and more than one page is pp. —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:52, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I have added some more pages: Aditi, Agastya, Ahalya, Airavata. Kindly check them.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 03:38, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Done. All good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

I have added few more pages: Amba, Ambika, Alakananda. Kindly check them. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:22, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Done. All good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:10, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I have added few more pages: Anasuya, amrita, Ananta. Please check for any errors.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Done, all good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:04, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I have added Arjuna, Aruna, Arundhati and modified apsara. There is some confusion in Aruna. I have also added some types of utsava in ఉత్సవము (utsavamu). Please check them.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:01, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

They look good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:12, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Astadiggajas is created. Should it be Proper noun or plural noun, I am not clear. In etymology, please verify the division. Ashoka is also modified adding the reference. Please correct them.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 18:06, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

That's a tough one. I think it's a plural proper noun and that the singular is also used in English, so I added the singular Astadiggaja. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:36, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the important correction. Atikaya is added. Asura is modified. Atikaya literally means obesity also. Can we add as a separate entry as atikaya. Please check them.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 15:19, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Done. Yes, if atikaya has a different meaning from Atikaya, we can have a separate entry. I don't know what atikaya means. —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:03, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I have created or expanded the entry words that are very closely related etymologically: Aditya and Adityas; Maheshwar and Maheshwari; Maitreya, Maitreyan and Maitreyi. Please check for any errors in their relationship. Thank you.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:41, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:51, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Вектор

Привет, Стивен. Как поменять себе оболочку (skin) на вектор? Когда-то делал, но уже не помню. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:48, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Привет, Анатолий. Чтобы поменять себе оболочку на вектор, выбери «Preferences», затем «Appearance». Оболочки находятся наверху. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:04, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

У меня уже вектор стоит, но я не могу добавлять переводы как раньше. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:31, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Я не понимаю, Анатолий, что ты имеешь в виду. Имеешь ли в виду, что ты уже используешь векторную оболочку? Если да, то в чём проблема с переводами? Ты ссылаешься на разделы «Переводы»? —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:04, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

May 2017

ałkʼésdisí

I just wanted to make sure if you removed the second audio link in this entry on purpose? Thx —Julien D. (talk) 14:43, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, on purpose. It was the same voice, but he mispronounced the word. He said "ałkʼesdisí". —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:38, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

ahijamiento

Do you know the translation of this word? It has something to do with the roots of plants. DTLHS (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Done: tillering. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:20, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Hosteen

Could you please check if this entry makes sense? I was trying to clean up after an anon. The given name and surname do have a few hundred bearers. I wonder if the given name would be partly a title misinterpreted? Also you seem to classify English spellings of Navajo surnames as "Navajo".--Makaokalani (talk) 09:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

These English spellings of Navajo terms, especially those used as personal names, are problematic. They come from words that are Navajo, and, with English respellings, they are used in English to refer to certain Navajos, yet they aren't quite English, but are hardly Navajo anymore. The Navajo word hastiin refers to mature males (something like Mr., elder, or sir). English naming conventions (given name + surname) were recently forced on the Navajo. The Bureau of Indian Affairs made all Navajos select names according to the English template, something which is alien to the Navajo culture. The BIA also required they use English spelling and no diacritics for those names, so a lot of weird stuff like this came out of it.

I cleaned it up as well as I can. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:40, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

June 2017

សមមិត្ត

Привет, Стивен. Ты не мог бы пожалуйста сделать кхмерскую статью для សមមិត្ត, по-видимому слово происходит от пали samamitta? У неё разные транслитерации, не знаю, как лучше оформить. Это слово использовалось красными кхмерами в значении «товарищ», не так-ли? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:42, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Привет, Анатолий. Я сделал. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:15, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Спасибо, Стивен! --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:59, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Telugu proverbs

Kindly go through the discussion with SemperBlotto. Can you help me, whether the changes made are o.k.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:55, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

    Hi there. I don't think that the translations of these should be a single term (e.g. "like a donkey carrying sandal powder") but should be linked as individual words (because the translation will not exist as such in English). Also "sandal" should be "sandalwood". SemperBlotto (talk) 06:24, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

    Thank you for your advise. I am taking the translations directly from the reference quoted (without changing). Can you give some example of how to link the translations to each of the English word. Thank you.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:28, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

    As you have suggested I have made some changes in some pages about Category:Telugu proverbs. Please check whether they are fine.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:51, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I looked at a couple of the proverbs and I think they are good, with one possible problem. In a few proverbs, I do not understand the deeper meaning. For example, the translation of అందని పూలు దేవునికి అర్పణ is "An offering to the deity of the flowers which cannot be reached." I understand the words, but I cannot understand what it means. If you know the deeper meaning, it would be good to explain the meaning. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:57, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

అందని ద్రాక్షపండ్లు పుల్లన is another Telugu proverb with similar explanation. In both, when you are not able to reach the target, you consider it as bad.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

There are two published works by M.W.Carr on Telugu proverbs, both are available in google books (Telugu proverbs (1868) and Supplement (1868)). There are about 2700 proverbs with English translations. I am using them as resources. But as you have mentioned, some of them does not have explanation. Can I use them as quotations for the Wiktionary entries. Is there any limitation, in Wiktionary, in using them as separate Proverb pages. Kindly clarify my doubt and if possible, we can discuss about it any other platform. I do not want them to be removed, though the language is a bit old.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:00, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Telugu proverbs (1868) and the Supplement (1868) both look good. I think they will be helpful. Yes, I think it will be okay to use them as quotations. I don't think there is any limitation. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:53, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, sir. I will continue to create separate pages for these Telugu proverbs and wherever possible add them as quotation in the corresponding Wiktionary pages. It will become a big collection of Telugu words in English Wiktionary.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:36, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Telugu plural forms

User:Octahedron80 made some programming changes in the Telugu noun template documentation and Module:te-headword. I do not how they work. Can you help me in understanding how they work and how to frame the rules to applying to Telugu plurals.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:49, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

    He wrote in my talkpage as: Hello. I am working about common Telugu plural rules in Module:te-headword. Could you tell me if there are more common rules to apply to noun, for new usage of Template:te-noun? For special cases, they will not be put there. --Octahedron80 (talk) 07:46, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Module:te-headword is written with Lua Programming Language. I don't know Lua at all. Both User:Jberkel and User:Wikitiki89 say that they are expert Lua programmers. For some other editors who know Lua, see Category:User Lua coder-3. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:50, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

July 2017

Two German nouns

Hi Stephen. The German nouns (deprecated template usage) Bessarabiendeutscher and (deprecated template usage) Wolhyniendeutscher have adjective templates in their declension sections. Is this correct? If not, could you correct them please. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:15, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

I believe this is correct. If I remember correctly, nominalized adjectives in German are inflected like the adjectives themselves. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 17:45, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Noun and adjective are two separate words: Bessarabiendeutscher (noun) and bessarabiendeutsch (adjective).

And Wolhyniendeutscher (noun) and wolhyniendeutsch (adjective).

Their declensions are correct, though. I guess it's just a minor hiccough in template naming. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:12, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

OK thanks. My bot doesn't know what to do with them - I'll just ignore them. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Telugu frequency list

The Appendix:Sanskrit frequency list 1 is very good and useful. Can you help me and prepare the Appendix:Telugu frequency list. This would help me to give priority for creating new pages of more importance. Thank you.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:14, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I searched for Telugu frequency lists, but I did not find any. I have left an inquiry at WT:GP#Frequency list. They say that they can get a list of Telugu words used in the articles of the Telugu Wikipedia. I do not know what form it will be in or how useful it will be. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Your initiative has given the list of 10,000 Telugu words in the order of frequency in Telugu Wikipedia articles. As pointed out, I am not going to create an entry for every word. But it helps me a lot in my work. Thank you very much sir.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:53, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Abuse of blocking and page-deleting powers by SemperBlotto; de-cratting and de-sysopping required

According to the wiktionary page Help:Dispute resolution, under the section "another user", I should report this type of thing to "a friendly administrator". The offender in this case is himself an administrator, and even a bureaucrat, and must be stripped of his powers for abusing them, so I must report his misconduct to bureaucrats (who have the power to edit user rights). The following is the situation:

I recently created my userpage before I started editting the mainspace.
My userpage was simply this:

" ====================>

-looks like a spear "

That's an ASCII graphic of a spear, and it's perfectly fine for a userpage.
SemperBlotto deleted my userpage, and, in the deletion summary, he stated "no usable content given"- a policy which applies only to word/term articles, not userpages, so apparently SemperBlotto mistook my userpage for a word/term entry. My username could be mistaken for a word/term entry, so that is certainly possible.

I re-created my userpage, noting in my edit summary that SemperBlotto carelessly mistook my userpage for a word entry.
I figured that that would be the end of it; problem solved.

But, to my surprise, SemperBlotto felt that his sense of dominance was violated by me pointing out his error (or deliberate act of violating the page deletion policy, as it probably was), so he re-asserted his sense of dominance by deleting my userpage yet again, and by blocking me for 31 hours, and by giving the false and defamatory block explanation "adding nonsense/gibberish".

Dominance-asserting aggression is the single worst possible use of any form of power, and any person who uses power for that purpose should be stripped of that power, and severely punished. Due to the failure of legislatures to pass the appropriate penal laws for abuses of wiki administrator powers, SemperBlotto does not face the possibility of any real-world punishment for his offenses; but he must, at the very least, be stripped of his administrator and bureaucrat privileges by a fellow bureaucrat, such as yourself, so that he can no longer abuse his page-deletion and blocking powers for the purpose of dominance-asserting aggression.

Miraculous Spear (talk) 00:05, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

While I wouldn't have deleted the page myself, and I wish he had shown some tact in this case, he wasn't completely wrong in deleting the user page, and it certainly doesn't merit the drastic actions you're requesting.

First of all, we have a very strict policy on user pages that's quite different from Wikipedia's: as a smaller project, we get a lot of people whose only action here is to set up a user page just like they have on Wikipedia, with all the bells and whistles. Having planted their flag in the provinces, they go back to Wikipedia. The consensus here is that a user page is solely for the purpose of helping you do dictionary work by showing what you have to offer the project, among other things. We don't allow user boxes (except for directly dictionary-related one's like Babel) and we frown on most personal stuff for people who haven't contributed anything here (we're much more relaxed once someone has shown that they're not just here to show off their user page).

It's also important to know that patrolling new edits here is a monumental and thankless task, and SemperBlotto does more of it than anyone. It involves scanning through hundreds of edits every day, most of which are in languages you don't speak, and looking for a small percentage of carefully-hidden attempts to delete content, add nonsense, slant things to a particular point of view, attack people, or plant spam/advertising. It's very hard to keep positive and polite when all of this is going on, and you know that some of it is always going to get by you. It also doesn't help that some of the worst editors are the most likely to complain if anyone does anything to their edits. In other words, I think you're misreading this by saying it's about dominance, rather than simple grumpiness.

As I said, I don't wholly approve of the actions in question, and I really appreciate that you're already making contributions here, but you're asking for a lot. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@Miraculous Spear, you have misunderstood. I can tell by what you wrote that you expect Wiktionary to be much more like Wikipedia. Wiktionary is not at all like Wikipedia. Please see Wiktionary:Wiktionary for Wikipedians. For one thing, Wikipedians put all sorts of things in their user pages. I think they refer to them as "vanity" pages. On Wiktionary, we use our user pages for information that other editors need to know about us to judge our edits, areas of specialization, and areas of competence, including natural languages spoken (Babel box), computer languages, alphabets and scripts, formal education, etc. We do not permit the popular Wikipedia boxes such as "this user plays scrabble," "this user eats broccoli," or "this user is a Marxist." The ASCII spear graphic might have been overlooked if you had first included useful information, such as the languages you speak and your competence in them.

The next misunderstanding, where you thought it was all about asserting dominance, was actually what we consider wheel warring. When an admin reverts or deletes a new editor's entry, you must not ignore the action and revert it. You should have tried to find out why your entry was deleted, and then avoid making that mistake in the future.

You are welcome to re-create your user page, but make sure that what you put in it is useful to the rest of us so that we can make a judgment regarding your edits. You can also include links, reminders, notes to self, and so on, that you need for the work you do here. For example, if you want to keep a list of pages that you intend to work on, or links to special resources that you like. Most people probably would not understand your ASCII spear, and it could be a distraction. You might include an image of a spear if you feel you can't live without it, but make the rest of what you include on your userpage helpful to the rest of us in understanding the quality of your edits. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:28, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@SemperBlotto is there anything in particular about this account that justified a block without warning for an edit to their own user page? If not, you deserve a firm trout slapping. bd2412 T 19:37, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

I can't remember that far back. SemperBlotto (talk) 19:49, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, don't block newbs without warning. Consider yourself trout-slapped. bd2412 T 20:20, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

August 2017

User:Dick Laurent

User:Dick Laurent, on whose Talk page you just pinged me, seems to have made a repeated habit of reverting pages without providing justification for doing so, and being uncommunicative and downright flippant when asked why they are doing so. Since you are an administrator who pinged me on their Discussion page, I am first appealing to you to get them to stop. I do not see there being any sort of consensus reachable by talking to them, unfortunately, as there has been no attempt on their part to communicate even when pressed. Ligata (talk) 05:39, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Editors who come here from Wikipedia often have trouble understanding why we do things as we do. On en.wikipedia there are over 2000 admins (last time I looked), plus a huge number of checkers. Here we have only a small handful of admins (I think around 20 active admins), and these few admins do the vast majority of the work here, from writing templates and modules, to creating entries, checking and verifying edits, patrolling for vandalism, etc. Our tiny panel of admins has to deal with many, many new entries from anons and others who only edit once or a few times and then quit, so we don't have the time for hundreds or even thousands of discussions every day (especially since most of the anons never reply). When it's really important to an editor to know the reason for a revert, he has to ask (politely, not angrily). I'm afraid you got on Dick's bad side from the moment of first contact. The title you chose for your comment was based on a misunderstanding of how we work.

I glanced at the disputed edit, and I'm afraid I can't be of much help. You want to add the word queer and something about pink. Dick is gay, so I suppose he took umbrage at your edit. If you had approached him with some calm civility, he probably would have explained. I can't explain the revert, since I'm not gay. The word queer does strike me as gratuitously offensive, and the pink thing was just strange, meaningless to me, so.... —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Queer has not been offensive in decades; calling it a slur in 2017 is absurd, but it's also clear that I was showing a specific example of where גאה was being translated as queer; I didn't just add it to insult this user. Ligata (talk) 08:35, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

As far as pinkwashing goes you are literally on a dictionary site. Ligata (talk) 08:36, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Apart from this I just went to remove the translation "gay" because it is not synonymous with LGBT (whereas queer ironically is), and found that it had been locked. Equating gay with LGBT is offensive to bisexual and transgender people, and to favor the word "gay" over "queer" as a synonym for LGBT demonstrates a high degree of entitlement on the part of those who do so. Ligata (talk) 08:42, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

And sorry for so many messages but there is a very good discussion of the word queer in this English-Arabic gender term dictionary. The offensive sense of the word is very 1990s. I grew up being called it as a slur, but no one does anymore because it's become one of the main identities that non-heteronormative people choose to go by. Ligata (talk) 08:54, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Since it is sensitive, why are you pushing for your edits? Why don't you just move on and stop wasting everybody's time? Dick has edited for his reasons. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08::::57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Because the page, as it stands, is offensive. It uses LGBT synonymously with gay. I am not wasting people's time; I am trying to improve the dictionary by correcting such erasure. I am not even pushing for queer at this point, only for the removal of the term gay as a synonym for LGBT. Ligata (talk) 09:03, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Like I'm not making this stuff up out of nowhere; there is a high degree of discourse you can find on why "the gay community" is problematic and why queer is actually less problematic. Ligata (talk) 09:05, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

And look at the edit history. I asked for an explanation politely the first time he reverted my revert. The second time he did so it was clear he had not the slightest interest in explaining his actions, so I responded appropriately to this entitled way of editing. Ligata (talk) 10:12, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

This user is now being even more arbitrary, deleting the translation "LGBT" that is still attested in one of the given examples on the basis that he personally disagrees with the translation. What ever happened to the process of requesting verification? I'm sure more attestations could be drug up with sufficient time, but this user is acting as a dictator who thinks they are the absolute authority on the Hebrew language. Ligata (talk) 13:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

You're wasting your time trying to discuss it with me. As I mentioned above, I know little about the subject and am not competent to make judgments concerning it. You need to discuss it with Dick Laurent if you can get him to discuss it with you. After your antagonistic comments, I rather doubt that he will cooperate with you. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:26, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Telugu poetic tems

I have created some Telugu poetic terms in the lines similar to ఒప్పులకుప్పా (oppulakuppā). They are చెలియా (celiyā), రాజా (rājā). I have a small doubt. These words are also the alternative vocative singular case forms of చెలియ (celiya) and రాజు (rāju) respectively. How to add this in their pages. Kindly advise.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:45, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

You can do it as I did in చెలియ (celiya), using {{vocative singular of}}. Or you can put it like this instead: ''alternative [[vocative]] singular of'' '''{{l|te|చెలియ}}'''. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:58, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

According to the grammarians, these vocative forms should be ఓ చెలియా (ō celiyā), ఓ రాజా (ō rājā); similar to ఓ శివా (ō śivā); ఓ రామా (ō rāmā). Can we consider these as synonyms.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:41, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Synonym means "having the same meaning", so if చెలియ (celiya) can mean the same as ఓ చెలియా (ō celiyā), then they are synonyms. —Stephen ^(Talk) 15:48, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

apocopes

Hey Stephen. Thanks for the edits on vien, val, quier, faz. I never knew about those apocopic verb forms in Spanish. In Catalan conjugations, I'd expect forms like above, so it's interesting to find out about this piece of grammar. --WF on Holiday (talk) 12:27, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's interesting. You've heard of Latinate English, which is heavy with Latin-based words (such as apian, corvine, aural, ocular, ungual, stellar, sororal, uxorial, igneous, portal, arboreal, paludal, tintinnabulary, sartorial, acerbic, adipose, aedile, subimago, eruginous, aestivation, estuary, alacrity, ancillary, equanimous, gibbous, homuncular, jejunal, cislunar, lupine, and so on) ... Spanish can also be Latinized. The difference is that many people find Latinate English difficult to understand, tiring to read, and generally weak. They don't like it. On the other hand, Spanish-speakers are impressed by Latinized Spanish, even if they have trouble understanding it. If a company wants to make an important contract pop, they Latinize it. It's also useful for poetry. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:32, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Good. That was a list of really ugly English words. As for Spanish, the legal world is an area we haven't really explored much in WT. Category:es:Law isn't badly populated, but could be bigger. This is probably because it's very advanced stuff. But I'm sure one day I'll find a nice list of Spanish legal terms and add a few. And perhaps there should be a mention of the future subjunctive, only really found these days in legal Spanish and a handful of set expressions (I don't remember those OTTOMH, maybe you can jog my memory...). Anyway, before I start rambling, I'll leave you. --WF back from hols (talk) 19:39, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

If you see a Spanish future subjunctive, it probably will be following a verb that requires a subordinate verb in the subjunctive (wishes, emotions, impersonal expressions, recommendations, doubt/denial, and ojalá). Usually these verbs are followed by que, occasionally by quien or como, and finally the subjunctive verb:

wishes:

agradecer que, no tener que, mandar que, desear que, preferir que, no encontrar que, exigir que, insistir que, buscar que, pedir que, necesitar que, esperar que, querer que, no haber que

emotions:

alegrarse de que, quejarse que, lamentar que, enojar que, sorprender que, molestar que, tener miedo de que, gustar que, encantar que, sentir que, maravillar que, estar contento que, estar enojado que, estar triste que, temer que, extrañarse que

impersonal expressions:

es necesario que, es extraño que, no es cierto que, es probable que, es agradable que, es bueno que, es curioso que, es raro que, es dudoso que, es recomendable que, es esencial que, es una lástima que, es estupendo que, es urgente que, es vergonzoso que, es importante que, no es cierto que, es increíble que, no es hecho que, es malo que, no es verdad que

recommendations:

aconsejar que, sugerir que, ordenar que, dejar que, hacer que, mandar que, recomendar que, proponer que, decir que, rogar que, exigir que, insistir que, prohibir que, suplicar que

doubt/denial:

dudar que, no pensar que, no estar seguro que, no comprender que, no creer que, negar que, no suponer que, no parecer que

One of these verb phrases in the main clause is in the indicative mood, then a relative pronoun (usually que) connects to the noun clause or dependent clause, and then if the English dependent verb is future tense, the Spanish will be future subjunctive:

No creo que vinieren mis padres.

I don't think my parents will come. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:53, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Telugu adjectives

అయిన (ayina) and ఐన (aina) are added to Telugu nouns to convert them to adjectives. Example: విలువైన (viluvaina) and విలువయిన (viluvayina) meaning valuable. What are these words. Are they postpositions or suffixes. There are many adjectives with this endings. Thank you.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 05:53, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

References: అయిన and ఐన] both are derived from అగు (agu, “to become”).Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:33, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I think that అయిన (ayina) and ఐన (aina) are past participles. A past participle is a verb form that is often used like an adjective: stolen (from steal) ... a stolen car; broken (from break} ... a broken arm; required (from require) ... the required documents. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:52, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I have created the pages for అయిన and ఐన. Are they correct.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 19:19, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I made a small change. I think they are good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:52, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you sir.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:04, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

In similar lines, తగిన (tagina), తగని (tagani) are also used to convert verb తగు (tagu) to adjectives. but are they present participles or past participles. తగని is mentioned as negative participle. The reference: తగు. I have created pages for these entries.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 19:00, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

I think these are present participles. In general, the past participle in English ends in -ed (example: an accomplished deed, a deed that was accomplished), and the present participle in English often ends in -ing (example: running water, water that is running). Tha pages you have created look good to me. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:14, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

User:Reidca

Hi, Stephen: I had to create a new account for Wiktionary after both forgetting my original password and not linking a working email address for this. Might you remove me from "autopatrollers" for the time being and insert a move/redirect from "Reidca" to "MDCorebear"?. Thank you! MDCorebear (talk) 19:18, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:05, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

«amiga mía»

Is it preferable to say ‘amiga mía’ in your translation because it makes specific use of the vocative case? I know that it’s a tough question; you don’t have to answer it elaborately if you don’t know how to. — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 07:37, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's because of the vocative case, although I can't completely rule it out. I think it's something like we have in English where we can say, "see ya later, pal of mine", while "see ya later, my pal" sounds less natural. Of course, in English we'd normally say "see ya later, pal", but that's the trouble with trying to equate Spanish with English. In Spanish, the possessive pronoun is needed, either mi or mío. I really have never heard a good explanation for this. Some people say that amigo mío makes the relationship closer, but I don't think that's right. Or possibly makes it stand out for being less used. Whatever it is, eventually you start to develop a feel for it. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:54, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

I keep thinking of buen viaje a México, mi amigo versus buen viaje a México, amigo mío... I sort of sense that buen viaje a México, mi amigo sounds slightly sarcastic, and that he is perhaps not really a friend, and maybe he isn't actually wishing him well. OTOH, buen viaje a México, amigo mío seems heartfelt and literal. Spanish is often spoken with very sweet words that really have the opposite meaning, and therefore vicious and nasty. Like one woman telling another that her hair is so lovely and her dress is just beautiful, but meaning exactly the opposite, that her hair is like a mop and her dress makes her look like a slut. Spanish-speakers can kill with the prettiest words. —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:13, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Geez, Steve, get a room. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 03:39, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

All in due course. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:57, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Lexicity

A comprehensive index of resources for ancient languages: Lexicity. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:02, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, Palaeolexicon. Includes the following dictionaries: Eteocypriot, Hattic, Hittite, Linear B, Lydian, Carian, Cappadocian Greek, C. Luwian, Cypriot, Old Norse, Proto-Albanian, Proto-Altaic, Palaic, Phrygian, Pre-Celtic, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Kartvelian, Proto-Semitic, Proto-Turkic, Safaitic, Thracian, Tocharian A, Tocharian B, Urartian. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:35, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Incorrect accents in Russian

Hi Stephen. You made a few mistakes adding accent marks to the Russian quote at здешний (diff). I have fixed it (diff). Please be more careful. It's better not to have accents than to have the wrong accents. --WikiTiki89 15:04, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I felt like дворя́не was correct, like англичане, but starling.rinet said it was дворяне́. Starling.rinet apparently made a mistake. As for старину, I think it can have three different stress patterns, including ста́рину and старину́. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:10, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Indigenes and telecommunications

Is there a tendency amongst Natives in Australia, the Americas, and elsewhere to intentionally avoid advanced technologies like telephones and computers? The few indigenes with whom I’ve spoken seem to resent much of modern technology, and the ones who don’t seem to have lost their connexions with their tribes, having more‐or‐less assimilated into European cultures. — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 22:34, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

In my experience, no. They like the cellphones, computers, smartphones, etc., but many of them are extremely poor. Among the Navajo, there are still many people who live in self-built one-room homes without electricity or running water. So the cost of internet connections, etc., is often a problem. Even now, their reservations often do not have sufficient access to water sources. The Standing Rock Sioux have only one source of water, and Trump and the Republicans are building an oil pipeline over it (the pipelines always fail eventually), so that source will become poisoned before long. The Navajos depend on several rivers including the San Juan River. The San Juan was recently poisoned by a huge accidental release of toxic acid mine waste (including lead and arsenic), and thousands of Navajo farmers and ranchers have been left without any water for their crops and animals. Trump has seen to it that the EPA has ignored this disaster and there are no plans for cleanup. Most Navajo who were not affected by the toxic mine spill nevertheless have only one gallon of water per day for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. This all makes having internet access very difficult.

Also, when they can manage to pay for access, they are targeted by scammers, since the Native Americans are often unsophisticated and unworldly. They are very traditional and are solidly against the use of any sort of pornography, yet when they search online, even just on Facebook, they often get porn sent to their phones by malware or robots, and for them it is intolerable. So they don't intentionally avoid advanced technologies, but there are huge barriers placed in their way, and the Republicans continually try to steal what little they have and take advantage of them. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:01, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

dícese

Any chance you could make an entry for dícese. I remember you doing a great job with a similar véndese or rómpase or something --Pickyevent (talk) 18:18, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Done. —Stephen ^(Talk) 15:11, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

October 2017

How's your Lao?

Hey. I assume it is better than mine...If you know some, fancy clearing out the last 11 Lao entries in Category:Tbot entries (Lao)? --P5Nd2 (talk) 11:43, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I used to work on these, but the special requirements and formatting of Lao, Thai, and Burmese entries has reached a level that makes it difficult to get everything right, so I don't do them anymore. I think Atitarev does them when he has time. —Stephen ^(Talk) 14:12, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Stephen, don't be scared. You can still edit Lao with as simple {{lo-noun}} (which uses autotranslit or fails in rare case but without errors). Please see ໂທລະສັບ (thō la sap). Lao entries are the simplest so far, no tones are used but modules require attention, not 100% can be be auto-transliterated. It's a pity you stopped editing in Asian languages with your knowledge. It's more important than just adding random requests in the translation requests page, IMHO. I agree Burmese is tricky but I learned a bit now, thanks to User:Wyang and User:Angr but Thai just uses phonetic respellings. With Khmer, in the future, we could probably employ dual transliteration, similar to Burmese - one phonemic, fully automated and one using phonetic respellings - to render the pronunciation more accurately and show variants. I normally don't do Lao, just Thai and Burmese but I can add Lao translations if I find an unambiguous source.

Sorry but User:P5Nd2 should probably stop polling around and telling people what they should do and add a user page stating, which languages he or she speaks. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:30, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

According to the deleted history of User:Wonderfool/Languages, he's en-native, fr-3, de-1, es-1. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:34, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

That was like 10 years ago though, right? WF seems to know Catalan and Spanish pretty well. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 16:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

@Atitarev, then I may give it a try. I had assumed you were adding tones since ກວຽນ displays the tone. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:53, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. No, I haven't touched this entry - history. In fact, I am not compfortable with Lao tones. The tones (the IPA) were added by User:Widsith in the very first edit - this revision. --06:10, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Anatoli. It's a shame to see someone so talented be so afraid. —suzukaze (t・c) 06:42, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: Stephen got very upset with entry deletions in the past. I learned to live with my entries being deleted or edits reverted but Stephen got really disappointed and stopped editing in a number of languages he could make great contributions. As for user P5Nd2, I noticed he polled with a number of users asking to get rid of Tbot entries. No idea if he's also Wonderfool. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Lol, yes, he's Wonderfool. And he has been polling around trying to clean out the Tbot entries. But strangely, it's actually working. People are cleaning them up, and the cleanup categories are getting deleted. Of course, however, new and even longer cleanup lists are appearing faster than the old ones are disappearing. --P5Nd2 (talk) 15:37, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Cherokee transliteration

The image I added is of course better than what was already there, but I thought I'd notify you of this page's existence so you can improve it as you see fit. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:19, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, looks good. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:42, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

December 2017

sentose and sentóse

Hi Stephen. Another tricky question about obsolete Spanish. Both sentose and sentóse were extremely common centuries ago. I'm surprised to see sentóse, as it goes against the general rule for accents in Spanish. Any enlightenment? --Lirafafrod (talk) 12:34, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

It is an archaic style to append se and other pronouns to the end of verb forms in the indicative or subjunctive mood (sentose instead of se sentó). You'll see it used, for example, in old poems and in the Spanish Bible. Until very recently, the rule for adding object and reflexive pronouns to indicative verb forms was that accents must be added as needed to obey the rules of accentuation: dijo, díjole; but that existing accents were always to be retained: sentó, sentóse, halló, hallóla.

Then the RAE promulgated a new spelling reform (I don't remember the year... I think around 1990), saying that these redundant accents on verb forms were no longer to be used. Even though this was antiquated Spanish, the rules still applied, and when old texts were reprinted, the redundant accents were dropped.

I never liked this ruling, because the redundant accents made these old verb forms unmistakable and you knew instantly that they were verb forms with pronouns and not some unfamiliar nouns. Other examples are:

besóme, hallóla, holgóse, levantóse, rogóle, despidióse, mandóle, quedóse, ayudólo, metióse, revelóme, llevóselo, perdióse, oyóla, negóse, dejóle, reclinóse, respondióle, quedéme, olvidéme, déte, perdíte, fuése, levantéme, rindióse, metíme, cobríme, víle.

When you delete the redundant accents, many of them, being unfamiliar, started to look a lot like nouns:

besome, hallola, holgose, levantose, rogole, despidiose, mandole, quedose, ayudolo, metiose, revelome, perdiose, oyola, negose, dejole, reclinose, respondiole, quedeme, olvideme, dete, perdite, fuese, levanteme, rindiose, metime, cobrime, vile. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:58, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks SGB! I thought the pesky RAE might have done something like that. There are a least a couple of nouns out there that are actually these old verb forms - el acabose comes to mind, but I've come across another couple somewhere. Anyway, regarding WT, I imagine we could put sentose and sentóse as alternative spellings of each other, or maybe add a little usage note somewhere, a bit like This spelling was a product of the 1990 French spelling reforms..

Also, I like to hear Asturian spoken or see it written down, as it is a lot like obsolete Spanish. --Lirafafrod (talk) 09:54, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the accented spellings were the right spellings for a very long time, and now the unaccented ones are right. It's the same as German daß (older spelling) and dass (new spelling). I have searched for the dates of the Spanish spelling reforms, but I can't find a list of them and I'm not certain the 1990 is the correct year. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

It was mentioned in 1999 in this article, but it doesn't mean it was when the rule was laid out. --Lirafafrod (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, 4.7.3. Acentuación de formas verbales con pronombres enclíticos. The rule is expressed there, but I think it implies that it was laid out at an earlier date. I'm just surprised that the reform dates are so hard to find. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:23, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not so surprised. There are probably not many people in the world who care about the reformation dates. Just us amateur lexicogs. --Lirafafrod (talk) 09:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

"We've always been at war with Eurasia"... Chuck Entz (talk) 13:26, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Automated formatting for Navajo entries

With your blessing, I would like to wrap a number of existing Navajo usage examples in the {{uxi}} template, and perhaps make edits like this. —suzukaze (t・c) 11:34, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Fine, looks okay to me. —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:12, 28 December 2017 (UTC)