User talk:Zontas

Hey. Feel free to add complaints if you like here. I'm willing to listen.

Signing your name in discussions

Please use --~~~~ to sign your name in discussions. It helps readers follow the discussion and it is annoying to have to fill in {{unsigned}} templates for you. --WikiTiki89 18:04, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I never knew, my apologies.

--Zontas (talk) 19:58, 15 July 2016 (UTC)Zontas

Also, you don't need to type your name after that. The ~~~~ automatically generates the signature for you. If you want to change your signature, you can do that in your preferences. --WikiTiki89 20:02, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Ohh, that's what the tildes do, thank you. --Zontas (talk) 20:07, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Some advice

Always pay attention to other editors' corrections to your edits. That's how you learn to make better edits. It might help to add all the pages you edit to your watchlist (there is an option in your preferences to do that automatically), that way you can check your watchlist and see when edits are made to those pages. --WikiTiki89 15:53, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I see, thanks for your advice. Tho, I don't get why apostrophes are used to mark alef-initial words. That sort of thing's only needed in the middle or end of a word. --Zontas (talk) 18:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean by "needed"? Needed for what? If you can answer that, then I can tell you why. --WikiTiki89 19:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Part of your edits were just adding apostrophes in romanizations of alef-initial Hebrew words that I had removed. Apostrophes are needed for alef-medial and alef-final words to differentiate between consonant+vowel sequences and final hey, respectively. Otherwise, I don't get the use for it. UPDATE: I also understand using ' for shwa when pronounced. --Zontas (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

"Apostrophes are needed for alef-medial and alef-final words to differentiate between consonant+vowel sequences and final hey, respectively." I'm sorry but that makes no sense to me. Can you give some examples? --WikiTiki89 19:16, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Sure. Alef-medial vs consonant + vowel clusters is the difference between tom (simplicity) and t'om (twin), with kala (bride) and kala' (he jailed) marking the difference between word-final alef and word-final hey. I know kala also has dagesh hazak, but that isn't really used anymore. Also, I edited brakha because nobody says "berakha" anymore. --Zontas (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Ok, the grammar of your sentence confused me, but now I see what you mean. We actually don't use the apostrophe in כָּלָא, because this aleph was silent already even in Tiberian Hebrew. But again, remember that our entries represent the entire history of Hebrew. So saying "it's not pronounced that way anymore" is not an argument. Additionally, transliterations are not meant to be phonemic transcriptions. That's what pronunciation sections are for. To clarify the way apostrophes should be used for alephs: If the aleph has a vowel written under/over/after it (including the rare cases where it has a shva under it), then the apostrophe should be written, otherwise it's a silent aleph. Shva na' is always indicated with an apostrophe regardless of modern pronunciation (the only exception is to prevent two apostrophes in a row, only because that's ugly). Shva nach is always written without an apostrophe, regardless of modern pronunciation. Ayin should always be indicated with an apostrophe (or backtick), because it is never silent (for people who actually pronounce it as an ayin). --WikiTiki89 19:35, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late, I've had personal stuff to deal with. I just want to say I agree with you largely. I only disagree on putting in shwa, rather than leaving the space blank (as it's placement is predicatble). I'm also considering marking gemination, qof, taw, sin differently from samekh, and removing accents for disambiguation and to mark different varieties of Hebrew. What do you think of the idea? --Zontas (talk) 04:26, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

With regard to the shva, just because something is predictable, doesn't mean it shouldn't be marked. With regard to your proposed changes, I agree with some of them, but you cannot just go and start implementing whatever changes you want. The current system has been voted on by the Hebrew editors and any changes should also be voted on before being implemented. I in fact had planned to propose a new system soon. --WikiTiki89 11:31, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I meant to run by the system thru you, a relative expert, then propose it. I agree with all of your propositions, just use <q> in scholarly notation (as it became /q/ in Mizrahi liturgy and is cognate to /q/ in other Semitic languages), <ħ> for het (as the letter is used in Maltese and is easier to see, <w> in common notation (as some Mizrachis still use /w/ and <w> is /v/ in German, a language many Ashkenazis knew, not to mention different from v rafe), x for common kaf rafe (to match with pe and bet), ç for sin (as it is rare, but distinct from samekh), and c for č (as there is no <c>). I mean, all of these changes are merely my opinion and debatable and done for either aesthetics, typability, or disambiguation. I'll argue in more detail as soon as you formally propose it, please lemme know when you've submitted it. --Zontas (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Please stop adding incorrect transliterations

Your stress marks are very often wrong and sometimes even the transliterations themselves. Please stop adding them until you learn the rules better. --WikiTiki89 23:05, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Okay. The stress I know I never get right 100% of the time and the transliterations I assume I don't get within abbreviations or proper nouns. In other words, is there anything besides what I mentioned I need to work on? EDIT: why are there accent marks on monosyllable words? --Zontas (talk) 23:07, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

You're getting the stress wrong about 80% of the time. That's a worse record than even random guessing. It's pretty simple: If you don't know something, don't add it. Don't try to guess just because it's missing. And by "know something" I mean you actually know it, and not that you figured it out in head. --WikiTiki89 23:36, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I see. I gotcha. --Zontas (talk) 23:41, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

For examples of mistakes you made other than stress marks, see דקת קשת and המתת חסד. And stress marks on monosyllabic words are just our practice. --WikiTiki89 23:50, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

What is being practiced by adding acute accents into monosyllabic words? Not trying to be angry, I'm just unaware. Also, the examples you gave where legitamite typos rather than lack of knowledge. Also, if you don't mind, I'm gonna delete this conversation in a day after you respond or at least in some time if you don't respond. I don't want people going to my talk page and thinking I'm an idiot and denigrating me for it. --Zontas (talk) 14:55, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Do you think it matters to the misled readers that the errors were "legitimate typos rather than lack of knowledge"? Please be more careful. What is being practiced by adding acute accents into monosyllabic words? Our practice is being practiced. It's just what we do whether you and I like it or not. It's really not any more redundant than putting stress marks on final syllables. Also, please don't be embarrassed by this discussion. All newbies make mistakes, the important thing is that you learn from them; that's how you gain respect. Feel free to see the things I got yelled at for as a n00b. --WikiTiki89 15:35, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

By the way, since I had to take the time and fix all your contributions, I hope you would at least go through my changes and learn from them. If you have any questions, please ask. --WikiTiki89 20:04, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I see, thanks. I'll stop doing transliterations I don't know everything about. You know where I could find some-English language sources on Hebrew stress patterns and protocols for inputting pages/ parts of pages for Hebrew, Old English, Middle English, Romani, and Anglo-Norman, since I can ask questions? --Zontas (talk) 16:22, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth I think all but a couple (might literally be two) of the Hebrew templates are documented. There's of course WT:AHE, which I tried to make more informative. There are also WT:AANG, WT:AENM and WT:AFRO, respectively for the languages you mentioned except Romani, which may be of varying usefulness. Though I find looking at actual use and corrections the usually better. —Enosh (talk) 12:52, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Sigh

I don't want to be an ass and say "it looks like you haven't learned anything since a year and a few months ago when WT was trying to get you to edit better." But when so many of the edits you've made recently have been either wrong or ignored the conventions not only of wiktionary but of most Hebrew learning, it's hard to control the hostility.

I don't want to sit rolling back all your edits. Especially with edits like diff this one where some of it was actually ok.

Your enthusiasm is refreshing, but please do not make any edit you aren't a million percent sure is correct. Leave stress alone. Leave apostrophes alone. — [ זכריה קהת ] Zack. — 13:02, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I’ll just give up. I don’t mean quit Wiktionary or some melodramatic nonsense like that, but i will stay only in the forums before touching another page unless it’s like a blatant English typo like “maening” for meaning. No use having a discussion on the obvious. Also, when i make an edit, i am always sure. Nobody just knows they are wrong until told otherwise.

Zontas (talk) 01:50, 25 February 2018 (UTC)