Template talk:cognate

What's the use of including {{etyl|lang|-}} in the first place when mentioning cognates? I've never been clear on this. --Tropylium (talk) 23:37, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

It provides a link to the corresponding Wikipedia article, and if the language name is changed all uses won't have to be changed by hand or by a bot. DTLHS (talk) 23:38, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I can tell what it does, but what about this practice is specific to etymologies? Your second argument makes some sense (though I doubt we're changing what we call Russian or Arabic or etc. any time soon), but it would seem to extend to all mentions of terms in other languages just as well. --Tropylium (talk) 23:56, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

It isn't really specific to etymologies, it's just that by convention we mention the name of the language before a word in a different language in the etymology section, and link to its Wikipedia article. For some reason we don't similarly link language names in translation sections, although I'm not sure why. Benwing2 (talk) 00:17, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Nothing is specific to etymologies- we should be using templates everywhere language names are used. DTLHS (talk) 04:31, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Would it be useful to include IPA transcription in place of (or in addition to) the existing tr transliteration field? For example:

• Hittite 𒅖𒄩𒀀𒀸 (išḫāš, “master”)
• IPA /isχˈaːs/

I am not familiar with the Hittite transliteration and not sure how to read it, but I do know IPA and think it is a more common skill. ~ Boro-Bargas (talk) 22:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

You can use the "ts" parameter for transcription. DTLHS (talk) 22:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't recommend this, though. Reconstructed pronunciation is usually tentative and uncertain. There's a good reason why philologists and historical linguists generally use transliterations and not IPA. By the way, the stress symbol is misplaced in the example above. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:30, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Is this used for near-cognates?

I sometimes wonder if this is appropriate to use for terms that are partial cognates, but where all parts don't match up exactly. To take a recent example, Ancient Greek ῠ̔στέρᾱ (hustérā, “womb”) is from Proto-Indo-European *údteros, formed from *úd + the similar contrastive suffix *-teros. It is not part-for-part identical to Latin uterus (“womb”), which is from Proto-Indo-European *úderos, formed from *úd + the contrastive suffix *-eros, but it is still somewhat related.

Say I'm editing the Etymology section of Ancient Greek ῠ̔στέρᾱ (hustérā, “womb”), should I use {{cog}} or {{noncog}} to mention the Latin word? —Pinnerup (talk) 13:20, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Why no Oxford comma in lists of multiple languages?

Right now,

From {{bor|lv|sv,da,no|Gunnar}}, ultimately from {{der|lv|non|Gunnarr}}.

outputs:

From Swedish, Danish and Norwegian Gunnar, ultimately from Old Norse Gunnarr.

For legibility, why not use the Oxford comma or no "and"? That is,

From Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian Gunnar, ultimately from Old Norse Gunnarr.

or maybe even

From Swedish, Danish, Norwegian Gunnar, ultimately from Old Norse Gunnarr.

— This unsigned comment was added by 'wɪnd (talk • contribs) at 15:28, 17 August 2022 (UTC).

Have you enabled the Oxford comma according to the instructions in Template:,? — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 19:49, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

@Surjection I appreciate the pointer, very helpful. :) Even more so, since I accidentally posted this on the incorrect talk page. To me, the Oxford comma is way more easy to parse, and seems like it would suit itself well to be the standard. However, I don't know what the preferences are world-wide or if this ever has been measured or studied. 'wɪnd (talk) 09:37, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

@Surjection Also, kiitos for coding the templates. :) 'wɪnd (talk) 09:46, 18 August 2022 (UTC)