Wiktionary:Information desk/2021/January

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← December 2020 · January 2021 · February 2021 → · (current)

---

Category requests

Where is the most appropriate place to post requests for categories? I've been looking through the first couple pages of Special:WantedCategories and saw some I thought I could create with {{auto cat}}, but the nuts and bolts that would properly create the categories in the background aren't set up yet so I don't currently have the knowledge to create said categories. User: The Ice Mage ^{talk to meh} 13:46, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I would guess either the Tea Room or the Grease Pit, depending on how technical the request is. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

please help a newbie, basic navigation

My needs are simple; I am English studying the Italian language. I would like to use the dictionary to insert a word, usually English or Italian, wanting the output definition to be given in either or both languages. Obviously your word analyses give masses of other information, and I just keep getting lost in the pages/menus with too much info. I hope you can give me advice on how I can use the system simply.Sue1207 (talk) 11:50, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

If you're looking for a way to type in an English word and be given just the Italian translation without a bunch of other info, I don't think Wiktionary is the right tool for you. You'd probably be better off using Google Translate or Linguee for that. We're aiming to be a comprehensive dictionary of all words in all languages, with translations of English entries into as many languages as possible, so while you will usually be able to find an Italian translation for most English words, you do have to scroll down to the Translations section, find the box corresponding to the specific meaning of the word you're looking up, open the translation box, and find the Italian alongside any other languages. Finding the English gloss when you look up an Italian word is faster, but you may still be confronted with the etymology and pronunciation of the Italian before you get to the meaning. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:18, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Solutions like this can be done with scripts and bots that can take our info and output something like you're asking for but it's pretty complicated. There are similar lexical data on Wikidata and making a tool to extract that information is generally easier but still not something for a complete newbie. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:54, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sue1207 Matthias Buchmeier has a lot of bilingual dictionaries that are compiled from English translation tables and foreign-language sections. These are the ones for Italian: User:Matthias_Buchmeier#English-Italian, User:Matthias_Buchmeier#Italian-English They might still contain more information that you'd like, but they massively cut down on extra information. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:02, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Durably archived? (Cp. WT:CFI)

Is   The Ojibwe People's Dictionary (http://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu)   in gichi-mookomaan-aki durably archived?
Possible follow-up question: If not, is this term really attested?
BTW: After a few quick google searches, it seems that more translations might be spurious (from Wikipedia?), just like the old Gothic translation (cp.): Navajo, Plains Cree, Norman.
-2003:DE:373F:4016:B1B8:6DED:604C:447A 21:09, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

There's a print version (for instance, here, but I don't know how complete it is. I have a paperback copy around here somewhere, but it would take me a while to dig it up. As for that particular term: given that the language is spoken by people who live in Minnesota (note the present tense), which is in the United States, this is thoroughly plausible.

This is definitely not a case of a language that died out more than a millennium before the founding of the USA, like Gothic. American Indians in the US are not some historical curiosity: they live all over the US, they went to school, they know about current events, etc. You may even have dealt with some of them online. Sure, there are lots of their languages that are no longer spoken, but although Ojibwe may be endangered, it's still around. The same goes for Plains Cree and Navajo.

Of course, it's also entirely possible that Ojibwe speakers switch to English when talking about such things- but I wouldn't know. The main point is that this is an LDL and there's nothing to indicate that the above is an unreliable source.Chuck Entz (talk) 23:11, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I should also add that Norman is a modern language, spoken today in Normandy and on the Channel Islands. You may be thinking of the Norman dialect that was spoken a thousand years ago in both France and the British Isles, but we treat that as a dialect of Old French. Like the Saxon lects that made their way into England as well, merely having a similar name doesn't mean they're the same thing. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:23, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Why are there so many given names of non-French origin included in the French given names categories?

I am specifically talking about the names that come up in Category: French female given names, which include a very high proportion of Japanese names, e.g. Hiroko. The Japanese-origin names also regularly appear in the Spanish and Portuguese categories as well. What reasoning is there to categorize Japanese names into apparently any and every language, when the only distinction is that they are symbolized in non-Japanese-script? It's not like French has some well-sourced Francophone descendant of Keiko like it does for عَائِشَة (Aïcha); it's just the standard romaji representation of けいこ. This system implies the "female given names" category for every single Latin-script language should be added to Keiko, which is ridiculous. 173.3.152.194 06:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

The name Hiroko was automatically placed in that category because it also has an L2 of French, next to English, Portuguese and Tagalog. IMO assigning these L2s is not helpful. I suspect that in almost all countries there have been a few cases of (non-Japanese) parents naming a daughter Hiroko; conversely, you can find names stemming from virtually all languages and ethnicities being given in the United States.  --Lambiam 12:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't these name lists reflect popular or famous sourceable names rather than every potential name? Those Japanese names aren't even in the top 1000 for France at any point in history; even if non-Japanese Francophone people are giving them to their kids ("French origin"), the usage is still so low they shouldn't be included. For the sake of consistency (where are all the Chinese or Cyrillic names?) and feasibility (the category fields would have thousands of items if this was applied evenly for every name) I think all those L2s should be removed. 173.3.152.194 17:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I think those are worthless, but there is no consensus on the issue. See Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2019-11/CFI_policy_for_foreign_given_names_and_surnames. PUC – 18:48, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

It appears that the main reason for the proposal failing was the unworkability of the criterion. We still have the standard CFI, though, where I assume that we can agree that an occurrence in an English text of a name identifying a Japanese name bearer (as seen e.g. here: “his Japanese model muse Hiroko Matsumoto”) does not attest to it being an English term, just like an occurrence of the term chawanmushi in an English text^[1] don’t make it an English word.  --Lambiam 17:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Even that criterion can be hard to pin down. Hiroko Matsumoto lived for many decades in France; I don't know the story of her citizenship, but what if she took French citizenship and relinquished her Japanese citizenship? At that point, she is legally French, not Japanese. Does that mean the name Hiroko has become a French name too? I don't think so, but how do we draw the line? Or the two boys I once knew who were of white Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry but whose parents had become interested in Indian religions and so named them Krishna and Gopal? Are those now English names just because two English-speaking Americans with no South Asian ancestry bear them? I would say no, but where to draw the line? —Mahāgaja · talk 17:45, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

To add to the confusion, perhaps, I find myself wondering: what if someone sees a name originating from a language that ordinarily uses a non-Latin script, but in a Western context and in romanized form, and is wondering about the original form and e.g. its etymology and comes to Wiktionary for answers? For Japanese that is not a problem due to romanization entries, but the same does not hold for many other languages (e.g. Hindi, Greek, etc.). — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:51, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

That's a good point too. Although I just said above that I don't consider Gopal an English name, I do actually want an entry for Gopal and not just for गोपाल, and it has be labeled as some language, so unless we call it Translingual, I suppose English is as good as anything. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:23, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I think this is a poor example, as English is widely spoken in India and there are several generations of native speakers (or speakers who have a different mother tongue and learned this at a very early age alongside that). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:16, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The issue behind this is a longstanding, complicated issue; it'd be fantastic to find a workable solution. Some previous, (partly) related discussions: Category talk:en:Names and Wiktionary:Information desk/Archive_2013/July-December#Question_about_given_names_and_surnames.) Perhaps we could redefine transliterations of Japanese names of Japanese people (etc) so that they're no longer categorized with {{given name}} but instead as "Transliteration of..." or "Rendering of the Japanese given name Foo". That might also work for cases like English Yazdegerd (name of multiple non-English individuals), which could be recategorized not in "English male given names" but in e.g. "English renderings of Middle Persian male given names". That'd work for cases where the only bearers of the name are non-English. But to discount 3+ English-speaking parents naming their kid (raised English-speaking) Krishna or Gopal or Kali (etc) as "not really English", or French-speaking parents naming kids Ahmed (etc) as still "not really French", is something I'd be wary of. (There are many productive processes that lead to something being an English name, French name, etc, like variation of an existing name, like Ashlie; conversion of a common noun, like Karma, like earlier Joy; conversion of a place-name like Mecca, earlier America; use of a name from fiction, like Daenerys, Alivia, or Undine. Borrowing from a foreign language can likewise make something English/French/etc IMO.) - -sche (discuss) 09:16, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@-sche: Related category: Category:Terms transliterated from other languages by language. J3133 (talk) 10:30, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Ooh, yeah, that could be a good model. "Names transliterated from other languages by language", "Names transliterated from Japanese", etc...? - -sche (discuss) 17:55, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@-sche: Also Category:Transliteration of personal names. J3133 (talk) 18:59, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@-sche: I think it's very reasonable to include "Frenchified" names that descend from other languages (e.g. Aïcha) if they are common or have notable nontrivial use. There are probably linguistic methods for distinguishing "Frenchification" from mere transliteration, too. My quibble is with all the names that have no connection to languages under which they're categorized, and the obvious inconsistency and untenability that brings. J3133 brought up those transliteration categories, which seem promising. I think I'll start populating those, and maybe see if I encounter any pushback from removing at least the Japanese "French" names from the French category. 173.3.152.194 03:28, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

(Logged in now). Actually, the issue still remains with overcategorization, since it would be including the [[Category:<language>:Japanese female given names]] for every single name transliterated for every single language. A much better alternative would be transliterations into writing systems, e.g. [[Category:Latin:Japanese female give names]] or [[Category:Cyrillic:Japanese female give names]]. Then we could delete the useless and inaccurate "borrowed from" and "<language> given names" and "<language> lemmas" and "<language> proper nouns" categories and entry sections while still allowing the Latin (or whatever) version to be searchable on en.wiktionary. Is this a thing that has been discussed anywhere? JoelleJay (talk) 04:08, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think the way we do this for Chinese is best practice. E.g. for the name 約翰 (John), we categorize it simply as zh:English male given names, zh:Biblical characters, and zh:English surnames. There is nothing absurd like "Chinese male given names" for names that are not native to the language. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

  That doesn't seem like best practice to me. According to that entry, the Chinese name is borrowed from Latin, and the pronunciation certainly suggests that it is not borrowed from English. So why on earth should it be categorized as an English name? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 23:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

on the left hand

Quoted at billingsgate: "Billingsgate is the market where the fishwomen assemble to purchase fish; and where, in their dealings and disputes they are somewhat apt to leave decency and good manners a little on the left hand" (Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1811). What does this mean exactly? Perhaps we should have an entry. Equinox ◑ 12:21, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

This seems analogous to Dutch links laten liggen (lit. "to leave [smth] lying on the left"), which means "to ignore" or "to abandon". I wasn't aware it exists in English. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:45, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mnemosientje: Haha, interesting coincidence! PUC – 17:56, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Wait, you didn't create the discussion at Talk:links after seeing this somehow? Some black magic shit going on here... — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mnemosientje: No, I didn't; I was working on my Dutch and encountered the Dutch expression in a dialogue! PUC – 18:42, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Searching for various inflected forms of "leave (it) on the left hand" I found literal / directional uses but no more figurative ones: "when we had discovered Cyprus [while sailing], we left it on the left hand", "going up toward the church [near Marne] skirt it and leave it on the left-hand", "along the watercourse to the ditch on the opposite side, then again short to the right, and by the ditch, leaving it on the left hand to the turnpike road", "The Capitol we pass, leaving it on the left hand, & enter Pennsylvania Avenue". - -sche (discuss) 22:09, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Old Francoprovençal

[2], [3]. Do we have or want a code for this, and if not, what (if anything) should it be treated as? frp? - -sche (discuss) 21:56, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Chinese text appearing in a film

Source: Little Annie Rooney (1925 film). The picture, depicting a character named Officer Rooney who had just recently been killed, which would have made the newspapers in the film. This would (presumably) be a Chinese translation for the Asian community in the city.

In this newspaper, what are the symbols directly below the portrait of the police officer? And what would they be translated to in English? @Suzukaze-c @Justinrleung or anyone else. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:39, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: I can only make out a few characters. The first column from the left is 命, the third is 讚臣, and the top character of the fifth is 命. It seems to be cut off at the bottom, so there isn't enough context to make out what it's saying. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:25, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: Everything else on the page seems to be oriented horizontally. Would it make any more sense if read left-to-right? Chuck Entz (talk) 07:06, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Or maybe right-to-left? Chuck Entz (talk) 07:08, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: It should be top-to-bottom and right-to-left, especially with the 命 on the left taking up so much space. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:10, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Template:ws

What does the acronym {{ws}} mean? --Vivaelcelta (talk) 11:20, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikisaurus, a name for the Wiktionary Thesaurus that we no longer use. I certainly wouldn't object to moving the template to {{thes}} or something. The [Ws] link should probably also be changed to [Thes] or the like. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:27, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Descriptive word?

It is clear what descriptive means, but what is a word that's called descriptive in a dictionary? I've noticed it is often word that is of no noticeable etymologic history, but what resembles an onomatopoiea in that the word structure consists of an audibly interesting pattern, without quite being one. Descriptive words can be young words etymologically speaking, but sometimes the tag is glued to words that clearly do have a history of thousands of years.

Googling this didn't work for me. Can somebody help with a link to an authorative answer? Also I'd value if this kind of help on this is available in Wiktionary, is it? It is not in the Appendix:Glossary --91.153.156.132 20:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

(Since you linked it, I'll point out that the word is spelled onomatopoeia.) I don't understand what you're asking for, unless you are talking about phonaesthesia. Can you give examples? Equinox ◑ 23:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

(While transliterating the Ancient Greek etymon results in onomatopoiía.  --Lambiam 12:10, 9 January 2021 (UTC))

Albanian kërcej is called a “descriptive term” – or perhaps this refers to the word kërcas. It could mean the term is onomatopoeic, but whether this is truly the intention is not clear. --Lambiam 12:10, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The definition of the Finnish term deskriptiivisana is “descriptive word”, which is glossed as “(word which uses phonetic elements descriptively, e.g. "scribble", "bubble", "lickety-split")”. It appears that all (or almost all) entries that are said to be descriptive words are Finnish terms, so apparently this qualification was calqued from Finnish.  --Lambiam 12:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks. The etymology of Finnish (Suomen Sanojen Alkuperä, vol 1, 1992) tells abbreviation "deskr." used there is short for "deskriptiivinen" (descriptive) without any explanation. Should I remove link to "onomatopoiea"? --91.153.156.132 19:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Create conjugation table and noun-inflection table templates

Hello.

I would like to create 2 tables (conjugation table and noun-inflection table) for the Ossetian language and to use it in nouns (e.g. here ) and verbs (e.g. here ) . But I can't find any information on how to do it. Could you, please, help me?

Best regards, Artur Gudiev Arturgudiev93 (talk) 23:20, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Arturgudiev93: Happy to have you around to work on Ossetian. I am completely unfamiliar with it, so I can't speak from any experience. Can you tell me if conjugations and inflections are very regular and follow a pattern? E.g. in English, plural inflections for nouns are almost "add <s> to the word" and then "sometimes, add <es> if it ends in certain letters", with a handful of exceptions to that as well. If Ossetian is very simple like this, it will be fairly easy to create these tables. If they are easy, then I can probably help you by reverse engineering an existing template. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:21, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, @Koavf:. In Ossetian, there are 9 grammatical cases for the nouns. 8 main cases are

1. Nominative
2. Genitive
3. Dative
4. Directional case (shows a movement direction, a time direction, and an aim )
5. Ablative
6. Local external case (on top of the thing)
7. Likeness case (like another person or thing ),
8. Joint case (with another person or thing)

and one additional local internal case (inside the object) which coincides with the genitive. Considering singular and plural forms, the noun-inflection table looks like this one for the word сæр (a head)

noun-inflection table for word сæр

Grammatical cases	Singular	Plural
Nominative	сæр	сæртæ
Genitive	сæры	сæрты
Dative	сæрæн	сæртæн
Directional case	сæрмæ	сæртæм
Ablative	сæрæй	сæртæй
Local external case	сæрыл	сæртыл
Likeness case	сæрау	сæртау
Joint case	сæримæ	сæртимæ
Local internal case	сæры	сæрты

I will answer you about verbs table later. Arturgudiev93 (talk) 09:18, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Grammatical terms used for the last four cases are:

• Local external case: Superessive
• Likeness case: Equative
• Joint case: Sociative
• Local internal case: Inessive

There is a template {{os-decl-noun}} that uses this terminology, except for “comitative” instead of “sociative”. It is used on the entry сӕр. Is that not good enough?  --Lambiam 15:06, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam:, yes, thank you! But it looks different than some other word's pages from other languages. For example, the table here is shown on the right and it's very nice.

Is it possible to create such tables in Ossetian words pages? --Arturgudiev93 (talk) 17:23, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

It is technically possible, but we don’t do that for other languages, so I think we should need an argument why to make an exception for Ossetian.  --Lambiam 14:26, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: I think, it will bring consistency. Ossetian nouns will look like nouns from other languages (e.g. Russian). (Arturgudiev93 (talk) 15:18, 13 January 2021 (UTC))

The consistency should be with other entries in English Wiktionary, not Witkionaries for other languages. So the style we should follow for Ossetian should be the same as what we do for other similar languages here. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 21:57, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Unlike the English language, the Ossetian language has a lot of cases, as well the Russian and the German languages. Inflection tables are presented in this way there. Therefore, it seems to me that the tables in the Ossetian language should look like the ones in those languages. (Arturgudiev93 (talk) 15:18, 13 January 2021 (UTC))

They should look like the tables here, on the English Wiktionary, for other languages, which are collapsible. Look how those for Russian are done:

Declension of словоизмене́ний табли́ца (inan fem-form ц-stem accent-a) 

	singular	plural
nominative	словоизмене́ний табли́ца slovoizmenénij tablíca	словоизмене́ний табли́цы slovoizmenénij tablícy
genitive	словоизмене́ний табли́цы slovoizmenénij tablícy	словоизмене́ний табли́ц slovoizmenénij tablíc
dative	словоизмене́ний табли́це slovoizmenénij tablíce	словоизмене́ний табли́цам slovoizmenénij tablícam
accusative	словоизмене́ний табли́цу slovoizmenénij tablícu	словоизмене́ний табли́цы slovoizmenénij tablícy
instrumental	словоизмене́ний табли́цей, словоизмене́ний табли́цею slovoizmenénij tablícej, slovoizmenénij tablíceju	словоизмене́ний табли́цами slovoizmenénij tablícami
prepositional	словоизмене́ний табли́це slovoizmenénij tablíce	словоизмене́ний табли́цах slovoizmenénij tablícax

 --Lambiam 15:41, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Ok, that's a point. I just wanted to fill those nouns both for the English wiktionary and for the Russian one. So I should ask it in Russian wiktionary, right? (Arturgudiev93 (talk) 18:22, 13 January 2021 (UTC))

If you want inflection tables for Осетинский язык at the Russian Wiktionary, I expect that they’d want them to have the same format as is usual there; if you need help with that, that is also the first place to ask.  --Lambiam 18:52, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Swing

What does "swing" mean in the lyric "It don't mean a thing/If it ain't got that swing"? I looked at all the noun definitions at swing and couldn't find it. 2601:644:100:9F20:EDF9:A4B9:2850:4053 11:54, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

The one quotation at the noun, curiously not ascribed to any of the 14 listed senses, uses the noun in the same sense: “All God’s chillun got swing.” For music, I interpret to have swing as being synonymous with to swing, which implies a lively, non-robotic rhythm. This can be metaphorically transferred to other entities, like God’s chillun. Would this do as a def: “A lively rhythm, as in swing music”?  --Lambiam 14:47, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Help!.. Its all gone wrong!

I really don't know how this site works..! I know that I need to get a definition removed. I tried to correct an incorrect entry that is causing my company legal issues, but I got blocked from a work account. I have emailed the person who blocked me 4 times with no reply. Please can somebody help me get an incorrect definition deleted. Thanks Jo — This unsigned comment was added by JoBooth693 (talk • contribs) at 12:14, 11 January 2021 (UTC).

• You don't appear to have made any previous edits, so we don't know what you are talking about. What definition are you referring to? SemperBlotto (talk) 12:39, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

  I have responded to their concerns on OTRS. They are technically committing block evasion, as their prior account is User:LabcoLimitedExetainer, so if they return to make promotional edits, this account should be permabanned as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:10, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

I can upload my pronunciation of Polish words

Hi. I don't know where I can write about it but if someone would like me to record a certain Polish word that does not have the pronunciation file yet, you can write to me on my discussion page. Tashi (talk) 20:42, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tashi: Thank you! You can start with Category:Requests for audio pronunciation in Polish entries, which is our category for requests. You can record and upload audio however you want, but you may be interested at the tools offered by LinguaLibre. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:46, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

And please upload the audio files to Commons, not locally here at English Wiktionary. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:56, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Of course, I'll do it on Commons! Thank you for the link! Tashi (talk) 22:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tashi You can try Lingua Libre, which is connected to Wikicommons. I know many usernames who have used it for uploading lots of audios - it's really simple, and takes less than 5 minutes to set up Alexfromiowa (talk) 22:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

@Alexfromiowa, thanks. @Metaknowledge has already mentioned it above :) Tashi (talk) 22:29, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

If that doesn't work, try Lingua Libre Alexfromiowa (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Visual editor for appendices

Why doesn't visual editor work for the appendices? It works on regular entries, but appendices are much longer in nature and would benefit from having a way to speed up the editing process. Is there any reason for this? Starbeam2 (talk) 00:33, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Latin Language Redirection Question

How can I find the list of languages that redirect to a differently named language? Sometimes a template in an etymology will use a language, such as "Late Latin", but the redirection takes you to the "Latin" page. For instance, in the etymology of "peach", it references "Late Latin persica", but the linked page is "Latin persica". I understand that "Latin" is a blanket term that includes "Late Latin", "Vulgar Latin", etc. But how can I find all such examples of this? i.e. all the language names/codes that would direct to "Latin" and other examples of this phenomenon.

Thank you so much for any reply and for your help making such a wonderful resource! — This unsigned comment was added by Declan89 (talk • contribs).

To start with, try our list of etymology-only languages. For explanations, try our language treatment page, and its talk page (when we decide to change the treatment of a language, we archive the discussions there). Chuck Entz (talk) 15:42, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Grammar question: which infinitive after first?

At Old Armenian բաբան (baban), one can read the following sentence: "The origin is unknown. Lastivertcʿi, who is the first author to use the word, calls it Turkic, but nothing similar is known in Turkic languages."

I wonder whether that usage is correct? Spontaneously I would have written "who is the first author to have used the word [...]".

But maybe that's not right either, given that the author is long dead? What about "who was the first author to use the word [...]" or "who was the first author to have used the word [...]"?

So, native speakers, what would be your preferred wording?

PUC – 11:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

IMO, "he was the first author to use the word": "was" because it (the word usage) happened in the past, and it's needlessly wordy to say "have used" when the past time has already been indicated. Equinox ◑ 11:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

"Fill in if you know"

Is there any template that tells the user to edit the current section if they can?

I am not talking about whole articles (stubs), just sections.

Thanks! BrightSunMan (talk) 19:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• I don't know of any. Seems superfluous anyway; it's a wiki, so editing a section if one can is standard behavior around here. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:51, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• It depends on the section. For Etymology, we have {{rfe}}, for Pronunciation, we have {{rfp}} and {{rfap}}, and we also have things like {{rfdef}} and {{rfinfl}}. Those are all requests for adding specific types of content. That doesn't necessarily coincide with specific sections- but it's the closest thing we have. See Category:Request templates for more examples. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Please don't use rfp, rfe etc. on every entry without discrimination, since they clutter the page. Use them where you are genuinely interested or the information is unusual or hard to find. Equinox ◑ 23:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Mary-marry-merry merger

Are the distinct pronunciations in American English [ɛ˞], [æɹ], and [ɛɹ] respectively?

That depends on which variety of American English you're looking at. In distinguishing accents of the South, Mary is often [ˈmeɪ.ɹi] with little or no r-coloring of the vowel, while in NYC and New England it's more of a centering diphthong, [ˈmeəɹi] ~ [ˈmɛəɹi]. Marry and merry are [ˈmæɹi] and [ˈmɛɹi] pretty much everywhere that has a three-way distinction. However, there are also a lot of speakers with a two-way distinction, for whom Mary and merry are homophones as [ˈmɛɹi] but marry is distinct as [ˈmæɹi]. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:41, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Copying from Wikipedia

Another question - Can you directly copy information from Wikipedia onto Wiktionary? (In my case I am borrowing (my own) information from Wikipedia into an Appendix)

Thanks! BrightSunMan (talk) 09:01, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely, but... We have the same license as Wikipedia, so that's no problem. That license, however, requires attribution. If you're borrowing from Wikipedia, simply mentioning that (including which specific article) in an edit summary should be enough. With that information, it should be possible to figure out from the revision history of the Wikipedia article who contributed the content. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:08, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Different types of antonyms

On 18 January, I added nonhappy (“not happy”) to the section of antonyms at Thesaurus:happy; however, evidently, sad, which is also listed as an antonym, is not a synonym of nonhappy; i.e., it does not mean “not happy” (one can be not happy and not sad). Do they belong to different categories of antonyms? J3133 (talk) 17:27, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

@J3133: See also: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2021/January#Some_antonyms_seem_like_a_stretch_or_outrite_wrong. I'm not sure that this is exactly the correct test for an antonym, as you can't be happy and angry at the same time. Nor can you be orange and an abstraction at the same time. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:27, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

An antonym is more than "not" something, it's the opposite. Think of it as the ends of the scale, with a whole lot of area in between that's not the opposite of either end. "Hot" and "cold" are antonyms. "Hot" and "lukewarm" aren't. The only time that "not" something is the same as its antonym is in binary contexts such as "true" and "false"."Not white" is the antonym of "white" only where there can be no gray. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:43, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Do you mean nonhappy is not an antonym of happy? J3133 (talk) 07:50, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

In a universe of only "happy" and "nonhappy", they're antonyms. In a universe of "happy", "nonhappy" "sad", etc., they probably aren't. In the temperature example, "hot" is the opposite of "nonhot" only if you don't have "lukewarm" and "cool" as things that are nonhot, but not cold. It's trickier with happiness, though, because you have "unhappy", which is morphologically "not+happy", but semantically is "sad". That and there's a tendency to avoid talking about negative emotions by means of euphemism or understating, so the negative starts encroaching on the in-between. "Okay" should be neutral, but being not happy is not "okay". Chuck Entz (talk) 08:26, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: What are they, if not antonyms? J3133 (talk) 08:28, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Who says they're anything? We have terms for either being in the same place ("synonyms") or on opposite ends ("antonyms"), but I can't think of a term for being on the same semantic continuum, but not being completely synonyms or antonyms. What's the name for the semantic relationship between "warm" and "cool"? Chuck Entz (talk) 08:43, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Related terms or coordinate terms. Additionally, see, e.g. {{table:colors}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz This is what I was saying: did you mean to respond to J3133? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

It was more an elaboration on what you said, rather than a reply to it. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:43, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Thumbs up emoji. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Following this discussion, I have removed nonhappy from Thesaurus:happy. J3133 (talk) 15:41, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if that's quite right though... In traditional logic, there are different kinds of opposites: contraries and contradictories. A contrary is the sort of antonym that is on opposite ends of a spectrum, within the same category, like hot and cold or black and white. A contradictory is the opposite of a word in a different way, like happy and nonhappy. I think there's room to keep both kinds of opposites, since they are just opposites in different ways. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Chuck Entz, Koavf for further discussion. J3133 (talk)

I agree that something that has a clear semantic meaning like non-[foo] or un-[foo] or anti-[foo] should at least be mentioned in a thesaurus entry or the definition even if they aren't strictly antonyms. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:48, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Can you read the last few cursive words?

This is a letter from the movie The Squaw Man (1914), appearing at timestamp 10:48. Here is my transcription of everything in the letter up to the point of illegibility:

Please cash the enclosed check for my savings and bring the money to me aboard the Ella Jane at (illegible text).

Can you read the last two words? My best guess was "Trippe whasl", which makes no sense. PseudoSkull (talk) 18:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Not sure about the first of those, but the "whasl" looks rather like "wharf" to me. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 19:08, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

It could be "Tripps wharf". —Mahāgaja · talk 21:19, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Comparison of the shapes with other occurrences of the letters ⟨s⟩, ⟨r⟩ and ⟨f⟩ leaves little doubt that "Tripps wharf" is the correct reading. The Ella Jane is a boat, so "wharf" makes sense.  --Lambiam 05:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

A quick Google search shows that there is, or at least used to be, a Tripps wharf in Boston. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:39, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the confusion between "r" and "s" in "Wharf" is due to the descender from the "J" in "Jane" crossing the "r" right where the line forming the bottom of an "s" would be. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:49, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Help with my inflection tables

I am making inflection table but the word border consumes the synonym content of the words

Can someone please help PashtoPromoter (talk) 14:09, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

@PashtoPromoter: I added another </div>. J3133 (talk) 14:12, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

@J3133: where ? PashtoPromoter (talk) 14:25, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

@PashtoPromoter: Template:ps-verb-firstconjugation-twostem-a.initial&action=history. J3133 (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks

@J3133:thanks got it removed the link since coming in the category table PashtoPromoter (talk) 14:32, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

What's the deal with Navajo having a special font?

When you mark something as Navajo it's smaller and has a slightly different font, like this or this. What's up with that? Just curious.__Gamren (talk) 02:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

At Module:languages/data2, the script for Navajo is set to "nv-Latn" instead of just "Latn". I don't know why, or what the benefit of that is supposed to be. I strongly suspect this was Stephen G. Brown's idea, but unfortunately he seems to have left the project. I'm tempted to just switch the script setting to "Latn" and see if anything bad happens. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Apparently, at some point, "regular Latin fonts" didn't display diacritics properly. An i with an acute accent and an ogonek isn't specific to American languages though, it also occurs in e.g. Lithuanian į́brolis. So, I doubt that's still an issue.__Gamren (talk) 18:02, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Old Norse also has words like ǫ́ss which seem to display correctly, across a variety of browsers and whether I'm logged in or not, so I'm going ahead and making Navajo's script ordinary "Latn" now. If that breaks something, any admin can revert. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

It's possible the different script was intended to help with the different display of e.g. the ogonek, which is (quoth Ogonek) "a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European languages, and directly under a vowel in several Native American languages". However, when I preview ąąʼ using the old version of Module:languages/data2 using the "Preview page with this template" function, not only does the ogonek still appear under the right side of the letter rather than the center, the word also appears smaller and less legible, so even if that is what the different specification was intended to address, it does not appear that it worked. :/ Anyway, pinging User:Eirikr who might know the intent behind the different font/script specification... - -sche (discuss) 16:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like something that one ought to resolve by encoding European ogonek and American ogonek as two separate combining forms. But yes, ą on my end looks like the the hook is a continuation of the vertical line of the a rather than added to the curved "underbelly".__Gamren (talk) 17:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The Unicode people would never do that unless it could be shown that there are texts using both kinds of ogoneks contrastively. Otherwise they'd say it's a font issue and that fonts intended for use with North American languages should render their ogonek letters differently from fonts intended for use with European languages, much as Unicode doesn't have different encodings for the two different shapes of capital eng. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I mean... surely there's at least one book about e.g. Navajo written in Polish. Like, at least a travel glossary, or an off-hand mention of a word in an anthropological study, or something.__Gamren (talk) 20:17, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

No doubt, but I just checked my Navajo Bible, my Polish Bible, and my Lithuanian New Testament, and they all put ogoneks in the same place: under the little tittle on the lower right-hand corner of lower-case "a" (all of them use a Times Roman–like serif typeface), but centered below "e", "i", and "o" (Lithuanian is the only language of the three that uses ⟨ų⟩ so there's no basis of comparison). And I'm pretty sure all three books were published the old-fashioned way, not with Unicode computer fonts, so none of those printers seem to care about the "rule" that ogoneks are on the right in European languages and centered in American languages. And that makes it seem particularly unlikely that a Polish-language book about Navajo would distinguish ogonek placement for the two languages. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• @-sche:, unfortunately I don't know the details about that font decision.

Quick sanity check -- Navajo does have ogonek + acute on all four of its vowels, some of which I don't think are used in European languages. Navajo generally doesn't use the "u", but I'll include it here just to see how the fonts differ.

• With nv-Latn:

ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́ -- in italics: ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́ -- bigger: ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́ -- bigger italics: ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́

• With just Latn:

ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́ -- in italics: ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́ -- bigger: ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́ -- bigger italics: ą́ ę́ į́ ǫ́ ų́

I guess the main positive visual difference I see here is that the nv-Latn variant has a longer acute accent stroke, making that easier to distinguish from the tittle over regular "i". The ogonek under the "e" is more central in the Latn variant, which is (subjectively) more aesthetically pleasing. The difference in the "a" glyphs for the italics forms is a bit odd, not really sure if I care much whether it's the "hook-a" or the "no-hook-ɑ".

The smaller starting default size for nv-Latn is a detriment, I think.

I'm with Mahāgaja -- let's keep our eyes open for any breakage, but otherwise I think this change is fine. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:40, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Support the switch to the regular |sc="Latn" for Navajo. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:12, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Don't forget about MediaWiki:Common.css: CTRL-F "nv-Latn". —Suzukaze-c (talk) 01:43, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't do any harm to keep it there, does it? That way it's there if we decide to go back to using it. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:46, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia has one example of central placement of ogoneks, in File:NavajoSigns.png, and Young and Morgan's The Navaho Language: The Elements of Navaho Grammar (1972) does centre them, but otherwise every text I could find, including modern linguistics texts, and one other dictionary of Navajo, put the ogonek on the right, not in the centre. (Even if some modern linguistics texts about multiple languages did centre Navajo ogoneks and then also mention Polish words with ogoneks on the right, I'm sceptical Unicode would grant separate code points, since Unicode has ...particular... ideas about how things should be handled, and does not seem overly interested in making sure minority languages display correctly.) Perhaps we should just make a note (or include an image) in the Navajo sections of the individual vowels mentioning the issue. - -sche (discuss) 03:15, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

בלנית

Anyone know how old the term בלנית (Mikva attendant) is? Even-Shoshan only has the masculine בלן. JulieKahan (talk) 11:10, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

German phrase for eating just before bedtime

Apparently there is a German phrase for eating just before bedtime that means something like "putting it in front of the bed". What's that phrase and do we have an entry? Equinox ◑ 18:59, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

The normal way of saying this is “essen vor dem Schlafen” or “essen vor dem Schlafengehen”, but if you want to mention the bed instead of the sleeping, you can also say “essen vor dem zu Bett gehen“, literally “eating before the going to bed”. One also writes “vor dem ins Bett gehen”, or the somewhat elliptic version “vor dem Bett gehen”,^[4][5] or even written as one word “vor dem Bettgehen”.^[6] Just like English before, German vor is used both to specify temporal ordering (“prior to“) and spatial ordering (“in front of”), so “in front of the bed” can result from an inappropriate translation. I have no idea what German phrase the “putting it” may correspond to, other than someone putting a nighttime snack on a table in front of the bed of a patient, in which case one would use “vor das Bett”.  --Lambiam 20:26, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: I don’t have know all regulations and their names in order to just show you which it could be, but I don’t think you may not write such expression as one word. Such a spelling is reckoned misleading, actually, it must be “vor dem Insbettgehen”, “vor dem Bettgehen”. The books you cite are of course extremely old; and even if one wrote it not as one word then at least the verb would have to be capitalized because of being used as a noun, so it is wrong twice to write so. In today’s formalized language one writes Inbezugnahme, Ingebrauchnahme, Zurverfügungstellung and so on. Fay Freak (talk) 11:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I only know of the Betthupferl (literally “little bed hopper”). – Jberkel 20:42, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I now think I misunderstood what the German was telling me: he probably meant "a literal translation of before bed into German would mean in front of the bed", rather than that German has such an expression. Equinox ◑ 11:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Even that isn't a good way of putting it. I'd just say that vor can be both spatial and temporal, so it can mean either "in front of" in space or "before" in time (even in English, before can be spatial as well). Nevertheless, I'm not sure that vor dem Bett can have the temporal meaning that English before bed does, but that's because I'm not sure that Bett can be used to mean "bedtime, going to bed" the way English bed can. It sounds wrong to my nonnative-speaker ears. If I wanted to say "I had a snack before bed" in German, I'd probably say something like "Ich habe ein Häppchen vorm Schlafengehen gegessen." If someone else said "Ich habe ein Häppchen vorm Bett gegessen" I'd probably interpret it spatially and assume they meant they ate it while standing in front of the bed. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

How to format usage changes with decade/century information

Hello folks. How do I indicate a term has been (chiefly American) until the end of the 20th century, but is now used worldwide [thanks to the internet]? Or that a term is considered (dated) since the 21st century? Is there any particular style, a template? As far as I understand ante/post and others are for senses as an complete unit. Is this kind of information even welcome? I haven’t found any statement saying Wiktionary was a contemporary dictionary; we do have, for example, Latin entries here, so… Kai Burghardt (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

You haven’t found any statement saying Wiktionary is a contemporary dictionary because it is a historical dictionary; like many such dictionaries also sometimes lagging behind and being outdated, as by employing such labels that have become untrue. You can indicate that a label applies to a particular era by writing the timespan, e.g. until the end of the 20th century, to the label. Contrary to what many might think there is no numerus clausus for the contents of {{label}}. If the situation is complicated enough to render the label too long, you can also deploy a usage notes section. Fay Freak (talk) 11:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

One vaguely related question: Sometimes a common word becomes uncommon, and then has literary or poetic connotations due to being "archaic". But sometimes the word was already literary. I also remember encountering a word (can't remember which) that was formerly used in a poetic context, but is no longer used at all. One could mark it "poetic, obsolete", but that could also be interpreted as "obsolete, except in a poetic context". I think I labeled it "obsolete and poetic" or something like that.__Gamren (talk) 01:59, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I usually interpret the comma as "or". Sometimes it helps to spell it out more clearly. And I agree with Fay Freak. We should provide as much information as there is that is relevant to a historical dictionary catering to a contemporary audience. Once a label is getting as long as a typical definition, a usage note is definitely the way to go in most cases. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:21, 21 February 2021 (UTC)