Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits

Wiktionary Request pages (edit) see also: discussions
Requests for cleanup add new | history | Archives Cleanup requests, questions and discussions.	Requests for verification add new | history | archives | Index Requests for verification in the form of durably-archived attestations conveying the meaning of the term in question.	Requests for deletion add new | history | archives Requests for deletion of pages in the main namespace due to policy violations; also for undeletion requests.	Requests for deletion/Others add new | history Requests for deletion of pages in other (not the main) namespaces, such as categories, appendices and templates.	Requests for moves, mergers and splits add new | history Moves, mergers and splits; requests listings, questions and discussions.
{{rfc-case}} - {{rfc-trans}} - {{rfdate}} - {{rfd-redundant}} - {{rfdef}} - {{rfe}} - {{rfex}} - {{rfap}} - {{rfp}} - {{rfphoto}} -

All Wiktionary: namespace discussions 1 2 3 4 5 - All discussion pages 1 2 3 4 5

This page is designed to discuss moves (renaming pages) mergers and splits. Its aim is to take the burden away from the beer parlour and requests for deletion where these issues were previously listed. Please note that uncontroversial page moves to correct typos, missing characters etc. should not be listed here, but moved directly using the move function.

• Appropriate: Renaming categories, templates, Wiktionary pages, appendices, rhymes and occasionally entries. Merging or splitting temp categories, templates, Wiktionary pages, appendices, rhymes.
• Out of scope: Merging entries which are alternative forms or spellings or synonyms such as color/colour or traveled/travelled. Unlike Wikipedia, we don't redirect in these sort of situations. Each spelling gets its own page, often employing the templates {{alternative spelling of}} or {{alternative form of}}.
• Tagging pages: To tag a page, you can use the general template {{rfm}}, as well as one of the more specific templates {{move}}, {{merge}} and {{split}}.

Archive (resolved requests)

• Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits/Archive/1

Unresolved requests from before October 2011

• Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits/Unresolved requests/2010
• Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits/Unresolved requests/2011

October 2011

Category:English male given names from Slavonic

Category:English female given names from Slavonic

Two reasons:

1. {{etyl:sla}} displays 'Slavic' not 'Slavonic'. Slavonic states that that ISO 639-5 code for Slavonic is 'sla', the same as for Slavic
2. Since 'Slavic' isn't a language, it should be ...from Slavic languages. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:30, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

   But who says that given name subcategories must be by language? There is "English male/female given names from Germanic/from surnames/from coinages". The subcategories are for names that belong together by origin or association. It's not an exact science. I'm not saying the name change would be harmful (if you do all the work yourself), it just seems needless. It might inspire people to create new categories like "from Russian/from Polish" etc. that are not really needed in English. Not so many English names are of Slavonic origin.--Makaokalani 17:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I have moved all of the entries to fit the usual naming system. - -sche (discuss) 03:57, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Quinian

The -ian spelling seems to be simply wrong for this word, and the correct spelling instead be Quinean.

1. Googling "Quniean" gives only hits related to Quine in the top ten.
2. Conversely, among the top ten from googling "Quinian", there is only one that directly uses this word in the sense defined. The majority of seven (which expands to at least 25 in the top 30) uses is instead that "Quinian" is a name (of Scottish origin); this could perhaps be worth a page in itself. The remaining two of the top ten are (i) this Wiktionary entry and (ii) a discussion on whether it should be spelt -ian or -ean, that finds some pretty good sources that it should be -ean.

About the only argument I've managed to find for the -ian spelling is (from the linked-to discussion) that this is the only one that Quine himself has been observed using. An explanation for that could however be that in older useage, -ean would always be stressed, which does not seem to be a rule anymore. 130.239.218.89 14:27, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It's widely used. [1] I've now added Quinean as an alternative. Equinox ◑ 14:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

In that corpus (Google books), the -ean spelling has more than four times as many hits as the -ian spelling, which would suggest it is rather the latter that should be the alternative. 94.255.156.147 19:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC) (Same contributor as started this topic, probably at a different IP.)

The pages aren't locked, edit 'em! Mglovesfun (talk) 22:24, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I have edited the pages to make "Quinean" the main spelling. --Dan Polansky 13:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin

I'm pretty sure that Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin, Category:zh:Beginning Mandarin, Category:zh-tw:Beginning Mandarin and Category:zh-cn:Beginning Mandarin should all just be Category:Beginning Mandarin. Clearly a language code isn't needed, a bit like we wouldn't have Category:en:English slang. The same would go for Category:cmn:Intermediate Mandarin, Category:zh:Intermediate Mandarin, Category:zh-tw:Intermediate Mandarin and Category:zh-cn:Intermediate Mandarin; Category:cmn:Advanced Mandarin, Category:zh:Advanced Mandarin, Category:zh-tw:Advanced Mandarin and Category:zh-cn:Advanced Mandarin. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but how are we going to sort and differentiate between simplified and traditional entries? ---> Tooironic 21:16, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Do we want to? If so Category:Beginning Mandarin in simplified script, I believe we already use this convention elsewhere. --Mglovesfun (talk) 10:18, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this convention passed, and I do approve it, but for some reason not all categories were converted, so at the moment there are many Mandarin entries which use both the new and old categories, leaving them a total mess. ---> Tooironic 23:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Per our previous discussion, Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin, Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin in traditional script and Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin in simplified script are meant to replace Category:zh:Beginning Mandarin, Category:zh-tw:Beginning Mandarin and Category:zh-cn:Beginning Mandarin respectively. I have no objection to removing the cmn from the categories (other categories leave off the cmn, see: 備說), provided that someone modifies the relevant templates accordingly. See 機會/机会 and 回去 for examples of entries that use these templates. I offer both examples so you can see how the template is being filled out for cases where a simplified version exists and for cases where no simplified version exists. -- A-cai 00:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I agree with Tooironic. The categories are currently a mess and somebody should do a mass conversion to the newly agreed upon format. I have been converting things over by hand for the last number of weeks (so there should be plenty examples of the new format), but converting everything by hand would probably take me several years to complete. -- A-cai 00:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

But why leave in the cmn:? Mglovesfun (talk) 06:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:rfr

Template:rfm

These shouldn't be in the reserved 3-letter language code space (ISO could still assign them). We could move them to {{rfrom}} and {{rfmms}} (though I doubt we need this last one as we should encourage the more specific ones). --Bequw → τ 02:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but we also have {{rfd}}, {{rfv}} and {{rfc}}. --Mglovesfun (talk) 10:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Some people thought those should be "grandfathered" in as they've been around for a while. Though I'd support moving them too. --Bequw → τ 01:30, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

{{rfm}} and {{move}} are identical AFAICT, in which case I suggest one be made a redirect to the other, though I don't care which. We can worry about the ISO codes if and when the time comes. These are not like {{see}} (which we also dealt with when the time came), which is meant to be on many pages: these are on pagesonly temporarily, so there'll never be more then N of them for some number N. So I don't think we need to worry about ISO codes.​—msh210℠ (talk) 02:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Not identical, we have {{move}}, {{merge}} and {{split}}, this template attempts to cover all three. NB, {{rfe}}, {{rfi}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 06:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Category:en:US States

to Category:en:US states please --Rockpilot 23:45, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

If only there were someplace to move it that didn't suffer from PNS syndrome. - -sche (discuss) 02:46, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think it's more common to capitalize the 'S' of 'States'. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Because a 'US State' is a proper noun, so all words of it are capitalized. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

A proper noun? Not AFAICT. State is often capitalized in official works of the federal government (such as the Constitution and IIRC even modern Supreme Court opinions), but in my experience it's lowercase in everyday use. Perhaps cites will be useful here.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, why did I write that? Mglovesfun (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm allergic to nuts

I'd like to move this to I'm allergic to and redirect (and hence merge) I'm allergic to aspirin, I'm allergic to penicillin, and I'm allergic to pollen. The reason is to be more inclusive. It would be possible to link to nut#Translations and any other noun where there are common allergies. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and I think we should do the same for the 'I need' phrases. But we should indicate how to use the proper grammar, because some languages may need a special case form, and the translation may be less straightforward than just the translation of 'I'm allergic to' along with the translation of 'nut'. Finnish for example would translate 'to nuts' with the allative plural case of pähkinä (“nut”), while Icelandic translates 'nuts' in the dative plural of hneta, and French uses aux to translate 'to' before plural words. —CodeCat 11:56, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Phrasebook entries more or less only exist to have translations, so putting lots of grammatical detail in translation tables shouldn't be a problem. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Most phrasebooks are just bilingual, making things much simpler. DCDuring TALK 15:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't endorse the idea of merging the entries. But, if people decide to have only one English sentence, as only one entry, under the subject in question, then I'm allergic to pollen would be a much better title than just I'm allergic.

The reason is: we absolutely don't need incomplete sums of parts. They just aren't more helpful than the words alone. If a reader is able to find I'm allergic to + aspirin, and recognize how to make sentences by joining the pieces and applying the grammar of the target language... Then, she might as well do the same thing by joining I'm + allergic + to + aspirin. --Daniel 12:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the issue is that sentences like this are an open class. As long as there are new nouns to put at the end, you can keep creating new sentences. —CodeCat 12:18, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

It's easier to join the parts I'm allergic to pollen - pollen + aspirin than it is joining the parts I'm allergic to + aspirin. The entry "I'm allergic to pollen" would show complete translations fully adapted to the grammar of other languages, while the entry "I'm allergic to" would show only a piece (an unfinished sentence) translated into pieces (unfinished sentences) in other languages. --Daniel 14:04, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone have any facts to support these assertions about what is or is not easier for the class of users of an on-line phrasebook? What are some typical profiles of such users? What proportion of users fit each profile?

If we don't know these things what model of a successful phrasebook (on-line or otherwise, translating or not) would we follow? DCDuring TALK 15:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I maintain we should have one such entry and hard-redirect the rest. I would think it should be I'm allergic to, but perhaps Daniel's right that it should be I'm allergic to pollen (or some other): I don't know.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

If we go with Daniel's method (keep the one entry at I'm allergic to pollen or the like), then I think the headword and translations should all include pollen (and its translations) in parentheses or the like, much as we do with the headword at keep somebody posted.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:frs - Template:stq

This is an old, old mistake in ISO. Both codes refer to the very same language, namely the Frisian dialect spoken in Saterland, which is an Eastern Frisian dialect. I have no idea how that was overlooked, but it means the two codes should be merged somehow. I'd prefer {{frs}}, since that one is in 639-2. -- Liliana • 14:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Should the language name be "East Frisian" or "Saterland Frisian"? I'd prefer to use the code "frs", but the name "Saterland Frisian". - -sche (discuss) 19:08, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

To me it seems like Saterland Frisian is the most common name, so we should probably use that. -- Liliana • 19:14, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Alright, frs = Saterland Frisian it is, but {{stq}} is in fact widely used — someone will need to replace it by bot. - -sche (discuss) 23:50, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Or a really bored person like me needs to spend an hour or two. -- Liliana • 00:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

But what about etymologies involving Eastern Frisian, at the time it still existed? With no code, how should they be entered? Or even, how should the etymologies that already exist be fixed? —CodeCat 11:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

If it warrants a distinction, it should get one of these constructed codes. It isn't covered by the code frs anyway, which ISO classifies as a "living" language, not an extinct one. -- Liliana • 12:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

East Frisian isn't really extinct strictly, but the only surviving instance of it is now called Saterland Frisian. —CodeCat 16:11, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't explain why ISO assigned two codes to one language. We do not have that for any other language of the world. Using frs for a different language than what ISO intended would make a precedent case, and almost certainly require a vote.
Another problem is that the current name "East Frisian" is really confusing, since there's an (unrelated) Low German dialect which is also called East Frisian. So in any case, you would have to sort out the erroneous uses. -- Liliana • 16:15, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Liliana, we need a separate code of our own for non-Saterland varieties of East Frisian (or we need to clearly indicate that we are using "frs" to refer to a language other than the one the ISO refers to as "frs"). If a word is derived from a variety of East Frisian other than the one the ISO calls "stq", it cannot be derived from what the ISO calls "frs", because "frs" is living, and the only living East Frisian lect is "stq". - -sche (discuss) 00:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:aviation - Template:aeronautics

Wikipedia says: (w:Aeronautics):

Aviation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with aeronautics

Even our definitions of aviation and aeronautics look very similar, I can see how they intersect. Despite there being a technical difference, I do not think we should keep them both, it just creates confusion. -- Liliana • 18:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Our topic categories are distinct, aeronautics being a "science" subcategory (not that that one could rely on our category structure for much). The real-world usage contexts are different, aeronautics referring to aeronautical engineering, which is not really part of the everyday world of flying and airlines. I don't know of better words for the distinction, whatever the jumble in the topic categories. DCDuring TALK 19:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Category:Late Middle Chinese language

Rename to Category:Middle Chinese language. It is somehow weird that we have a Late Middle Chinese but no Early Middle Chinese to go with it, this should fix it, since it is (presumably) what ISO intended. -- Liliana • 21:37, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Old Korean dialects

Category:Goguryeo Old Korean

Move to Category:Goguryeo language, per the existence of the ISO code {{zkg}}

Category:Baekje Old Korean

Move to Category:Baekje language, per {{pkc}}

Category:Buyeo Old Korean

Move to Category:Buyeo language, per {{xpy}}

Discussion

-- Liliana • 18:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

No comments? Oh well. done -- Liliana • 05:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

warwood

Fictional-universe only term, should be Appendix:Moby-Dick/warwood. See also Talk:cryptex. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Appendix:English collective nouns

I have adding this page to RFM as a means of representing a request for moving this page to Wikipedia and deleting it from Wiktionary. The page was tagged for moving to Wikipedia in this edit, on 29 December 2010.

I oppose deleting the page from Wiktionary. As an appendix, the page hosts a list of words, which seems to fit well into a lexicographical work. --Dan Polansky 11:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Also oppose, per Dan.​—msh210℠ (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Not moved. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Do we have provision for "copying to other MW projects" or specifically to WP? DCDuring TALK 12:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Apparently Wikipedia can't transwiki from us, I have absolutely no idea why. In this case, so they already transwikied it to us, so if they want it they can just restore their own version of it. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

November 2011

Category:Vietnamese Han tu - Category:Vietnamese Hán tự - Category:Vietnamese chu Nom - Category:Viet chu Nom

What is the difference between these? If there is none, they should be merged. -- Liliana • 20:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Added another one. -- Liliana • 18:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

template:defective spelling of

More a statement of intent to move than a request for move: I'm hereby informing y'all that I'm moving template:defective spelling of and template:excessive spelling of to template:he-defective spelling of and template:he-excessive spelling of, respectively. Rationale: (a) No one's used them (or AFAIK proposed using them) for anything but Hebrew. (b) It'd be nice (for using them in Hebrew entries) if they had the same parameters and styling as the other he- templates, which would make more sense if they were Hebrew-only templates, in which case they should be named accordingly. I'm effecting the moves immediately. (Everything is, of course, undoable should there be a problem, which I don't at all expect.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Template:unk. - Template:und - Template:etyl:qfa-und

Three templates that essentially perform the same things. The first two were already discussed on RFDO, the third one is new though. -- Liliana • 04:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The difference between the templates is this, I think. The second says a word came from another language but we don't know from which. And the first says we don't know anything about the origin of the word at all, it might not even be a loanword. And the third is used to classify languages, and means that it has not yet been determined positively which family it belongs to (we don't know if it's an isolate). —CodeCat 12:36, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Keep as-is, explain this usage documentation subpages. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Struck. - -sche (discuss) 00:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

gagin and haliþaz

These need to be moved to a Proto-Germanic appendix. But it's beyond me. SemperBlotto 15:06, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done. --Mglovesfun (talk) 13:17, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

December 2011

Category:Definitionless terms

Merge with Category:Definitions needed. A lot of the ones in here are not really definitionless, just missing senses. —Internoob 04:11, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the idea is that Category:Definitions needed is by language, while Category:Definitionless terms lumps 'em all together, better for navigation if you want to see all definitionless terms. A few issues, the names of the two categories most definitely. Plus they can potentially be merged. Further more Category:Definitionless terms only contains entries using {{rfdef}} not {{defn}}, albeit merging the two would lead to tens of thousands of entries in one category. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Category:Etymology

I think this should be merged with Category:Etymologies by language, which would mean deleting the subcategories like Category:fr:Etymology and moving the subcategories without language prefixes to Category:Etymologies by language. It doesn't seem topical; the only main namespace entry I can find directly in the topical categories is in Category:ro:Etymology, which is etimologie! It seems very much counter-productive to have two categories doing the same job, with respect to finding subcategories but also for interwiki linking, which is what I was updating when I found this category. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:04, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

In fact that category only exists because of subcategories like Category:Biblical derivations, which aren't languages but nevertheless deserve treatment. -- Liliana • 19:06, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

If this category is to stay unmerged it should at least be renamed - perhaps to Category:Etymologies. --BiblbroX дискашн 21:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

@Liliana-60 I'm aware of that, but my points still stand, counter-productive to have this separate into two categories, one topical, one not. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Inflection-table subcategories

For a long time, we've only distinguished the categories Category:Gothic conjugation-table templates and Category:Gothic declension-table templates. The former is used for verbs, the latter is used for everything else. I don't think this really makes much sense, because in most languages adjectives need different templates from nouns. That's why I created Category:Gothic noun declension-table templates and Category:Gothic adjective declension-table templates. For a while those two categories were still added to the main declension-table category, but as that category came to be left empty I decided to change it so that noun declension-tables goes directly in Category:Gothic inflection-table templates, and deleted the now-empty category. The examples about Gothic here apply to many languages, too. So I would like to propose renaming and restructuring these categories:

• Category:Gothic inflection-table templates -> Category:Gothic inflection templates
  • Category:Gothic adjective declension-table templates -> Category:Gothic adjective inflection templates
  • Category:Gothic noun declension-table templates -> Category:Gothic noun inflection templates
  • Category:Gothic conjugation-table templates -> Category:Gothic verb inflection templates
  • Category:Finnish declension-table templates -> Category:Finnish nominal inflection templates (for languages where nouns and adjectives inflect identically and use the same templates)

The reason I propose to name the new categories 'inflection templates' is because they could eventually contain headword-line templates as well. I realise this goes back to the situation we had long ago, where Category:English headword-line templates used to be called Category:English inflection templates, but this new category is supposed to be for anything inflection-related, headword-line, table or otherwise. A template such as {{got-adj}} could be categorised in both headword-line templates and inflection templates in the new situation. —CodeCat 17:35, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Unless someone has any objections I'll go ahead with this soon... —CodeCat 12:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Hang on (for a bit), I think the addition of 'table' was to make it clear that only tables go in these categories, like {{fro-decl-noun}} but NOT headword-line templates like {{fro-noun}}. So you're effectively proposing to annul that change. Having said that... why not? It's another way of splitting the templates up, by part of speech instead of by the type of template. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Merging inflection-table and headword-/inflection-line categories is counterproductive, in my opinion. --Yair rand 20:13, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not proposing to merge them. Headword-line templates will still have their own category like they do now. The only change to them is that they would also be added to the corresponding inflection template category. This makes sense because it keeps all the inflection-related things together, and makes it easier to see all templates that are concerned with noun inflection at a glance, for example. I like the idea of looking in Category:Catalan verb inflection templates and seeing both {{ca-verb}} and {{ca-conj-ar}} there. On the other hand, {{ca-verb}} would also be located in Category:Catalan headword-line templates as it is now. —CodeCat 20:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I oppose the change from "inflection-table" to "inflection", since headword-line and inflection-table templates are very different types of template that are already sometimes difficult to distinguish by name. (Imagine you encounter {{he-prep-inflection}} in a category called Category:Hebrew inflection templates. Which type of "inflection template" do you expect it to be?) And headword-line templates don't always have inflection information, anyway. But I'd definitely be on board with "see also" links between headword-line and inflection-table template categories. I am neutral toward any change in the POS-wise subcategorization of (e.g.) Category:Gothic inflection-table templates; I think it makes sense for each language to handle that differently, and I have no dog in Gothic. —Ruakh_TALK 20:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, mostly per Ruakh. Let us keep headword-line templates separated from those templates that belong to any of "Inflection", "Declension" and "Conjugation" sections, which turn out to be templates that show tables. If "Category:Gothic noun declension-table templates" gets renamed to "Category:Gothic noun inflection templates", the resulting name nowhere suggests that the category cannot contain headword-line templates. --Dan Polansky 13:09, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I used Category:Lithuanian noun declension-table templates because of the sheer number of them. Eventually, I'll have another for adjectives, but that'll be a huge undertaking, considering the number of forms per table, the 4 stress patterns, numerous declension patterns, optional comparatives and superlatives, etc. I think splitting the categories is a very smart idea for languages like Russian and Lithuanian, who have such concerns. — [Ric Laurent] — 16:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• I oppose the cross-language recategorization, per Ruakh.​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused. What exactly do you oppose? The proposition renaming the categories or the proposition of adding headword-line templates to those categories? —CodeCat 23:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Adding headword-line templates to the same categories as the inflection tables. I assumed the renaming was only to be done if that was to be done (i.e., that this was one proposal not two).​—msh210℠ (talk) 01:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No, even if that doesn't go through, the renaming could still be done, or with 'inflection-table' instead of 'inflection'. —CodeCat 01:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand. When you started this discussion, you said that you had already implemented the "inflection-table" renaming for Gothic, and you didn't ask for any input about that; so that seems to imply that this discussion is inherently not about renaming categories to "inflection-table". (And no one seems to be objecting to the "inflection-table" part, anyway.) Furthermore, in that same discussion-starting comment, you also wrote, "The reason I propose to name the new categories 'inflection templates' is because they could eventually contain headword-line templates as well"; which seems to imply that you are not proposing that rename except for that purpose. Have you changed your mind? That's fine, if so, but in that case I think you should start a new discussion with your new proposal(s), or else it's just hopelessly confusing! —Ruakh_TALK 02:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh... maybe I wasn't that clear then... I was proposing to rename the categories, and I was saying we could drop 'table' from the name, so that in the future we could possibly also add headword-line templates to those categories. I haven't made any changes to Gothic yet, as you can see from the red links above. Sorry for the confusion. —CodeCat 02:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Please vote for one or more of these options:

Keep the current inflection-table category names

1. Oppose generally: let each language decide for itself.​—msh210℠ (talk) 02:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Rename to (POS) inflection-table templates

1. Support —CodeCat 01:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose generally: let each language decide for itself.​—msh210℠ (talk) 02:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Rename to (POS) inflection templates

1. Support —CodeCat 01:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose generally: let each language decide for itself.​—msh210℠ (talk) 02:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Rename to (POS) inflection templates and also add headword-line templates to them when applicable

1. Support —CodeCat 01:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose altogether.​—msh210℠ (talk) 02:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

January 2012

Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/méh₂tēr -> Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/mātēr

This entry has been created here with name méh₂tēr by a mistake. Although there is a long vowel in the second position, the laryngeal theory does not predict a laryngeal there. See here for example.--Priios 12:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Pokorny's dictionaries are kind of outdated by modern standards though... —CodeCat 12:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Priios for doing this the 'standard' way. Anyway guys, evidence? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Where's Ivan Štambuk when we need him? -- Liliana • 13:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots also lists māter [2] --Priios 13:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• A GRAMMAR OF MODERN INDO-EUROPEAN Third Edition (2011) by Carlos Quiles Fernando and López-Menchero also list mātēr (the first edition from 2007 by Kárlos Kūriákī can be accessed here: [3] ) --Priios 14:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Modern Indo-European is essentially a conlang based on reconstructed PIE. It's not really a proper source for IE reconstructions. —CodeCat 14:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

March 2012

Category:Komi language

move to Category:Komi-Zyrian language, to differentiate from Category:Komi-Permyak language -- Liliana • 12:37, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Good call. FWIW, both "Komi-Permyak" and "Komi-Zyrian" meet CFI with over seven and one thousand Google Books hits, respectively (unlike some differentiatory names we use), so I support the move. I presume the L2 headers will also change. - -sche (discuss) 19:11, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Done, I think. Double-check to be sure I haven't missed anything. - -sche (discuss) 08:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Input needed: This discussion needs further input in order to be successfully closed. Please take a look!

Oh, translations... hopefully someone with a bot will fix those. - -sche (discuss) 08:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

玩耍

Can someone please move this to a new title? I cannot read hanzi, but I know they are nonstandard for writing Hmong. According to a Hmong dictionary, the words for to play are lib and da2. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:36, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

succession

Definition five of the English noun section uses {{rfdef|lang=en}}, with the citation "England gave away six penalties in the first 15 minutes and were lucky to still have 15 men on the pitch, but Kvirikashvili missed two very makeable penalties in quick succession as Georgia were unable to take advantage of significant territorial advantage." I would define this at in quick sucession, no other adjective collocates with quick, and no other preposition collocates with quick sucession. Objections? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:21, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like sense 2 to me. DCDuring TALK 23:30, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Merged into sense 2.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

April 2012

Happy Easter

I'm not quite sure why this and several other phrasebook terms are capitalised. There are some situations where it may not be capitalised, such as when saying 'I wish you all a happy Easter'. (And the phrase is no less formulaic when it's used that way... compare 'I wish you all a merry Christmas') So should it and other similar phrases be moved to begin with a lowercase letter? —CodeCat 19:32, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Probably just because we're used to seeing it that way in greeting cards etc. where it tends to be a sentence on its own. I would favour the proposed move. Equinox ◑ 19:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Especially since typing "Happy Easter" would take the searcher to [[happy Easter]]. DCDuring TALK 22:27, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year seems particularly redundant. Equinox ◑ 22:37, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Category:Old Prussian language

Please read Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Prussian. (I hope this will generate some more activity if I crosspost it here.) -- Liliana • 23:41, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:ast-noun-mf

Into {{ast-noun}} by adding optional parameters, such as {{fr-noun}}, {{es-noun}}, {{it-noun}} (etc etc etc) have. Bit of a no-brainer, have only really listed it because I don't have time to do it until at least tomorrow. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Achuar-Shiwiar

I propose we change {{acu}} from "Achuar-Shiwiar" to "Achuar", which seems to be a much more common name. - -sche (discuss) 00:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Alternatively, we could rename it "Shuar", which is also very commonly used as the name of the language. But the hyphenated form is rare, and many of the Google Books hits it gets are actually "Achuar (Shiwiar)". - -sche (discuss) 05:40, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Alaba-K’abeena

I propose we change {{alw}} from "Alaba-K’abeena" to "Alaba", because "Alaba" meets CFI and "Alaba-K’abeena" doesn't. - -sche (discuss) 00:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Ana Tinga Dogon

(The content of) {{dti}} should possibly be renamed: the current name seems to be an amalgam of two variant names for the language, Ana Dogon and Ana Tinga/Ana Tiŋa. However, not one of those names is attested in Google Books, so I don't know what to suggest. - -sche (discuss) 00:48, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:bxr

All uses should be {{bua}} per WT:LANGTREAT -- Liliana • 17:52, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

or we should update LANGTREAT. I have no preference at the moment. I've raised the issue in the BP. - -sche (discuss) 19:47, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

shojo

This needs to be merged with shoujo (and also possibly shōjo). The problem is, I'm not sure which one to merge into which. "shoujo" gets more Google hits than "shojo", but I'm not sure how many of those results are in English (even telling Google to only search English sites, it pulls up a lot of Japanese and French ones too). I don't know enough about Japanese romanization to say which is better (though I note that our main article on the Japanese latin alphabet is romaji, not rōmaji or roumaji). shōnen, shonen and shounen are also floating around in a similar limbo, though shonen says "see shōnen". Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Merged in what way? Do you mean {{alternative form of}}? Mglovesfun (talk) 08:57, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, with the definition contained on one page, without the small variations in definition each spelling currently has. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:39, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

• What is shojo or shoujo doing under an English header? Is this really used in English? If so, is it used at all outside of rarified manga- / anime-centric Japanophile contexts? None of my social circle know this term unless they're also savvy about manga and anime, FWIW.
• As for merging, feel free to do as appropriate for the English terms, but please leave the JA entries alone. I just reformatted and substantially expanded shōjo and am about to do the same for shojo#Japanese. Note that the macron indicates a long vowel -- and this is semantically important in Japanese, so shōjo and shojo are *not* the same words. And due to the vast number of homophones in Japanese, often enough shōjo and shōjo are not the same words either.  ;) -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, I'd move to delete the entry at shoujo. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

shoujo gets 3500 Google Books hits, so I think it merits keeping as an alternative spelling of shojo, which in turn also seems to be common enough to keep ("shojo manga" gets 3800 Google Books hits). Thanks for sorting out the Japanese sections! - -sche (discuss) 18:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. So long as no JA entries are put under shoujo, I'm happy.  :) -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:wob

Is this distinct from both krw and kqo? If so, should it (wob) be renamed Wobé? If not, let's combine them. (See w:Wee languages, w:Krahn language, w:Wobé language.) - -sche (discuss) 00:23, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to contrast with {{gxx}} and {{wec}}. -- Liliana • 05:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:btx

I suggest we rename this from "Batak Karo", which is AFAICT unattested as a language name, to "Karo Batak", which is attested. - -sche (discuss) 06:29, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

This should be kept in line with the other Batak languages. One language shouldn't deviate from the others, so if at all, all these languages would need to be changed. -- Liliana • 09:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I've done Google Books searches on all the names,

1. google books:"Karo Batak language" gets 614 Google Books hits, google books:"Batak Karo language" gets 1 valid hit
2. google books:"Toba Batak language" is far more common than google books:"Batak Toba language"
3. google books:"Simalungun Batak language" (google books:"Simalungun Batak" language) is more common than google books:"Batak Simalungun language" (google books:"Batak Simalungun" language)
4. google books:"Mandailing Batak language" (google books:"Mandailing Batak" language) is more common than google books:"Batak Mandailing language" (google books:"Batak Mandailing" language)
5. google books:"Dairi Batak" language is more common than google books:"Batak Dairi" language
6. google books:"Angkola Batak" language is four times more common than google books:"Batak Angkola" language
7. neither google books:"Alas-Kluet Batak" language nor google books:"Batak Alas-Kluet" language gets any uses, AFAICT (although "Batak Alas-Kluet" does seem to be slightly more commonly mentioned as the language's name)

I wonder why the Batak-first names were originally chosen, here and on Wikipedia. Indonesian grammar? - -sche (discuss) 18:58, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

the messy Kara languages

Well, this is a mess. There are no fewer than six languages vying for / going by the name "Kara". Some of them are even attested; see Citations:Kara:

1. {{zra}}, a Korean language, is the easiest to ‘solve’: there certainly are many books that use "Kara" to mean {{zra}}, but many more books call it "Kaya", so I've just named it that.
2. {{kxh}}, an Omotic language. It seems to be called "Kara" more often than it is called "Karo", but the latter name is attested (Citations:Karo) and distinguishes it. ({{kxh}}-Karo is in turn distinguished from {{btx}}-Karo Batak / Batak Karo, and I'll sort out {{arr}}/Citations:Arara/{{aap}} later.)
3. {{leu}}, which I created as "Kara (Papua New Guinea)" because the synonym "Lemakot", while attested, is quite dated, and literature referring to "Kara" most frequently refers to {{leu}}.

• Others are unattested:

1. {{reg}} was created some time ago as "Kara (Tanzania)", but I find only one GBC hit for it under this name, and none for its alternative name "Regi".
2. {{kah}}, which could be "Kara (Central African Republic)" (but I find no GBC hits of Kara in reference to {{kah}}) or "Fer" (which I find one(!) GBC hit of).
3. {{kcm}}, which could be "Kara (Central African Republic)" — yes, even the differentiator would be the same, under our current scheme of parenthetical country names as differentiators, but my favourite part is that its alternative name is "Gula", which is attested — as the name of five other languages! The alternative name "Tar Gula" might be just barely attested, so we could rename {{kcm}} that.
4. I also found 1 citation of "Kara" as the name of a Sudanese language, and 1 citation of it as an Ethiopian language; these may refer to one of the previous languages; I can't tell. Oh, and there's also the Kara family of languages.

- -sche (discuss) 04:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I've struck the ones that have been 'solved'. - -sche (discuss) 03:32, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Meh, leu and reg can keep their parenthetical disambiguators. Striking. - -sche (discuss) 23:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

May 2012

Category:Telugu years

Looking at these entries, Year isn't a part of speech, they are as the editor puts it, 'names of years'. Any chance of putting in the entries what years these refer to? 365 days years, or another norm? Mglovesfun (talk) 09:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• I was wondering if they were like Chinese years (year of the dragon etc). But does anyone know? 21:38, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Tutorial (External links)

To Help:External links. Reason is this is a good help page, but we need a WT: page to cover what is and what is not valid as an external link, using WT:ELE as a starting point. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:05, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

On reflection, it's the redirect Wiktionary:External links that I'm interested in, on reflection I could just create that page over the redirect and leave this where it is. Still I won't close this request, as the page still reads like a help page, so maybe someone will agree with me. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

June 2012

Category:cmn:Elementary Mandarin

To Category:Elementary Mandarin. Surely the word 'Mandarin' means we don't also needs cmn. Also I don't think categories like Category:en:Elementary Mandarin would be valid. The others to be moved can be found in Category:Chinese by difficulty level. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:03, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Support —CodeCat 19:12, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:Chinese by difficulty level

To Category:Mandarin by difficulty level. Only contains Mandarin, there aren't any parallel categories for Cantonese, Wu, Min-Nan and so on, so even keep this as a parent category seems like a bad idea, as it would only contain one category. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're culprit, but all this re-categorising has left many of the categories a total mess. Look at the sorting at Category:cmn:Intermediate_Mandarin_in_traditional_script. The category is now half sorted by pinyin and half sorted by stroke. Blergh. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:52, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

"Left many of the categories a total mess" would imply they weren't a total mess in the first place. And actually no, the bot preserved the sort keys for the categories, so I assume they were just a mess in the first place. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:09, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

No. Move to Category:Mandarin by proficiency level. difficulty level is video game terminology. -- Liliana • 09:43, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Good point; I don't know if difficulty level is a recognized English term for whatever the native speakers call if. If not, you're right. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:09, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I support moving it to 'Mandarin by proficiency level'. —CodeCat 19:12, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Support (let's do this thing). Mglovesfun (talk) 18:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

broaden one's horizons

Move to broaden someone's horizons.

The reflexive use is not distinct AFAICT. DCDuring TALK 11:35, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree, it can be one's own horizons, but not always. Move per nom. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:52, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Move per nom. I actually think the reflexive use should have its own sense line or subsense line — "I want to broaden my horizons by reading more" and "Reading more has broadened my horizons" are arranging the arguments in two very different ways — but putting it on a separate page would exaggerate and (paradoxically!) obscure the reality of the difference. —Ruakh_TALK 15:51, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I have long wondered about verb-centered idioms that have both reflexive and non-reflexive uses. Separating them by the difference between "one's" (indicating reflexive-only) and "someone's" (indicating ?) seems to place an unrealistic burden on the user, which is only partly mitigated by "Related terms" links between the two. (I don't think "Alternative forms" is accurate, but I might be wrong.) Thoughts? DCDuring TALK 18:46, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I wonder about even three "senses": reflexive, person-as-subject, object-as-subject. DCDuring TALK 18:50, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Moved; kept redirect.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:English parts of speech to either Category:English terms or Category:English terms by part of speech

The name 'English parts of speech' is a bit misleading as it makes it seem like the category itself contains parts of speech (whatever that means). But it really contains all English terms sorted by part of speech. So I believe the category's name should reflect that. I personally think that 'English terms' is nicer, because it reflects the category's main purpose: to contain all terms in English. Granted, we don't actually put any terms in the category itself, but we do put them in subcategories, and there should to be no terms that are not part of that tree of categories in some way. (Also, I believe it may be nice to have a single category for all lemmas, but I suppose that would make indexes a little less useful.) —CodeCat 19:11, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't know, it doesn't seem like a big issue IMO. We would also have to do this for every other language tbh if we change it...It does indirectly contain all parts of speech as you mentioned and I think the subcategory links generated at the top of the category by {{poscatboiler}} are helpful enough. 50 Xylophone Players talk 17:27, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose, the two suggested titles don't seem like am improvement. And there's no point making a large, difficult move for a title that is either no better, or actually worse. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:48, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

All templates in Category:Family code templates to fam: instead of etyl:

These templates are used for a lot more than just etymologies. They are used for family categories (Category:Germanic languages) and for language categories (Category:English language), among other uses. So it would be better if their names reflected that. Alternatively (I would prefer this solution), use a prefix with a slash, such as fam/ or family/ instead of etyl:. This makes it easier to extract the code from the full name. —CodeCat 14:12, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

It does sound reasonable. Just, given the number of templates involved and how they are used, let's be very cautious, and try and drum out a solution that works in practical terms and (at the very least) that there's no serious opposition to. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:17, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Category:Reference templates

To Category:English reference templates, whilst obviously removing all the non-English ones. We already have Category:Reference templates by language, but English is not in that category! The switch over to ...by language has gone well so far, why buck the trend whilst it's working? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

But when is a reference 'English'? Some could be used for other languages as well, especially etymological dictionaries. —CodeCat 20:06, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, categorization isn't intended to (and won't) stop user using reference templates whenever they are useful. Nor does categorization have to be limited to only one language. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I support creating Category:English reference templates. I am neutral on deleting Category:Reference templates. (Note that currently, a lot of reference templates belong both to Category:Reference templates and to a language-specific category. I don't know whether that's useful or not.) —Ruakh_TALK 12:54, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

let something slide

Currently lists "let slide" as an alternative form, but that's not true; they're actually the same form, just lemmatized differently. One should redirect to the other. —Ruakh_TALK 03:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

One can let either a person or a thing slide, so let slide would seem to be the best main entry with two redirects thereto, this and let someone slide. DCDuring TALK 03:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Merge into let slide, it could use the headword let (something) slide. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

running on empty

This is listed as a verb. It should probably be run on empty in that case. Astral (talk) 04:38, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Move, though maybe even on empty. Only maybe. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

On empty seems better, but empty might be better yet. For example "running on the smell of an oily rag" is a near synonym, which suggests that there is/should be an applicable sense of on#Preposition. DCDuring TALK 12:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

The trouble with the way smell of an oily rag has been defined, as a noun rather than an adverb, is that it suggests usages like "I used a smell of an oily rag of salt in the sauce" are acceptable. I foresee the same issue with empty, so on empty strikes me as preferable. Astral (talk) 17:19, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

We already have "12. Indicating a means of subsistence. : They lived on ten dollars a week; The dog survived three weeks on rainwater".​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

@Astral: how's this? Of course, it's silly to define 'smell of an oily rag as 'in the phrase "on smell of an oily rag"...'. If no other preposition can precede it, I'd favor a move to run on the smell of an oily rag or on the smell of an oily rag (and I'd prefer run on empty or on empty to empty). Yes, "on" "indicates a means of subsistence", and run on means "operate with a particular energy source", but the idiomaticity still seems to be in the phrase "run on empty" rather than in "empty". - -sche (discuss) 18:00, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Smell... probably could use a usage note, but the usage example should do it.

Run on empty has a literal and at least one figurative sense. Both literal and figurative senses seem to either use an ellipsis (empty for empty tank of fuel) or a reference to empty as "reading on a fuel gauge". These are normal linguistic processes. Because they are normal and the meaning is transparent, no reference at run on empty at OneLook Dictionary Search has this. The metaphor may allow the substitution of other words for empty as well, certainly fumes. Should we just look to have usage examples?

This is not really a linguistic phenomenon as much as it is a conceptual one. We could exhaust ourselves looking for all the attestable forms of the "person/enterprise-as-fueled-vehicle" metaphor. For dead metaphors there is something lexical and not conceptual. For live ones, I don't think so. If I were explaining the expression to someone, I'd say something like "It's as if he/it were a car", rather than define it. DCDuring TALK 18:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Update: running on empty at OneLook Dictionary Search shows that AHDIdioms has it at this form.

@-sche: What about running on fumes, which is certainly attestable? DCDuring TALK 18:17, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Apparently on can live on/off the smell of an oily rag. I'll add some more variety at [[smell of an oily rag#Noun]]. DCDuring TALK 18:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

@Msh210: Yes, we have sense 12 of on, but that doesn't mean on the smell of an oily rag is SoP. If "smell of an oily rag" were used to mean "small amount"/"bare minimum", it would arguably be, but since people apparently don't say things like, "I've got to order more parts soon — we've only got the smell of an oily rag left in stock," the preposition is integral to conveying the idiom's meaning. I understand wanting to trim the fat off entry titles, but not at the expense of creating the implication that something is used in a way it isn't. I support moving this to on the smell of an oily rag, and also creating off the smell of an oily rag, since that seems attestable, too. Astral (talk) 19:12, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely that the existence of that sense of on doesn't mean on the smell of an oily rag is SOP, and didn't mean to imply that it does. (Existence of live off the smell of an oily rag (which DCDuring points to above) might, though.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Template:zh topic cat parents

Should this be renamed without "zh"? Though it doesn't seem to be used. DCDuring TALK 15:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I've asked the template's creator if it's needed at all. I have no idea what it does. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:41, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I would just delete this if I wasn't scared it might actually have a function, somehow. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

How can it have a function if it has no transclusions or redirects and the only link to it is the one in the header above? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 08:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:German States

Should be lowercase "states", at least, although another user suggests "States/Provinces of Germany". Hilariously, this was RFVed at one point(!) and cited(!!). - -sche (discuss) 21:14, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Good point. Yes, it should be lowercase. -- Liliana • 12:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

No objection from me. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:57, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll make the change using AWB. "States of Germany" and "Provinces of Germany" appear to be about as common in English(?), so I'll use "States of Germany". - -sche (discuss) 03:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

July 2012

Template:deftempboiler into Template:form of

There doesn't seem to be a crucial difference between these two templates, and they are both used for the same things. So I think merging them would be better, while adding the missing functionality of one to the other. See WT:GP#Singulative help for prior discussion. —CodeCat 11:41, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Any merge must be effected carefully so that transcluded instances are not affected. (Or at least so that transcluded instances of {{deftempboiler}} aren't affected. Preferably also {{form of}}, but it's been edited in a way that affects transcluded instances without those pages ever thereafter being checked for still-accuracy, so further bad edits wouldn't be the end of the world.) If that's done, I support.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:55, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Split Appendix:City suffixes by language and rename to '(language) toponyms'

Splitting because the page could become unmanageably large if more languages are added (which we must assume they will, eventually). And renaming to make it more generic, as it applies to place names in general, not just larger ones. I also believe that prefixes should be able to be added when appropriate. —CodeCat 12:53, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Support, but keep the page and transclude all of them so it doesn't actually look any different to viewers. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 12:22, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Category:English toponyms to Category:English terms derived from toponyms

This name is misleading as it contradicts its own description, and for example go to Canossa is not a toponym. —CodeCat 12:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

klausītājies

An anonymous user added a rfm template to this word, claiming it doesn't exist. I think it does, however, for the following reasons:

1. I found it in a reputable source (Fennell, T.G, & H. Gelsen. 1980. A Grammar of Modern Latvian. Paris, New York, The Hague: Mouton Publishers. ISBN 90 279 7936 7), where it is not only mentioned, but given as the basic example of a set of words with irregular defective declension (the full defective paradigm of klausītājies is given on p. 1070).
2. A google search reveals several occurrences (59) of the word, including several folk songs, and also a Latvijas Radio programme for 02-11-2011 (last word in the green text at 10:10 and at 23:10).

The total number of occurrences, however, is low, even taking into account the relatively small number of Internet pages in Latvian, and this word has a more regular counterpart klausītājs (which is where the anonymous user wants to move klausītājies to). This rarity, together with the existence of the more regular counterpart, is probably what motivates the anonymous user's impression that the word doesn't exist. I suggest that this word be kept, perhaps with an added context tag like 'rare' or 'old fashioned'. --Pereru (talk) 02:57, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Create the regular form and make this an alternative form iff you can actually cite it (I believe Latvian still requires 3 citations). This doesn't really belong at RFM. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 12:20, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

The Google search I mentioned above yielded 59 results, many legitimate. Do these count as citations? Should they go on the citation page? (I haven't done anything with citations thus far. There probably is a page here at Wiktionary about how to handle citations, right? Could you direct me to it?) Well, I'll create the regular page, link klausītājies to it as an alternate form (but keeping the declension, which is different and irregular), and remove the RFM tag. --Pereru (talk) 17:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Crash course on citations: citations must be durably archived (so, not off a Google search). Effectively, citations must be from Google Books, Google Groups, or a physical book/magazine/newspaper. Citations must be uses, not mentions (see w:use-mention distinction), so dictionaries don't count except for example sentences. For Latvian, every sense needs three citations to pass RFV. Citations must be formatted according to WT:". Does that cover it sufficiently? --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Latin papo and pappo

The less common form needs to be turned into an alternative form stub. Currently papo’s definition says “Alternative form of pappo” but includes all content from papo (even the definition). — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 15:45, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Sorry I forgot about it. I also added the missing conjugation tables. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:36, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

mind one's p's and q's

I agree with the comment on the talk page that two of the apostrophes should be taken out: [[mind one's Ps and Qs]]. Should the apotrophic form be a soft redirect, or a hard one? Or do you like the apostrophes and oppose a move? - -sche (discuss) 17:43, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Soft. I.e., both, if attested, should exist, and the less common should be defined as a form-of.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:39, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Template:mi

We have other language names with correct diacritics - so why are we not calling this language by its correct name, Māori? I've heard people say it's harder for them to type, but it is certainly easier than typing !Xóõ, which is a real language name around here (Category:!Xóõ language). Technical note: it will take more than just changing the template name, but most of the work can be easily done by a bot like KassadBot, and the rest I will do manually. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:50, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

My guess is because Maori, without diacritics, is an actual English word. -- Liliana • 20:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Māori, with diacritics, is also an actual English word. I don't see a problem there. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

"Correct" is subjective. I don't think Maori is a misspelling, it's just a standard transcription of the word Māori into English. I have no opinion. I'd welcome some frequency analysis of the two spellings in English. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This isn't a request for a move, merger, or split. Just edit the template. —Angr 11:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It is, because it affects categories like Category:Maori language. -- Liliana • 13:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, right. In that case, let's keep it at "Maori" since it's an equally valid spelling. No point in creating a bunch of work just for the sake of a macron. —Angr 14:02, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm willing to do the work for a significant macron. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I would expect that there are far more English speaking people in New Zealand that write 'Maori' than there are that write 'Māori'. For that reason I think the name should stay as it is. —CodeCat 12:05, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I favour "Maori" and oppose a move. "Māori" is, indeed, the native name of the language, but English disuses diacritics, and even before I overhauled it, WT:LANGNAMES noted that Wiktionary avoids diacritics, too. Like CodeCat said, "Maori" is common, in part because many non-specialists write about the language. In contrast, the only people who write about ǃXóõ tend to be specialists who spell it "ǃXóõ" (rather than "Xoo" — though note my proposal below to rename it "Taa"). - -sche (discuss) 03:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

aergologijski -> alergologijski

Simple typo: missing an l. --BiblbroX дискашн 21:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done, should not have been listed here. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

So in the future I should move it myself and tag the wrong entry with speedy? --BiblbroX дискашн 21:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if it's a no-doubter. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Template:ksd

Currently we call this language Kuanua; Wikipedia and most of the linguistic literature I've seen calls it Tolai. It doesn't have much, so it'll be easy to move, too. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:38, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Support renaming; thanks for drawing my attention to this. "Tolai language" seems to be about twice as common as "Kuanua language" on Google books (if you click through to the last page of hits to see how many hits are really there, rather than going by Google's "about _ hits" number). - -sche (discuss) 00:15, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

FYI, I think you can proceed with this whenever you have time. It's been a week and no-one has objected, and one vote of support is about as much attention as most obscure-language-rename discussions get. - -sche (discuss) 04:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Done, by Mglovesfun. - -sche (discuss) 03:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:reference-book

I keep seeing this used as a reference template, which is annoying, since the formatting is totally wrong for that. Presumably the problem is with the name. Renaming it to something more transparent, like {{quote-book-2}} or {{quote-book-again}}, should help. (Or, better yet, merging it into {{quote-book}}. Or, best yet, getting rid of all quotation templates. They cause more problems than they solve.) —Ruakh_TALK 19:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, move it somewhere else. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:47, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Move or delete. Re: "I keep seeing this used as a reference template, which is annoying, since the formatting is totally wrong for that": Exactly. --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Arabic numerals

This name is misleading. Based on how our categories are named, you would expect this to contain terms in the Arabic language, but it doesn't. It should probably be named something like Category:Hindu-Arabic numerals, or something else than 'numerals'. —CodeCat 11:19, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, Hindu-Arabic isn't ideal, but it's a whole lot better. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I noticed we also have Category:Roman numerals. These categories have no indication of language, presumably because they are translingual. But I'm not sure if Category:Translingual Hindi-Arabic numerals sounds any better. —CodeCat 15:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

If it's translingual, would it include १,२,३,४,५,६,७,८,९,० or ١,٢,٣,٤,٥,٦,٧,٨,٩,٠? Chuck Entz (talk) 13:21, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I support, it’s a more correct name. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 16:23, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

August 2012

Category:French French

For the sake of clarity, this should be Category:French of France. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:28, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• Note: We also have Category:Regional French. Perhaps the contents of the above should be moved there. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:32, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Oppose, the subcategories of Category:Regional French all use the adjective then the word French, not 'French of X'. I think there's also a Category:English English. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:34, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

So there is, and other Adjective Englishes. Oppose per Mg.​—msh210℠ (talk) 08:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Not to mention Category:Spanish Spanish -- Liliana • 16:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Kept.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:29, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Я in Old Church Slavonic

There are quite a few terms in OCS on Wiktionary that use the letter Я for 'ja'. However, as far as I know, that letter didn't actually exist at the time OCS was written. w:Ya (Cyrillic) explains that it developed as a scribal variant of Ѧ, which stood for a nasal vowel 'ę' which later developed into 'ja' in many Slavic languages. So it is a bit like distinguishing i/v and j/u in Latin. There is a big difference though: Ѧ itself is still used in OCS in its original form and sound 'ę', while the letter Ꙗ was used in OCS to represent the sound 'ja' and Ѩ stood for 'ję'. So using Я in those words seems like an anachronism. Should our OCS terms be moved to their OCS-era spellings, or are the spellings with Я actually attested in the original manuscripts? —CodeCat 15:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I think we should be using ꙗ whenever the OCS sound was [ja], ѧ whenever it was [ę] (i.e. [ɛ̃]) and ѩ whenever it was [ję] (i.e. [jɛ̃]). I'm not sure to what extent these get confused in the manuscripts, and a certain number of {{alternative spelling of}}s may be necessary, but I think the main lemma should reflect the historically correct letter, meaning я shouldn't be used for OCS at all. —Angr 22:06, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

OCS spelling apparently followed a rule that any front vowel not preceded by a consonant had a j- inserted before it automatically (apparently there were no vowel-initial words?). So that would have eliminated most use cases for ѩ, and I'm not sure how widely it was used. OCS spelling was far from consistent and may often reflect dialectal pronunciation rather than normalised 'reconstructed' pronunciation. I am quite sure that я did not occur in OCS as it was just a variant of ѧ, but it's possible that words later spelled with ѧ/я etymologically should have ѧ, ꙗ or ѣ, which were or became [ja] in various dialects (but differently in each). So we would need to find out the etymological origin of our current words with я before we can move them. —CodeCat 22:54, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

ѩзꙑкъ is an example of a word spelled with ѩ. How many OCS words do we have spelled with я? It shouldn't be hard to find or figure out which letter is the right one. Looking through Category:Old Church Slavonic nouns it seems most entries with я were created by Ivan Štambuk. Maybe he could be prevailed upon to help put them right. —Angr 16:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

have had one's Weetabix today

I propose that this be moved to either have one's Weetabix or have had one's Weetabix, either way the today is SOP. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 12:13, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

The today adjunct is often replaced by other adjuncts or omitted.

Have had one's Weetabix is a present perfect form, not normally a lemma. There were not enough cites found for that form, but the RfV was closed without being deleted.

I'd advocate have one's Weetabix where it could be united with Citations:have one's Weetabix. DCDuring TALK 15:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Click characters in language names and 2x !Kung

I have modified the three languages which previously used exclamation marks (!) in their names to represent clicks, so that they now use click characters (ǃ) like the other click languages use and like entries for words in all those languages use. In doing so, I noticed that we have two codes, both marked as "regular language"s (rather than one being a family or such) called "ǃKung": {{khi-kun}} and {{knw}}. It was decided that the two codes should be kept: but I want to know if it is a problem that they display the same name, and if one should be renamed. - -sche (discuss) 21:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

That could be a problem, yes. Our category structure requires a unique name for each language. {{langrev}} also depends on it. —CodeCat 21:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I wonder, should English entries such as [[!Kung]] use the exclamation point or the click character? Since technically the click character is not a letter in English, but neither is the exclamation point. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

{{knw}} could display "Ekoka !Kung", as at Wikipedia. To Wikitiki's point, we should use the click character because it won't get confused with the exclamation point by the software. The difference between ! and ǃ is relevant only to software, since to humans they look identical. —Angr 21:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

There's also one more difference you're forgetting: You can't type the click character with an English keyboard. Personally, I think it would be better if [[!Kung]] were moved to [[Kung]] (for English) and the !/ǃ added only on the page itself, but that seems like too radical of a change. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 22:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

That's hardly important; the click character is in the "IPA" section of the character insertion box below the text field. And as the cited quotation shows, the language is called ǃKung in English. —Angr 22:33, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, we wouldn't move Москва to Moсквa (or any other such variant) — even if the only citations of the word were in books rather than online, and thus it were philosophically impossible to tell whether о or o were the character used: we would find the character in Cyrillic text and so use the Cyrillic codepoint. Here, we find a click, and so should use the click codepoint. (Although if !Kung is attested, with the exclamation mark sic, on Usenet, then we should definitely have it as an alt-spelling.) - -sche (discuss) 22:37, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Currently the spelling with the click character, [[ǃKung]], redirects to the spelling with the exclamation mark, [[!Kung]]. I think this is exactly the sort of case where redirects are the right solution, but I do think the redirect should go the other way. The entry should use the click character, and the spelling with the exclamation point should be the redirect. —Angr 23:00, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I've started relocating such entries. I especially fixed [[ǃxóɲa ǂàã]]! - -sche (discuss) 00:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Someone with a bot could change all instances of "!Kung" to "ǃKung" now. - -sche (discuss) 01:19, 23 August 2012 (UTC) (Perhaps best to wait until the names are sorted out. - -sche (discuss) 03:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC))

But, whenever a name is chosen, the things in this red category and others such should changed (by bot or by bored hand): Category:!Kung verbs. - -sche (discuss) 02:40, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I've started a separate discussion about whether we actually need both languages, anyway: Wiktionary:Requests_for_moves,_mergers_and_splits#Template:khi-kun_and_Template:knw. I think we should revisit and resolve that question before proceeding with a rename (as it may remove the need for a rename). - -sche (discuss) 03:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:bgl

We currently call this language "Bo (Laos)", which was probably to distinguish it from {{akm}} and {{bpw}}, but I propose we rename it to simply "Bo" because

1. whenever possible, we disuse parentheses,
2. {{akm}} is already distinct as "Aka-Bo",
3. Template:bpw is currently a redlink and it should perhaps stay that way given that WP says the status of that Bo (bpw) as a language is unclear,
4. and even if we do create {{bpw}}, we can follow our usual practice of using variant names to distinguish languages ("Po" seems to be attested). - -sche (discuss) 22:42, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Support --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Support. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:44, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I know nothing about this, but, seeing three supporters and no opposition, I've effected it.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:35, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:nmn

To avoid one click character (/exclamation mark), we could rename this language from "ǃXóõ" to "Taa", the name Wikipedia gives it. It's very difficult to search for terms spelt with either click character or exclamation marks, but I found about 19 Google Books with "ǃXóõ language" in them, while "Taa language" gets about 50 Google Books hits, about 25 of which are scannos or references to unrelated things. Still, that means the two terms seem about as common. So, shall we rename to "Taa"? - -sche (discuss) 00:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Note: there remain a number of entries which contain "!Xóõ" (with exclamation mark). A robot should update these to either "ǃXóõ" (click) or "Taa" depending upon the outcome of this discussion. - -sche (discuss) 00:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if it helps but all books I have seen used !Xóõ. -- Liliana • 16:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Maro 19:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:khi-kun and Template:knw

The brief discussion of these templates last year was closed, without resolving the issue at hand, after only three comments — the nominator's suggestion of deletion, PK's noting but also questioning the distinction between them, and Daniel's closing comment. I propose that we should either only use the macro-language code {{khi-kun}} for entries in all three dialects, or we should keep the dialects separate and thus disuse {{khi-kun}}... but we shouldn't use both. Using both creates problems for our category structure and for {{langrev}} (as both are called ǃKung) and while there are ways of getting around this (rename one "ǃXun" or the other "Ekoka ǃKung" or such), it doesn't seem necessary to have the problem in the first place. - -sche (discuss) 03:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Category:en:Ordinal numbers

Why is this a topical category? It seems to me that it is mostly a homogeneous syntactic category. DCDuring TALK 20:35, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose the move. The members of the category act as adjectives. What makes them ordinal numbers is their semantics. For context, "It has been requested that this category be moved to English ordinal numbers". --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:40, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't Category:English ordinal numbers vote approved in the first place, then deleted by CodeCat without a vote (but with discussion, I may add). Mglovesfun (talk) 08:28, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Where was it approved? Did we make a blanket approval to regard "ordinal number" as a part of speech? It isn't so in any language that I know of. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:30, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Romani L2 header

We currently have categories for, and entries in, both the Romani language/macrolanguage {{rom}} and the dialect/sublanguage Kalo Finnish Romani {{rmf}}. There are six other Romani dialects with ISO codes, namely {{rmn}}, {{rml}}, {{rmc}}, {{rmo}}, {{rmy}}, {{rmw}}. WT:LANGTREAT currently says "only the macrolanguage Romani is treated as individual language". I'd like to change that so that both the macrolanguage and the dialects are considered individual languages (and translations may be added in any of them, etc), though most entries will continue to use the macrolanguage's L2 header. (Arabic is currently handled in this way.) - -sche (discuss) 08:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Alternatively, perhaps the best solution is to allow nested translations while keeping the languages merged under one L2 header. (For now. Obviously, if we ever get many contributors in different Romanis, we should reconsider.) That way, translations can show all the different lects' forms, and entries can use {{context}} and have ===Alternative forms=== with {{qualifier}}s, showing all the lects' forms in that way. Is there any objection to that? It is difficult to add notes to WT:LANGTREAT, but if there are no objections to this idea, I'll archive this discussion and add a link to it from WT:LANGTREAT#rom. - -sche (discuss) 17:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No objections. The Arabic solution seems good here. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:37, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Mom and apple pie

...should begin with a lowercase letter, right? And we should reduce the overlap (by linking between the entries better) of that entry, motherhood statement, motherhood and apple pie and flag, motherhood and apple pie. - -sche (discuss) 20:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

September 2012

homœothermic, homeothermic

Should these be merged? - -sche (discuss) 07:05, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes. - -sche (discuss) 10:52, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I. umbraticola

to Ipomoea umbraticola. Such taxonomic abbreviations are almost always used only in context, after the genus name has been introduced. Covering such abbreviations to help folks with out-of-context snippets would require that we have a sense for each genus beginning with "I" that has a species that uses the species epithet. We are far, far away from that capability. DCDuring TALK 23:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It would be potentially misleading to keep the redirect in this proposed move. DCDuring TALK 23:28, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

While we're at it, how about moving it to Ipomoea splendor-sylvae, which seems to be the correct name, per [4] and [5] (methinks Wikispecies is out of date).

This is the problem with having entries for scientific names: they imply knowledge of taxonomy that we don't have, for the most part. It's not something we can rfv for, since neither or both may be attested according to CFI. I know enough about botany of vascular plants and about some parts of zoology to find authoritative sources, but cladistics and molecular biology are radically rearranging taxonomy almost constantly these days, so what was true a year ago may be totally wrong next year.

As for the forms with the generic name represented by an initial: there a lots of genera that start with "I" (it's one of the rarer first initials, too), and there's nothing to say that they couldn't all have a species with the exact same epithet. It's not much of a problem with this species, but with common adjectives like alba, you could have a long list of senses, indeed- we should kill all such abbreviations before they multiply. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

We have a better chance focusing on the component words, especially the genera, and the vernacular names, but we already have 1-2,000 binomials and some thousands of names of tribes, subtribes, parvorders, phylla, etc. I am seeing the instability of the taxonomic structure as I work on these entries. I try to limit my new entries in this area to genera and vernacular names. But we should perform the service of tracking all the names, including the ones that don't fit into current thinking. Obsolete names are more stable! DCDuring TALK 03:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

@Chuck: I don't disagree with anything that you have said. The fundamental problem is that we define (have to define ?) each taxonomic name in terms of the taxonomic hierarchy, which is a bit less firm than I had realized. Our best contributions might be in etymology, synonymy, and in vernacular names. We might be able to collect vernacular names for the genera, species, and subspecies in the languages prevalent in the range of the species. But that compels us to work at the bushy end of the tree, at least for those genera that people can relate to at some level. DCDuring TALK 04:48, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I. umbellifera

to Inga umbellifera. As above. DCDuring TALK 23:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)`

Yes, never been voted on as far as I know, but there are precedents. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

See RfD discussion of B. splendens. DCDuring TALK 14:09, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

As there are no objections, moved with redirect retained, but I wouldn't mind if it were deleted. DCDuring TALK 14:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/seh₂wel-

should be merged with Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/sóh₂wl̥. The last is more complete. --Fsojic (talk) 11:59, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes I agree. Can you do the merge? —CodeCat 12:20, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Redirect or I suppose {{alternative form of}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:56, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Redirect --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:38, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

beon-wesan

I think bēon-wesan should be split into bēon and wesan. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 06:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed; the usage notes say that they are separate words, if that's true, why do we link them together with a hyphen as a single entry? Mglovesfun (talk) 09:03, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I assume because it was added in 2005 before the rules were clearly established and no one has questioned it since. There is also sēon apparently, which seems to be mixed into the conjugation just as much. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:59, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Sēon isn't really a separate verb as far as I can tell, but a regularisation of the infinitive based on the present tense forms. German and Dutch have a similar verb, but in those languages the attestations clearly show that it's a later invention, not inherited. —CodeCat 11:17, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article gives sindon rather than seon. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Is there an attestation of beon-wesan in an Old English text? If not, that would rather seal the deal. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a general consensus that lemmas do not have to be attested words, if their inflected forms are. We have languages for which the lemmas are bare stems, and also languages for which only the inflected forms have any attestations. So I don't see a problem with this entry on that principle alone. I do support splitting it because they are two distinct verbs, though. —CodeCat 16:54, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I meant the exact word 'beon-wesan'. I mean, what sort of inflected form would lead back to 'beon-wesan' anyway? Are any of them attested? Mglovesfun (talk) 18:37, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

No, there is no attestation for it. The entry was created with the intention of having a single page for both bēon and wesan. Widsith (who created the page) knows Old English well enough to know there's no compound bēon-wesan. Any information not currently at the two entries needs to be moved there, and then this page deleted. —Angr 19:06, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

To Mglovesfun: I know. What I meant to say is that even though 'beon-wesan' as a word isn't attested, that in itself doesn't mean it can't be used as the lemma form of some term, because we have many other lemmas that are not attested words either. —CodeCat 19:15, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

It gets tricky at that point! Back-forming infinitives from verb forms may be a scientific process, but it's not infallible either. I've done it for loads of Old French verbs, but I can think of at least one I've avoided, soloir, where soloit is attested but the infinitive doesn't have to be soloir as a result. So it's a question of what the reconstructed infinitive should be, not overall inclusion. Beon-wesan doesn't sound like a reconstruction we want to me! Mglovesfun (talk) 19:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

That is definitely true. In such a case we would probably include both and add a notice saying that there are other possible reconstructions. We've already done that for some Gothic words I think. But in any case, for Bantu languages like Swahili and Zulu, we have verbs and adjectives listed as bare stems, which are never encountered as words on their own. —CodeCat 19:53, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

• Just to add to this discussion, it's somewhat conventional to group these words together in modern guides. It's definitely lemmatised as beon-wesan in the standard Cambridge Old English Reader, and I believe that the Mitchell/Robinson grammar does the same thing, although I don't actually have a copy of that in front of me to check. Ƿidsiþ 05:44, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

In modern English this is a single suppletive verb (along with sēon). No doubt the roots were originally separate, but the fact that it's suppletive in German, too, leads me to think the transition from the completely independent stage predates Old English. In the present tense and the infinitive, they're indeed separate, but what about all the parts of the paradigm where only there's only one root? In a way, this is like Siamese twins- splitting is major surgery, which requires some thought as to how to deal with the parts that are shared.

Perhaps we should have a common beon-sēon-wesan entry, but follow the example of sēon in having separate entries for all three roots, too. It's complicated, but the reality that we're trying to represent is complicated, too. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:48, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The conjugation of this verb is unique; it merits its own template. Why not create a dedicated template (which contains the information already, rather than taking parameters), and in that template, use superscript numbers (I would have suggested colours, but as Neskaya would point out, that isn't accessible to everyone) to indicate which form derives from which verb? Then put the table on the pages of all three verbs. - -sche (discuss) 19:54, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

From a Germanic perspective there are two paradigms: *beuną with present *biumi and past *was, and *wesaną with present *immi and past *was. So they share the same past tense but have distinct present tenses. From what I can see, this is still pretty much the situation in Old English. This isn't actually the only verb to have this situation... flēon and flēogan also share a past tense, and so do the Germanic verbs *stāną/*standaną and *gāną/*ganganą. —CodeCat 20:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been trying to figure out the distribution of the different roots in the paradigm, but there's a lot of ambiguous overlap. Here's my best guess as to which forms belong to which root:

Infinitive
	sēon	wesan	bēon
Present Indicative
1st S	eom	eom	bēo/bēom
2nd S	eart	eart	bist
3rd S	is	is	biþ
P	sind,sindon, sint, earon	sind ,sindon, sint	bēoþ, earon
Present Subjunctive
S	sīe	sīe	bēo
P	sīen	sīen	bēon
Imperative
S	sī, sēo	wes	bēo
P	*	wesaþ	bēoþ
Present Participle
	wesende	wesende	wesende
Preterite Indicative
1st S	waes	waes	waes
2nd S	wǣre	wǣre	wǣre
3rd S	wæs	wæs	wæs
P	wǣron	wǣron	wǣron
Preterite Subjunctive
S	wǣre	wǣre	wǣre
P	wǣren	wǣren	wǣren

* Not attested

While working on this, I noticed that our entries for the above forms are a bit spotty and inconsistent with each other. I've collected the definition lines to give an overall picture of our coverage:

bēo	first-person singular active of bēon
bēo	first-person singular subjunctive of bēon
bēo	second-person singular subjunctive of bēon
bēo	third-person singular subjunctive of bēon
bēo	singular imperative of bēon
bēom	first-person singular form of bēon-wesan
bēon	to be
bēoþ	(no entry)
bist	(no entry)
biþ	third-person singular present of bēon-wesan
earon	third-person plural simple present tense of bēon-wesan
eart	second-person singular present indicative of bēon-wesan
eom	first-person singular present indicative of bēon
is	(no entry)
sēo	(no entry)
sēon	to be, used primarily in reference to God
sī	(no entry)
sīe	(no entry)
sīen	(no entry)
sind	(no entry)-
sindon	(no entry)
sint	(no entry)
wǣre	second-person preterite form of of bēon-wesan
wǣre	subjunctive preterite singular form of of bēon-wesan
wǣren	(no entry)
wǣron	preterite plural form of beon-wesan
wes	(no entry)
wesaþ	(no entry)
wesan	to be, exist
wesende	present participle of bēon-wesan

I apologize if I've overloaded the discussion with tables, but I thought it would be good to see what we have now so we can better decide how to change it. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:duh, Template:noi

{{duh}} and {{noi}} are varieties of the Bhilori language, but Bhilori does not have its own code. (The situation is analogous to that of Nahuatl, which does not have a single, unified code in ISO 639-3. Nahuatl had the ISO 639-2 code {{nah}}, however.) I suggest we merge the two, using one of the codes. (Failing that, {{duh}}-proper goes by several names other than "Dungra Bhil", and a rename may be in order.) - -sche (discuss) 05:46, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Darn! that spoils any chance to have a template for sarcastically commenting on content. After a long session of patrolling, that option sometimes starts to look almost obligatory...Chuck Entz (talk) 13:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

There's always {{wtf}} (and for good things, {{yay}}). :b No {{ugh}} yet, though. - -sche (discuss) 22:35, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

leger line

[[leger line]] should me merged with [[ledger line]] or vice versa. Not sure which is better. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:36, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has w:Ledger line. The {{wikipedia}} template's link at leger line goes to a redirect. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:52, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Lemming test: AHD has only [[ledger line]] and no mention of [[leger line]]; COD has the main entry at [[leger line]] and a cross-reference thereto at [[ledger line]]. Google gives marginally more hits for "ledger line" than "leger line" at .uk sites (4760 vs. 3040) and considerably more (1370 vs. 276) at .edu sites (which I assume are all American). Unrestricted for site locations, I get 84,100 hits with the "d" and 46,500 without it, so maybe it would be safest to make [[leger line]] an {{alternative spelling of}} [[ledger line]]. —Angr 14:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I didn't remember this, but apparently I looked into these two spellings five years ago at w:Talk:Ledger line#Leger, ledger and discovered that "ledger" is the etymological spelling; the lines are so called because they were written in a ledger, not because they are light, slender, slim, or trivial. —Angr 14:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Appendix:English words of Korean origin

...should be Appendix:English terms of Korean origin. (Alternatively, Appendix:English terms of Persian origin should be Appendix:English words of Persian origin.) - -sche (discuss) 23:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Move to "terms". --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:44, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:proscribed

We're not a proscriptive dictionary, right? So why are we labeling senses as (proscribed)? I suggest that we merge this with the more descriptive {{nonstandard}}. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:39, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

We don't proscribe. {{proscribed}} indicates that many people proscribe it not that we do. Nonstandard is not the same thing as proscribed. In English, for example, there is no standard so it makes no sense to label things as nonstandard but there are words that are proscribed. In other languages, there can be words that differ from the standard but are not proscribed. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 06:30, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

That's mostly right. We do label things as "nonstandard" in English (e.g. hoi polloi's second sense). But "proscribed" is different in that it means, as you note, that some other authority (not us) actually proscribes the usage. On good days, we even specify which authority in usage notes. - -sche (discuss) 07:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

In English, from a descriptive perspective, "nonstandard" and "proscribed" are potentially useful. It is objectively true that some people view certain grammar, spelling, and pronunciation as "bad English", which we soften to "nonstandard" or "proscribed". In some ways, "proscribed" is better because it more readily causes a user to ask "by whom". This forces us to get outside of our own idiolects and find some support for the tag. On what authority do we label things as "nonstandard"? Where is the standard? We have a lot of trouble even doing something as simple as labeling something a common misspelling, rather than an alternative spelling, but there are plenty who view some spellings as simply wrong.

Moreover, I am reasonably sure that many users want such information. It is one of those areas that leads users to put comments on talk pages, Feedback, Info desk, and TR.

Empirically, I think we would find that "proscribed" seems mostly to be used for matters of grammar and style on which we can find authorities to opine and "nonstandard" seems to mean we are relying on our own unsupported community opinion. DCDuring TALK 10:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

We should describe usage as well as definition, so things like formal, colloquial, slang (etc.) should be noted. I do struggle a bit with this. I never use it, and use nonstandard. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem with labeling a sense as "proscribed" is that, as Metaknowledge implies, it makes it sound like we are proscribing it. I prefer to write "sometimes proscribed" or "often proscribed", which I think makes it a bit clearer that we're talking about other people's proscriptions. And probably "condemned" or "criticized" would be better than "proscribed". —Ruakh_TALK 19:42, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I am adding {{loosely}} to capture one class of "proscribed" or "disputed" usage. See WT:TR#dilemma. DCDuring TALK 15:47, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

K This is useful. Proscribed is stronger than nonstandard, and implies some different qualities. (Loosely is quite different, implying that a given definition is being applied less strictly.)

• Nonstandard is omitted from standards, while proscribed is prohibited by them.
• Nonstandard may be casual but correct, while proscribed is considered wrong.
• Nonstandard may be acceptably used to reflect regionalism, dialect, or jargon, while proscribed reflects broken language.

As with other labels, qualifiers sometimes, often – or more often rarely or chiefly – convey the frequency of the usage. It’s incorrect to try to use them only to assign blame elsewhere. If someone wants to know exactly what the label means, the glossary is a click away.

It’s lexicography, not physics. Word usage is a series of greys, not black and white, and the dictionary benefits from editors’ opinions, moderated by the wiki process. —Michael Z. 2013-04-02 16:21 z

But we apparently don't have enough English contributors, at least ones who care about this, to actually keep this from being used improperly. About a third of the applications in English seem wrong by my lights. If we can't maintain it, should we permit it? DCDuring TALK 17:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

information velocity

I think all three definitions can be merged. If not, then at least the third can merge with the second. The definitions are:

1. (physics) The speed at which information is transmitted through a particular medium
2. (marketing) The speed of information flow about a product in a market
3. (financial markets) The rate at which information that influences the price of securities in informationally efficient markets moves through the market.

--WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:14, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

• Either merge, or delete (as sum of parts). SemperBlotto (talk) 15:21, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
• We've typically handled contentious merging of senses at WT:RFD, leaving this page for merging of pages. Anyway, delete the entry AFAICT.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not really sure if the first definition can be considered the same thing as the others. It seems doubtful that a physicist and someone in marketing would use it with the same meaning, considering the vast difference between the two fields and the way in which physicists have specific definitions for things. In particular, a physicist would not talk about information flow from person to person, but through a medium such as a vacuum or air. The other two definitions can be merged, though. —CodeCat 20:04, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:tsz, Template:pua

Campbell considers these one language; I think they should be merged. (Failing that, {{tsz}} needs to be renamed "Eastern Purepecha".) I suggest using {{pua}} as the code for unified "Purepecha". - -sche (discuss) 01:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

PS if there are not merged, they should at least be grouped: Category:English terms derived from Purepecha and Category:English terms derived from Western Highland Purepecha are currently separate top-level subcategories of Category:English terms derived from other languages, alongside varied language families. - -sche (discuss) 01:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Merged. - -sche (discuss) 11:04, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

פעלד

[[פעלד]] should be moved back to [[פֿעלד]]. Can someone do this in a way that preserves the history as I don't have the right permissions? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:53, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. —Angr 11:29, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 08:45, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:iu, Template:ikt

WP's page on Inuvialuk seems to suggest that these codes refer to the same language, but I gather the first may actually designate a macrolanguage that encompasses both {{ikt}} and {{ike}}. Is this correct? If so, is this desirable? - -sche (discuss) 03:06, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

My understanding of this is that {{ikt}} and {{ike}} should be deprecated in favor of {{iu}}. However, I don't have much experience with these languages, so I can't judge very well. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:11, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I would lean towards retiring the macro-code in favour of the specific codes, but I, too, know little of the languages. WP has separate pages for Eastern Canadian Inuktitut and Western Canadian Inuktitut, but gives the same ISO 639-1 and -2 codes for them. There are spelling differences (angatkuq and angakkuq derive letter-for-letter from the two lects), but it's hard to guess if they would be better handled by {{qualifier}}s than by separate headers. Anyone know if inflection is different? - -sche (discuss) 05:28, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

According to WT:LANGTREAT, only the macrolanguage is treated as a language. - -sche (discuss) 23:01, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:xkl

It seems more common to call this language Bakung, rather than the positively uncitable Mainstream Kenyah that we are currently using. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:02, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Good catch. It's also good to rename it because we try to avoid terms like "standard" or "mainstream" in language names.

Despite the messy state of our African "Kung" languages, I don't see any naming conflicts.

This language was, in fact, called "Bakung Kenyah" when it was {{boc}} (before the ISO retired that code). - -sche (discuss) 05:19, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

This is our only language name starting with 'Mainstream'. I have nominated two languages starting with 'Standard' for deletion at WT:RFDO pursuant to this conversation. By the way, when you delete a language template and the corresponding category and subcategories (like Template:ekk and Category:Standard Estonian language), you need to remember to delete its subpages and fix its langrev (that is, the ilk of Template:ekk/script and Template:langrev/Standard Estonian). (In this case, I fixed it myself.) 20:57, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I have renamed the language, and fixed the entries which transclude it and a number of categories, but a number of derivations categories rename to be "moved" (aka delete the "Kenyah" ones and create "Bakung" ones). - -sche (discuss) 08:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Category:tr:Repeating terms

Should be moved to a more linguistic form, like Category:tr:Reduplicated terms. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:35, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Standard title would be Category:Turkish reduplications, no? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:59, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

nineteen eighty-four

should use caps -- Liliana • 17:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes it's cited as such. I think I'd've just moved it with no prior discussion. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:57, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:kek

Should be renamed from "Kekchí" to "Kekchi" (which is the most common name of the language, when old reference works are considered) or to "Q'eqchi'" (which is also markedly more common than "Kekchí", and may equal or surpass "Kekchi" in commonality in newer — post-1995 — reference works). - -sche (discuss) 00:39, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Rename to Q'eqchi. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:15, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Category:English lexicons to Category:English terms by usage

This seems more clear than the rather vague 'lexicon' which the average user will probably not understand. We should probably rename Category:English etymologies to Category:English terms by etymology too, and Category:English parts of speech to Category:English terms by part of speech while we're at it. —CodeCat 17:20, 20 September 2012 (UTC) (Note: It's implied that the categories for other languages will be renamed, too) —CodeCat 17:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

don't cry over spilt milk

I think this should be moved to cry over spilt milk as a base lemma form. For extensions of the phrase with various verbs and the like, see google:"* cry over spilt milk. At least, cry over spilt milk should not be a redirect, IMHO. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:59, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Support move, with don't cry over spilt milk being left as a redirect. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:16, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:zza, Template:diq, Template:kiu

If we treat zza as a language, why do we also treat diq and kiu as languages? (Or: if we treat diq and kiu as separate languages, why do we also treat zza as one?) - -sche (discuss) 18:13, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I have merged diq and kiu into zza. - -sche (discuss) 00:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

In the past, I had the impression that templates were kept even after codes were merged (i.e. Template:diq and Template:kiu would be kept even though the languages are covered by the code zza). Is my impression incorrect? If not, should we reconsider, and delete templates like Template:diq to prevent them from being used by mistake? - -sche (discuss) 19:08, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I think my impression must be incorrect, because Template:mo was deleted. - -sche (discuss) 19:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:etyl:nic-kwa, Template:etyl:alv-kwa

These seem to be the same family, one template attaching it to Atlantic-Congo, and the other to Niger-Congo. I believe Atlantic-Congo is just the central branch of Niger-Congo, but I'm not sure if that's the complete picture.

Things have changed a lot since I took an African Languages class at UCLA in the 1980s, but I'm having trouble sorting out what the current accepted view is. Wikipedia seems to be talking past itself a lot as far as the higher-level classifications of African languages go, so different articles describe them in several different, semi-inconsistent ways. It's often hard to tell how one organizational scheme relates to another, or even if they're talking about the same things.

At any rate, we need to choose one template, whichever one it is, and it wouldn't hurt to look at the other nic-, alv- and related templates to try and make coherent sense out of them as a whole (if it helps any, the alv-kwa template is far more widely used). Chuck Entz (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Input needed: This discussion needs further input in order to be successfully closed. Please take a look!

klatch and klatsch

One should presumably be merged into the other. —Ruakh_TALK 19:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

cleptocrac­­­­­­­­­­­­­­y

Hi, this entry, cleptocrac­­­­­­­­­­­­­­y, has some invisible characters between the final "c" and "y" (as shown by the %C2%AD characters in the browser URL bar when viewing the entry), can someone move it to a clean title? Thanks. /Ch1902 (talk) 11:12, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done. There seem to have been a bunch of soft hyphens in it for some reason. —Angr 11:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

take it easy

I think [[take it easy]] and [[have it easy]] should be respectively moved to [[take it]] and [[have it]] since they can both be used with other adjectives (or are they adjectives being used as adverbs?). For example: take it slow, have it bad, etc. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Two of the three senses at [[take it easy]] relates to the conventional use of the imperative, which conventional uses are idioms, as some idiom dictionaries show.

As to the other sense, there is nothing special about "it" in this case. Many nominals can occupy its slot: "I take this kind of request personally.", "He took her deciding to leave hard". I think we already have the right sense of take#Verb. I would replace the definition with {{&lit|take|easy}}. DCDuring TALK 14:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I can concede that sense #3 is idiomatic. But sense #2 is really just a particular use for sense #1. Also, "I'm gonna stay home and take it easy." and "I was criticized but did not take it personally." do not use the same sense of "take it". --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

But it is conventionalized.

I can't find applicable definitions of take it at Collins or RHU, the only two credible OneLook dictionaries that cover it among the five references that have entries. Do you mean of take#Verb? I think they do. Something like "receive or accept". DCDuring TALK 15:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Since when do we do things exactly like other dictionaries? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

have it easy

There are certainly fewer nominals that seem to fit the "it" slot, but "life" and various periods of time ("the rest of the day") do. If you allow for other adjectivals (eg, ready, available, pending, full, outstanding, interested, comparable[+complement], like[+complement], similar[+complement]), it doesn't seem very special at all. DCDuring TALK 14:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

If I say "He has it ready." without context, you will wonder what "it" is. If I say "He has it easy." or "He has it bad.", you unambiguously know that I am referring to his quality of life. It may seem that "it" simply refers to "life", but you can't say "He has life easy." It's the same sort of abstract "it" as in "It is raining." You can try say that "it" refers to the sky but that doesn't really work either. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:19, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:en:Onomatopoeia to Category:English onomatopoeias

Whether something is an onomatopoeia or not is not so much a topic as it is an etymology: the word was coined for its imitative sound. So it really belongs as a subcategory of Category:English etymologies. (The categories for all other languages would be renamed analogically.) —CodeCat 00:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Move per nom. DCDuring TALK 03:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Move all per CodeCat. —Angr 12:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Support, I seem to think I brought this up once on the Tea Room, but never followed up on it. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Moved. —CodeCat 20:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

October 2012

tail between one's legs

Per talk page, isn't with one's tail between one's legs more grammatical? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Couldn't you say: "He has his tail between his legs."? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The problem is, it can also be used as the object of have or have got: "to have one's tail between one's legs", "he's got his tail between his legs", etc., so with isn't an indispensable part of the idiom. —Angr 13:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps one's tail between one's legs? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(one's) tail between one's legs is used as a modifer, both between commas and attributively with hyphens. There's also have one's tail between one's legs. Less common are other verbs like tuck, keep, put, and stick. Redirects and usage examples with the varied embodiments of the metaphor seem appropriate, not moving it. DCDuring TALK 13:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

[[one's tail between one's legs]] sounds good. Also, the definition is inadequate. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Browsing through the b.g.c. hits, I also find "his tail between his legs" used in an absolute construction ("He went home, his tail between his legs, to face his family"), but with other verbs like tuck, keep, put, and stick, as well as in the phrase "his tail was between his legs", I'm only finding it being used literally of a dog, not in the figurative sense applied to a tailless bipedal primate. —Angr 13:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't that mean that "His tail between is between his legs." (or with any other form of to be) also exists? I can't seem to find anything on Google Books though. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Note, I had not seen Angr's edit when I wrote that. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The entry says the PoS is an Adverb. It is a nominal that can be used in various ways. It might be best to call it a phrase. I have added a redirect from with one's tail between one's legs and an alt form entry at tail-between-one's legs. My feelings won't be hurt if they are deleted because the discussion leads to a resolution incompatible with them. DCDuring TALK 14:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

who are you and what have you done with someone

Move to who are you and what have you done with? 'Someone' isn't literally part of the phrase, is it? —CodeCat 00:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

No, usually a complement that falls outside the more set part of a phrase is omitted unless it conveys information such as reflexivity. The sole value of someone is to convey the idea that it relates to a person, but that is adequately accomplished by you, IMO. DCDuring TALK 02:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this just a snowclone? Chuck Entz (talk) 05:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but there is no per se reason to exclude them, provided we can come up with a meaningful headword. The biggest problem with most snowclones is that many of them have two or more slots that have some particular semantic relationship. We have not found a way of representing such snowclones that seemed likely to help normal user. DCDuring TALK 05:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

blond, blonde

One of these should use trans-see so the translations aren't duplicated, even if the senses are. - -sche (discuss) 07:08, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. - -sche (discuss) 03:20, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Appendix:Palindromic words

Discussion moved from WT:RFC#Appendix:Palindromic words.

I wasn't the person who added the cleanup template, but it doesn't seem to be here so I'll add it. I'd suggest separate annexes for each language. Appendix:English Palindromes or Palindromes in English. Mglovesfun 10:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think mixing all the languages into one appendix is a good idea either. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Some languages have only a handful of terms. Perhaps we should separate out those languages with large numbers (English, Swedish, Korean, etc.). bd2412 T 19:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Relisted. - -sche (discuss) 07:11, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

's#English

This should be moved to -'s, which is currently a redirect, for all senses. It's not expressed on its own, so as a clitic or suffix or whatever, it needs to be lemmatised with the hyphen. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:08, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Support for the genitive; not sure for the contractions. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 00:26, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The contractions are only used as clitics and never on their own (except maybe in some obscure dialects). --WikiTiki89 (talk) 06:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Move. (There may remain an English section at [['s]], because I'm reasonably sure that some senses of standalone 's meet the CFI as eye dialect — here's one use on b.g.c. — but the main entry belongs at [[-'s]].) —Ruakh_TALK 20:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Also the following: [['ve]], [['m]], [['re]], [['d]], [['ll]], and maybe others I'm missing. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 08:28, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Support 's, oppose the others as they are clitic forms separate words. —CodeCat 11:25, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

But don't we usually use hyphens for clitics? The hyphen merely shows that clitic should be attached to something and these "words" are very rarely found on their own. Like Ruakh said, the ones that are attestable on their own should remain but all the clitic forms should have their own entries with hyphens. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:32, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

For the record: move all of Wikitiki's as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:27, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

's#Dutch

The second part of 's#Dutch (not stuff like 's winters, but the senses with examples like Anna's or taxi's) ought to be moved to -'s, for the same reasons as #'s#English. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:08, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

honor, honour

The definitions need to be synced up, and the translations of honor#Verb should be moved to honour#Verb (simply because that's where most of the translations already are). (Making one an alternative form of the other is, I understand, out of the question.) - -sche (discuss) 17:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Appendix:Proto-Slavic/(j)ęzykъ

I suggest this be moved to [[Appendix:Proto-Slavic/językъ]] or [[Appendix:Proto-Slavic/ęzykъ]]. If we choose the latter, then [THIS WORD IS CENSORED DUE TO ITS EXTREME VULGARITY], which also starts with an optional /j/, should also be moved to [THIS WORD IS CENSORED DUE TO ITS EXTREME VULGARITY]. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 12:12, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Could we avoid the censorship, please? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

It was mostly a joke. But if you're too lazy to mouse over the links then here you go: Appendix:Proto-Slavic/jebati to Appendix:Proto-Slavic/ebati only if "ęzykъ" is chosen over "językъ". --WikiTiki89 (talk) 06:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Was in fact thinking of WT:NOT. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:hnh

We currently call this lect "ǁAni". ǁAni is one part of a dialect continuum, the other part being Khwe proper. We currently call Khwe proper ({{xuu}}) "Kxoe". I propose that we could merge the two lects under the name "Khwe", the name Wikipedia uses. "Khwe" is well attested; "Khwe language" gets 130+ BGC hits, "speak Khwe" and "spoke Khwe" get two each; "ǁAni" is hard to search for, but e.g. the scanno "IIAni" ("II" being a common OCR misinterpretation of "ǁ") gets only a handful of relevant hits. "Kxoe" gets 117 BGC hits. Renaming to "Khwe" also allows us to avoid a click character. Please consider also commenting on #WT:RFM#Template:nmn. - -sche (discuss) 20:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, the difference between the various dialects of the Khwe continuum is supposedly large. On the third hand, however, it is unclear to what extent it is helpful to arbitrarily separate out only {{hnh}} and {{xuu}}. - -sche (discuss) 18:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Struck; the status quo shall continue. - -sche (discuss) 06:13, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

tsaddik

The spelling tzadik is by far the most common. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the spelling tzaddik is by far the most common. (Google Ngram Viewer: tzaddik, tzadik, tsaddik, tsadik; Google Ngram Viewer: Tzaddik, Tzadik, Tsaddik, Tsadik) —Ruakh_TALK 12:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Then the number of results here and here must be a glitch. I never understood why Google botches the numbers all the time. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 12:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Google-counts are incredibly unreliable, but the Ngram Viewer uses books up through the year 2000, so it's at least theoretically possible that the proportions on the Web are genuinely different. However, my impression is that the hits at google:"tzadik" are, by and large, not actually using it as an English word, whereas a fair proportion of the hits for "tzaddik" are; this is probably enough to account for the discrepancy. —Ruakh_TALK 14:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know, the discrepancy is quite large (1,780,000 vs 192,000). The only way I think you can account for it is if Google is finding results that don't actually contain "tzadik". But regardless, can we get this moved to tzaddik then? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• Move to zaddik or tzaddik, keeping "tsaddik" as an alternative form. Here is Google Ngram Viewer for tzaddik,tzadik,tsaddik,tsadik,zaddik. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

  I vote tzaddik. --WikiTiki89 18:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done. I find it ironic that even after all this discussion, nobody bothered to clean up the entry. I did that, and I also cleaned up the citable alt-forms and their irregular plurals. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:41, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:English dated terms

Move to Category:English terms with dated senses. I doubt words like and are dated. -- Liliana • 19:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Right. The result of sense level tags being presumed to apply to an entire language section. Needs to be adjusted in this way case by case. DCDuring TALK 22:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

To clarify: Each context-based categorization needs to be evaluated individually. The same really should apply to topical categorization.

A good new category might be "[Language] terms without current usage". Terms with only definitions with "obsolete" tags would be the first to be placed in it, possibly by bot. Entries using {{defdate}} might be lacking appropriate "obsolete" tags and some terms, especially alternative forms with digraphs and diaereses might need review for such categorization. I wonder how many English entries would fall in that category. I would expect that some users of our dumps might like to be able to remove some of those entries from their application databases. DCDuring TALK 17:08, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Move per nom. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC) Disagree. As per discussion in Beer Parlor, it seems better to keep categories like Category:English dated terms as such, for terms which are entirely dated (rather than for terms with a few dated senses, which should get their own category, or none at all). --Pereru (talk) 20:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:huc

We currently this language "ǂHõã". I propose renaming it to the more common "ǂHoan". (With apologies to Widsith and Wikitiki, I couldn't find any name that both didn't contain clicks and wasn't vanishingly rare.) - -sche (discuss) 20:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I actually have no problem with using these terms. I would have preferred if we didn't call them English though, but I'm unfortunately not a dictator here. --WikiTiki89 10:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I've renamed the template. - -sche (discuss) 19:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Is there any reason the 'H' is capital? I think it should be moved to happy New Year, which currently redirects to it. --WikiTiki89 12:28, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Move per nomination. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

godforsaken

god-forsaken

These entries should be merged in some way. --WikiTiki89 15:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

In the absence of attestation the less common sense should just be an alternative form. COCA and BNC are the tools for choice for such determinations for modern English. The more common form should contain all the actual definitions. Attestation could show that one or more of the senses is more commonly attested in the overall-less-common form and/or that one form was more common during some period (COHA and Google N-gram can help with the historical usage. DCDuring TALK 16:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Tribus

There is no reason I know for this to be capitalized. It is the translingual term for the taxonomic level known in English as tribe. DCDuring TALK 02:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm honestly not sure why the entry exists. Move or delete. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Deletion is not an option here. tribus is just another taxonomic level, between genus#Translingual and familia#Translingual, where it coexists with supergenus#Translingual, subtribus#Translingual, subfamilia#Translingual, etc. There are quote a number more of these than one might think and new ones seem to be invented from time to time. DCDuring TALK 20:42, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Glossary:List of Hiberno-English colloquialisms from Waterford

Could an admin experienced with mergers please properly merge the history of:

• (1 from) Glossary:List of Hiberno-English colloquialisms from Waterford

into:

• (2 to) Appendix:Glossary of Hiberno-English slang and jargon ?

I’ve copied the contents over (into a new Waterford section), but the first page has substantianl history, which needs retaining. As I recall, history merges are rather tricky, and since I rarely do them, I thought it best to entrust to someone more experienced with these, if possible. Thanks!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 03:45, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Done, using my method of moving the history of the other page to the little-used talk page, so as not to clutter the history of the main page. - -sche (discuss) 06:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks -sche!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 10:02, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

November 2012

Members of Category:Ankave nouns

Currently, every single one of the entries in this category (we only have nouns in Ankave, so every Ankave entry) happens to have at least one glottal stop. Ptcamn (talk • contribs) who entered them used the apostrophe ( ' ) for the glottal stops, but the only modern authoritative treatments I can find on Ankave (example) use the hanging acute instead ( ´ ). For example, our abia' mɨ'xɨrɨ' is rendered as abia´ mɨ´xɨrɨ´ in these documents. I suggest that we move all of these to the latter spelling (leaving redirects, because it's highly unlikely another language will interfere given the orthography). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:21, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Strongly agree (assuming SIL is a highly reliable source). Mglovesfun (talk) 23:24, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

like taking candy from a baby

I think this should be moved to candy from a baby. --WikiTiki89 13:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Why? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Because I think "candy from a baby" can be attested outside of the whole phrase and the "like taking" part is pretty SOP. --WikiTiki89 18:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't remove the verb. Take is much, much more common than steal or alternatives. I'm not sure whether this should be at [[take candy from a baby]] or [[taking candy from a baby]]. The inflected forms other than taking are not very common and seem to me more of a conceptual metaphor than and set phrase. The existence of taking-candy-from-a-baby and [be] taking candy from a baby suggests that the like is not essential, though like taking candy from a baby is by far the most common form and deserves a redirect and a usage example, IMO. DCDuring TALK 20:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requested entries (Chinese) to Wiktionary:Requested entries (Mandarin)

We no longer treat Chinese as a language on Wiktionary, so this should probably be moved. I don't know if everything on the page is Mandarin, though, so it should be checked. —CodeCat 18:57, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, move then check. I can see three entries which explicitly say 'Cantonese', the rest are either explicitly Mandarin, or implicitly Mandarin. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:21, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

But many of them have overlap. It might be more productive just to keep them all on one page. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Is overlap such a bad thing? The idea of having request pages is to show what needs to be done for that language. Most people who edit Chinese dialects will know only Mandarin, so if they add Mandarin and remove the link, what happens to someone who comes along and wants to add Cantonese entries? If we mix the languages up then that picture is no longer as clear. Imagine if we had one page for both English and Scots! —CodeCat 02:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

There are cases where the requester doesn't know the dialect, having found it referenced in a book or movie somewhere, or in a menu at a restaurant, so there should be a category for such requests. Also, there may be requests for a specific Han character, so there should be a category for those. Don't forget that most people outside of Asia and Asian communities abroad aren't well-versed in the distinctions between the different dialects. Being rigorous about such distinctions in entries and translation tables is absolutely appropriate, but request categories should be looser to accommodate those who don't know the right question to ask. I would favor merging as proposed, but also adding one category for Chinese (unknown dialect), and one for Han character (if we don't already have those already). Chuck Entz (talk) 02:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It's also possible that someone finds a word in any other language but don't know which language it is in. If I came across something written in Devanagari, I wouldn't know whether to add the request to Sanskrit, Hindi or something else. So Chinese is not special at all in that regard. —CodeCat 02:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

What makes Chinese different is that they have a language name that they have every reason to believe is correct based on common usage. I wouldn't mind having vague categories like "Languages of India" or "Middle Eastern Languages", especially for requests in transliteration. I might cringe a bit if I ran across a request to translate a word like "wee-wish" from "Indian", though. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, we don't have Wiktionary:Requested entries (West Germanic) or Wiktionary:Requested entries (Iberian). Mglovesfun (talk) 10:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

pedagogic

I request that "pedagogical" is made the main entry, while "pedagogic" a secondary entry, per Google Ngram Viewer. Google Ngram Viewer shows "pedagogical" as more common in English, in British English, and in Americam English.

Thus, the translations should be hosted at pedagogical. To do that, one can proceed thus: 1) delete "pedagogical"; 2) move "pedagogic" to "pedagogical" (which includes translations), 3) create "pedagogic". --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Support —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:04, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Move etc per nom. DCDuring TALK 08:35, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Does this require a formal process as no content is being actually removed, only some edit history? DCDuring TALK 08:38, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I wouldn't delete either entry, I would just copy and paste the translates with an edit summary saying "import translations from pedagogic; see that entry for edit history". - -sche (discuss) 09:09, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Yep, editing entries is still ok. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:46, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Appendix:Proto-Western Malayo-Polynesian (subpages)

The templates and categories for this alleged language family and its proto-language have been nominated for deletion, and these should go, too, for the same reason: this is pretty much a geographical classification defined by the lack of the innovations that characterize branches that have split off in the move eastward. In most cases, there's no difference from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.

These subpages should be either merged with their Proto-Malayo-Polynesian counterparts, or converted to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian forms and moved to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian in the cases where we have no entries for the counterparts. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Template:nds, Template:nds-de, Template:nds-nl

After several discussions (see here), the one Low German lect spoken in Germany which the ISO/SIL gave a separate code, {{wep}}, was merged into {{nds}}. All of the Dutch Low German/Saxon lects were merged into {{nds-nl}}. ({{frs}}, which we currently use for a Frisian lect but which the ISO might have intended to signify a Low German lect, is being sorted out separately. And {{pdt}} remains unchanged.) Since Wiktionary has long coded the Dutch varieties of Low German as {{nds-nl}}, {{nds}} is currently used for the German varieties only... but its name implies that it represents all the varieties. Therefore, at CodeCat's suggestion, I created {{nds-de}}, and we propose that {{nds}} be replaced with {{nds-de}}. In addition, we propose that {{nds-de}} be renamed from "Low German" to "German Low German", and that {{nds-nl}} be renamed from "Dutch Low Saxon" to "Dutch Low German". (Or, if you have a better idea for names, suggest them!) Updating templates like {{t}} etc. to handle {{nds-de}}, just as they handle {{nb}}, should not be a problem. - -sche (discuss) 04:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I tentatively support. I don't think we can really completely abandon a common code, as there are many etymologies and such that rely on there being a single common Low German language. We could decide to create {{etyl:gmw-nds}} to stand for the Low German "family" of languages and give it two members, but I'm not sure if that is a good solution. —CodeCat 16:58, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it should be possible to pin a lot of etymologies down to one or the other; remember that most things borrowed from the Hansa should be Middle Low German, {{gml}}, not any kind of modern Low German. For the rest, we could either create a family code (we already have etymologies which say things like "from a Germanic language", "from a Slavic language"), or just list both nds-de and nds-nl, the way some etymologies say "from German [x] or Dutch [y]". - -sche (discuss) 06:36, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The end of Middle Low German is normally considered to coincide with the end of the Hanseatic league, so that should be ok. Could you have a look at Category:Terms derived from Low German to see if there are any that don't belong there? We can then have a look at what to do with the remainder. —CodeCat 19:42, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

OK. I've reworked steik and changed redda, redde and šaht to show that derivation occurred during the MLG period. I've changed Nele to {{nds-de}}. That empties cat:Scots, cat:Icelandic and cat:Estonian (for now). I've made a first but not final pass through cat:Danish, moving 4 items to MLG. I also changed bom to {{nds-de}}, emptying cat:Lower Sorbian. - -sche (discuss) 23:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

So far, the only entries which apparently derive from modern Low German without clearly deriving from one lect or the other (e.g. Lower Sorbian terms can be assumed to have derived from German Low German) are homard and melek. I have put both {{nds-de}} and {{nds-nl}} in those entries for now; this can be changed to a family code if necessary. Also, I've been sorting easy cases first, so there may be more unclear cases. - -sche (discuss) 18:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC) - -sche (discuss) 19:28, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

For the first... is there a date of first attestation? If it was borrowed early enough we'll know it was borrowed straight from MLG. We can also consider how French could have borrowed a Low German word after the time of the Hanseatic league, as the two were not in contact. It's more likely that the borrowing occurred via Dutch, as the two are in direct contact, and certainly not via High German as there are no High German dialects spoken in places with lobsters. —CodeCat 18:49, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Right, I'm rooting around for early attestations of the word to see if that can be determined. So far, the earliest mention I've found is in The Royal Dictionary abridged, in two parts: I. French and English. II. English and French. (5th edition, 1728), which glosses it as "a great lobster". Incidentally, "grote zeekreeft" was how de Vries glosses hommer; I take it the loanwords are somewhat more specific than the native écrevisse and kreeft, respectively? - -sche (discuss) 19:26, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

this site based on Littré cites another reference work, the Encyclopédie Universelle, which has the word attested since 1532 in the form houmar. It claims derivation from Old Norse, but obviously that doesn't stop us from adding "via..." if we know better. - -sche (discuss) 19:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

That's early enough to be from MLG, and it's actually more likely that it is, because of the /u/ which is retained in MLG but changed to /o/ in Middle Dutch (from which later French homar(d)?). I do believe that the Dutch word, itself, was first borrowed from MLG around the same time, so it's possible that the French word was at first taken straight from MLG, but later re-borrowed or re-formed from the Dutch word. —CodeCat 20:17, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

That sounds likely. I've edited homard and hommer; please edit them further as you see fit. Btw, I also found this explicitly rejecting direct derivation from Old Norse (which the other dictionary implied by its omission of any "via") and confirming (Middle) Low German as the intermediary. - -sche (discuss) 20:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Another candidate for {{etyl:gmw-nds}}: appelsin (and Apfelsine), which came via Low German from Dutch. - -sche (discuss) 10:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

If that was borrowed from German Low German, then we have the interesting situation that the word was borrowed from one Low German into the other...

Aside from that, I noticed we already have {{etyl:gmw-lge}} which is supposed to be a single code for Old Saxon, Middle Low German and modern Low German varieties. I'm not really sure how that code could be used, considering that we can't use such a code to specify a term; we can only use it if we don't know the term. Maybe we should get rid of it and use {{etyl:gmw-nds}} instead? —CodeCat 14:11, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

re appelsin: Yeah, it's a case where a family template, as you suggested earlier, could be neater. Then again, many words can be discerned to have been borrowed between more closely (American English lent British English [[hex]]) or less closely (Dutch sent German [[Küste]]) related lects, so I wouldn't actually mind Apfelsine being "from {{etyl|nds-de|de}}, from {{etyl|nds-nl|de}}, from {{etyl|nl|de}}", since we're giving these lects distinct codes, like Luxembourgish vs German. That might even be more appropriate, given that we know it is the case. {{etyl:gmw-nds}} could be reserved for unclear cases, like [[melek]].

re {{etyl:gmw-lge}}: I noticed it, it is odd... it was designed to replace {{LG.}}, which was designed to let people copy etymologies from dictionaries (especially of French and Norwegian) which indicate loans as "b. all." or "lty." regardless of the era of borrowing. I've been replacing it with more specific things whenever possible; most uses are Scandinavian and should be {{gml}}. I agree that we should orphan and delete it. - -sche (discuss) 22:25, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Now that the etymologies of amper, busserull, byge, lover, snekker and svikk have been changed to use more specific templates, the only pages which use {{etyl:gmw-lge}} are project pages. - -sche (discuss) 02:50, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's an interesting one: lover, which is said to be from Low German, but only attested since 1678. :/ - -sche (discuss) 10:02, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

(language) diminutives / (language) noun diminutive forms to (language) diminutive nouns

And the same for augmentatives, too. 'Diminutives' is too vague, as there can be different parts of speech that are diminutive and I don't think we'd want to lump them all together. On the other hand, a diminutive isn't really a form in the sense that we use. A diminutive isn't an inflection of a noun and doesn't belong to a paradigm, rather it's generally a noun all in its own right and may have a meaning that is not predictable from its base. —CodeCat 16:43, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Support move. We just have to edit {{diminutive of}} and delete the old cats, right? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I suppose for consistency we should rename the categories for other parts of speech too, but I didn't think to include them and they are not as common. (Dutch has a productive way to form diminutive adverbs, though) —CodeCat 22:02, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Moved. —CodeCat 13:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:fuf, Template:fuc, and Template:ff

These beguilingly named, closely related West African lects (one is called "Pular", one is "Pulaar") seem to quite possibly just be dialects of {{ff}} (Fula). It also seems possible that Fula is pluricentric and really a sort of macrolanguage that needs to be split up. Pulaar has a bunch of entries, Fula has a couple, and Pular has none. However, entries like Haalpulaar suggest that {{fuf}} and {{fuc}}, at least, are even considered to be the same language by Pula(a)r speakers themselves. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:58, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Merge all to {{ff}} -- Liliana • 22:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Merge into {{ff}}. Also consider: Template:ffm, Template:fue, Template:fuh, Template:fuq, Template:fuv, Template:fub, Template:fui. - -sche (discuss) 22:32, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Definitely merge the Fulfuldes, I have no doubts about that. Should we use {{context}} tags to distinguish entries currently marked as Pulaar? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Whenever we know or suspect that a form is restricted to any of these dialects, or any of the dialects Ethnologue declined to code, we should indicate that, yes. We should be careful not to mark general forms as dialect-specific, of course. Our Serbo-Croatian editors can tell of how nationalists often mark a {{sh}} form as natiolect-specific when they're really used by all the languages. (Disclaimer: alternatively, if you subscribe to the philosophy some expressed in a recent RFDO discussion, it's not misleading to mark a general word as being restricted to a narrow context.) If we ever find native speakers to really expand our {{ff}} entries, verbs will need multiple conjugation tables to show the different endings used in different dialects, but that is not an argument against a merger: several Germanic languages have verbs with multiple tables because the verbs sometimes conjugate strongly, sometimes weakly. - -sche (discuss) 22:51, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Abstain. I do not oppose a merge, but I feel I should abstain because it is not clear to me that the differences are smaller than those between {{sco}} and {{en}}, or {{lb}} and {{ksh}} (and {{de}}). - -sche (discuss) 02:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Rhymes:Italian:-ucco

To Rhymes:Italian:-ukko as /ukko/ is (apparently) the IPA pronunciation. I don't speak Italian, are there really two consecutive /k/'s? This is a case of 'if no-one objects I will move it'. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:47, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

• Well, the double "c" is definitely pronounced, but with not like two "c"s - it's more like there is a small pause between the "c" and what follows. I don't speak IPA, so do what you think best. SemperBlotto (talk) 17:53, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I think that's normally transcribed as either /kk/ or /kː/. —CodeCat 18:23, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Pretty sure we're talking about /kk/ here. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:26, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
• I've moved it. However, none of the pages listed there actually links to it; I'm not sure why not. —Angr 20:20, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Because SB didn't use Yair's JS to add the rhymes (tsk, tsk). I did so, and then reverted myself to avoid duplication; now each bluelink there links back to it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Apparently SB added a bunch of these, so I've been cleaning up. Can someone please quickly look over the Italian rhymes lists to make sure they're good? (Mostly I'd like someone to check Rhymes:Italian:Stressed on /u/, because that's where all the problems I found were.) Thanks! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:57, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, I went through all the /u/ ones (although I'd still like a bit of oversight) and now I'm doing the rest. Only one I didn't touch was Rhymes:Italian:-ui — can someone explain what the hell is going on there, and split it as needed? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
    • "Because SB didn't use Yair's JS to add the rhymes" - did the script exist at that time? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:07, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

December 2012

Category:Human

This should be renamed Category:Humans. Compare Category:People, Category:Social sciences, Category:Given names. - -sche (discuss) 05:29, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Or Category:Humanity. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:26, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Support Humanity (lol) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Wait, what's the different between this and Category:People? Is there one? Should there be one? - -sche (discuss) 07:37, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, cats like 'Emotions', 'Age', and 'Thinking' seem better placed in 'Humanity' than in 'People' IMO. So I think we oughn't to delete it, just rename it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:English archaic terms

Move to Category:English terms with archaic senses, because words like "absorb" are not archaic. Compare WT:RFM#Category:English_dated_terms. - -sche (discuss) 01:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Move —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Move. I am not aware of any complaints about Category:English terms with obsolete senses, which is the current category of the items formerly in Category:English obsolete terms.

In principle, a bot could populate this category by inspecting each English L2 section to make sure that a given section has only archaic senses. There is the question of how to handle homonyms, one having only archaic senses, the other not. Also there would be questions of how to handle terms that had both archaic and obsolete terms and no current senses etc. DCDuring TALK 22:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Do NOT move. I am strongly against a conflation of "words with X sense" and "X terms" categories. Either these are to be kept distinct, or then the "terms with X senses" category should disappear, and the "X terms" should remain, but only for those words that are fully X (i.e., fully obsolete, archaic, dated, etc.), not simply have archaic (obsolete, dated) senses. As was said in the discussion at the Beer Parlor, I'm in favor of new templates {{obsolete term}}, {{archaic term}} etc. that categorize the whole world, while {{archaic}}, {{obsolete}} either remain as they are now, or then become uncategorizing labels. Main reason: a category like Category:English terms with obsolete senses has a confusing name, especially to the casual reader, who will probably think that all words in it are fully obsolete, or then that none of them are fully obsolete. Yes, logically speaking the name is correct, but most people don't think in terms of formal logics or boolean algebra.--Pereru (talk) 21:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Subpages of WT:Grease pit archive to WT:Grease pit, WT:Beer parlour archive to WT:Beer parlour

Can we move the "old" archives to match the new naming format of these pages? —CodeCat 03:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

same gender loving

Should the lemma be same-gender-loving? - -sche (discuss) 22:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

At Google Books, one can easily find examples of same-gender-loving, same-gender loving and same gender loving. I suppose the first two would be considered more correct, but I'm not sure which is more popular. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:09, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Moved. - -sche (discuss) 22:07, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:Czech male surnames

And Category:Czech female surnames, to Category:Czech masculine surnames. This is grammatically gender first and foremost, right? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the categories should be deleted (with their contents moved up to Category:Czech surnames) since feminine surnames are not considered a separate surname from the masculine, just a feminine inflected form. --WikiTiki89 08:13, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

And there I was trying to visualize Category:Czech male surnames and Category:Czech female surnames getting together and having a bunch of cute little baby surnames- spoilsport! ;p Chuck Entz (talk) 08:41, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

@Wikitiki: Quite right. I would actually much prefer that solution. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:59, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose the move. Related although not strictly applying votes are Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/Renaming given name appendixes and Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Masculine and feminine given names. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:08, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

  Re: "... feminine surnames are not considered a separate surname from the masculine, just a feminine inflected form": Unlikely; any references? Nor is "Martina" an inflected form of "Martin". --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:10, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

  So you are saying that a Czech brother has a different last name from his sister? Surnames should not be considered in the same way as given names. --WikiTiki89 20:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

the Lenape lects

We currently have codes for the (macro)language {{del}} "Delaware, Lenape" and for the (dia)lects {{unm}} "Unami" {{umu}} "Munsee". Merging unm and umu into del could make it 'neater' and easier to have entries in the lect(s), since secondary sources often do not distinguish them and even primary sources can be hard to 'assign' to one lect or the other. On the other hand, there are perceptible differences in vocabulary between the two lects, which are said to make it hard for speakers of one to understand the other; the differences are probably at least as great as those between Scots and English, which suggests a split could also have merit. But the current situation is just confusing. - -sche (discuss) 21:51, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

If we are going to have place names with etymologies from my neck of the woods (NY, CT, NJ), we would benefit from as much distinction as possible. The place names tend to be reasonably clearly associated with specific dialects. But much could be accomplished with tags and a single more inclusive language family. DCDuring TALK 23:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Even with placenames, caution is needed: words that entered other languages (e.g. Pidgin or English) in—or were recorded by visitors to—places deep in one dialect's supposed territory have often been shown to belong to the other dialect; placenames may have similarly muddled origins (especially considering the possibility that the territory on which a town sits may have changed hands but not names). - -sche (discuss) 02:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't doubt you. There are actually only half a dozen names of inhabited places in my county, Westchester, that are native American in origin, almost certainly Munsee. Similarly for western Long Island and Northern New Jersey. In some cases English toponyms are after the name of a chief or tribe rather than being descendants of native toponyms. The Dutch and English settlers didn't waste a lot of time on documenting much about the natives and their language and didn't use their placenames very much. DCDuring TALK 03:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

If anyone tries to do a more thorough treatment of either sub-lect than just some nouns for etymologies, I suspect that not having those templates will be a major obstacle, since there are significant grammatical and lexical differences between the two. In other words, a single code won't work if we treat them as actual languages instead of etymology source-material. There are, in fact sufficient materials for both lects to allow creation of full-fledged creation of entries with all the parts of speech, etc. All it would take would be either a student of a given language, or someone interested in the language with a decent background in Linguistics. I'm just getting started doing exactly that with California Indian languages, but who's to say there might not be a potential East-coast counterpart out there somewhere? Chuck Entz (talk) 04:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I've already been dealing with Algonquian. Almost every del/unm/umu entry we have was created by me—and created as a ==Lenape== entry; the only entry we have in either (dia)lect is homographic with a Lenape entry. That said, I'm willing to separate unm vs umu, like Scots vs English and Dutch Low Saxon vs German Low German... I just want to be clear that doing so is going to be complicated (like Scots vs English and DLS vs GLG, lol). - -sche (discuss) 05:41, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, when I have time, I'll start to (cautiously) make this split. - -sche (discuss) 21:38, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I haven't forgot about this. - -sche (discuss) 22:10, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

(still haven't) - -sche (discuss) 20:49, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I've moved all the del entries to unm, and made etyl:del an etymology template for terms which derive from Lenape without the specific lect being clear. - -sche (discuss) 21:57, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:kud

As part of my ongoing effort to ensure Wiktionary calls each language by its most common distinct English name, I have discovered that Auhelawa is about three times more common as the name of this language than 'Auhelawa. I propose renaming it accordingly (i.e. dropping the apostrophe). - -sche (discuss) 02:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. I would also like to know your methodology for determining relative commonness, because I suspect that most search engines would not necessarily show the apostrophe in their results. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:48, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Search engines' OCR softwares do not always notice apostrophes and reproduce them in the snippets displayed on the search engine page, but it is possible to check the sources directly and confirm the spelling used in them. In this case, searching Google Books for "Auhelawa", "'Auhelawa" and a large number of possible scannos and OCR misreadings ("Nuhelawa" "Wuhelawa", "Ruhelawa", etc) finds 36 books; 18 have no preview available and/or are different copies of the same book; 4 are printed copies of Wikipedia. Of the usable books,

1. Eleven English works spell the name Auhelawa:
   • 1992, publication of Library of Congress subject headings — uses no apostrophe, e.g. page 2506
   • 1992, in Culture change, language change: case studies from Melanesia (edited by Thomas Edward Dutton) — uses no apostrophe
   • 1993, Loinane miyamiyanane: Old Testament stories and extracts in the Auhelawa language, published by the Summer Institute of Linguistics — uses no apostrophe
   • 1995, Darrell T. Tryon, Shigeru Tsuchida, Comparative Austronesian Dictionary — uses no apostrophe, e.g. page 131: "AUHELAWA Alt. KURADA, NUAKATA, URADA. Class. OC, WOC, Papuan Tip, Nuclear PT, Suauic."
   • 1998, in Papers in Austronesian linguistics, volume 5 (edited by H. Steinhauer and Malcolm Ross) — uses no apostrophe
   • 2003, Shelley Mallett, Conceiving cultures: reproducing people & places on Nuakata, Papua New Guinea — uses no apostrophe, e.g. page 50 "Daphne Lithgow informed us that the language of Nuakata, Alina Nu'ata, is a dialect of Auhelawa, ..."
   • 2006, G. W. Trompf, Religions of Melanesia: A Bibliographic Survey — uses no apostrophe, e.g. page 646
   • 2009, Roger Averill, Boy He Cry: An Island Odyssey — uses no apostrophe, e.g. page 289 "'I was hoping to have a look at some of your transcriptions, to expand our Auhelawa dictionary, for the Bible translation.'"
   • 2009, Aparecida Vilaça, Robin Wright, Native Christians (the language name occurs only once, without an apostrophe, but in the bibliography, in the title of an article by Schram)
   • 2010, Michael R. Leming, George E. Dickinson, Understanding Dying, Death, and Bereavement (the language name occurs only once, without an apostrophe, but in the bibliography, in the title of an article by Schram)
   • 2011, Ryan Schram, Feast of Water: Christianity and the Economic Transformation of a Melanesian Society — has no preview, but the blurb uses no apostrophe, and Lindhardt (who refers to Schram) uses no apostrophe (see below)
   • 2011, Martin Lindhardt, Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians — uses no apostrophe, e.g. page 303: "Schram's 2007 discussion of the opposition of “Christian” feasting with previous modes of feast in Auhelawa (Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea) presents a similar kind of purification ..."
   • 2012, Christopher Moseley, Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages — apparently uses no apostrophe (but is odd, for which reason I'm willing to discount it)

     2010, Nuclear Papuan Tip Languages (copy of WP)

     2010, Austronesian Language Introduction (copy of WP)

     2011, Articles on Milne Bay Province (copy of WP)

     2011, Austronesialaiset Kielet (copy of fi.WP!)

2. Only one English work apparently spells the name 'Auhelawa:
   • 1990, David Lithgow, Daphne Lithgow, 'Auhelawa New Reader, book 1 — has no preview, but the blurb does use an apostrophe
3. One work, written in Auhelawa(!), spells the name Auhelawa:
   • 1986, Elisa Ephraim, Talauvahili ʻAlina Auhelawa (which means "We read Auhelawa") — uses no apostrophe
4. No works written in Auhelawa spell the name 'Auhelawa.
5. One work written in German spells the name Auhelawa:
   • 2002, Harald Haarmann, Sprachenalmanach: Zahlen und Fakten zu allen Sprachen der Welt — uses no apostrophe

Earlier, I looked at all of the sources first, and then commented here, and so posted my general impression that the spelling without the apostrophe was "about three times more common" than the spelling with it. Now that I have taken more detailed notes, I see that my estimate was over-generous, and I recognise that one work I had previously though independent is another WP copy; the spelling without the apostrophe is used by the only available published work in the language, and (with as far as I can see only one exception) by all researchers studying the language and all reference works treating it at a distance; the spelling with an apostrophe doesn't even meet CFI.

Addendum: searching WorldCat finds a few of these books, and no other books. It does find a few "computer files"; five of the first six "computer files" use no apostrophe, one uses an apostrophe; all the other "computer file" hits don't use the term in their accessible portions. - -sche (discuss) 23:50, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, striking my opposition above. I still suspect that the apostrophe is more correct, but clearly there is no attestation to back that up. (If you're wondering why I'm so suspicious in this case, it's because Latin script orthographies have maddeningly kept to a long-standing practice of ignoring glottal stops in Pacific languages (sometimes only when they would be obvious and unambiguous to speakers, like what de Feu does, and sometimes wholesale), which I assume this represents, even though they are critical to the languages.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:00, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:alc

This language is more commonly called "Kawésqar" (even our entries treat "Kawésqar" as the lemma; compare Qawasqar, Kawésqar). - -sche (discuss) 02:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Support —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:hmd

Although I would love to rename this language "Large Flowery Miao", that phrase gets only 2 Google Books hits—though that's two more than our current name for it, "A-hmaos". By far the most common name for the language is "A-Hmao" (or "A Hmao", but I prefer the hyphen, myself). I propose we rename it. - -sche (discuss) 02:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Support —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Wait, your comments on User:-sche/missing_codes_A-M have led me to wonder: should this code even exist, or should it be subsumed into {{hmn}}? - -sche (discuss) 22:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Btw, "Big Flowery Miao" gets 23 hits (that's still less common than "A-Hmao"). - -sche (discuss) 02:12, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:mij

This should probably be renamed "Mungbam" for the reasons Good gives here. - -sche (discuss) 18:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I suppose... but Good admits that Mungbam is currently unciteable by our standards, and unless something has changed in the meantime, it would be crystal-ballsy to change it based on expectation that it will become standard. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:26, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, Good says "This name [Mungbam] has now been used in several publications, two of which are given in the bibliography. […] Lovegren is presently working on a grammar of the [mij] varieties and will use the name Mungbam in that grammar, at which point it can be fully expected to become the standard reference name in academic works, though we should stress that the name has already been used in peer-reviewed publications." And he says "both [of these] publications use the name Mungbam:"

• 2011, Good, Lovegren, Mve, Nganguep Tchiemouo, Voll, and Di Carlo, The languages of the Lower Fungom region of Cameroon: Grammatical overview, in Africana Linguistica 17, pages 101–164
• 2011, Di Carlo, Lower Fungom linguistic diversity and its historical development: Proposals from a multidisciplinary perspective, in Africana Linguistica 17, pages 53–100

OTOH, those two publications and Lovegren's dictionary only make two citations (once published, Lovegren's dictionary and Di Carlo's Lower Fungom... can both count, but The languages of the Lower Fungom can't, because it was co-written by both). As you say, it may be best to wait and revisit this in time. - -sche (discuss) 23:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:os

The Digor and Iron dialects of Ossetian seem quite different, and already many (most?) of our entries distinguish which is meant. It seems to me that there is a fair chance that the two are separate enough to deserve being called different languages here. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:46, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I've seen them referred to as separate languages before, but there's still some debate over that. Doesn't matter to me. But would there still be plain Ossetian language entries or would all be sorted into the new languages? There are some that aren't labelled as either Iron or Digor.Word dewd544 (talk) 17:58, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Iron is by far the more common dialect, and the literary Ossetian language is based on Iron. However, Digor is different enough that it could be considered a separate language. The main things against it here are the relatively small number of speakers and that it does not yet have a written standard, as far as I know. But there is now a Digor dictionary out there, and it’s probably just a matter of time before Digor develops a literary standard of its own. I think it’s unlikely that we will get enough Digor contributions to make a difference, but it is always possible that someone will start entering words from a Digor dictionary. The Digor language code is oss-dig. We could use os for Ossetian proper (and Iron), and oss-dig for Digor. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:20, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

In that case, I support. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 03:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

A standard language based on one widely-spoken dialect, and another lect sometimes considered a dialect and sometimes considered its own language? This reminds me of Tosk vs Gheg Albanian: some references say they're mutually unintelligible separate languages, speakers say their differences present no impediment to communication. Unfortunately, we lack speakers of the Ossestian lects, and the dictionary of Digor is said to waffle, the author calling it a language and the editor calling it a dialect. Stephen is probably right that it's just a matter of time before Digor develops its own standard (and merits separation as much as Luxembourgish and Limburgish do from each other and from German); OTOH, Wiktionary, like Wikipedia, is not a crystal ball. My preference would be to wait and not split them for now. If we do split them, I agree with using {{os}} for Iron (compare {{lt}} and {{sgs}}), and we should devise an exceptional code for Digor that fits our usual naming scheme (ira-odg or ira-dig), rather than using Linguist List's ersatz "oss-dig". - -sche (discuss) 03:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:English terms with obsolete senses

As per the discussion in the Beer Parlor, I suggest that this category be reserved only for words that are not fully obsolete (i.e., that contain at least one current sense), and that all words that have only obsolete senses (i.e., fully obsolete words) be moved back to Category:English obsolete terms. (I think it would be better to, as CodeCat suggested, simply leave non-fully obsolete words uncategorized, which would imply eventually deleeting Category:English terms with obsolete senses, but I'm OK with leaving it there for partially obsolete words if others want that.) --Pereru (talk) 08:33, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Support —CodeCat 02:26, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to support it, but not if there is no implementation scheduled. I would not be happy if this was our policy and two months from now most of the terms that were supposed to be in it were not. We need a dump run to identity the L2 sections that need the categorization. And maintaining it really should be part of an AF-type bot. I do hope that this is intended to be applied to all living languages. Are all obsolete tags not in English marked with lang= tags? DCDuring TALK 13:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I would also support requiring lang=en for these tags, because people constantly forget those tags and put entries in the English categories. In fact the whole "English as default" thing doesn't work too well... I've lost count of how many instances of {{term}} without a language I've had to fix... —CodeCat 13:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

How can implementation be scheduled? How are such actions decided? (I've just created a {{obsolete term}} for fully obsolete terms, and I plan to slowly add it to all Latvian words for which it is appropriate, so as to slowly fill Category:Latvian obsolete terms; but how about English and all the other languages?) --Pereru (talk) 02:01, 22 December 2012 (UTC) I've just transfered abstrude and a few other similar terms to Category:English obsolete terms by changing the tag from {{obsolete}} to {{obsolete term}}. Is that part of what should be happening? --Pereru (talk) 02:04, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Should {{obsolete}} be used for obsolete senses or obsolete terms? Using it for obsolete terms has one advantage: anyone can skim the list of obsolete terms and immediately spot a word they know is still in use. Trying to spot a completely-obsolete term among a list of terms with obsolete senses would be much harder. —CodeCat 02:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, people are more likely to use the shorter, generic name {{obsolete}} where it doesn't belong than to use the longer, explicit name {{obsolete term}} where it doesn't belong, so I think using {{obsolete}} only for obsolete terms and not for senses would be counter-intuitive and a bad idea. My preference would be to use {{obsolete}} for senses... but perhaps we should insist upon two explicitly named templates, {{obsolete term}} and {{obsolete sense}} (both with the display text "obsolete"?). Using two explicitly dedicated templates would make separate categorisation of entirely obsolete terms and of terms with obsolete senses practical, too. Btw, the "obsolete terms" category could be a subcategory of the "terms with obsolete senses" category, like "proper nouns" are a subcategory of "nouns". And we could keep {{obsolete}} (because new users and visitors from other projects may call it directly or in creative ways, like {{context|UK|obsolete|_|outside of|_|dialects}}), but treat its Whatlinkshere as a standing, self-updating cleanup list. - -sche (discuss) 04:39, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with -sche above; {{obsolete sense}} would make, well, sense. But now there's one thing bugging me: shouldn't fully obsolete terms have the "obsolete" tag somewhere in their inflection line? Or else we'd have to add an {{obsolete term}} tag to every single sense, or else we imply that one of the obsolete senses is actually current... --Pereru (talk) 03:48, 23 December 2012 (UTC) By the way, in principle everything applies mutatis mutandis to the other Period labels archaic and {{dated}}, right? --Pereru (talk) 03:50, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

So you are saying that obsoleteness of a term is not a context? I suppose that is true, but we don't have any system currently in place for indicating term-wide contexts. This has been a problem in the past too... for example {{cardinal}} or {{personal}} shouldn't really be usage labels either. —CodeCat 03:55, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

We indicate obsolescence on the sense line when only one of several senses is obsolete, so I think obsolescence should also be indicated on the sense line when all senses are obsolete: indicating obsolescence on each sense line in all cases adds clarity. Meanwhile, we indicate on the inflection/headline line when certain inflected forms are obsolete (or dialectal, etc; see [[learn]], [[work#verb]], etc): so indicating the obsolescence of senses on the inflection line, when the inflected forms are not any more obsolete (or {{dated}}!) than the word itself, would be confusing. I expect some people wouldn't notice the tag on the inflection line, and would thus think that no sense was obsolete (not what you want), or would notice the tag but think (logically) than it applied to the inflections and again that the senses were not obsolete (again, not what you want)... I think it's better to indicate the obsolescence of the senses on the sense line. (How many highly polysemous obsolete words are there, anyway?) - -sche (discuss) 05:09, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

We don't do this for any other register or dialect: We don't have separate categories for US-only terms and for those with US-only senses, nor separate categories for math-specific terms and for those with math-specific senses. Why should obsolete be different?​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

For one thing, it would give us a list of terms which a bot could use to identify terms that should probably not be used in definitions. The same would be true in varying degrees for {{archaic}}, {{dated}}, {{rare}}, and possibly others. DCDuring TALK 10:27, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:arc and Template:syc

The same language in two different scripts with two different literary standards, and yet each quite similar to each other. I think I see a pattern. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:49, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

"Arc" should only be used for "Imperial Aramaic" (aka "Official Aramaic"), ideally written in the Old Aramaic script rather than Hebrew. Current usage does not reflect that though and there are a whole mix of dialects intertwined within the "arc" code, so that one at least should be split. "Syc" should stay as it is. --334a (talk) 08:04, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I think SIL has done a really bad job with the classification of Aramaic languages. ARC was an umbrella code that was used to describe all later Aramaic varieties in ISO-639-2 in ISO 639-3 they introduced SYC for classical Syriac, by far the most widespread form of literary Aramaic.--Rafy (talk) 17:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:uncommon

Currently, this redirects to {{rare}}. However, as we all know, uncommon ≠ rare. Personally, I think the connotative differences are so great that even if we categorise these entries as rare, we should display the context tag as (uncommon). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:21, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but it would help if we could establish what we mean. The only things I'm sure of is that terms only used in a single work are "rare" and "uncommon" words are more frequently occurring than "rare" words. We should be able to stand on our hind legs and commit to something more specific, though we never did about "common misspellings". DCDuring TALK 05:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, all we need to do is undo Daniel Carrero's last edit. I say go for it. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:30, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Done, striking. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

frs to gmw-fre

I propose to create {{gmw-fre}} as an unambiguous code for the "East Frisian" variety of Frisian, and switch all remaining transclusions of "frs" to "gmw-fre". Currently, we use {{frs}} for the that variety of Frisian, but {{frs}} is ambiguous: it appears to have been intended by the ISO to designate either "Saterland Frisian" (the last surviving variety of East Frisian, which has the code {{stq}}) or "Eastern Frisian" (a variety of Low German which, like other German varieties, has been subsumed into {{nds-de}}). (In the first of two previous discussions of {{frs}}, all participants assumed that {{frs}} and {{stq}} referred to Frisian and therefore debated merging them. The second discussion investigated whether {{frs}} referred to a Frisian lect or a Low German one: ultimately, it seems it's unknowable, since Ethnologue hasn't responded to requests for clarification.) - -sche (discuss) 18:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I personally don't see the point. There is an existing, valid code which may (or may not) have ben intended for this language. Even when we follow ISO standards, we do tend to, for example, redefine the spatial or temporal extent of that code in a different way than Ethnologue might. This seems to be the same thing to me. If {{frs}} is ever officially demystified, and it's not in line with our coverage, then we can revisit the matter. For now, I advocate against moving it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:16, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

All we want to avoid is people making entries in East Frisian. We could just turn it into an etymology code and move it to {{etyl:frs}}? —CodeCat 20:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I think allowing/barring East Frisian entries is a separate question. Saterland Frisian is the last living dialect of East Frisian, but at least some terms from other East Frisian dialects are attested, and I can see how some people might prefer to have ==East Frisian== entries for those terms, or simply to have East Frisian terms like we have Middle High German terms. I don't think the question of whether to allow or ban that should be rolled into the question of what code to use.

I oppose "{{etyl:frs}}". Ethnologue calls "frs" a "Low German" (not "Frisian") language, claims it's spoken by only 2000 people (the Frisian lect is dead, but Saterland Frisian is spoken by 6000; the Low German lect is spoken by 230 000), and says it's not mutually intelligible with Saterland Frisian (which is true of the Low German lect, untrue of the Frisian lect). Randomly guessing which one of those lects to use the ambiguous code for is one thing... but designing a brand-new code that is intentionally ambiguous (like {{etyl:frs}})?

Given Ethnologue's ambiguity and the fact both lects go by "East Frisian" (though the Low German one also uses "Eastern Frisian", and the Frisian one might, too), I suspect that some of the {{frs}} words I've seen in etymologies and haven't been able to find {{stq}} cognates/descendents of are indeed the product of people using "frs" to mean "Low German". (I haven't been able to confirm any yet because East Frisian and Eastern Frisian are both relatively obscure.) - -sche (discuss) 22:51, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:cpe-pit, Template:cpe-nor, and Template:pih

These are English-based creoles spoken in the remote Pitcairn and Norfolk islands, which are extremely similar to each other. {{cpe-pit}} is labeled as Pitkern and has no entries, {{cpe-nor}} is labeled as Norfuk and has a few entries, and {{pih}} is labeled as Pitcairn-Norfolk and has a couple entries. The lects seem massively similar to me, with the same sound shifts and vocabulary for the most part, and I propose that we merge them as {{pih}}, either called Pitcairn-Norfolk or Pitkern-Norfuk (i.e. English names of the islands on which they are spoken or the creole names of the islands). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Support. In one short previous discussion, Liliana agreed that the split was silly and supported a merger, too. The differences seem no greater than those between the kind of English that's spoken in Hawai'i and the kind that's spoken in Ireland: yeah, there are differences in pronunciation and orthography, and there are even differences in grammar and vocabulary, but they're not different languages. - -sche (discuss) 06:05, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Funny you should bring up the English spoken in Hawaiʻi. Luckily, we don't (AFAIK) have a code for Hiberno-English, but we seem to be treating Hawaiian English slang as a separate language. See WT:RFDO#Template:hwc. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:41, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Support. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 06:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I have unsplit cpe-pit and cpe-nor from pih. - -sche (discuss) 22:25, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Concordance:2000 AD

This should be in an appendix, right? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup, I'd just get on with it to be honest. Nothing much to discuss. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:50, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Done. Striking. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:00, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

January 2013

Template:pml

Currently called Lingua Franca which is a very unclear name. I would greatly prefer that it be called Sabir, which seems to be what speakers called it, or if you really don't like that, 'Mediterranean Lingua Franca' which is what Wikipedia calls, and at least distinguishes it other languages considered lingue franche in various times and various locales. PS: If you agree, it would be nice to "speedy" this process (it only requires editing the template) so that I can create entries without it becoming an annoyance to whomever it falls to to close the RFM (deleting and recreating categories, etc). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:54, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

"Lingua Franca"! Wow, that is a bad name. I often note that I try to "ensure Wiktionary calls each language by its most common distinct English name", and that's not distinct—nor, AFAICT, all too commonly used as the name of that language in English (as opposed to mentioned as what the name of that language was in various Mediterranean tongues).

Numbers and pros and cons, as I see them:

I gave up the search strings "Lingua Franca" and "Lingua Franca language" because they turned up too many irrelevant things, but google books:"speak Lingua Franca" gets 18 hits, of which 5 refer to this language (though none capitalise "lingua"); 3 just happen to contain those words in that order, 1 is unclear, 1 uses it as the name of a sci-fi language, 1 is "Lingua Franca Creek" and 7 show no preview or are duplicates. Of the 25 variously-capitalised hits for "spoke Lingua Franca", almost all refer to this language. "Mediterranean Lingua Franca" gets ~70 hits with previews. Some are of "Mediterranean lingua franca", but because every name this language has shows up uncapitalised half the time, it isn't clear if those hits mean any lingua franca of the Med or still refer to this language. "Mediterranean Lingua Franca" does seem to be the most common name of the language, but it's still somewhat ambiguous... English is a language people in Tunis and Rome can use to communicate, is it the Mediterranean Lingua Franca? "spoke Sabir" gets five hits ("speak Sabir" gets nothing relevant AFAICT), "Sabir language" gets ~10 hits—but one is a reference to a Turkic language. Other search strings could probably show it to be about as common as LF if not MLF. And no-one is quite sure who the Sabirs were, or what their language was (it might have been Khazar or Common Turkic; otherwise, it doesn't have a code), so it's possible to put off worrying about a naming conflict with Turkic Sabir until such a time as it has a code and actually conflicts.

Support renaming to whichever name you think best. - -sche (discuss) 08:40, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Collocations like google books:Tunis Sabir give way more relevant hits than google books:Tunis "Mediterranean Lingua Franca". The former name has been used to the refer to the language since at least the mid-19th century. So I think "Sabir" remains the best option. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Support renaming. “Mediterranean Lingua Franca” sounds much better, but you know best. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 23:05, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The only reason why that might be better is that it isn't associated with Molière as much. As for euphony... somewhat. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:21, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Requested entries and Category:Requested entries by language

I think these are the same thing? They should be merged, but which name should the merged category have? —CodeCat 00:40, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Requested entries contains User:Brian0918/Hotlist, that seems to be the only difference. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

never-never land

Tagged {{rft}} with the comment "redirect to, alternate form of, or synonym of neverland?" But the Tea rooms discussions apparently petered out ages ago. - -sche (discuss) 05:44, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't be redirected or soft-redirected (made an alt form), IMO. Are the terms really synonymous? If so, one could be defiend as the other + {{gloss}}. - -sche (discuss) 05:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

ＣＤ

Why is this entry's pagetitle not CD? The romaji entries use regular Latin letters like C and D... Likewise ＣＭ, ＤＶＤ, ＪＲ, ＳＭＳ should be moved to CM, etc. - -sche (discuss) 22:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

What are those strange letters for? Are they part of Japanese somehow? —CodeCat 22:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

They are variants created to occupy two terminal columns. Why the hell did Unicode include them? — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 23:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

(e/c) They're fullwidth letters. They display better than regular letters, if embedded into the middle of a Japanese text and viewed by someone with enough font support to display them, but not enough font support to display regular letters nicely. I see zero reason we use them in cases like this. - -sche (discuss) 23:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Also all the other fullwidth Latin-letter entries in Category:Japanese abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms, and any other similar entries anywhere else. - -sche (discuss) 23:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to jump in. The Japanese use only the full-width letters when they write Latin, because otherwise they would look extremely out of place in vertical writing. Therefore, these should be kept. -- Liliana • 23:17, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The Japanese clearly don't always use these Unicode characters, though; "CDです" gets plenty of Usenet hits. It also gets BGC hits, though it's probably impossible to know if the books themselves were originally typed up with fullwidth Unicode characters, or with Latin letters displayed as wide as the Japanese characters around them. We are not, IMO, bound to carry over the aesthetic practice into our pagetitles. Books in many languages use curly apostrophes, but we use straight ones. - -sche (discuss) 23:28, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Would someone in Japan come to en.Wiktionary and not be able to type Latin script and instead use full-width characters? How does our search engine handle the search? DCDuring TALK 23:45, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Does Unicode have any recommendation for or against their use? This seems like a typical case of characters that were included for compatibility, not because they should be used. —CodeCat 23:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, though it depends what fonts you have installed I guess, this test shows that CD written in fullwidth with Jpan as the script actually looks horrible, in fact it looks like a ligature of O and D rather than 'CD'. Almost unreadable, or perhaps actually unreadable. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the WT search considers ＣＤ and CD as different, but similar. ＣＤ will get me to the full-width and CD will get me to the regular, but if I mix the two (ＣD or CＤ), it won't take me directly to either, but the list of hits following contains both the full-width and regular-character entries. On my Mac, I'm given a choice of 4 keyboards for Japanese (Romaji, Hiragana, Katakana, and Full-width Romaji, as well as a "Kana palate" that has separate tabs for Romaji, Hiragana, and Katakana, with a checkbox under the Romaji tab for using Full-width instead of regular Romaji. From this I would guess that Full-width Latin characters are something one would have to choose specifically, and not something that would be a barrier for most Japanese visitors. The main reason we would want to have this entry is for those who copypaste it into the search box- but even without it, it looks like the search would get them close enough. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:38, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm actually OK with hard redirects from ＣＤ to CD; redirects are cheap. Conversely, if we keep the content at ＣＤ (which I oppose), we should have 'redirects' (which will need to be soft, i.e. {{alternative form of}}) from CD. - -sche (discuss) 02:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｔｈｅｓｅ　ｓｈｏｕｌｄ　ｂｅ　ｋｅｐｔ　ｅｖｅｎ　ｔｈｏｕｇｈ　ｏｎｌｙ　ｔｒｏｌｌｓ　ａｎｄ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｐｅｏｐｌｅ　ｕｓｅ　ｔｈｅｍ，　ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ　ｔｈｅｙ　ａｒｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｔａｎｄａｒｄ　ｗａｙ　ｔｏ　ｗｒｉｔｅ　ｔｈｅ　Ｌａｔｉｎ　ｓｃｒｉｐｔ　ｉｎ　Ｊａｐａｎ，　ａｎｄ　ｐｒｅｓｕｍａｂｌｙ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｅａｒｃｈ　ｐｒｏｂｌｅｍ　ｃａｎ　ｂｅ　ｎｅｇａｔｅｄ　ｂｙ　ｍｅａｎｓ　ｏｆ　{{also}} . —Ｍｅｔａｋｎｏｗｌｅｄｇｅ^{ｄｉｓｃｕｓｓ/ｄｅｅｄｓ} 03:04, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

(also @Liliana): Do you think our romaji entries should be moved to use fullwidth characters? What about our pinyin entries? - -sche (discuss) 03:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

No, the romaji and pinyin entries are fine where they are. It's only Japanese terms incorporating Latin letters (like this abbreviation) that need fullwidth letters. -- Liliana • 10:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not convinced these Unicode characters are standard. As Mg's sandbox test shows, regular Latin letters have appropriately full widths in good Japanese fonts (while fullwidth Unicode characters are, ironically, illegible), so it's hard to know whether books were typed up using the fullwidth Unicode characters or normal Latin letters. And both "ＣＤ" and "CD" are attested on Usenet. I note that ja.Wikt deleted w:ja:ＣＤ and uses w:ja:CD (and "80nm" and other regular Latin characters) in its entry on CDs. Even the Japanese Wiktionary itself redirects ＣＤ to CD, probably the most damning argument against making ＣＤ a lemma. - -sche (discuss) 03:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, I concede. Redirect. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, you are incorrect: in Japanese fonts, regular Latin letters are exactly half width. This means they look completely out of place within Japanese text. -- Liliana • 10:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, Japanese keyboards input the fullwidth Latin characters by default (when set to input Latin characters, obviously), with the option to switch to regular width. --WikiTiki89 03:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Halfwidth Roman letters are now standard in Japanese Wikipedia but Japanese printed books use fullwidth. Japanese news articles use both fullwidth and halfwidth. Forums usually use fullwidth. Japanese keyboard, when switching to numbers produce fullwidth numbers: ０１２３４５６７８９. Japanese editors here, including User:TAKASUGI Shinji are against fullwidth as names of articles but happy to use them as redirects or headers. As the creator of the above entries, I'm OK for them to be moved/merged with halfwidth but I'd prefer the headers to display fullwidth (e.g. head=ＣＤ). "ＣＤ" combines much better with the Japanese script than "CD". Halfwidth characters look really out of place with kanji but it's becoming common on the web. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

See also this PDF: File:Japanese writing.pdf. The pages shows a Japanese font with halfwidth letters, a standard proportional font, and a Japanese font with fullwidth letters, respectively. The first page shows horizontal, the second page vertical orientation. See what difference it makes? -- Liliana • 13:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, vertical writing is the main reason why the fullwidth characters will continue to be used. Even if halfwidth characters were positioned properly, they never align vertically with the Japanese kana and kanji. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Redirect all of these to their normal Latin character equivalents. The distinction between the fullwidth characters and their normal equivalents may be important for typesetting Japanese, but it's not important to human beings reading Wiktionary. By all means keep the redirects so people can find them (and won't re-create them), but don't keep the info on separate pages as if the fullwidth characters comprised a separate alphabet in any meaningful sense. —Angr 16:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

{{form of|fullwidth form}} would work for me. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:03, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd vote for hard redirects. --WikiTiki89 00:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, a hard redirect should be enough. The distinction between the two types of letters is really a matter of font alignment and not so much of the appearance of the letters. So Ｃ really is the same character as C, it just has a different Unicode representation and is treated a little differently in fonts and software. But it really is a computer-only distinction. On the other hand, the same could be said for Cyrillic А vs Latin A vs Greek Α... —CodeCat 00:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Cyrillic is used in more than one language, so you have the risk of language A having a lemma where language B has only a redirect. Full-width characters are specific to Japanese, so can be redirected without worry. Of course, someone could always use them in artificial ways like User:Doremítzwr used specialized IPA characters as superscripts, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over precluding that kind of entries. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:15, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Hard redirect all such IMO.​—msh210℠ (talk) 04:05, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Hard redirect per Angr. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 06:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I redirected all the entries I could find, but I may have missed some because the computer I'm on displays all fullwidth characters as boxes. - -sche (discuss) 19:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Appendix:Appendix:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/b-r-gjat ~ b-g-rjat

Incorrectly tagged with {{delete}} by 129.78.32.22 (talk • contribs), who wants it moved. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done -- Liliana • 02:41, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:nbr

It can get no worse than this. We evidently call a language Numana-Nunku-Gbantu-Numbu. The name is formed by hyphenating the four major dialects. I propose that we instead call it Sanga, listed as an alternative by Ethnologue. Although it appears to have just as many uses as Numana-Nunku-Gbantu-Numbu on BGC for the meaning "a language of Nigeria", it does appear to be citable as the name of the ethnic group which speaks it, which I think is a damn sight better than the current condition. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

You think that's bad? Look at Template:gel (Kag-Fer-Jiir-Koor-Ror-Us-Zuksun). The horror, the horror. - -sche (discuss) 08:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The name WP suggests, "Gbantu", does get one GBC hit... in an specifically unpublished paper cited in Zwischen Bantu und Burkina; "Gwantu" gets nothing relevant. I like your suggestion of "Sanga" (I even managed to dig up one or two citations of it as a language name). Support renaming. - -sche (discuss) 09:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Be careful. It looks like you're confusing it with Sango ({{sg}}). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 09:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, you're right. That's... ugh. As silly as its current name is, giving it a name that's only attested in reference to some other language would obviously be undesirable... and calling it by the name of only one of its dialects (Gbantu) isn't exactly ideal, either (compare {{mij}}), although I'd go along with it for lack of a better option. It may be that, as with {{gel}}, the least odious (or at least, least confusing) thing to do is leave it as-is. :/ - -sche (discuss) 23:18, 14 January 2013 (UTC) - -sche (discuss) 02:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, can you figure out what the first cite refers to? That might help. And as I mentioned, it still may be a more logical choice, considering that google books:Sanga Nigeria isn't too sparse. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:14, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:dud

A less extreme example of the "string all the dialects' names together" phenomenon, "Hun-Saare" is unattested. Somewhat surprisingly, "Saare" is also unattested. "Duka", however — the name WP uses — is just barely attested. - -sche (discuss) 08:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Support —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 09:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:gel

Zomg! It turns out "Fakkanci"—one of the many, many alt names of this language listed by Ethnologue—is attested. I propose we rename the lect accordingly. We currently call it "Kag-Fer-Jiir-Koor-Ror-Us-Zuksun", which is just the names of seven of its eight least-obscure dialects strung together with hyphens. (Ethnologue uses "ut-Ma'in" as the main name, but that name has proven virtually impossible to search for.) - -sche (discuss) 02:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

To be more precise: "Kag-Fer-Jiir-Koor-Ror-Us-Zuksun" is a dialect cluster, called the "Kag cluster" because Kag = Fakkanci is the main member of the cluster. It appears (whether this is pure co-incidence or not) that authorities who treat Kag/Fakkanci merely as a dialect call it "Kag", while those who call it "Fakkanci" treat it as the (main form of the) language of which Fer, Ror, etc are dialects and speak of "Fakkanci and its dialects". - -sche (discuss) 02:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Major victory against the hyphenationist cabal! Support —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. - -sche (discuss) 21:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Wiktionary:Language considerations

Why fake the Wiktionary namespace in a category name? Seems a bit illogical to me. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:08, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it is useful for making clear that it is a category for Wiktionary-related things rather than lexical things. It's also common practice on Wikipedia I think. But we don't apply it very consistently right now. —CodeCat 14:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If we were to follow Wikipedia's practice, we would call it Category:Wiktionary language considerations rather than making it look like a namespace within a namespace. —Angr 15:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Wiktionary language considerations is better. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 14:38, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds better to me too. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 02:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:myx

Masaba, the name that Wikipedia uses, is definitely more common than our unciteable Masaaba. (User:-sche is on wikibreak, so somebody else needs to comment on this one.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:18, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

From what I gathered that’s correct. Support. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 06:01, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Also note that muntu is the only entry we have, so just a few categories to deal with. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:27, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Support ("Masaaba" does seem to be attested, e.g. Godfrey Mwakikagile uses it in two books, Derek Nurse and Gerard Philippson use it and David William Cohen seems to use it, but "Masaba" is more common). Curiously, the spelling with one A seems to be the original spelling, and the modern spelling, while the spelling with two As seems to have been a fad of the 1970s that dropped off after the 90s. - -sche (discuss) 19:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:wikipedia

I propose that we merge this template with {{slim-wikipedia}} (by redirecting it there, or deleting it and moving {{slim-wikipedia}} to {{wikipedia}}). I believe this will help reduce entry clutter without affecting usability because, unlike the “In other projects” box, {{slim-wikipedia}} can still be easily seen, and because {{wikipedia}}’s bigger logo, longer text and greater waste of vertical space are useless. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 21:48, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I haven't noticed the larger size being that much of a problem, though. And Wikipedia has an identical-looking set of templates I think, so it helps with cross-project consistency. —CodeCat 21:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Strong oppose. I think that without this template, few would notice the Wikipedia links. Sorry, Ungoliant. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Tend to support but hesitantly. Put me down as an abstain. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:15, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Support. {{wikipedia}} wastes a lot of space. --Yair rand (talk) 08:32, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Support if {{slim-wikipedia}} has all the features {{wikipedia}} does (linking to more than one article, linking to foreign-languages Wikipedias, etc.). (I haven't checked.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose per Metaknowledge. - -sche (discuss) 19:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Support merging the two; Oppose making it smaller. How is space on web pages being wasted, particularly by a box that floats to the right of the content? Is scrollbar an endangered resource? —Michael Z. 2013-02-03 00:26 z

Keep. In entries where there are multiple L2s, each with their own language-specific wikipedia links, not to mention their own images, it's not unheard of for the wikipedia box from one language to end up at least partially across from the entry for the neighboring language- so space is, indeed, sometimes a problem. That said, I don't agree with eliminating the option of ever using a full-size wikipedia box even in the majority of cases where space isn't an issue. Like Μετάknowledge says, it's good to have it highly visible sometimes. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

• {{slim-wikipedia}} was originally intended to be the only interproject link template that could appear above the first L2 header. It was intended to send folks to WP in cases where there might be a proper Wiktionary entry, but WP had an entry or a disambiguation page that had material not in and not appropriate for Wiktionary. The principal situation would have been for English proper noun entries for which there might be many proper noun that did not meet our prevailing criteria for inclusion or had not yet been entered. The rationale for the placement was that this was the encyclopedic equivalent of {{also}}. It was made small to take up less vertical screen space.

Oppose. If this project link box is to be smaller, then all should be. If the original rationale for {{slim-wikipedia}} as a special box for above-first-L2 placement is considered currently valid then the rationale for small size also remains. DCDuring TALK 01:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

cœn-

Also

• cœno-
• Category:English words prefixed with cœn-

And its 6 members:

• cœnogamy
• cœnæsthesia
• cœnæsthesis
• cœnoblast
• cœnosteum
• cœnosarc

Also involved are unligatured twins of most of these

These are all fine entries, but the rare ligatured forms shouldn't be the lemmas. Right now, there are alt-form entries for each of these with the preferred unligatured spellings. What I would like to do is to swap the ligatured with the unligatured entries: move the ligatured entry to a temporary name, move the unligatured entry into its place, and move the ligatured entry to where the unligatured entry was. After that, it should be a simple matter of switching ligatures for diphthongs and vice-versa in the texts of the entries. This should preserve the edit histories and keep the content intact.

I realize there are probably many other cases like this, but this one is small and contained enough to be easily accomplished without much fuss. I almost just went ahead and did it myself, but figured it was better to give it due process.

Please note that I'm not talking about the pondian difference of oe vs e- just the characters used to represent the UK spelling. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:37, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Support. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 06:00, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

It's predictably down to Doremítzwr (talk • contribs), someone I would consider a POV pusher with respect to using archaic spellings when contemporary spellings are available. Support. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Support —CodeCat 14:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

To be pedantic, Category:English words prefixed with cœn- won't change. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:ko-freq and subpages of Appendix:Korean frequentatives

KYPark (talk • contribs)'s latest pseudoscientific pet project, which ought to be moved to the subpages of User:KYPark. I have moved a couple things, as previous editors have moved his off-topic musings, rants, etc to his userspace, but I just wanted to ensure that there is consensus for this. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:34, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Teetotalism

Since we don't have an entry for Teetotal, shouldn't this just be deleted? Note, there are no incoming links from the main namespace, but if there were they should be changed to teetotal. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:09, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, delete rather than merge, since we don't normally keep redirects from capitalized forms to lowercase forms. —Angr 18:02, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:nhn

Currently called 'Central Nahuatl'. I think it is actually a dialect of {{nah}} (Nahuatl) but I am not completely sure. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:ltc

I've moved Eirikr (talk • contribs)'s comments from the GP below. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

{{ltc}} currently describes itself as "Late Middle Chinese", which fits the abbreviation ltc rather nicely. However:

• We don't have any lang code specified for "Early Middle Chinese", and as best I can tell, no such ISO code even exists.
• SIL International's page lists {{ltc}} as "Late Middle Chinese", but without much detail, whereas MultiTree's page lists {{ltc}} as just "Middle Chinese", with a bit more detail in the "Brief Description" field towards the bottom of the page, giving a range of the 6th through 10th centuries.
• The w:Historical_Chinese_phonology#Periodization_of_Chinese section suggests that "Early Middle Chinese" would be around 600-1000 CE, and "Late Middle Chinese" would be around 1000-1300 CE.
• The WP article on the ISO lang codes that lists {{ltc}}, at w:ISO_639:l, links through to w:Middle_Chinese.
• The Category:Late_Middle_Chinese_language links to w:Late_Middle_Chinese_language, but that redirects to w:Middle_Chinese.

Would anyone object to renaming Category:Late_Middle_Chinese_language to just Category:Middle_Chinese_language?

-- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:47, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

No I'd support it. It seems like madness to have Late Middle Chinese but not Early Middle Chinese or Middle Chinese. I think we discussed this before and we decided it was yet another ISO 639 error, but apparently nobody did anything about it. Support. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support removing "Late". —Angr 17:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

  Support for accuracy's sake. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

{{done}}, someone else fix the categories, or I might do it tomorrow if no one else volunteers. -- Liliana • 23:06, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Not done. There is {{zhx-mid}} which also says Middle Chinese. They need to be merged. -- Liliana • 09:00, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

• Which way should these be merged -- so that we keep {{zhx-mid}}, or so that we keep {{ltc}}? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Keeping an established and official code is probably preferred, even if we treat it slightly differently. So I support deleting {{zhx-mid}} and replacing it with {{ltc}}. —CodeCat 23:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

(link)

I'm not sure what the exact situation is when it comes to combining diacritics. But I'm having trouble clicking on links to this entry, so is there something we can do to fix that? —CodeCat 20:14, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

We can use a dotted circle (◌̏), or its name (double grave accent). — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 20:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

On the French Wiktionary, ̏ redirects to the version with the dotted circle, presumably for this reason. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I would support doing that here too. —CodeCat 14:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

But the dotted circle is only used in computing and nowhere else. I am not really happy with this. -- Liliana • 14:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Nor I. A redirect the other way would make more sense IMO: it would allow users to click (by displaying the redirecting form as a link), would ease things for editors (by linking directly to the redirecting form), and would not show the wrong character sequence in the L1 header.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It is only a header, though. It is only for display. The page titles are what people will actually be looking up. —CodeCat 17:45, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Appendix:Tausug adverbs

Judging by their definitions, most of these words aren't actually adverbs. It's a short, low-quality wordlist, but I think the best place for it is at Index:Tausug. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:42, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:zh-tw:Variant Pronunciations

This category has a bad name that refers to an obsolete code, but the content is good. It should be merged into Category:Taiwanese Mandarin and then it can be deleted. Same goes for Category:zh-cn:Variant Pronunciations and Category:Chinese Mandarin. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

"Chinese Mandarin" is very unclear as a name, though. It doesn't actually tell me what it really is, and only from what you said can I figure out that it is somehow distinct from "Taiwanese Mandarin". Many people would probably understand it to be a synonym of "Mandarin" or "Mandarin Chinese". —CodeCat 22:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Nautical

It is rather unusual for us to use a bare adjective as a category name. I can't really think of anything substantially better, but if someone has an idea, I'd be glad to hear it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Sailing is already taken as a subcat (though I don't know what the difference is supposed to be), so perhaps Category:Nautical terminology? —Angr 13:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe Category:Sailing has to do specifically with sailboats: you can set sail in a submarine, but the verb "surface" isn't a sailing term (unless you're doing a really bad job of it)... Chuck Entz (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

What about Category:Boating? That's what Wikipedia's Sailing category is a subcat of. —Angr 15:03, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I like your previous suggestion, Nautical terminology. If you take a look, a lot of it is sailors' slang. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:50, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

¼ d

Should this be moved to 1/4 d? Talk:⁹⁄₁₀ths was a similar, but not identical, case: this uses one precomposed fraction character, ⁹⁄₁₀ was constructed from ⁹ + ⁄ + ₁ + ₀. My preference is to redirect ¼ d to 1/4 d, though I'm open to doing things the other way around. - -sche (discuss) 04:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, surely the singular and plural should not differ with regard to whether there is a space between the fraction and the "d"... - -sche (discuss) 04:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Zhuang characters

Move to Category:Zhuang sawndip. Should probably also be a member of Category:Han characters -- Liliana • 23:00, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Coordinate term templates

This category (and the templates in it) seem to fulfill the same purpose as list templates (Category:English list templates). So they should probably be merged, and the templates themselves converted. —CodeCat 14:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Support. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 16:11, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

ISO 639-3 Change Requests Series 2012

Template:aus-wwg

to {{wyi}} (new ISO code) -- Liliana • 20:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Aha! I thought, when I added {{wyi}}, that we already had a code for that language. Support, obv. - -sche (discuss) 20:29, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I've started switching the entries which use aus-wwg, since this is non-controversial. - -sche (discuss) 22:02, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. - -sche (discuss) 22:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:aus-syd, Template:xdk

Now that Dharuk/Sydney has an ISO code ({{xdk}}), we can convert our entries to use it, rather than the exceptional code {{aus-syd}}. The only obstacle is the name: we currently call the lect Sydney; the ISO calls it (and until 2008/9 we (sometimes?) called it? see the deletion of Category:Dharuk language) Dharuk. The best name, however, seems to be Dharug: if this ngram is accurate, it was (with Sydney) among the original names and has remained in use since then, even as Sydney became less common and Dharuk came into use in the modern era of renewed interest in the lect (post-1970). I propose we rename {{xdk}} Dharug (the name WP prefers as well) and switch our {{aus-syd}} to it. - -sche (discuss) 20:29, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Support both the move to the code and the rename to Dharug. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:51, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I've switched some of the aus-syd entries to xdk, others remain. - -sche (discuss) 22:04, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

All done, including entries, cats, translations, etymologies, and templates. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:mnt

{{mnt}} was the ISO code for "Maykulan", a small, now-extinct language. The SIL/ISO recently retired the code, updating the name of the principal lect to "Mayi-Kulan" (which does see slightly more use), recoding it as {{xyk}}, and adding codes for Wunumara {{wnn}}, Mayi-Thakurti {{xyt}} and Mayi-Yapi {{xyj}}, which had previously been considered dialects of Mayi-Kulan. What little literature I can find on the lects suggests there is little difference between the dialects. I therefore suggest that we retain {{mnt}} and not follow the ISO in splitting it into {{xyk}}, {{wnn}}, {{xyt}} and {{xyj}} at this time. We could also rename it from "Maykulan" to "Mayi-Kulan", or it could be at the second is not so much more common enough than the first to merit the bother of a rename (and keeping "Maykulan" might make it more obvious we weren't following the SIL into splitting the dialects). - -sche (discuss) 07:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:wth

The ISO calls this Wathawurrung; Wathaurong seems to be about twice as common. - -sche (discuss) 20:29, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:frc→Template:etyl:frc

This should be moved to the etyl: subspace, to discourage/prevent the creation of ==Cajun French== {{head|frc|noun}} entries: Cajun French words are entered as ==French==; this is only used in the etymologies of words which came specifically from Cajun rather than European French. (See also Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2012/April#Category:Cajun_French_language, in which everyone supported considering Cajun French ==French==, and the only editor who was ambivalent about moving {{frc}} to {{etyl:frc}} misunderstood the code-naming sytem, IMO.) - -sche (discuss) 02:18, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Move per nomination. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:44, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Move. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done - -sche (discuss) 20:24, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:gkm→Template:etyl:gkm

As above, although I don't feel as strongly about this as about Template:frc. - -sche (discuss) 02:18, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Isn't Byzantine Greek different enough from Classical Greek to consider it a separate language? —CodeCat 03:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but here at Wiktionary we lump it in with Ancient Greek for practical reasons: no one with the expertise, time, and motivation to figure out the boundaries, set up the framework and template infrastructure, and create/convert the entries. Most of the editors working on Greek have background/interest in Classical and/or Biblical Greek or in Modern Greek- but not in Byzantine/Medieval Greek. The resources available are also much scarcer. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that really makes such a difference, though. Whether we consider it part of Ancient Greek, or as its own language, Byzantine Greek is still being neglected. Splitting it would just make that neglect more visible, which could have positive effects as well. As for boundaries, Wikipedia says it begins at 600, when Greek replaced Latin as the sole administrative language in the empire; and ends at 1453, with the Ottoman conquest. I'd say that's a fairly good definition. Of course we have to deal with the reality that the Greeks still spelled according to the classical norms at that time, but that isn't a problem nor is it a good motivation, because the polytonic spelling wasn't abandoned until the 20th century (it would be absurd to consider Greek from 1900 "ancient"!). —CodeCat 14:47, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Move to etyl:. We also need to delete the cat and recat Category:Terms derived from Byzantine Greek. Ancient Greek entries already cover Byzantine Greek pronunciations and I believe some vocabulary as well. Splitting it off would result in much more pointless duplication if anyone would even get around to it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• I have no objection to treating Byzantine Greek as a separate language — nor do I object to our current arrangement, if our Greek editors are content with it. I made this RFM only because I knew it was current practice not to separate Byzantine Greek. Count me as withdrawing my support for the move and abstaining (but because some people have expressed support for the move, I'm not going to ‘withdraw’ the RFM in the sense of striking it and taking it off the page; I think that would be...undemocratic). - -sche (discuss) 04:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:xjt, Template:ddr

First problem: nobody but the ISO spells "Yaitmathang" as *"Jaimatang". Seriously, Google it. Second problem: "Yaitmathang" and "Dhudhuroa" are, as the Handbook of Aboriginal languages of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory notes, names for the same extinct Victorian Alpine language. I suggest we merge them by deleting {{xjt}}. - -sche (discuss) 01:02, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Hold on... did ISO really approve the same language twice? Oh my god. -- Liliana • 21:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Merged. - -sche (discuss) 22:02, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Dong

CodeCat deleted {{doc}} ("Northern Dong") last year, noting "this code is currently broken because there are so many subtemplates named /doc, might as well delete it". It's also linguistically sound to consider Northern Dong and {{kmc}}, "Southern Dong", dialects of the same language. In recognition of that, we should drop "Southern" from {{kmc}} and just call it "Dong". (Some very recent research also subsumes Cao Miao ({{cov}}) into Dong, which is sometimes called Kam, but there's enough uncertainty that I think it best to let {{cov}} remain separate for now.) - -sche (discuss) 03:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. - -sche (discuss) 01:22, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

jemandem etwas in die Schuhe schieben

...and jemanden über den Löffel barbieren, jemandem über den Weg laufen, jemanden hinters Licht führen, and other German verb phrases containing "jemand*" and "etwas": should some of all of them drop "jemand*"? I note that our English entries sometimes but not always omit "someone"s and "something"s, e.g. we have [[lay at the feet of]] (which, when said that way, sounds like what a dog does) rather than [[lay something at the feet of]], but then we have [[cross someone's path]]. (Actually, "lay at the feet of" needs a placeholder, IMO; see my post just below this one.) - -sche (discuss) 21:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

• My gut instinct is to remove accusative jemanden but keep dative jemandem, but I'm not sure I can articulate exactly why. Direct objects just feel somehow more removable from idiomatic verb phrases than indirect objects. —Angr 21:51, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Move all. I would remove such placeholders generally. The necessary complements (no matter if accusative or dative) can be specified next to the definition. The reason we have a placeholder in cross someone's path probably is that it has the genitive-'s and thus can't be removed (other than by replacing it with "X's" or something like that). Longtrend (talk) 18:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

lay at the feet of

This should be moved to lay something at the feet of, IMO. "Something" is a placeholder you can obviously substitute specific things for, just like you can "cross a friend's path" rather than only ever "crossing someone's path" — and as in the entry "cross someone's path", a placeholder is necessary here, because without one, "lay at the feet of" sounds intransitive: yet "the dog liked to lay at the feet of his master" isn't what the entry is about. - -sche (discuss) 21:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

We are not consistent in including something/someone as a placeholder. If we had a rule, we would want a placeholder for something like this where there is potential for confusion, but I don't think the rule should just be "avoid confusion" in a massive enterprise like this.

Move per nom. DCDuring TALK 00:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think a potentially confusing title should be reason enough to include a placeholder. We can (and should) clarify its use with {{transitive}} next to the definition (which is already done in this case). Longtrend (talk) 18:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:English diminutives of male given names

Category:English diminutives of female given names

I think these need to be split as not all of the names are diminutives. Some are non-diminutive nicknames. Alternatively it could be renamed Category:English nicknames of male given names. Or it could be Category:English male nicknames.

I think that nickname and diminutive are overlapping categories. Aren't Francine and Mariella diminutives of Frances and Maria, respectively? But they are not nicknames. Similarly, Jake is a nickname for Jacob/Jacques, but not a diminutive.

I don't know whether the categories and their application are correct with respect to other languages, but the application of {{given name}} has lead to a bad result for English. DCDuring TALK 00:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean that a diminutive has something added (Franc+ine, John+ny) and a nickname has something subtracted (Jake-(c)ob, Rob-ert)? Or what is the difference? Is this a meaningful way to split a category? Francine is defined as a formal given name in French and English. It derives from an ancient diminutive, but that's etymology. The diminutive definitions and categories are based on the way a name is used, not on its grammatical form. Diminutives and formal given names often overlap, and what's a diminutive in one language may be a formal given name in another: Tommy for example. So use of Template:given name seems reasonable.

I agree that "diminutive" is not the perfect category name, but are the alternatives any better? "Nickname" applies to words like Shorty, Dubya, Shug that are not linguistically related to a person's real given name. "Pet name" sounds too colloquial to me, and "hypocorism" is the opposite of a "pejorative" with Russian names. Changing the name would take a lot of manual work. Not all the entries use the template. --Makaokalani (talk) 14:45, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

What makes you think that "'nickname' applies to words... that are not linguistically related to a person's real given name"? I would certainly say Tom is a nickname for Thomas, Bill is a nickname for William, Liz is a nickname for Elizabeth, etc. Those aren't the only kind of nicknames, but they are nicknames. —Angr 15:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but terms like Shorty should not be listed in the same category with Tom, Bill and Liz. You can create a separate category for them. I meant "the word nickname also applies to..."--Makaokalani (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Whatever else, the current name is applicable only to a subset of those now in the category. It is mostly populated by {{given name}} when the parameter 'diminutive' is applied. If there were other possibilities for other kinds of derivations, then the template would not create the erroneous results it does. A category of derived names for which diminutives would be a subcategory would be fine with me.

The template did not specify 'diminutive' until January 2010. I'd be happy with a rollback to the edit before that, but there have been later changes that may have some value. DCDuring TALK 00:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

The members of the categories are called hypocorisms or pet names, judging from online dictionaries. The current name is wrong, IMHO, or misleading anyway. --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:34, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd meant to look up hypocorism. It is not really suitable for use as part of a category name if we intend the category for use by normal users, rather than us or language professionals. I probably would be OK to group nicknames, diminutives, and other similar types of names, if there are others to include. DCDuring TALK 23:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Just to make clear that we are discussing the same thing: I oppose splitting the diminutive categories. It would be confusing, and impossible to do in many languages (e.g. Finnish). Tom and Bill certainly belong to the same category as Tommy and Billy. Terms like Dubya and Shorty are now uncategorized and need some other category ("Nicknames?"). Terms like Francine are not diminutives in English or French. (I can see some old entries have confusing definitions like "A male given name, diminutive of X" , the diminutive part properly belonging to the etymology.) I oppose removing the diminutive= parameter from Template:given name. Changing it to something else, and changing the names of all diminutive categories (21 male, 16 female) would not bother me provided someone else does it all, including the tiresome manual work. Webster's 2003 definition of diminutive includes: "used of affixes (as -ette, -kin, -ling) and of words formed with them (--), of clipped forms (as Jim), and of altered forms (as Peggy)", so the present category name is not completely wrong. Our definition of diminutive includes endearments.--Makaokalani (talk) 09:42, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

1. Is this category supposed to be directed at normal users or linguists or is it intended as some kind of maintenance category? Diminutive for normal users implies "small" and may connote "belittling".
2. In English, the categorization based on affixes alone cannot be semantic, it is etymological. The word "diminutive" does not seem appropriate for display on the definition line in cases where "diminutive" in the normal user sense is not accurate, though the etymological sense applies. Perhaps we need to create a special template for use in the etymology section of names to categorize into diminutives. I am aware that diminutives seem to be virtually inflectional in some languages, at least in the opinion of, say, some of our Dutch contributors. But I don't think that an approach based on that model is appropriate for English.
3. It seems to me that we have can have almost nothing to say about the meaning of names, rather than their derivation. At best we can provide a non-gloss definition. I doubt that we have a fact base to use to check the correctness of such assertions as often used as a pet name/term of endearment. DCDuring TALK 13:17, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Another candidate term: familiar form: try google books:"familiar form"; there, Dictionary of First Names by Iseabail C. MacLeod, Terry Freedman, 1995 uses the term. In spite of Merriam-Webster's "diminutive" entry siding with Makaokalani, I still disfavor "diminutive". --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:16, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

That might work. But I'm not sure that a person whose birth certificate says his given name is Jim views the name as a "familiar form" or a "pet name" or a "diminutive".

If we don't consign the relationship to other names to Etymology, the only place it belongs IMO, then for display we need something other than "diminutive" for those cases where that is in appropriate, eg, Jimbo. It is obviously related to James, but is decidedly NOT a diminutive. DCDuring TALK 16:48, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:aus-dar→Template:xda

...now has an ISO code, Template:xda. Uses of aus-dar should be switched to xda. As for what to call the language: "Darkinjung" seems somewhat more common than "Darkinyung". - -sche (discuss) 06:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Support as Darkinjung, which seems to be the usual form I've seen in linguistic literature. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Stephen has renamed xda, and I'm updating pages that used aus-dar to use xda. - -sche (discuss) 17:14, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:aus-wem and other things → Template:xww

The extinct language Wemba-Wemba now has an ISO code ({{xww}}) which uses of aus-wem should be switched to. But xww isn't the only Wemba-Wemba code: the ISO also recently added {{rbp}} (Baraba-Baraba) and {{rnr}} (Nari-Nari), though we haven't added those yet; and {{weg}} and {{xwt}} already existed. Of those four codes, I think {{rbp}} should stay red: Ian Clark, who wrote the Dictionaries of Aboriginal Placenames, considers Baraba-Baraba and Wemba-Wemba "more or less identical languages". And I move to merge {{weg}} into xww: Paul Carter, in Ground Truthing: Explorations in a Creative Region, writes that "the Wergaia and Wemba Wemba languages share ninety per cent of their lexicon". What of rnr and xwt? Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method gives a few samples of Wemba-Wemba compared to Nari-Nari, e.g. WW "midh[v]g" to NN "midhag" (rain, from a root meaning cold). - -sche (discuss) 06:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I've switched all aus-wem and weg entries to xww, left rbp a redlink, and left rnr and wxt untouched for now. - -sche (discuss) 16:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

March 2013

Documentation subpages to /documentation

The current name, /doc, conflicts with the language code {{doc}}, which was deleted (it wasn't in use) because of this conflict. But to really solve this, we need to move the documentation subpages to a name that won't conflict with anything. —CodeCat 14:48, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

As suggested in the Grease Pit, the subpages should really be moved to /documentation, to avoid conflict with script codes (which are four letters long). - -sche (discuss) 16:03, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

That could work too, but script codes begin with capital letters so there shouldn't be any conflict. —CodeCat 16:24, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Maybe not in the software, but probably in people's minds. If we wanted to abbreviate some word or other as "cyrl", and some page or template or something had one subpage called "/cyrl" for that word, and another called "/Cyrl" to indicate the Cyrillic alphabet, I for one would find it confusing and would probably be constantly mixing them up. —Angr 20:11, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok, then "documentation" is fine. —CodeCat 20:20, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me, I don't type the names in anyway, to get to {{fr-noun/doc}} I would first go to fr-noun then click on the documentation link, to adding an extra 10 characters wouldn't affect the way I browse. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:11, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I've changed the {{documentation}} template so that it supports both names. The category Category:Templates with /doc subpage contains all the templates that currently still have a subpage named /doc. Those pages should be moved to /documentation, but I'm not sure what the best way is to do that. —CodeCat 17:44, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Merge Category:Belgian Dutch and Category:Flemish Dutch

I don't think there is any difference between these two names, so they should probably be merged. However, "Flemish" is ambiguous because it can refer either to historical Flanders (the modern provinces of East Flanders and West Flanders) or to all of the Flemish community (all the Dutch-speaking areas) of Belgium. So the name Category:Belgian Dutch would probably be clearer. I would like {{Flemish}} to explicitly display "East and West Flanders" for this reason, too. —CodeCat 19:41, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

User:Dixtosa/ka-postpositional-of

This is called from several main-namespace entries. It should be moved into the Template: namespace and those entries which call it should be updated. - -sche (discuss) 03:38, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I subst:ed the only remaining transclusion. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:52, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:past of

Move to Template:en-past of. As far as I can tell, this is intended specifically for English, but its name is very misleading to say the least. —CodeCat 17:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

1. Support There is also good reason to have {{en-simple past}}, {{en-3rd person singular of}}, {{en-present participle of}} (or {{en-ing form of}}), {{en-past participle of}} and {{en-plural of}}, though shorter aliases would be desirable for the longer ones. These would allow linking to appropriate Etymology or PoS sections within English L2 sections, thereby taking advantage of the positioning of English at the top of the page in all(?) relevant pages. DCDuring TALK 17:40, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   I think I agree with that too, although I'm not sure how well subsection-linking works with tabbed languages. Also consider what would happen if a Translingual section precedes. —CodeCat 17:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   That kind of thing is what the ? was for. Translingual taxonomic name and associated entries are OK as they would be proper nouns or nouns or adjectives with Latinized spellings, ie no problem with verb templates, unlikely to be a problem for nouns. Other Latin script Translingual entries not for symbols (including numbers) should be very few. I expect that most of them arguably do not belong in Translingual. In the remaining instances we have a choice of complexifying the template a lot (not my favorite option) or having a parameter ("nottop=" ?) to force the link to the English section.

   Also, {{en-comparative form of}} and {{en-superlative form of}} could also be created, with similar potential advantages. DCDuring TALK 18:05, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   Argh, um other languages use to too, right? Middle English for example. That of course doesn't mean we can't use this. By the way the French Wiktionary for English uses two lines, one for simple past and one for past participle. That's really what we should do, in my opinion. By bot it wouldn't be hard; {{past of}} itself could be turned into a subst: template and subst:ed by bot. That would be my vote in the overall scheme of things. Delete this all together. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:10, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   Didn't Middle English still distinguish past singular (no -en) from past plural (with -en)? Old English did, at least, so that probably carried over into Middle English as well. Also, I'm pretty sure that Middle English weak past forms still had a schwa -e at the end, whereas the past participle did not. —CodeCat 18:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   Are there entries in any other languages besides Middle English and English that use this?

   Middle English should be using templates of the form "enm" or generic ones. English would benefit from not using templates with generic behavior, rather than exploiting its special position. What is the best way to accomplish this result? DCDuring TALK 22:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   What's the name of the tool for identifying parameter use within templates? DCDuring TALK 22:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Why are we using hashes? Anyway, {{#if:{{{lang|}}}|[[Category:past of with lang]]}} should do it, no need for dump analysis. PS this would also pick up lang=en, but since that's redundant there's no reason not to identify those too. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:49, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

1. The hash carries over from my agree above. This is easy to do if all we have to do is worry about Middle English, because there are relatively few entries. We can create the "enm" templates before the move, making them mimic the relevant behavior of the generically named template. We can also create the new "en" templates and test them, making sure that there is consensus. We can then redirect the generically named templates to the "en" ones, change the inflected-form entry creators to the new name, and gradually eliminate the older name.

   The tool for identifying parameter use seems particularly useful to catch any unexpected use of the template in languages other than English and Middle English. I realize that the comparative and superlative templates are more difficult because at least many Romance languages use them. DCDuring TALK 23:11, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   {{#ifeq:{{{lang|en}}}|en||[[Category:past of with lang]]}} will categorise any non-English uses, regardless of whether the lang= parameter was provided. —CodeCat 23:49, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

   I was thinking of TemplateTiger. DCDuring TALK 00:05, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

   Using Templatetiger I was able to establish that one de, one enm, one no, and ~30 sco entries use this template. I have revised the de, enm, and no entries, but not yet the sco. DCDuring TALK 00:35, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I've orphaned {{past of}} and moved all transclusions over to {{en-past of}} and {{sco-past of}}. I also simplified the templates by removing parameters that weren't used or needed for English/Scots entries (like script). —CodeCat 04:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

That was a bit quick! Mglovesfun (talk) 10:23, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Could you update ACCEL? It still[ [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=recertificated&diff=19969566&oldid=19967884 uses {{past of}}. - -sche (discuss) 02:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, the whole accelerated creation system really confuses me. It seems like it was written to be clever but not to actually be easy to adapt by people who don't understand all the intricacies. So... I don't really feel terribly comfortable trying to do that. (though, I think it says enough about the system if I can't even figure out how to change something as simple as this!) —CodeCat 03:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. --Yair rand (talk) 04:21, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:simple past of

DCDuring mentioned this above, and I kind of agree that this should also be moved. But we'd need to check to make sure no other language uses it, first. —CodeCat 19:39, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

spak#Middle English. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Using TemplateTiger this one would appear to have some 15 sco uses and 6 enm uses. I've cleared out the de and ja uses. DCDuring TALK 16:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it really appropriate to call it the "simple past" in Middle English? Did it already have the continuous past formed the way modern English and Scots do? —CodeCat 16:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

The other templates and - even more so, {{plural of}} - seem harder to do with this approach as the number of non-en uses is often very large. The strategy might be to create language-specific templates and perhaps run a bot to check for a match between L2 header and lang= parameter (or absence thereof) until we were comfortable that a bot could be turned loose.

One major advantage of this kind of removal of English entries from generically named templates is that the TemplateTiger listing or one from an occasional dump run could provide clues as to which languages next needed a language-specific template and also cleanup lists for entries using the generic templates when a language specific one would be better. DCDuring TALK 16:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I haven't the foggiest

Shouldn't this be at not have the foggiest (now a redirect) or perhaps better at have the foggiest. Certainly this doesn't only occur in the first person singular.

I think there is always a negative associated with this idiom, but the following kinds of usage are not rare:

I don't think he had the foggiest about selecting the best lemma entry.

I wonder whether he has the foggiest about what he's doing.

This is what favors the non-negative as lemma with redirects from the most common forms, including those with -n't. DCDuring TALK 01:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

This is a canonical negative polarity item in English, found only in negatives (including negation of the main clause when the NPI occurs in a subordinate clause) and questions (including indirect questions like "I wonder whether..."), just like any in "John does not have any potatoes", "I don't think John has any potatoes", "Does John have any potatoes?", "I wonder whether John has any potatoes" but *"John has any potatoes". I'd say move to have the foggiest or even the foggiest since I think "have got the foggiest" is also used. —Angr 11:53, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Should any (explicit-verb-containing) negative polarity item contain "not" in the headword? I think not, though there may turn out to be exceptions. Of course, redirects from the most common negative containing forms might be helpful. DCDuring TALK 16:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Move to have the foggiest, retain the redirect (would not be an ambiguous redirect). Mglovesfun (talk) 17:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic forms with final nasal vowels to their ogonek-spelled forms

For some time we've had the situation where Proto-Germanic words that have a final nasal vowel were spelled with a following -n, but in links and headwords the display was overridden to show an ogonek instead. The rationale given for it (by me) at WT:AGEM was that many sources write the final -n, and that it would therefore be more convenient. However, now that we have lots and lots of Proto-Germanic words, it doesn't really seem so convenient anymore, but instead an unnecessary nuisance. We can't just drop the ogoneks because the distinction between regular vowel, nasal vowel and vowel + n was phonemic in Proto-Germanic and the three have distinct outcomes in the descendants. In retrospect, sources may use -n but they may also use some other representation, so we can't follow all of them. However, probably the most prominent Proto-Germanic source is currently Ringe 2006, and that uses ogoneks. So if we are to follow any source at all, that would be a very strong candidate. Therefore I propose to move all of the Proto-Germanic pages to the ogonek form when applicable, and to update all the links pointing to those entries. (One note: while you may argue that ogoneks make the words harder to type, consider that Proto-Germanic also uses macrons, circumflexes and the letter þ, so adding ogoneks would barely add any further difficulty) —CodeCat 02:20, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Oppose purely out of selfish motivation. Macra and circumflexes are easy for me to type; thorns much harder but much rarer. Ogoneks are worse than any of those for me. In general, circumflexes are a widely available character (for example, they are common enough to be in Mac's U.S. character set) and macra and thorns are used in representing several older Germanic languages and will likely be easier for Germanicists to input. Ogoneks do have some Germanic use, but it is sparing to say the least, and they are an uncommon character group in general. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

That may be true, but since when have we shied away from hard-to-input characters when we felt them to be more appropriate (putting the smart quote debate aside)? I mean, we don't have any problems inputting IPA characters, or any of the many awkward symbols in PIE, do we? —CodeCat 03:44, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah we do. I never argued against PIE characters because I don't know much about it, but I find it very frustrating sometimes. As for IPA, the day should come very soon when people can input X-SAMPA in the {{IPA}} template and depend on a backwards-version of Michael's Lua converter (easy to write, a little harder to implement). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Unrelated to the main topic but I use "Character Palette" on Mozilla Firefox, which let me type any character I want without opening a second tab (except for certain diacritic symbols, esp. Arabic but I use Windows On-Screen keyboard for that). I don't need to have multiple tabs and copy-paste and I can have a few palettes if I run out of room on my toolbar. E.g. ɛŽžČ芚ʹʺÁáÉéÍíÓóÚúÝýɛ́āēīōūǎṯḥḏṣḍṭẓʿġʾâğäöüçşïıñôţḑŗŕǎ̀ʻøј fits on one panel - they have spaces on the panel and clicking on one symbol (they act like buttons) adds it to a clipboard. Other browsers should have something similar and there could be better tools. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:14, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

My inclination is to support a switch for the reasons CodeCat outlines. - -sche (discuss) 04:21, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• @Μετάknowledge, there's also Edittools (when it loads).  :) -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 05:35, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I use the US international layout, which has support for a lot of diacritics on Linux, including macrons, ogoneks, breves, hačeks and so on. On Windows it's a bit more meager, but there is a keyboard layout editor for Windows that you could use to add the extra characters to your layout. For characters that are not in my keyboard layout I either use the edittools, or I look up the unicode codepoint for the combining diacritics (when I want to type ā́ for PIE, I type shift+altgr+3, a, ctrl+shift+u, 0301, space). —CodeCat 13:34, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
    • On Win XP and Win 7, I've had good luck using the AllChars app, a little utility that lets you define behavior closer to how the Compose key works in Linux, even using text-based config files for very easy configuration. I'm not affiliated with the project at all, just a happy user. [6] :) -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:19, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Support: having to care for a cosmetic display-form is one less thing to remember to do Leasnam (talk) 16:25, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Ogoneks and ⁿ are the two ways I've most often seen PGmc nasalized vowels represented. —Angr 21:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks like the consensus is leaning towards supporting, so I will start the move. —CodeCat 13:14, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• The only question I have is how easily discoverable the ogonek spelling will be. If users enter the spelling with the final "n", will they be redirected to the ogonek spelling? If so, then great, I'm all for this move. If no, then how do we tweak things to make sure that users can find the ogonek spelling? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:56, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
  • The nasal vowels always occur at the end of the word, so by the time someone has typed in all the other letters of the name, there will only be one or two search suggestions left, including the final nasal if it exists. I don't think that is even a huge problem though, because I think that most users will end up on those pages by clicking on a link in an etymology. And because we hide these pages away in appendixes, they aren't actually meant to be very discoverable, I imagine. —CodeCat 02:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
    • <head scratch> Don't we usually include multiple spelling variants, with (in most cases) one selected for maintenance and the others as alternative spelling? - Amgine/ ^t·e 01:04, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
      • That works when the spelling is actually used, but these are entirely unattested forms. The spelling of attested words is therefore subject to CFI while Proto-Germanic words are of a very different nature. So what exactly does "alternative" mean when there are no attestations? Reconstructions are always made based on some kind of representation, and we've just decided on one particular representation. That doesn't mean that other representations are different terms, they're just different ways of representing the same reconstructed phonemes. It's a bit like deciding that we use straight quotes instead of angle quotes, or no macrons for Latin... the angle quotes aren't in any way an "alternative spelling", they're just a different representation of the same thing. —CodeCat 01:15, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:Form of templates

To Category:Form-of templates. I don't see why Category:Form-of templates by language has a hyphen and this doesn't. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree, I was going to suggest this myself. But I've been kind of trying to sort out and clean up that category anyway, and one thing I would like to do is to create subcategories for the different types of template. In particular, there would be a category for inflectional form-of templates like {{feminine of}} and another for alternative forms, spellings and such. —CodeCat 13:53, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I've created the new category and moved the page contents over, but the templates themselves will need to be fixed by hand. —CodeCat 22:38, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

 Done —CodeCat 23:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

As a copy-editing pedant, I’d like to say that you are all awesome. —Michael Z. 2013-05-22 02:39 z

Category:Chinese Provinces

Should be Category:Provinces of China, since that's the format all the other categories (except Category:German States, which I am about to change, and Category:US States) use. I can make the change using AWB. - -sche (discuss) 03:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:English words with different meanings in different locations

This was originally nominated at WT:RFDO as this page didn't exist yet. I feel uneasy about the title. There's clearly some merit to it, like pissed meaning drink in the UK and angry in the US, but I hate the title 'English words with different meanings in different locations'. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:zdj, Template:wni, Template:swb, Template:wlc

I had a look, and these four are just dialects of Swahili. I don't think they have any entries, but any that may exist should be {{sw}}. Oh, and don't forget to delete the script subpages. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:59, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Is the nomination to redirect these to {{sw}}? I thought we usually deleted things like this, in which case the discussion should be at WT:RFD/O, shouldn't it? —Angr 10:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Technically it's a deletion of a page, but it's a merger of the languages. So... it does kind of belong here. —CodeCat 14:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Re "discussion should be at WT:RFD/O": when Metaknowledge posted Template:tnv in WT:RFDO, msh210 said the discussion "should be in the BP, not here". LOL, seems you just can't win, Meta! :b

Anyway, (@Angr) see WT:RFDO#tnv, WT:RFDO#pld, and WT:BP#Notice of language-merger discussion at RFM. I suggested in the tnv discussion that a dedicated WT:Requests to change the treatment of lects page might be useful, because when I want to merge lects+codes+templates, I post on WT:RFM (the page for merging things)—and the majority of discussions are on WT:RFM, in part because I am the most prolific starter of them—but other people sometimes post in RFDO or even, very rarely, in the BP. In the WT:BP#Notice discussion, the idea of posting lect mergers on a separate page was opposed, however... so we've ended up back at WT:RFM, where we (or at least, the majority of discussions) started. :) - -sche (discuss) 20:26, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I support merging zdj, wni and wlc into swb, but tentatively keeping swb separate from sw. (I note swb is properly the code of Maore Comorian, but we currently call it plain Comorian, and it's useful to continue to.) Quoth John Mugane (The Linguistic Typology and Representation of African Languages, 2003): “The various dialects of Comorian were traditionally seen as being dialects of Swahili, although there is not consistent mutual intelligibility between Comorian speakers and Swahili speakers. […] Around [1970], more discussion arose of the possibility that Comorian should be considered a separate language from Swahili. Ottenheimer & Ottenheimer (1976) provides a discussion of the place of Comorian among Bantu languages. The contribution of Asian, African and European languages, as well as Malagasy, to the lexicon and grammar of Comorian is acknowledged. A history of Comorian linguistics is given, along with the remark that linguists took a long time to accept that the Comorian dialects are not simply dialects of Swahili, but rather are different enough from Swahili to be considered a different language. Other linguists soon followed suit, beginning with Sibertin-Blanc (1980), who […] posits that the Swahili-Comorian split was one of the more recent Swahili dialect separations.”

There are some differences between Comorian dialects, and some are more similar to Swahili than others (Nurse & Hinnebusch write that Swahili and N[d]zwani+Maore feature a future based on -caka, while Ngazi[d]ja+Mwali do not), but in general the IEL writes that "all [Comorian] dialects [are] sufficiently distinct from mainland Swahili to warrant separate translation".

I can create a few words in Comorian, if we decide to keep it. - -sche (discuss) 21:37, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Comorian looks about as close to modern Zanzibari Swahili as 17th century Swahili does. However, I don't think anyone is advocating for 'Old Swahili'. Moreover, Swahili is a very pluricentric language, as will often happen with languages that arise at a linguistic interface. Taken as a whole, I don't see much deviation in vocabulary, although I cannot speak for grammar/inflection. I can accept keeping Swahili and Comorian Swahili separate, but I would prefer to see wordlist comparisons if you have them. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:26, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't have any substantial wordlists at hand. Eh, I don't mind merging Comorian and Swahili; we can always use context tags and split them again later if it becomes apparent that's merited. 'Tis a wiki, after all. - -sche (discuss) 20:54, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:han tu form of

Two editors on 𫋙 and Talk:𫋙 (no I can't see those links either) have objected to the name han tu, saying it should be chu nom. I have no opinion on the matter. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:55, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

There is no need to move or rename this. It's just that using this template in 𫋙 and 𪜚 (which are chữ Nôm) is wrong. There is no problem using it in Sino-Vietnamese words; all pages linking to it are using it correctly except for those two. Wyang (talk) 12:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Since that was me who made those two edits, what's the difference? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:07, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Kauffner (talk • contribs) moved it unilaterally; I moved it back. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

"Hán" means Classical Chinese. "Nôm" is Vietnamese written with Chinese-style characters. The template says it is for "Vietnamese written in Chinese characters", so it should be called "Nom form of". Tự (words) and chữ (characters) are just descriptors and should not be treated as part of the name. See Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation. Vdict defines hán tự as "Chinese literature", and chữ nôm as "demotic script (Ancient Vietnamese script)." I note that the phrase "unilateral" is being misused above, as there was in fact another editor who agreed to the move. Update: I looked at some of the links. They are mostly Vietnamese readings for modern Chinese characters. This is properly called "Han-Viet" or "Sino-Vietnamese reading". Every Chinese character has a reading of this kind; It's the Vietnamese equivalent to pinyin or Wade-Giles. You can get such readings from this site. Kauffner (talk) 04:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Weirdly, that editor is the one that commented here and doesn't agree with it. Don't ask me why that is. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we can create another template for Nôm? In Vietnamese dictionaries, the Hán reading is labeled "H" or "Hv." (for Hán Việt). The Nôm reading is labeled "N". There is none of this Hán tự stuff. Update Here is a Vietnamese dictionary that uses the label "Hv" for Han readings. Type "nom" or some other syllable into the search function. Kauffner (talk) 16:11, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

endeavour

endeavor

These no longer say the same thing. Is there really no way we can merge them, using {{alternative form of}}? Mglovesfun (talk) 09:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course we can, the question is whether there is a willingness to do so, and if so, which form gets labeled the {{alternative form of}} the other. FWIW, endeavor is older by 9 minutes. —Angr 21:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I wish we could resolve this kind of redundant entry somehow. It’s a problem in choosing which senses apply, and can become unresolvaby confusing when variations represent regional differences, but also common and proper nouns and “proper” adjectives, and varying number. Even more confusing when some of the senses are plural of or alternative form of the other. E.g., aboriginal/Aboriginal, labour/Labour/labor/Labor, First Nation/First Nations.

Our lemmas aren’t really lemmas, so sometimes the reader may have to jump between two or three entries to actually read a comprehensive definition of a term.. —Michael Z. 2013-04-17 22:27 z

flashbang

I propose to move this to flash-bang. Primary usage seems to hyphenated, followed by usage with a space (flash bang), and as a single word (flashbang).”. bd2412 T 01:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Module:zh to Module:cmn-common and Module:Hani-common

I suggested moving this on the talk page, and User:Wyang threatened to stop editing if we moved this. I don't think such a threat is really appropriate, so I am bringing it up here. My reasoning is that we don't treat zh as a language, and this module contains things that are specific to Mandarin that are not used for other Chinese languages. Therefore, I think that this should be split into a Mandarin-specific module (which would contain Pinyin transliteration) and a module for general handling of Han script (which would work for all languages that use it, presumably Japanese too). —CodeCat 12:43, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I am not aware of all the background, but it seems to me that separating language- and script-specific processing functions is a different thing from how we organize our Chinese-language entries (which I see Wyang is concerned about). Anyway, Wyang should come up with any justification at all if he expects us to take his argument seriously. —Michael Z. 2013-04-20 17:30 z

I feel like Wyang is holding us hostage... I don't care where we put it, so I guess oppose if that's what it takes. Not a proud oppose, mind you, but a coerced oppose. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:48, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

What's in the name? It seems User:Wyang is too sensitive about the issue. Well, the Chinese Wikipedia and Wiktionary uses "zh", even if they are in standard Mandarin. For many Chinese Mandarin = "Standard Chinese". User:Wyang is a smart editor, with great linguistic and coding skills, very productive and responsive too. I don't know. I second Metaknowledge, oppose as well but it's not very good to hold us hostage. It's much better to try and explain your position. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:34, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

S  Wyang seems to have left en.Wiktionary, without actually saying why he opposes the split. Was he opposed to the existence of the language code cmn, or its use, or the idea of a Mandarin language? —Michael Z. 2013-04-24 16:05 z

Judging from his user page, it seems that he felt that all Sinitic languages were one language, and treated the way we split them as a personal attack on him for some reason. —CodeCat 16:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Split off English versions of Template:comparative of and Template:superlative of

These templates currently contain code that displays additional information in the definition when the language is English. I don't think that a general, language-independent template like this should contain code that caters to a specific language in this way, so I propose splitting off all English uses of these templates to {{en-comparative of}} and {{en-superlative of}}. —CodeCat 19:43, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Support per nomination. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Weak support. - -sche (discuss) 20:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Merge Wikisaurus:idiot and Wikisaurus:fool?

I realize that idiot and fool can carry different shades of meaning (idiot implies low intelligence, whereas fool implies poor judgment, which doesn't necessarily preclude intelligence), but given the amount of overlap between Wikisaurus:idiot and Wikisaurus:fool, I'm wondering if a merge of the two pages might be warranted. Astral (talk) 00:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Well I dunno, while Wikisaurus probably doesn't have as much content as a real thesaurus at all, y'know thesauruses do tend to have entries for both say, word X and word Y, where word Y is a listed synonym for word word X. User: PalkiaX50 ^{talk to meh} 02:17, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with such a merger. I think we have an opportunity here to create a better thesaurus, one that provides a more informative communication of nuance. Just about every set of synonyms has subtle shades of meaning, formality, and so forth, that can best be compared on a single thesaurus page. bd2412 T 19:58, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The template {{ws}}, used to add words to Wikisaurus pages, allows for the inclusion of a definition that appears upon mouse-over. I think this feature is sufficient to communicate subtle nuances of meaning. But the placement of many terms on Wikisaurus:idiot and Wikisaurus:fool strikes me as somewhat arbitrary. I mean, what makes dimwit a synonym of idiot, but not of fool? A single, consolidated Wikisaurus page would be easier to manage, and would make it easier for readers to find synonyms, as right now some dictionary entries link to Wikisaurus:fool while others link to Wikisaurus:idiot. Astral (talk) 22:33, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Mandarin topical categories

It was discussed and agreed here: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2013/April#Some_small_changes_to_Mandarin_.28also_Cantonese.2C_Min_Nan.29_entry_structure_and_about_topic_categories_-_suggestion that Mandarin topical categories are to be similar to other languages with no distinction between traditional and simplified (no affect on parts of speech, only topical categories).

Simple renaming of categories to remove "_in_simplified_script" and "_in_traditional_script" is not a good idea before entries are corrected.

1. Could all Mandarin entries be edited by a bot to remove " in simplified script" and " in traditional script" in them? I.e. they should belong to Category:cmn:Family, not Category:cmn:Family in traditional script or Category:cmn:Family in simplified script?

That's the first step.

2. We also agreed that sorting order should be the same for trad./simpl., so that entries are sorted like simplified - by numbered pinyin, e.g. "jie3jie", not "女05姐姐" (see 姐姐). This is harder. It's OK if just the 1st part is done.

That entry instead of

[[Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin in simplified script|jie3jie]]
[[Category:cmn:Family in simplified script|jie3jie]]
[[Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin in traditional script|女05姐姐]]
[[Category:cmn:Family in traditional script|女05姐姐]]

Should have:

[[Category:cmn:Beginning Mandarin|jie3jie]]
[[Category:cmn:Family|jie3jie]]

The above entry is both simplified and traditional, if it's only one, then the category name should just be shortened.

3. When all entries are fixed, categories with "_in_simplified_script" and "_in_traditional_script" should be removed to without the suffix, or, if the shorter names exists, just deleted but not before the first step is done.

Is that possible? Can someone take it on? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:22, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

address with the polite V-form

Does English really not have a better term for this? I imagine that even if English doesn't have this phenomenon itself, it would still have a word to describe it in other languages. Also, what is its antonym? —CodeCat 13:21, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

The antonym is thou, though it may be obsolete. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 17:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I think English really doesn't have a word for this, even when talking about other languages. When I want to talk about it, I use the verb found in whatever language I'm discussing, so if I'm talking about French, I'll say vouvoyer and if I'm talking about German I'll say siezen. As in "When I was in Paris, I vouvoyered my host parents until they asked me to tutoyer them, but when I was in Vienna, I duzened my host parents right away." (Actually, this brings up an interesting phenomenon I've noticed among English-speaking expats living in Germany: when we adopt German verbs when speaking English, some of us leave the infinitive -en on and say "I siezened him, I duzened her", while others of us drop the -en and say "I siezed /ziːtst/ him, I duzed /duːtst/ her".) —Angr 18:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Yep, the non-Romance words don't even start with V, which I find problematic. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

The formal pronoun is called V-form and the informal T-form regardless of language. Thus, this could be moved to address with the V-form (and address with the informal T-form to address with the T-form). — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 21:09, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Rock Paper Scissors

Tagged but not listed. Also Scissors Paper Stone, Paper Scissors Stone. Should not have any capital letters, perhaps this is uncontroversial enough to just move them. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:20, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

S.  —Michael Z. 2013-05-18 18:42 z

Are we supposed to know what that means? —Angr 20:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

My best guess is 'support', but it is a guess. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:43, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:asph, Template:dualh, Template:muteh

These templates are used only for French, so I think they should be named Template:fr-asph, Template:fr-dualh, Template:fr-muteh. —CodeCat 20:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

No argument here. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:32, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

brier

Should be merged into [[briar]], which has better structure, but not all of the content of [[brier]]. DCDuring TALK 14:39, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:aus-gun and Template:etyl:aus-gun

One is a language, the other is a family, but they share the same code. This causes a conflict, so one of them needs to be renamed. —CodeCat 12:24, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any difference between the Gunai language and the Kurnai language, so why not merge {{aus-gun}} to {{unn}}? —Angr 12:35, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

That's the ticket. And Kurnai seems to be more common as a name for the language than Gunai, although the language is rarely mentioned under any name. - -sche (discuss) 19:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)