Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2014/March

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← February 2014 · March 2014 · April 2014 → · (current)

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‎Languages with difficult scripts

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2014/February.

I was astonished today to run into the word šambaliltu for fenugreek in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, which I knew by the Persian word Template:term/t (our entry says it's transliterated shambalile, but I thought it was shambalila). I had no idea the word went all the way back to Akkadian. My first thought was: do we have it in Wiktionary? After looking at Category:Akkadian nouns, I still don't know.

Cuneiform is a complex script that very few people know how to read, and that most references don't use- but all our categories are arranged in character order with no transliteration shown. If you want to find a given word, you have to either: a) browse through all the entries, one by one; b) type the transliteration into the search box and hope it matches the one in the entry; or c) try to guess the characters in the name from the transliteration using some reference, and look for them in the category.

How can we improve on this? I know we can add a sort key to the category wikilink in each entry to make the categories list in transliteration order, and we can create transliteration-of entries (Category:Akkadian nouns has exactly one of those). It would be nice to have an automatically-generated index of transliterations for each category, and/or have the transliterations visible in the category listing itself. The second option looks like it would require assistance from the developers, but what about the first? Does anyone have other ideas? Chuck Entz (talk) 04:31, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I support allowing romanisation entries for Akkadian (and any language that uses an obsolete script). — Ungoliant ^(falai) 04:36, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz Pro tip: It's March already. --WikiTiki89 04:51, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Not here in California, but in wiki-land, I suppose it is. Topic moved. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I support allowing romanizations as soft redirects, possibly with their own categories. --WikiTiki89 05:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

This is how Ogham is organised. viz: Category:Primitive Irish nouns --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 06:41, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Romanized entries are already allowed for Etruscan, Gothic, Lydian, Oscan, Phoenician. Akkadian can be added to the list if a standard and referenced transliteration scheme is adopted and described somewhere. --Vahag (talk) 09:11, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

A more general solution would be some kind of fuzzy search to supplement (certainly initially) or even replace our main search capability. I am thinking of a search that could be restricted to search only within a given language, language family, or group of languages using a given script or script family.

I certainly favor any effort to expand the usefulness of our entries to those without great knowledge of the range of scripts in which they are entered. DCDuring TALK 13:40, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

On refreshing myself with Cuneiform, it's a hard problem. Akkadian cuneiform is a syllabary, but the normalised transcriptions (in Wiktionary, anyway) do not show the syllables which spell the word. (A·KA·AS·SA·PU·TU > Ákassaptu, as a completely made up example. More the point, a symbol may be read as Akkadian, Sumerian (which I think is shown by the differing transcriptions in parenthesis (Akkadian reading) and brackets [SUMERIAN]) or as a determiner. I don't think an automatic transcription is possible, much less fuzzy searching as described above. Moreover, I think that an Assyriologist needs to go through and normalise these, with a better description of what's going on. Something like

• Akkadian

  𒀀 (mū) f. (plural)

  1. water

  Usage notes

  Most often complemented with MEŠ (link to whatever the cuneiform is for MEŠ)

Sumerian readings should be listed in the Translingual section. The Akkadian section would give variant transcriptions, possibly with a link to an appendix describing the process and conventions (such as transcribing in lower case for Akkadian readings, and UPPERCASE for Sumerian readings, which are not uncommonly combined within a word), and possibly even the transcription and the normalisation. The cuneiform would be a lemma, and the normalisation would also be a lemma, each linking to the other, but the diplomatic transcription, while given in both places, would not be a lemma. So...

• 𒋠𒍝𒆳𒋛𒀀 (argamannu [SÍG.ZA.GÌN.SA5]) is a head line, which would link to
• 𒅈𒂵𒌋𒌋𒉡 (argamannu [ar.ga.man.nu]) and both would link to
• argamannu which would require two transcriptions: (𒋠𒍝𒆳𒋛𒀀 [SÍG.ZA.GÌN.SA5]) and (𒅈𒂵𒌋𒌋𒉡 [ar.ga.man.nu])

TL;DR: It's a hard, and probably not automatable, problem to solve properly. --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 22:29, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Request for having archaic third-person singular form for English verbs

I don't know if somebody has requested it before, but I think that we may want to include the third-person singular form of English verbs in the headline (goeth, cometh, hath). The details of implementation can be discussed later. What are your views? --kc_kennylau (talk) 16:41, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd be against including them in the headword line, though of course they need to be listed somewhere in the lemma. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by "somewhere in the lemma"? I think that the headword line is the best place to put it, IMHO. --kc_kennylau (talk) 16:51, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I mean goeth should be linked to somewhere within go#English, but not the headword line. Under ===Conjugation=== would be a better place for it. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:55, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Such forms confirm the impression (also otherwise justified) that we are only interested in serving antiquarians and scholars rather than normal humans. I'd like us to do what we can to maintain the illusion that we care about normal people who might still be using Wiktionary.

I strongly oppose such forms being visible by default. It may belong in related terms or in some place, even the inflection line, where it is not visible by default but can be made visible. I would really like it if were not visible even if the user did not have JS or any other more than basic capability. DCDuring TALK 16:58, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

It would be too space-demanding if we have to have a new header for that, because the headword line already contains all the conjugations. If you do not wish to have an impression that you are "only interested in serving antiquarians and scholars", why don't you make the etymology section hidden? --kc_kennylau (talk) 17:02, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I apologize if I'm sounding rude or anything, because my brain is now not functioning properly due to it being 1 o'clock in the morning for me, and due to the fact that English is not my native language. --kc_kennylau (talk) 17:03, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that if we do this, we need to do it right, and there are a lot more forms we would need to include, such as the second person singular and the subjunctive. For example, at [[do]] we would need the indicative dost and doth, as well as the subjunctive doest and doeth, which is a total of four extra forms we'd need to add. --WikiTiki89 17:43, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Please don't. It's bad enough when an entry starts off with a chain of rare, obsolete "alternative forms". Goodness knows what kind of Chaucerian gobbledygook our foreign users must be acquiring. Equinox ◑ 17:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I would support moving the ===Alternative forms=== section down to where all the other related terms sections are. --WikiTiki89 17:43, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I think alternative forms is placed where it is for reasons similar to why Wikipedia often lists several common varieties of the article name. It's there to let users know that they've found what they're looking for. —CodeCat 17:52, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

@KennyLau: I often hide portions of longer etymologies, especially lists of cognates. As our etymologies have gotten longer, I have become increasingly sympathetic to hiding them by default.

@Wikitiki & Equinox: Horizontal lists of alternative forms are less intrusive than vertical lists. CodeCat's point is true, but we have many rather obscure alternative forms that clutter the lists. I'm not sure what basis there would be for shortening the lists of alternative forms, but I've long thought that digraphs have low value. There may be other typographic alternatives that could be eliminated.

Perhaps all obsolete, archaic, and rare forms, whether in alternative forms or the inflection line could be made to appear only if a user chose to display them. DCDuring TALK 18:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Jut to add my voice to the chorus: obsolete forms should not go in the headword line. We shouldn't clutter the line with information which is no longer useful and, by giving it prominence, suggest it is still usable* : I've known a couple of Germans who liked to use the 'goest'-forms of verbs because they couldn't stand that English wouldn't use as full a set of verb forms as German; they never realized (much like people who use ligatured spellings of "æqual", and much like the North Korean press office which famously only had outdated English-Korean translation dictionaries for a long time) how affectatious they sounded; we don't need to encourage more people to do the same. The last time the presence of obsolete forms on headword lines was discussed, people seemed to favour creating conjugation tables for English verbs which would include the -eth and -est forms. (And people seemed to oppose listing obsolete forms on headword lines, so I proceeded to move all the obsolete forms I could find in headword lines down to, for lack of a better place, ====Usage notes====.)
*I realize one could say much the same of obsolete alternative forms, which I nevertheless don't support moving out of the ===Alternative forms=== section, despite that section's current prominent placement. I think the solution there is to collapse the obsolete forms under a rel-top, and perhaps move the entire Alt forms section — whereas, collapsing part of a headword line, or moving the headword line to a different part of the entry, would be a bad idea. Also, I think that obsolete forms belong with other alt forms, and can (when in Alt forms sections) be segregated onto a separate line and labelled clearly, whereas obsolete forms listed as part of a single run-on headword line can't be labelled as clearly without making the headword line into two or more lines.
- -sche (discuss) 20:43, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if putting alternative forms in a right-floating box would help. It would keep them "out of the way" while still being at the top so they can be seen easily. —CodeCat 20:52, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't help if one were using rhs table of contents.

The discreet way in which quotations are concealed by default would be great for obsolete etc forms, still allowing common alternative forms to be prominently displayed. That same approach could allow the archaic inflected verb forms to be displayed just beneath the modern inflected forms.

I am OK if the archaic forms cannot go unto the headword line, but they have to be included at least somewhere in the entry, since one currently can find not the forms anywhere in the main entry, which becometh a problem when thou beest trying to conjugate an irregular verb. --kc_kennylau (talk) 13:13, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Updating Wiktionary:Entry layout explained/POS headers

This page is very important as far as policy/common practice pages go, but it's also rather out of date. We should bring it up to date, but I'm not sure what the current state of affairs is on everything. I know that there's a general consensus that "acronym", "initialism" and such are no longer acceptable. We've also deprecated "cardinal number/numeral" and "ordinal number/numeral" recently in favour of plain "numeral" (for cardinals that don't fit any other part of speech) as well as "adjective" for ordinals. But there's also "idiom" which I don't think should be allowed either, although I don't know if any consensus exists on that. "Participle" seems to be gaining some ground recently; all Dutch participle entries use it now.

We should probably also go through the "Other headers in use" list and see which ones we should try to track down and fix. —CodeCat 21:09, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. If someone more technically adept than me could generate a list of all the POS headers that are currently in use (and, if it wouldn't be too taxing, a count of how often each header is used), that would let us know where we stand, as far as which headers are in use vs which are prescribed by WT:POS. One way to generate a list of POS headers would be to generate a list of L3 headers and then just manually remove non-POS stuff like "See also". In fact, a list of all L1, L3, L4, L5, etc headers (but not L2 headers — WT:STATS already has a list of those) which are in use, with information on what level they are and how often they occur, would surely reveal some typos and other things that we'd like to change. There shouldn't be any L1 headers. And I often notice "References" at L4 not inside a numbered etymology section. But I'm getting off-topic; I apologise. - -sche (discuss) 22:04, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

User:DTLHS/headers DTLHS (talk) 23:33, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for making the list, but in its current format it's not terribly useful. We really need to know which entries the non-standard headers occur on, so they can be fixed. At least the spelling mistakes. —CodeCat 23:52, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I would need a list of standard headers, to avoid listing millions of Noun entries. Also you can use the search to find the less common ones. DTLHS (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Also I just noticed one header called "Δεψλενσιον". It looks like someone had their keyboard in the wrong language! XD —CodeCat 23:54, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! There are about as many spelling errors as I expected, lol. - -sche (discuss) 00:05, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Σηοθλδ ςε σορτ τηε Οτηερ ηεαδερσ ιν θσε ιντο τηοσε ςηιψη αρε λανγθαγε σπεψιφιψ ανδ τηοσε ςηιψη αρε νοτ? Ανδ σηοθλδ ςε θσε Νθμβερ ορ Νθμεραλ? Ανδ Ι αμ αςαρε τηατ ςε αλσο σορτ Αββρεωιατιονσ, Αψρονυμσ, Ψοντραψτιονσ, Ινιτιαλισμ ανδ Συμβολ ιφ Ι αμ ψορρεψτ. --kc_kennylau (talk) 01:33, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

That is incredibly hard to read, so I'll transcribe it for everyone: "Should we sort the Other headers in use into those which are language specific and those which are not? And should we use Number or Numeral? And I am aware that we also sort Abbreviations, Acronyms, Contractions, Initialism and Symbol if I am correct." --WikiTiki89 02:01, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

@DTLHS: I've taken a stab at sorting your list into headers which are "standard enough" (including headers which are not standard anymore but which were once standard and which are therefore still common) and headers which IMO need to be tracked down (including both nonstandard/typo headers, and headers which may be standard but are so rarely used at the level they're at that I thought they could use review). You may want to wait for others to comment / modify the list further before generating a list of where all the nonstandard headers are used, though. - -sche (discuss) 02:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I've added some notes as well. —CodeCat 02:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for you input, I'll generate something more comprehensive in a day or so. DTLHS (talk) 02:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I've edited the page some more, grouping headers by where they may appear. —CodeCat 13:42, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

It looks like the list is finished, but there are a lot of problems already, that I can see. —CodeCat 00:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I've used MewBot to correct all the spelling mistakes, and converted some of the deprecated ones to the modern versions as far as was feasible with a bot. User:-sche also helped out. We probably need to wait now until the next dump is made, as the list doesn't reflect the current reality anymore. —CodeCat 16:43, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Wiktionary would benefit from a more user-friendly discussion forum

I have not been editing here regularly for years, and so coming back and looking at things with fresh eyes I think that there is a need for a more modern discussion forum, with a more normal way of posting messages. I think that would help discussions to take place more easily and would allow new users and people who don't edit regularly to contribute to discussions without being familiar with the unusual way of posting a message (when compared with other online forums/'fora'). It might be easier to edit from a tablet, as well. Also, the current format is slow to edit for anyone with a very slow internet connection. Does anyone agree? Has this been raised before? Kaixinguo (talk) 12:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• I have an infinitesimal amout of hope that Flow will be this. However, its developers seemingly prefer to waste time on trying to make it look like linkbait for a certain website with an orange logo, instead focusing on features like threads on multiple pages.

Also, we have LiquidThreads. Boring, somewhat clunky, somewhat ugly, but mostly functional. I am not sure why we do not use it more widely. Keφr 13:42, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

What would a lua-cized translation template look like?

I'm trying to continue the discussion here. --kc_kennylau (talk) 13:26, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

What would you like to discuss? DTLHS (talk) 23:29, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Vote: CFI: Removing usage in a well-known work 2

FYI: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2014-03/CFI: Removing usage in a well-known work 2

Let us postpone the vote as much as the discussion will make necessary. --Dan Polansky (talk)

Part-of-speech sections with multiple headword lines, lemmas with form-of definitions on the same page

Occasionally I come across entries where there is a single part-of-speech header with multiple headword lines below it. An example is mensa, in the Latin section. There are also many examples of this in Italian entries. Sometimes they are like the case of mensa where the second headword line is simply a form of the first, but I've also seen it used to distinguish masculine and feminine-gendered nouns with the same lemma form. I'm wondering what the general consensus is about entries like this. I personally think that this is wrong, and that these really should have their own headers. Masculine and feminine nouns are separate, they are not the same lemma, because they have (at least in Italian) separate types of inflections. But even the Latin mēnsā is not the same word as mēnsa; they have different pronunciations and it's only because of an orthographic shortcoming that they end up on the same page. There's also a practical consideration: having "floating headwords" with no header before them is harder for bots to parse, especially when they are formatted using the obsolete "bold headword" formatting like mēnsā is. As the page is now, a bot that tries to parse that page will come upon what seems like a random bit of bold text in the middle of the list of definitions. —CodeCat 23:26, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Mensa should definitely not be formatted like it is, we should either remove the "mēnsā f" line (and perhaps also the following "# (deprecated use of |lang= parameter) ablative singular of mēnsa" which simply points users to the page they're on) or give it its own ===Noun=== header. - -sche (discuss) 00:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we should remove it, because it's pronounced differently from the noun above. There should be two pronunciation sections on the page, which implies two noun sections IMO. —CodeCat 15:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

A question that's somewhat related is about form-of definitions that are homonymous with the lemma and therefore appear on the same page, under the same etymology/pronunciation section (often under the same PoS header too and listed as one of the definitions of the lemma, but not always). mēnsā is not an example, because its pronunciation differs, but the entry also contains a definition for the vocative singular. Again I'm not really sure if this is good practice. The main reason we create form-of entries in my opinion is to let people find the lemma, and also to give pronunciation information about each form specifically. But when the lemma is on the same entry already, and has the same pronunciation, there's not really anything to be gained from listing the form-of definition there. There would presumably be an inflection table on the entry, and that would show which forms coincide with the lemma form (these often appear in black bold, too). Please note that this doesn't apply at all to sublemma form entries. These entries would need extra grammatical information, such as their own inflection table. In those cases we should create sections for both, like on Template:term/t, which is both a verb (infinitive lemma) and the past participle of that verb. —CodeCat 23:26, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Hot words

Lately there has been a lot of debate about words such as olinguito and Euromaidan, which don't pass CFI but likely will in the future. I think that instead of keeping them outside of CFI, we should amend CFI to accommodate such words.

Proposal for special provisions for "hot words":

• If a word that can be considered beneficial to Wiktionary has citations that do not span the required time period, but meet the following criteria, the word may be kept as a "hot word". The citations must be:
  • relatively recent.
  • reach a wide population.
  • from a wide variety of media.
• An entry for a "hot word" will have a highly visible indication of its special status.
• While a "hot word" meets the above criteria, it will have the same rights as any other entry and may even be featured on the main page.
• A "hot word" will be reevaluated every time its lifespan doubles and if it does not still meet the above criteria, it must be deleted.

--WikiTiki89 04:51, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with this, but maybe we shouldn't call it a "word" unless we intend it to apply only to single words. I'm not sure if adding all of it to WT:CFI is a good idea, that page is very long and hard to read as it is. Though that's a separate discussion. —CodeCat 14:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I also tend to agree with this. It often happens that a relatively new term makes the headlines and, naturally, people will try to look it up in online dictionaries. We should do what we can to help in such circumstances. Perhaps such terms should be in a hidden category that we can check from time to time to see if it is still being used. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:40, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I think we need this. A categorizing template that contains a date of the entry or of the first valid citation would facilitate review a year or 13 months after the date leading to conversion of a normal entry or demotion to protologism status. We have a large Appendix:List of protologisms useful for reminding us of how bad some suggestions can be. DCDuring TALK 15:04, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I created {{hot word}}, which can be added to a page with a date= parameter. It checks whether the date was more than a year ago, and categorises the page accordingly. —CodeCat 15:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I added {{hot word|date=06 March 2014}} to the current sandbox - no obvious result. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:41, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

See [[olinguito]] for a working test. DCDuring TALK 15:55, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

We don't need a vote to try this for a while, do we? For how many terms would this apply, help? DCDuring TALK 15:58, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Basic template defaults should allow the selection of the date of creation of the entry as a default without jeopardizing our amateur status. Riskier in that regard would be:

1. making sure that the earlier of the creation date or the date specifically inserted as a template parameter was selected.
2. finding (using Lua?) the earlier citation date in the applicable language section and use that.
3. allowing for protologistic senses, not just L2s. DCDuring TALK 16:07, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Including “hot” words is a good idea, but I think it would be better if we added them to the Appendix namespace and linked to them with a template similar to {{only in}}. This will allow us to keep entries even if they turn out to be fads, if we forget to reevaluate the the entry we won’t be including a CFI-failing term and it won’t turn the main namespace into a temporary storage. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Advantages to having them in principal namespace are direct access via normal search and tabbed access to citations. I also think that they are likely to be taken more seriously. Previously Appendix:List of protologisms was treated as a way of softening the blow of deletion of mainspace entries by new would-be contributors. We would need to create a tiered system to enjoy the benefits of both a class of 'serious' protologisms and a class of protologisms only present as a kind of consolation prize. DCDuring TALK 19:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Appendix entries would still be accessible via the search, due to the template similar to {{only in}}. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:47, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I have added a preliminary visual design to {{hot word}}. I'm open to suggestions. --WikiTiki89 19:39, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Is protologism less clear than hot word, which we would have to define in our glossary and link to? Should we say 'This is a very popular, newly coined word that is likely to meet our criteria for inclusion in the future,but may not.'. DCDuring TALK 20:26, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

"hot word" is more exciting than "protologism". Yes, we can add it to our glossary and link it to there. I think your suggestion for the text is too long and wordy do be displayed in the template, but it would be a good fit for the glossary definition. --WikiTiki89 20:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

How about “This English term is a hot word and may be removed from Wiktionary in the future.” Using our terminology term, and indicating the language for clarity on multilingual pages. Maybe the template should be applied to a sense rather than an entry.

Graphically, it is much too hot. It looks more important than the main heading and all other content on the page. It only needs enough differentiation to draw the eye, and a treatment to differentiate it from other messages. But as a notice regarding the existence of an entry, perhaps it belongs above entry content, not as a sidebar on the right. —Michael Z. 2014-03-06 21:06 z

I like your wording. As for it being graphically "much too hot", feel free to cool it down. --WikiTiki89 21:43, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

We also need a template for hot definitions. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:13, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we should have a {{hot word-sense}} template. --WikiTiki89 21:43, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

{{hot sense}} makes more... sense? —CodeCat 21:50, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Maybe. It doesn't make much of a difference, although it is more concise. --WikiTiki89 21:58, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Created. See Template:l/pt for an example. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 22:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I think instead of linking to the glossary, it may be more informative to create a dedicated Wiktionary:Hot words. That way we can dedicate more space to what they are, why we include them, and exactly in what way they are exempt from WT:CFI (that is, what qualifies them for deletion). —CodeCat 22:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Appendix:Hot words might be better. --WikiTiki89 22:27, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

If olinguito doesn't pass CFI then it's CFI that needs to change. We don't need to add an ugly "hot words" box to its entry. It shouldn't need to pay penance. Let's start with removing the one-year requirement for broadly reported and attested scientific discoveries and mathematical concepts. For some neologisms, the "hot words" category could be a good idea, but not for olinguito, which is highly unlikely to be a flash in the pan as far as the word's usage goes. Pengo (talk) 06:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

That's the whole point of this discussion, to add provisions to CFI to allow words like olinguito. --WikiTiki89 06:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Wyangbot is applying for bot status (as continuation of a discussion last month)

Here. Please participate in the discussion and vote now. Wyang (talk) 03:46, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Plural forms of proper nouns

Many proper nouns have well-attested plural forms; for example, Frances, Germanies, Caitlins and Jesuses. It seems to me that we could create a couple of templatised usage notes which would explain two major categories of proper noun plurals, namely:

1. The plurals of personal names, which are used to refer to multiple individuals with the same name, and perhaps sometimes in the same way as placename-plurals (q.v.), as in "the two Obamas [the college-age one with X political views and the sitting president with Y political views] might not even recognise each other". And:
2. The plurals of placenames, which are used when comparing or contrasting two historical incarnations, or two current or historical governments or social incarnations, of a place, e.g. "the border between the two Germanies", "unite the two Jerusalems", "John Edwards assailed the divide between the two Americas".

Some plurals would need more explanation than the template alone would provide — there is slightly more to say about the use of Germanies than about Frances/Estonias/Denmarks, and more to say about the use of Jesuses than about Caitlins/Barbaras/Annas/etc — but additional information could easily be provided along with or even in place of the templatised usage note.
What do you think? Would it be a good idea to have such usage notes? Where should they be placed: in France/Anna etc, in Frances/Annas etc, or in both places? What should the titles of the templates that contain the notes be? Some templatised usage notes exist in a "U:" 'subnamespace' like the "R:" one that our reference templates exist in; others are named in other ways. (Many languages use the plurals of personal and place names the same way English does, so it would seem inappropriate to use a language prefix.) - -sche (discuss) 22:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Support. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 23:00, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Codes the ISO has split or merged (second batch)

In 2012 and 2013, the ISO retired several codes by merging them into other codes or splitting them up. Thirty of these retirements appear to have escaped our notice. I posted Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2014/February#Codes_the_ISO_has_split_or_merged_.28first_batch.29 one batch here; here is the second batch, plus my thoughts on them; I'll post the rest another day. If you know a reason we should or shouldn't follow the ISO in a particular case, please comment! - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

merging Xiandao into Achang

The ISO merged (xia, ) into Achang (acn). Xiandao is a 100-speaker dialect of Achang. A merger seems sound. - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

merging Panang into Amdo Tibetan

The ISO merged Panang (pcr, ) into Amdo Tibetan (adx); I propose we follow suit. "Panang" is merely the name of an Amdo-speaking group. - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

merging Sansu and Hlersu

The ISO merged Sansu (sca, ) into Hlersu (hle); we should follow suit, because Sansu is merely another name for Hlersu (per e.g. The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, ISBN 052188215X, 2011). - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

merging Piru and Luhu

Following those linguists who consider Piru to be a dialect of Luhu, the ISO merged Piru (ppr, ) into Luhu (lcq, ). (The ISO records this in a somewhat unclear way, but see here.) I propose we do likewise. Note that some literature takes the opposite stance and considers Luhu to be a dialect of Piru, but the end result for us — that we have a language with {"Luhu", "Piru"} as its names field — is the same. - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

merging Talur into Galoli

The ISO merged Talur (ilw, ) into Galoli (gal). Talur is indeed a dialect of Galoli. - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

(Southern) Yamphe/Lorung

The ISO merged Yamphe (yma, ) into lrr, renaming that code from Southern Lorung to Southern Yamphu. A paper published in the Australian National University's Papers in South East Asian Linguistics in 1997 describes the situation: "With two dialects, northern and southern, the Lohorong or Lorung language forms part of the Lohorong-Yamphe group. The Yamphu language occupies an intermediate position in its subgroup between Lohorong, Yamphe and southern Lohorong." (Sic!) - -sche (discuss) 01:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Appendix:Orphaned words is neglected

Appendix:Orphaned words could use some TLC. Half the information is in hidden comments in the source of the page. The term "Orphaned word" seems not to be used elsewhere, and perhaps it should be called unpaired words or "cranberry morphemes" or "fossilized terms" as it seems to contain all of the above. If it weren't just seven words long I'd suggest creating an appendix for each of the above. In order to clear up confusion and stop them being added again, false examples should be listed as such, rather than be deleted (e.g. where the apparent etymology is different to the actual, or where compounding happened in another language). The centered table format seems out of place on Wiktionary. And the list seems like it could be much longer.

Anyone want to have a go at adding terms to it, renaming it, reformatting it, splitting it up, turning it into a category (or categories), merging with the list on Wikipedia's Unpaired word page, or generally just cleaning it up? Pengo (talk) 05:55, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Nah. Just delete it. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:59, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Conrad.Irwin/isblocked.js

This script displays a notice at the top of a user's page and contributions list showing whether they are blocked. However, MediaWiki already displays this information by default, even showing the block log entry — except when viewing an existing user page. Therefore loading and executing this script is mostly a waste of bandwidth. Can we disable it? Keφr 07:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

A question.

Exactly what is this {{rfc-header|Perfective Counterpart|lang=ru}}? After organizing the verb forms like звать, I really wonder about this --KoreanQuoter (talk) 08:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Links to Wikipedia in reference templates

Hello all. Dan Polansky and I are currently in disagreement about whether to link to Wikipedia from reference templates (the ones that start with R:…). Take {{R:L&S}} as an example: I prefer this version, whereas Dan Polansky prefers this version. There are other differences between those two diffs, but the salient bone of contention is whether or not to link to w:A Latin Dictionary in the template code.

I assert that reference templates should link to the relevant cited authority's Wikipedia article; that way, an explanation for why the source is being cited as an authority is readily available for the sceptical reader on the other side of the link. Dan Polansky maintains that such links are distracting and inessential; the latter because a reader can copy the name of the reference work and paste it to Wikipedia article box thereby finding the relevant article.

You can see the (short) discussion so far at User talk:Dan Polansky#Re linking in reference templates. As far as I can tell, Atelaes and I support such linking (i.e., single links to the cited authority's Wikipedia article only), whereas Dan Polansky opposes such linking. I come here to try to obtain consensus for such linking. What do others think? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:39, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

P.S.: @Atelaes, Dan Polansky I have tried to represent your views faithfully; please post corrections hereto if you feel I have misrepresented either of your positions.

Support linking. If a person doesn’t want to know more about the work being referenced, they can simply not click the link. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:49, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I have no general opposition to linking, but linking to the Wikipedia article about a dictionary is not very useful. If it were a citation of a novel or something, that would be a different story and I would support linking, but I'm not sure what exactly the difference is. So I'm undecided. (Having said that, I definitely oppose this version). --WikiTiki89 20:13, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Support linking to WP or the home page of the reference website, if it is online and WP doesn't have any article. I try to do this routinely.

We have a number of templates that contain two links, one to a webpage that has substantive information relevant to the headword and one to some page that explains the source in some way, either at WP or a source site page such as its home page or "About us". Having two links increases the possibility for confusion. We seem to have all possible kinds of user preferences and behavior with respect to such links in unknown proportions: not being able to find and follow blue links even when they would help, finding them distracting/following them accidentally, hitting the source-site link rather than the content page link, as well as figuring out which link is relevant to one's needs and using it appropriately.

This discussion makes me wonder whether we should reduce the size of the source link by not having the entire site title be clickable. That would seem to reduce the likelihood of following the source-explanation link when one wanted the content link. I don't see why cut-and-paste should be required for a user to satisfy a question about the source of some information, especially if there is a WP article on the source, as there often is in my experience. DCDuring TALK 20:38, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

It follows a fortiori from the argument about confusion where there are two links that I agree with Wikitiki that the version of the L&S template he cites, with its multiple links, is unsatisfactory, as it provides even more opportunities for mistakenly following links of minimal relevance to identifying and evaluating the source of the substantive information. DCDuring TALK 22:59, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose linking to a Wikipedia article from the reference work name. The reference template should focus the follow-link behavior on the sole link, which takes the reader directly to the page where they can find more about the word, rather than the reference work. Wikilinks are typographically inferior to black text, IMHO, so they should only be used where they add real value. Thus I prefer

  • via in Charlton T. Lewis & Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879 (this revision) to
  • via in Lewis & Short’s Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1879) (this revision)

  I also oppose the extraneous "New York: Harper & Brothers" added by the user in diff, whose edit summary does not indicate other changes than linking. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:00, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Stop treating Nynorsk and Bokmal as languages separate from Norwegian

At present, we treat all three of "Norwegian" (code no), "Norwegian Bokmål" (nb) and "Norwegian Nynorsk" (nn) as languages. We have 5800 ==Norwegian== entries, 4800 ==Norwegian Bokmål== entries and 7400 ==Norwegian Nynorsk== entries. I and several others think we should stop treating Bokmål and Nynorsk as languages separate from Norwegian.
As was pointed out in a previous discussion, Nynorsk and Bokmål are two standards of Norwegian, but there are other standards (e.g. Riksmål) and many dialects whose words, because they cannot be labelled Bokmål or Nynorsk, would ironically be the sole users of the plain ==Norwegian== header if we were ever to seriously consider Nynorsk and Bokmål separate languages (but in fact most of the words which currently use the ==Norwegian== header are acceptable in both, or sometimes just one, of the standards).
Bokmål and Nynorsk are mutually intelligible (see e.g. Rubén Chacón-Beltrán's Introduction to Sociolinguistics, page 135, and Joshua Fishman and Ofelia Garcia's Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity, page 434). They are no more different than US English and Indian English or txtspk or any of the other forms of English we handle very well with context tags rather than separate L2 headers.
In a previous discussion, someone (I don't recall who) made the point that there also exists a degree of mutual intelligibility between Norwegian and Danish. The person who made this point seemed to think it constituted an argument against merging Nynorsk and Bokmål. I dismiss this slippery slope fallacy. If anyone wants to propose merging Norwegian and Danish, they can start a section about that below this one, and the merits of it can be discussed, but the question I ask in this section is: "should we stop treating ==Norwegian Bokmål== and ==Norwegian Nynorsk== as languages separate from ==Norwegian==?" - -sche (discuss) 03:56, 12 March 2014 (UTC)