User talk:Ssvb

Welcome

Hello, welcome to Wiktionary, and thank you for your contributions so far.

If you are unfamiliar with wiki-editing, take a look at Help:How to edit a page. It is a concise list of technical guidelines to the wiki format we use here: how to, for example, make text boldfaced or create hyperlinks. Feel free to practice in the sandbox. If you would like a slower introduction we have a short tutorial.

These links may help you familiarize yourself with Wiktionary:

• Entry layout (EL) is a detailed policy on Wiktionary's page formatting; all entries must conform to it. The easiest way to start off is to copy the contents of an existing same-language entry, and then adapt it to fit the entry you are creating.
• Check out Language considerations to find out more about how to edit for a particular language.
• Our Criteria for Inclusion (CFI) defines exactly which words can be added to Wiktionary; the most important part is that Wiktionary only accepts words that have been in somewhat widespread use over the course of at least a year, and citations that demonstrate usage can be asked for when there is doubt.
• If you already have some experience with editing our sister project Wikipedia, then you may find our guide for Wikipedia users useful.
• If you have any questions, bring them to Wiktionary:Information desk or ask me on my talk page.
• Whenever commenting on any discussion page, please sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~) which automatically produces your username and timestamp.
• You are encouraged to add a BabelBox to your userpage to indicate your self-assessed knowledge of languages.

Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! Ultimateria (talk) 01:12, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

апалонік

Sorry for not adding the ł in the łacinka form, I was in a hurry when I made that (because someone was calling me), thus, I didn't pay enough attention to it, my bad. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 17:51, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Taraškievica spellings

Should we add pronunciation to these entries? Наименее Полезное (talk) 23:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@Наименее Полезное: My personal opinion is that such entries should preferably have just the bare minimum of necessary information and avoid duplications with the main entry if possible. There's WT:FORMS policy related to handling these entries. But if you have a better suggestion, then please let me know.

Regarding specifically pronunciations. If pronunciation of the official spelling does not really differ from Taraškievica for some word, then there's no need for having a duplicated pronunciation information in the Taraškievica entry. I'm talking about the words like госць/госьць (both have IPA^(key): [ɣosʲt͡sʲ]). BTW, here's an interesting pronunciation example video of "госці" vs. дзесьці vs. штосьці: https://youtu.be/QANZfzHsRl0&t=92

But if pronunciation actually differs, then having its own pronunciation section in the Taraškievica entry is perfectly justified. For example, for міф/міт, сімвал/сымбаль and many other cases like this. Ssvb (talk) 10:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

światło obsolete?

I don't think there's necessarily an obsolete and non-obsolete spelling with Łacinka, since it's not really standardized. There's a "most recent" usage, but not really one which people are required to stick to. People could use a Polish-inspired spelling if they wanted to. Plus, if we follow that government transliteration thing, then святло would be *sviatlo. No initial S with acute, since it's not transliterating Taraškievica. Not to mention that Taraškievič (1929) actually preferred W over V. Also I believe some variants of Łacinka use "ji" for word-initial Cyrillic "i". Insaneguy1083 (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: The światło spelling is obsolete, because people stopped using the letter "w" and replaced it with "v" in books and other printed publications after 1939, slightly amending the older standard accepted in 1918. It's necessary to categorize spelling variants somehow, so I labelled światło as obsolete. Leaving śviatło as the current most up to date attestable spelling variant.

The government transliteration thing is irrelevant, because it had a rather narrow scope and had been always limited only to transliterating geographic names (without trying to use it for anything else). More importantly, it doesn't even exist anymore, since it was abolished in 2023 and the road signs with it had been already exterminated in some sort of a strangely urgent frenzy. The government surprisingly found it necessary to allocate money to pay for this activity. Anyway, before 2023 people could point their fingers at the street signs and claim that it was the very visible de-facto "Łacinka", ignoring the old books hidden out of sight in library vaults. But now this argument ceased to exist. Today only Google Translate still uses the phased out geographic transliteration for its romanization of Belarusian. The texts with the letter "ĺ" posted on the Internet tend to be produced by Google Translate, making their credibility even more questionable as far as Wiktionary is concerned. --Ssvb (talk) 06:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

But even still I wouldn't call it obsolete. I'm sure there's someone out there using W over V somehow. I know this is starting to get a bit pedantic, but maybe it could be classed as dated or even archaic rather than obsolete? Perhaps you could consult communities or organizations that continue to use Łacinka. That said, it's just my personal suggestion as a non-native Belarusian learner.

But also this doesn't necessarily answer the question of initial Ś. Do all contemporary Łacinka varieties follow Taraškievica in that regard? Or do any of them just use S, like one would in non-Taraškievica Belarusian Cyrillic? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 06:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: Distinct labels are still necessary to differentiate between śviatło, światło and possibly the other forms if they ever gain traction. The exact names of these labels can be probably discussed and agreed upon in WT:BP. --Ssvb (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: Regarding the initial Ś in "śviatło". It just happens that nobody is interested in the spelling variant with the initial S. The government officials are fighting against the Latin alphabet in any shape or form. The others dislike having the spelling variant with the initial S, because it's simply phonetically inaccurate. Littering Wiktionary with some extra artificially created entries is also not ideal. --Ssvb (talk) 10:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: Regarding the "ji" spelling, it's not directly related to Łacinka. It's just a case of non-standard pronunciation spelling. And the examples of it can be found in old Cyrillic texts as well. One can search for the words "їх", "йих" or something like "яна й" in the Belarusian Wikisource. The sound "j" appears as a break between the letter "i" and a preceding vowel. For example, have a look at the IPA and pronunciation of the Belarusian words краіна/Украіна, paying attention to the pronunciation of "i" after the vowel "a". And compare to the Ukrainian країна/Україна. Yes, the current official Belarusian alphabet doesn't have a dedicated letter "ї" unlike Ukrainian, but it's still implied after a vowel.

Here's another example, the Cyrillic "з іх" converts to Łacinka as "z ich" (Taraškievica 1918) or "ź ich" (Taraškievica 2005), but is actually pronounced as "ź jich":

• 2022, Arsień Kisliak aka AP$ENT (lyrics and music), “Цемра”‎^[1]:

  Ды яны паўсталі зноў паляваць на жыхароў
  Ды смактаць з іх ранаў кроў.
  Цемра не палохае ўжо.
  Крыжык у руцэ, у другой ружжо.

  Dy jany paŭstali znoŭ paljavacʹ na žyxaróŭ
  Dy smaktacʹ z ix ranaŭ kroŭ.
  Cjemra nje palóxaje ŭžo.
  Kryžyk u ruce, u druhój ružžó.

  But they arose again to hunt the inhabitants
  And suck blood from their wounds.
  The darkness isn't scary anymore.
  Got a cross in one hand and a gun in another.

--Ssvb (talk) 09:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Theory of Belarusian word etymology

I posited this etymology for ахосал (axósal) sometime back and didn't get any meaningful response. I did also include an explanation of relevant Yiddish morphology through which I came to that conclusion. Do you think it could be legit? And could I put that etymology (maybe with a "possibly" before it) on the actual page for the word? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 05:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: I'm afraid that I have nothing useful to say and I'm not into etymology in general. I only know that https://verbum.by/ search also has the etymological and historical dictionaries indexed. But if there are no hits in these dictionaries, then I have no clues whatsoever.

Also I can't find "ахосал" or any of its possible declension variants in Wikisource or in Google Books via Quiet Quentin search configured for Belarusian. Except for that particular single quote from the example. So it may even have possible WT:CFI attestation problems.

If it's a part of direct speech, then various weird non-standard words can be found in books, including but not limited to Trasianka. For example, I can find "Ідзі, браток, лепш гешэфт мах" quote in Wikisource. This "мах" is unlikely to be a real Belarusian word, but more like an imitation of German machen or possibly Yiddish. --Ssvb (talk) 20:59, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Re attestation, I found that initial usage on Slounik, and then subsequently found this forum thread which also discussed some alternate forms of the word (like I mentioned in the scriptorium, the -ал (-al) ending probably comes from ־ל (-l) /ɫ̩/, and so is prone to being spelt any number of ways) and its connotations. Nonetheless, extremely dialectal for sure and probably obsolete by now given the near-death of Yiddish in Belarus, but judging by the discussions on the forum, had definitely been used in Belarusian speech at some point in time. So personally I'd at least keep the entry online.

Re мах (max): I'm pretty sure it is in fact just German mach / Yiddish מאַך (makh), specifically in the imperative, so like рабі (rabi) in Belarusian. Literally translates to "make a better gesheft". Insaneguy1083 (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

-я / -ё official form?

If there is a neuter Belarusian word to be added which features both forms that end in -я and -ё, which one should be made the "official" form and which one the alternative form? Looking at past form, it should probably be -я, but if I try to search for шчаня (ščanja) on Skarnik, it redirects me to шчанё (ščanjó). Insaneguy1083 (talk) 15:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: I don't think that it makes a big difference and you can pick either of them. Follow the Skarnik's preferred choice and nobody is going to complain. Also a simple search in Belarusian Wikisource: шчанё - 34 hits, шчаня - 9 hits (but that's mostly the stats from the books published roughly a century ago). --Ssvb (talk) 19:37, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I think that this is governed by the WT:FORMS policy, which currently says: "In particular, while some editors try to make the “main” entry correspond to the most common form —and some sysops actively encourage this— the official policy is that all the forms are equally valid. Thus, designation of a term as an alternative form of another does not mean it is in any way less valid (although care should be taken to see if the form is regional or obsolete, in which case it should be flagged as such)." --Ssvb (talk) 19:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Belarusian word for "cream"

вяршкі (vjarški) already exists as an entry, I made смятанка (smjatanka), but does сліўкі (sliŭki) exist as a Belarusian word for "cream"? I looked it up and several sources returned "сливки (деревца)". What does little trees have to do with cream? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 09:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: The word слі́ўка (slíŭka) is a diminutive form of слі́ва (slíva) and слі́ўкі (slíŭki) is its plural diminutive form. That's where the "little tree" sense comes from. But I can also find "выпіў сліўкі" usage example in Belarusian Wikisource, which hints that it means "cream" there. Moreover, it's a translation of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", so we can probably look up the original English sentence for it. --Ssvb (talk) 09:51, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

be-IPA bugs with "г"

Looking at the auto-generated IPA in бязглузды, it seems that whoever came up with the be-IPA template forgot to fix the pronunciation for "г", which is especially ironic since even the audio sample on бязглузды (bjazhluzdy) pronounces it /ɣ/ as opposed to /g/. Not sure if you're the right person to ask about this, but if you could look into the bug on the template then that would be greatly appreciated. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 23:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: Indeed, looks like Template:be-IPA just finds the "зг" letters sequence and automatically transcribes it as /g/ without considering that, morphologically, in this case it's a prefix "без-/бяз-" attached to another word. I could just go and fix this. Or should I first request somebody's permission somewhere?

That said, I'm rather unhappy about the state of the Belarusian IPA support in general for various reasons [2] and its Lua module even fails its own testcases right now. --Ssvb (talk) 01:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm? Does this mean that "зг" is usually /zg/ in Belarusian in other cases? Either way, I don't think you really have to get anyone's permission to fix it. One has the feeling most of the Belarusian modules and templates were just directly copied from the Ukrainian ones. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 11:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)